“Altered States,” you may recall, stars William Hurt as a psychopathologist whose experiments with sensory deprivation tanks and hallucinatory drugs result in strobe-lit episodes of biological devolution. Mr. Hyde has nothing on these regressions that have him turning into an ape man on the prowl for goat meat at the city zoo, or at their most extreme, transforming into a kind of whirlpooling proto-consciousness.
Nudity and religious symbolism? Well, it is a Ken Russell film, and one of his best, actually, because it’s actually rooted in character and plot. (The screenplay is by Paddy Chayefsky.)
Russell later recalled, “After a tiring day at the Burbank Studios working on ‘Altered States’ I was out for an evening of relaxation with a much loved and familiar masterpiece the memory of which was blown into oblivion by the music of a name totally unfamiliar to me – John Corigliano. Reading from my program that he was a contemporary composer I braced myself for thirty minutes of plinks and plunks that pass for music these days. I was in for a shock, a surprise, a revelation.
“Not since Bartok’s ‘Miraculous Mandarin’ have I been so excited in the concert hall. Here were sounds of magic and grandeur I had long since despaired of hearing from a modern musician. . . . if only he would compose the music for ‘Altered States’ instead of some commercial hack we directors are usually saddled with, I thought wistfully. But that’s just a dream.
“I should have known better – Hollywood is the place where dreams come true.”
The music he encountered on that Los Angeles Philharmonic concert? Corigliano’s Clarinet Concerto.
Corigliano composed his concerto for legendary New York Philharmonic principal clarinetist Stanley Drucker. The first movement, “Cadenzas,” is virtuosic right out of the box. When Drucker first looked at the score, he remarked, “How am I gonna play this?” The second movement, the soul of the piece, serves as an elegy to the memory of Corigliano’s father, longtime concertmaster of the Philharmonic, who died in 1975. The third movement evocates the antiphonal style of Renaissance composer Giovanni Gabrieli.
The work was given its first performance by Drucker and the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Leonard Bernstein, on December 6, 1977. It became the first concerto for the instrument by an American composer since Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto to enter the repertoire.
Russell was so impressed with the piece when he heard it in Los Angeles that he offered Corigliano his first assignment scoring a feature film. (Earlier, he had written music for a documentary, “A Williamsburg Sampler.”) His music for “Altered States” would earn him an Academy Award nomination.
In the film, Corigliano’s score brilliantly complements Russell’s psychedelic flights of fancy. It’s not hard to understand why the composer caught the Academy’s attention. Ultimately, the Oscar that year went to “Fame,” of all things, but Corigliano revisited his score for a concert suite which he titled “Three Hallucinations.”
Later, he would win an Academy Award for his work on “The Red Violin.” He would also be honored with a Pulitzer Prize, for his Symphony No. 2, five Grammys, and a Grawemeyer Award for Contemporary Composition. His first opera, “The Ghosts of Versailles,” would be commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera for its 100th anniversary.
Even so, Hollywood can be a fickle town. He may have won an Oscar, but that didn’t shield him from the indignity of having his score for the Mel Gibson film “Edge of Darkness” chucked out. The studio decided it wanted to take a more bankable approach, and because of his obligations in the concert world, Corigliano was not available for rewrites. So the assignment was given to Howard Shore. Rejection stings, yet Corigliano has stated he remains open to the prospect of scoring another film, if the right project should present itself.
But the movies need John Corigliano more than he needs them.
The composer is 85 today. Happy birthday!
World premiere broadcast of the Clarinet Concerto
Selections from “Altered States”
“Three Hallucinations”
