This week on “Picture Perfect,” spring into the new year with an hour of time travel adventures!
Look forward – and back – to selections from “The Time Machine” (1960) by Russell Garcia, “Time After Time” (1979) by Miklós Rózsa, “Somewhere in Time” (1980) by John Barry, and “Back to the Future” (1985) by Alan Silvestri.
It’s a time travel toddy for New Year’s, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
Howard Hanson, you incurable Romantic, you.
For 40 years, you were director of the Eastman School of Music. You were the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in 1944, for your Symphony No. 4, “Requiem,” dedicated to the memory of your father.
You championed innumerable American composers, as conductor of the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra, an ensemble you founded. The lucky ones made it onto your now highly-collectible recordings for the Mercury label.
Undoubtedly, your best-known music is the Symphony No. 2, “Romantic,” composed in 1930. The trademark “Hanson sound” is one of heart-on-the-sleeve lyricism, with wistful melodies arrayed in lambent orchestration.
The Symphony No. 2 has been a great favorite in Hollywood, at least since the 1970s. How else would you have turned up in the end credits of “Alien” (1979), or been evoked in the bicycle chase and finale of “E.T.” (1982), or, most recently, been cribbed for “The Boss Baby” (2017)?
Romantic Hanson in “Alien”:
Hans Zimmer borrows for “The Boss Baby”:
John Williams’ most glorious music, for the last 15 minutes of “E.T.,” would not have been the same without your influence.
As it’s heard in the original:
“E.T.” is a brilliant score, but clearly Williams was a fan of your “Romantic Symphony.”
Happy birthday, Howard Hanson!
Romantic Symphony (complete)
Piano Concerto
“Elegy in Memory of Serge Koussevitzky”
Koussevitzky conducts Hanson’s Symphony No. 3
“Pastorale” for Oboe, Harp and Strings
Hanson conducts Henry Cowell’s Symphony No. 4, a recording that never made it to compact disc
Winston Churchill’s assessment of Russia in 1939 could have just as easily been applied to Arnold Schoenberg. He was a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma – a man cloaked in irony and contradiction.
For one thing, his very name, “Schoenberg,” translates as “beautiful mountain,” yet those who would characterize his music as such are distinctly in the minority.
He was the greatest prophet of dodecaphonic music, who claimed an artistic kinship with Johannes Brahms.
He preached the death of tonality, even as he orchestrated his share of Viennese operettas and arranged Strauss waltzes for performance by his friends.
He was a Jew, who converted to Lutheranism, but swung back hard to Judaism, in defiance of Hitler, with the rise of the Nazis.
He was probably the least “popular” composer in the world, but his tennis partner was none other than George Gershwin. The two also shared a love of painting.
Schoenberg was a triskaidekaphobe, who died on Friday the 13th. It was all right to count to twelve, apparently, but never to thirteen.
Adding to this beautiful mountain of contradictions, Schoenberg, like that other titan of 20th century music, Igor Stravinsky, wound up living in Hollywood.
Both men were suspicious of the movies (and each other), yet both were hoping to break into films. Stravinsky wrote cues for “The Song of Bernadette,” “Jane Eyre,” and “The North Star” (ultimately scored by Copland). None of his music was used in the pictures – Stravinsky was too slow and demanded too much money – but some of it was recycled in his concert works.
Likewise, Schoenberg was courted for a film adaptation of “The Good Earth,” but his proposed $50,000 fee put an end to that.
Twelve-tone music did eventually make it into the movies, thanks to composers like Leonard Rosenman and David Raksin. Rosenman’s landmark score for “The Cobweb” (1955) is credited as the first predominantly twelve-tone score written for a motion picture. Raksin, the composer of “Laura,” also employed a tone row in the Edgar Allan Poe mystery, “The Man with a Cloak” (1951).
Interestingly, Schoenberg, the creator of “Pierrot Lunaire” and “Moses und Aaron,” was also a great fan of Hopalong Cassidy. Like Walt Whitman, an admittedly strange comparison, Schoenberg contained multitudes.
Happy birthday, Arnie!
“Variations for Orchestra,” conducted by Bruno Maderna
“Pierrot Lunaire”
With goats!
A kinder, gentler Schoenberg – the Suite for String Orchestra, given its premiere in Los Angeles in 1935:
Stravinsky in Hollywood
Schoenberg in home movies – on the tennis court, naturally – with Gershwin and others. (Gershwin appears around 2:20.)
Leonard Rosenman’s “The Cobweb”
Hammer house composer James Bernard (“The Curse of Frankenstein,” “The Horror of Dracula”) makes today’s “Composers Datebook.” To listen to the audio, follow the link and click the green button. As far as I’m concerned, it can’t be Halloween soon enough!
https://www.yourclassical.org/episode/2021/08/26/the-creeping-unknown
Citius! Altius! Fortius!
This week on “Picture Perfect,” to coincide with the Summer Games in Tokyo, we’ll get the blood pumping, with selections from Olympic opening ceremonies and television broadcasts.
Featured composers with include Leo Arnaud (a Ravel pupil, who worked on “The Wizard of Oz” and went on to write THE classic Olympic theme), Angelo Badalamenti (David Lynch’s composer of choice), Basil Poledouris (composer of “Conan the Barbarian” and “The Hunt for Red October”), and John Williams (‘nuff said).
In addition, there will be a suite from the Olympic documentary “16 Days of Glory,” by Lee Holdridge (recipient of seven Emmys and a Grammy),
We’ll be downing our Wheaties and going for the gold, on “Picture Perfect,” this Saturday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org!
FUN FACT: Today is also Arnaud’s birthday!
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