Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Film Score

Shostakovich’s Lost Film Score

Dmitri Shostakovich, of course, is celebrated for his monumental symphonies and confessional string quartets, which are regarded as some of the most important of the 20th century.

But early on, he eked out a living as a pianist in movie houses, enlivening silent images with his mercurial improvisations. This was great practice for his later work with a number of notable Soviet filmmakers.

Shostakovich would go on to compose some 30 original film scores. Far and away his “greatest hit” in the field, at least in the West, is the romance from “The Gadfly” (1955), based on the novel of Ethel Lillian Voynich. The music enjoyed a revival of sorts in the 1980s as the theme for the miniseries “Reilly, Ace of Spies.”

But my personal favorite among his film scores is that for a zany fairy story after Pushkin, called “The Tale of the Priest and His Worker Balda.” Shostakovich, about 27 years-old in 1933, was hired by experimental animator Mikhail Tsekhanovsky to supply the manic underscore for his visionary creations. But Tsekhanovsky probably didn’t count on just how manic Shostakovich could be. The music flowed like water down the Neva, and Tsekhanovsky struggled to keep up, all the while pushing himself to create images worthy of his collaborator.

Then, in 1936, following the debut of the opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” Shostakovich was condemned by the Soviet authorities in an infamous “Muddle Instead of Music” denunciation in Pravda, and the composer decided he had better cool his jets. The potentially inflammatory Symphony No. 4 went into a drawer, and he halted work on the film, which he had already been involved with, on and off, for nearly three years. When the denunciation came, he was in the process of wholly reorchestrating the existing music, at the studio’s request, for smaller forces.

While the feature would remain unfinished, Tsekhanovsky compiled what he had – some 40 minutes in all – and the work was put into storage at the Lenfilm archives. Unfortunately, nearly all of it would be destroyed by fire during the Nazi siege of Leningrad in 1941.

Only the bizarre bazaar scene survives. Watch this, and count your blessings.

Shostakovich regarded his music for “Balda” as some of the best he’d ever written. Here’s a complete recording, with restorations. Alas, it doesn’t have quite the pungency of the earlier suite recorded by Gennady Rozhdestvensky.

Happy birthday, Dmitri Shostakovich!

September 25, 2020
Bernstein’s Waterfront: A Lost Score Found

I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody – instead of a bum, which is what I am. “Picture Perfect” has been moved to a new time, SATURDAY AT 6 PM.

This Labor Day weekend, hear original cues for “On the Waterfront” (1954). “On the Waterfront” was the only original film score by Leonard Bernstein. (The screen adaptations of his stage musicals were done by other hands.) Narrative film, of course, is a collaborative effort, in which music is usually the last to the table and the first to go. Bernstein’s score was edited and dialed down to suit the overall needs of the film.

Unused to such rough treatment, Bernstein found his brush with Hollywood to be dispiriting, to say the least. He arranged his music into a concert suite, over which he had complete control, and the work has gone on to become one of his better-known pieces. That said, what can be heard in the film remains a powerful statement, and one of the great film scores.

The original recordings, as they appear in the film, were long believed to have been lost. However, in the course of restoration of “On the Waterfront” for its release on BluRay, it was discovered that audio had been preserved on acetate discs used for playback during the original recording sessions. Material from these were issued for the first time in 2014, on the Intrada label.

Bernstein’s music would be nominated for an Academy Award, one of “On the Waterfront”s twelve total nominations. The film would be recognized with wins in eight categories, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Marlon Brando), and Best Director (Elia Kazan). Bernstein may have lost out to Dimitri Tiomkin for his work on “The High and the Mighty.” However, like Brando’s Terry Malloy, his score to “On the Waterfront” proves itself a champion.

We’ll hear selections, alongside Aaron Copland’s original recordings for “The Red Pony” (1949), some dances from Virgil Thomson’s “Louisiana Story” (1948) – so far, the only film score to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music – and Elie Siegmeister’s “They Came to Cordura” (1959), which provides the now-familiar “Picture Perfect” signature tune.

You may want to swear like a longshoreman, but do consider joining me at my new time – New York composers go to Hollywood on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies – this SATURDAY EVENING AT 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

REMEMBER, if this time doesn’t work for you, shows are archived at the station website shortly after broadcast. Select a show, click on “listen,” and enjoy!

https://www.wwfm.org/programs/picture-perfect-ross-amico

September 4, 2020
Picture Perfect Moves to Saturday Nights

“Picture Perfect” is moving.

I received word last week that something else will be taking over my regular Friday time slot. Therefore, beginning next week, and going forward, the show will air on SATURDAY AT 6 PM EDT.

Tune in for a program of music by New York composers in Hollywood, including Leonard Bernstein’s “On the Waterfront” (perfect for Labor Day weekend), Aaron Copland’s “The Red Pony” (after Steinbeck), Virgil Thomson’s “Louisiana Story” (the only film score ever to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize), and Elie Siegmeister’s “They Came to Cordura” (the source of “Picture Perfect”s signature music).

The Bernstein and Copland are NOT the popular concert suites, but rather special, vintage recordings, struck from the films’ original elements.

No use swearing like a longshoreman. Saturday night is now movie night. “Picture Perfect” moves to Saturday, starting next week at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

August 29, 2020
Olivia de Havilland Heiress Birthday

Olivia de Havilland is 104 today. In her honor, here’s a suite from Aaron Copland’s score to “The Heiress,” a film for which De Havilland won her second Academy Award in 1950. (Copland won too.) Happy birthday!

July 1, 2020
Patrick Doyle’s Shakespeare Soundtracks

This week on “Picture Perfect,” between the surmised date of Shakespeare’s birth (April 23, 1564) and his baptismal date (April 26), we’ll make much ado about Patrick Doyle, with selections from his scores written for the films of Kenneth Branagh.

In 1987, Doyle joined Branagh’s Renaissance Theatre Company, for which he provided incidental music. Two years later, Branagh – and by extension, Doyle – made a leap to the big screen, where they achieved a remarkable feat, rethinking Shakespeare’s “Henry V.” Remember, this is the play that propelled Laurence Olivier to worldwide fame in 1944, both as a filmmaker and the Bard’s most celebrated interpreter, and William Walton’s score is regarded as one of the best of all time.

Branagh’s version is quite different. Though equally rousing, it doesn’t shy away from Henry’s more complicated nature and the grittier aspects of what it means to go to war. It was a bold gamble, but one that paid off. Not only did this revisionist “Henry” receive nearly universal acclaim, the film was a box office success, and Branagh would be nominated for two Academy Awards, like his predecessor, in the categories of Best Actor and Best Director. Certainly the film’s score deserved to be recognized – but in the year of “The Little Mermaid,” it failed even to secure an Academy Award nomination.

An interesting footnote: Doyle himself is the baritone who introduces “Non nobis Domine,” a prayer of thanksgiving, following the Battle of Agincourt.

In 2006, Branagh directed an adaptation of “As You Like It.” As has become his custom, he took a celebrity approach to its casting, although perhaps not so widely uneven as some of the cameos in his big screen “Hamlet.” Kevin Kline appears as Jacques; Alfred Molina is the fool, Touchstone; and Branagh regulars, Brian Blessed and Richard Briers appear, as well.

The most radical liberty taken with the play is that Branagh transplants the action to 19th century Japan. The language remains firmly rooted in Shakespeare’s text, although there are striking cross-cultural elements, including ample kimonos, kabuki theatre, ninjas, and a sumo wrestler. Still, it’s a long way off from the astounding bomb that was Branagh’s American Songbook-interpolated “Love’s Labour’s Lost.”

While Olivier’s “Hamlet” won four Academy Awards in 1948, including those for Best Picture and Best Actor, Branagh’s 1996 version is cinema’s first adaptation of the complete text. It is, perhaps, an uneven interpretation, with some puzzling casting choices – including walk-ons by Jack Lemmon, Robin Williams and Gerard Depardieu – but there are enough merits, certainly, to make the four-hour trek worthwhile.

Finally, Branagh teamed with his then-wife, Emma Thompson, for a “merry war” of wits, as Benedick and Beatrice, in his 1993 adaptation of “Much Ado About Nothing.” Again, the film features an eclectic supporting cast of classically trained actors and pop Hollywood phenomena. Briers, Blessed, and Imelda Staunton share screen time with Denzel Washington, Michael Keaton and Keanu Reeves. Yet, somehow, despite the different nationalities, ethnicities, and accents, the entire enterprise works. There is an exuberance to the over-the-top opening sequence which sets up a momentum that carries through the rest of the film.

Sigh no more, but join me for the Shakespeare scores of Patrick Doyle on “Picture Perfect,” this Friday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

How could you not love this opening?

April 24, 2020

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