“By the cigars they smoke, and the composers they love, ye shall know the texture of men’s souls.”
– James Galsworthy
PHOTOS: Great musicians enjoy a cigar on Father’s Day (even if some of them don’t have kids)
Tag: Father’s Day
-
Father’s Day Classical Music Tributes
For the nearly two decades that I hosted WWFM’s weekend mornings, I presented special shows on Father’s Day – as indeed I did on most holidays.
Naturally, as the years went by, these became more and more elaborate, as a result of the cumulative material I was able to uncover. I played music written by composers from classical music dynasties, music performed by composers’ offspring, performer families playing music together, and music dedicated from father to son and vice versa, with the odd piece written specifically about fathers and family (Puccini’s “O mio babbino caro,” Richard Strauss’ “Sinfonia Domestica,” Percy Grainger’s “Father and Daughter,” Wolf-Ferrari’s “The School for Fathers,” Hugo Alfven’s “The Prodigal Son”). By the end of my run, it had gotten to the point where I could have programmed the entire day had they allowed me.
I admit, I am just as happy at this point to have my Sunday mornings to myself, but I still can’t resist posting a few things for Father’s Day. I hope you enjoy them.
Cellist Julian Lloyd Webber (brother of Andrew Lloyd Webber) plays music by his father, William Lloyd Webber:
Eric Ewazen’s memorial to his father, the oboe concerto “Down a River of Time”:
Howard Hanson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Symphony No. 4, “Requiem,” dedicated to the memory of his father:
Mov’t I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWoq9Pgcjss
Mov’t II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kigbLmK9ZJs
Mov’t III https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TrA0WDZs-4
Mov’t IV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmb2P2Ec0GsIf you need to cut to the chase, just listen to the last movement. So beautiful.
PHOTO: William Lloyd Webber (left), pater familias of the Lloyd Webber household
-
Father’s Day Sports Music Tribute on The Lost Chord
Happy Father’s Day! This week on “The Lost Chord,” we pay tribute to Dad, with an hour of music about sports.
I realize it’s a possibility that not all dads necessarily like sports, but it’s been my experience that Sunday afternoons and Monday nights have always been off-limits, as far as the family television is concerned. For me personally, that meant that after Abbott and Costello or the Bowery Boys, it was football, golf or “Wide World of Sports,” and that I never saw “MAS*H” during its first run.
Be that as it may, it’s Dad’s day, so we’re going to give him what he wants – an hour of rough-and-tumble, the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat.
We’ll begin with “Rugby” by Arthur Honegger; after that, we’ll have “Half-Time” by Bohuslav Martinu;” then “Yale-Princeton Football Game” by Charles Ives; and finally, highlights from the baseball opera “The Mighty Casey” by William Schuman.
Combine with a La-Z-Boy and a cold beer, and it’s a recipe for dad contentment. I hope you’ll join me for “Good Sports,” tonight at 10 ET, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.
-
Movie Dads Father’s Day Music Special
This week on “Picture Perfect,” we anticipate Father’s Day with an hour of music celebrating movie dads.
Vito Corleone may not exactly have been a model father, though he did adhere to a particular code of ethics. Besides, what father doesn’t love “The Godfather” (1972)? “The Godfather” was recognized with 11 Academy Award nominations – of which it won three, including Best Picture. However, the awards were not without controversy.
Of course, Brando sent Sacheen Littlefeather to the ceremony to refuse his Oscar based on his objection to the portrayal of Native Americans in television and film. Then there was the matter of the score, by Nino Rota. Rota was nominated, but the nomination was withdrawn when it was discovered that he had used one of the themes in a 1958 film called “Fortunella,” which starred Giulietta Masina and Alberto Sordi. In the end, the Academy turned around and gave Rota the award anyway, two years later, for “The Godfather Part II.”
“Field of Dreams” (1989) is one of those rare films that has the ability to reduce manly men – even those without father issues – to a pool of tears. Phil Alden Robinson’s superior adaptation of W.P. Kinsella’s novel, “Shoeless Joe,” is a male wish-fulfillment fantasy, in which a man finds redemption, and a new understanding of his father, in the enchanted cornfields of America’s heartland. And it’s all brought about courtesy of America’s pastime, baseball. The evocative score is by James Horner, who rides on the shoulders of Aaron Copland. The composer seems particularly smitten with Copland’s “Our Town.”
William Powell plays Clarence Day, the irascible paterfamilias of an upper class family of redheads, in the comedy “Life with Father” (1947), for which Max Steiner wrote the music.
And Gregory Peck plays one of his most memorable roles as defense attorney – and model father – Atticus Finch, in “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1962), based on Harper Lee’s beautiful “coming of age” novel. The book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. Peck won the Academy Award for Best Actor a year later. The score is one of the best-loved of Elmer Bernstein.
Even if your father was a complete creep, there’s plenty to love about this music. I hope you’ll join me for selections for Father’s Day on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this evening at 6 ET, with a repeat tomorrow morning at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.
-
Odysseus Epic Adventure for Mother’s Day?
Nothing says Mother’s Day like angry gods, shipwreck, cannibalism, gratuitous nudity, riotous drunkenness, a blinded Cyclops, and the wholesale slaughter of one’s rivals.
Okay, so maybe I wasn’t thinking when I did the programming for the latest installment of “The Lost Chord.” But dads should love this hour of high adventure and satisfied bloodlust, as we listen to musical evocations of Odysseus’ homeward journey.
Odysseus, of course, is one of the heroes of the Trojan War, waylaid time and again upon his return by Poseidon and the frailties of his own men. It takes him ten years to find his way back to Ithaca. When he gets there, he finds his wife beset by boorish suitors all vying for her hand and his throne.
What happens next pushes all the same buttons that are still pushed whenever Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger apply the camouflage and begin strapping on their bandoliers and sheathing their big knives. In the process, there’s also some meaningful father-son bonding.
So maybe it would have been a more appropriate choice for Father’s Day. Hopefully there are some mothers out there who were also classics majors. I hope you’ll me for “Home Sweet Homer,” tonight at 10 ET, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6. You can listen to it on Father’s Day as a webcast, if you want, at http://www.wwfm.org.
Tag Cloud
Aaron Copland (93) Beethoven (95) Composer (114) Film Music (129) Film Score (143) Film Scores (255) Halloween (94) John Williams (192) KWAX (229) Leonard Bernstein (103) Marlboro Music Festival (125) Movie Music (144) Mozart (88) Opera (206) Philadelphia Orchestra (89) Picture Perfect (174) Princeton Symphony Orchestra (108) Radio (88) Ross Amico (244) Roy's Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner (290) The Classical Network (101) The Lost Chord (268) Vaughan Williams (103) WPRB (396) WWFM (881)