Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Elmer Bernstein

Elegies for the Old West: Western Film Scores

With summer winding down and the shadows lengthening, it’s a good time to think about moseying off into the sunset. This week on “Picture Perfect,” it’s an elegy for the Old West.

By the 1960s, the cinematic western was becoming a victim of its own success. The western had been a popular genre since the silent era, with dozens, of variable quality, released every year. Seemingly the genre hit its peak in the 1950s. One might say, the western suffered the fate of the actual American West, with its mythic resonance choked into clichés by too many settlers.

Also, current events began to color filmmakers’ perceptions of the West, the turbulence surrounding the Vietnam War, the assassinations of both Kennedys and King, and increased suspicion of government making for violent, bloodier and more nihilistic visions of Manifest Destiny. The shift gave rise to the revisionist western, which embraced new realities of dirt, corruption, and moral ambiguity in the West. At the same time, there was a rise in more wistful, elegiac westerns, which seem to bid farewell to beloved western icons like Joel McCrea, Kirk Douglas and John Wayne.

Common characteristics include the obsolescence of the gunfighter; the free-ranging cowboy fenced off by barbed wire; the encroachment of corporations in the form of railroad and mining interests; horses replaced by automobiles; the six-shooter superseded by the Gatling gun – the land of limitless possibility and moral certitude, subdivided and spoiled by industrialization. Once-heroic figures ride slowly into the sunset, or are killed, their qualities unrecognized, perhaps even willfully rejected, by those who come after.

We’ll hear selections from four elegiac westerns, including “Cheyenne Autumn” (1964), with music by Alex North; “The Shootist” (1976), with music by Elmer Bernstein; “The Wild Bunch” (1969), with music by Jerry Fielding; and “Monte Walsh” (1970), with music by John Barry.

Autumn comes to the Old West, on “Picture Perfect,” this Friday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

PHOTO: John Wayne and Ron Howard take aim in “The Shootist”

September 20, 2019
Elmer Bernstein a Hollywood Legend

Over the course of an enviable career that spanned some 50 years, Elmer Bernstein composed music for dozens of movies, many of them still much-beloved, including “The Ten Commandments” (1956), “The Magnificent Seven” (1960), “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1962), and “The Great Escape” (1963).

In addition, he was one of the first film composers to incorporate jazz elements into his work for dramatic purposes, in movies like “The Man with the Golden Arm” (1955), “Sweet Smell of Success” (1957), and “Walk on the Wild Side” (1962).

Coming out of the Swinging Sixties, when the industry clearly favored a more “popular” sound over purely orchestral scores (until John Williams changed everything), Bernstein kept right on working. Thanks to a generation of younger filmmakers who had grown up on his classics, he never lacked for opportunities. Suddenly he found himself much in demand as a comedy composer, providing the underscores for “Animal House” (1978), “The Blues Brothers” (1980), “Airplane!” (1980), “Stripes” (1981), and “Ghostbusters” (1984).

For Martin Scorsese, he composed music for “The Age of Innocence” (1993), “Bringing Out the Dead” (1999), and “The Gangs of New York” (2002), though his score for the latter was ultimately rejected. He also adapted Bernard Herrmann’s music for Scorsese’s remake of “Cape Fear” (1991).

Oh yeah, along the way, he also composed the iconic National Geographic theme – clearly by the same man who wrote “The Magnificent Seven.”

In all, Bernstein was nominated for 14 Academy Awards, but claimed the Oscar only once, fairly early on, for his work on “Thoroughly Modern Millie” (1967), of all things. His final nomination was for his very last score, for “Far from Heaven” (2002). Elmer Bernstein died on August 18, 2004 at the age of 82.

No relation to Leonard Bernstein (or “Bern-STINE”), Elmer pronounced his name “Bern-STEEN.” The two were sometimes further differentiated as “East Coast Bernstein” and “West Coast Bernstein.”

In the year 2000, Elmer Bernstein composed a guitar concerto and expressed regret that he hadn’t contributed more to the concert hall. At least it was good one. David Hurwitz of classicstoday.com describes it as “incontestably the finest piece ever composed for this combination” (i.e. guitar and orchestra), going so far as to hold it up to Joaquin Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez.” I don’t know if I’d take it that far, but it is pretty damn good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOxXLDdWZF8&list=PLjRpv3cr2epHnVUvbZhp8v0de0pXaOjkY

Happy birthday, Elmer Bernstein. You are very much missed!

April 4, 2019
Toy Movie Music Citizen Kane to Toy Story

With the grand cacophony of Christmas still fresh in everyone’s ears, I thought it only appropriate this week on “Picture Perfect” to focus on music from movies about toys.

Without giving anything away, in the unlikely event you don’t already know the story’s big pay-off, “Citizen Kane” (1941) is a film flanked by toys. There’s even a snow globe in the film’s opening montage. A certain memory of Kane’s childhood provides a poignant glimpse of the larger-than-life newspaper magnate’s lost innocence. “Kane” is often cited as one of the greatest films ever made. Orson Welles triumphed in his debut as writer-director-star, even if, ultimately, his creation proved to be a bottle rocket that blew up in his face. The film also marked the Hollywood debut of composer Bernard Herrmann.

I’m not sure that “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” (1985) could be described as the “Citizen Kane” of the ‘80s, exactly, but this endearingly goofy sojourn into the surreal does revolve around the recovery of a lost toy, as Pee-Wee, the eternal boy, determines to make his way to “the basement of the Alamo” in an attempt to reclaim his stolen bike. The feature was director Tim Burton’s first. It was also his first collaboration with Danny Elfman, who is obviously a big fan of Nino Rota.

The husband-and-wife team of Charles and Ray Eames are better known for their contributions to architecture, industrial design, and manufacturing, but they also made short films. “Toccata for Toy Trains” (1957) was inspired by the Eames’ passion for vintage toys. The score was provided by their go-to composer, Elmer Bernstein.

Finally, in acknowledgement of the greatest toy series of our day, we’ll conclude with music from “Toy Story” (1995), the first full-length computer animated feature. The quality of the film propelled it beyond mere novelty status into the realm of instant classic, and the beloved “Toy Story” franchise has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars. Early on, it was decided by the filmmakers that they did not want “Toy Story” to be a musical, but that songs could be used to underline its emotional content. Randy Newman has provided the music for all the “Toy Story” films so far. He was recognized with an Academy Award for his work on “Toy Story 3,” for the song, “We Belong Together.”

Keep popping those aspirin. It’s “Toys Everywhere” this week, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Friday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

December 28, 2018
National Geographic’s Epic TV Scores

Years in advance of modern cable, at the very dawn of color television, the National Geographic Society aired its first “special” on September 10, 1965. The program, titled “Americans on Everest,” featured stunning footage taken from the summit of the world’s tallest peak. These specials really were special, with breathtaking images and real-life adventures unlike anything previously experienced in American living rooms.

Three months later, viewers were introduced to the familiar “National Geographic Theme,” which was composed by Elmer Bernstein for the third of the broadcast specials, “Voyage of the Brigantine Yankee.” When one realizes that Bernstein also wrote the score for “The Magnificent Seven,” it becomes one of those “Of course!” moments. Both themes remain among the most recognized by American audiences.

National Geographic went on to work with a number of the top film composers of the day. This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll travel the world with four of them.

Bernstein, who was also responsible for the music for “The Ten Commandments,” “The Great Escape,” and “To Kill a Mockingbird,” returned in 1967 to write the music for a follow-up to “Voyage of the Brigantine Yankee,” called “Yankee Sails Across Europe.”

Ernest Gold, composer of “Exodus,” was engaged in 1972 to write the score for “The Last Vikings,” a documentary about the inhabitants of the rugged northern coast of Norway, who at the time still practiced some of the traditions followed centuries before by their Norse forebears. Gold’s score is a good example of what a talented composer can accomplish through an economy of means – in this case, a wind ensemble, harp, cello and percussion.

Leonard Rosenman, a pupil of Arnold Schoenberg, Roger Sessions and Luigi Dallapiccola – a most unlikely pedigree on which to build a career in Hollywood – wrote classic scores for “East of Eden,” “Rebel Without a Cause,” and “Fantastic Voyage.” He also composed the music for one of the best known of the National Geographic specials, “Dr. Leakey and the Dawn of Man,” in 1966.

Finally, Jerome Moross wrote a charming and buoyant Americana score for “Grizzly!,” which aired in 1967. Moross, of course, was the composer of one of the all-time great western scores, for “The Big Country.”

Of course we’ll also get more than our share of that iconic National Geographic theme. All of this music was issued on limited edition compact discs from the Intrada label.

I hope you’ll join me for music from outstanding television documentaries produced by National Geographic, on “Picture Perfect,” this Friday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

November 23, 2018
Alex North Film Music Pioneer

This afternoon on The Classical Network, we are North-bound, as we celebrate the anniversary of the birth of composer Alex North.

North was born in Chester, Pennsylvania (just outside of Philadelphia), on December 4th, 1910. His journey took him from a working class background to the Curtis Institute of Music, the Juilliard School, and the Moscow Conservatory. He also studied with Aaron Copland and Ernst Toch.

He became involved with the Federal Theatre Project. He worked in the ballet, especially with Martha Graham and Anna Sokolow. He accompanied the latter to Mexico, where he had an opportunity to study with Silvestre Revueltas. Perhaps not coincidentally, his three North American teachers, Copland, Toch, and Revueltas, had all worked in film.

North wrote his first film score as far back as the 1930s, around the time he met up with director Elia Kazan. North was drafted during the war, and put his talent to use writing music for the Office of War Information documentaries.

With the cessation of hostilities, he returned to the theater. He also composed some concert pieces. It was his theatre scores for plays like “A Streetcar Named Desire” that earned him an invitation to Hollywood, where he wrote the music for Kazan’s classic film adaptation. It was the first time jazz would be fully integrated into an onscreen drama, as opposed to merely play in the background of a given scene. Its success opened the door to a new “film score” sensibility, paving the way for composers like Elmer Bernstein, Henry Mancini, and his beloved Duke Ellington.

In all, North wrote 50 film scores, racking up 15 Academy Award nominations, yet never taking home the prize. In 1986, he received lifetime achievement recognition from the Academy, the first composer to be so honored.

There were times, during the course of his career, when his music took on an independent life, distinct from the films for which it was written. He scored major hits with “Unchained Melody” (originally written for the film “Unchained” and recorded some 500 times), and the love theme from “Spartacus.” The original soundtrack to “A Streetcar Named Desire” also sold extremely well.

His acclaimed contribution to “Spartacus” didn’t keep the film’s director, Stanley Kubrick, from rejecting North’s score for “2001: A Space Odyssey” – without telling him. (North found out only at the film’s premiere.) But director John Huston was very happy to have him. Later in his career, North became Huston’s composer of choice, for films like “The Misfits,” “Under the Volcano,” “Prizzi’s Honor,” and “The Dead.”

This afternoon, we’ll enjoy North’s rarely-heard Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with Trumpet Obbligato, and yes, selections from “Spartacus,” among our featured works, as we’ll also observe the birthdays of André Campra and Sir Hamilton Harty. We’ll face true North, between 4 and 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: North with his honorary Oscar

December 4, 2017

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