Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Herbert Chappell

Harry Potter Lord of the Rings Music

Lumos Solem!

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” it’s an hour of musical enchantments inspired by “Harry Potter” and “The Lord of the Rings.”

Herbert Chappell composed the occasional concert work (including an impressive guitar concerto for Eduardo Fernandez), in between writing television scores and producing documentaries for the BBC. Unquestionably, his greatest coup was in cutting a deal on behalf of Decca Records for his telecast of “The Three Tenors.” No one, not even the tenors themselves, anticipated its staggering success.

According to Chappell, his concert overture “Boy Wizard,” an impression of Harry Potter, is meant to conjure “an academy of wizardry and witchcraft, owls that deliver letters, cats that act as lie-detectors, unicorns with silvery blood, and a helter-skelter death-defying game of aerial acrobatics, where one whizzes around the sky on turbo-charged broomsticks.” The work appeared in 2001, the same year as the first of the “Harry Potter” film adaptations.

In 1995, American composer Craig Russell was reading “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” aloud to his family, when he became “an unexpected party” to a commission for string orchestra. Russell responded with a seven-movement suite. In 1997, he added two more movements and expanded the orchestration to create “Middle Earth.”

We’ll hear “Frodo Leaves the Shire,” “Gimli, the Dwarf,” “Galadriel and Her Elvin Mirror,” “Gollum,” “Gandalf: The White Rider,” “Shelob’s Lair,” “Orcs and Ring Wraiths,” “Strider and the Crowning of Aragorn,” and “Frodo and Company Return.”

Aulis Sallinen is one of the most respected of contemporary Finnish composers. In 1996, he completed his Symphony No. 7, on a commission from the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, which he gave the subtitle “The Dreams of Gandalf.” Its origins were in a projected ballet inspired by “The Lord of the Rings.” However, the composer hastened to add that the symphony doesn’t actually depict any of the events in the story, but rather its atmosphere and its poetry.

To round out the hour, we’ll have a few minutes to enjoy selections from a fondly-remembered song cycle on Tolkien texts, “The Road Goes Ever On,” by Donald Swann (of Flanders and Swann fame).

I hope you’ll join me for this program of music inspired by pop-cultural and quasi-literary wizards. The effect is guaranteed to be pure magic, on “Spellbound,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

In addition to the considerable achievements noted above, Herbert Chappell also wrote “The Gonk,” employed so memorably in George A. Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead.” Get your hit of whimsical zombie music while awaiting tonight’s broadcast by following the link below.

October 23, 2022
Herbert Chappell Three Tenors Dawn of the Dead

The composer and producer Herbert Chappell has died. Chappell had his fingers in a lot of pies. For television, he wrote music for “The Pallisers” and “Paddington Bear.” He also worked in feature films in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s.

He achieved a popular and critical success with his documentary “African Sanctus,” which follows composer David Fanshawe on his quest to write and record his most famous work. The piece juxtaposes the Latin Mass with traditional African music.

Without doubt, however, Chappell’s greatest coup was the deal he cut on behalf of Decca records for his production of the first “Three Tenors” telecast. No one, not even the tenors themselves, anticipated its staggering success. This led to some resentment on behalf of the artists, who had taken their cut upfront. (Luciano Pavarotti, a Decca artist, was able to renegotiate his contract for an additional $1.5 million.)

Let’s just say that Herbert Chappell was not your stereotypical starving artist.

To include in my “31 Days of Halloween” posts, I was hoping to locate an online audio file of Chappell’s “Boy Wizard,” an overture clearly inspired by Harry Potter. Instead, I came up with countless videos of “The Gonk,” which achieved cult status thanks to its use in George A. Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead.”

More recently the music has been used to sell Newcastle Brown Ale:

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/7I07/newcastle-brown-ale-great-times

Herbert Chappell was 85 years-old.

A more complete biography:

http://www.musicsalesclassical.com/composer/short-bio/herbert-chappell

“The Gonk:”

A little more substantial, Chappell’s “Caribbean Concerto” for guitar and orchestra:

PHOTOS: (counterclockwise from top) Chappell, the Three Tenors, and three zombies

November 8, 2019
Herbert Chappell Dawn of the Dead Composer Dies

The composer and producer Herbert Chappell has died. Chappell had his fingers in a lot of pies. For television, he wrote music for “The Pallisers” and “Paddington Bear.” He also worked in feature films in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s.

He achieved a popular and critical success with his documentary “African Sanctus,” which follows composer David Fanshawe on his quest to write and record his most famous work. The piece juxtaposes the Latin Mass with traditional African music.

Without doubt, however, Chappell’s greatest coup was the deal he cut on behalf of Decca records for his production of the first “Three Tenors” telecast. No one, not even the tenors themselves, anticipated its staggering success. This led to some resentment on behalf of the artists, who had taken their cut upfront. (Luciano Pavarotti, a Decca artist, was able to renegotiate his contract for an additional $1.5 million.)

Let’s just say that Herbert Chappell was not your stereotypical starving artist.

To include in my “31 Days of Halloween” posts, I was hoping to locate an online audio file of Chappell’s “Boy Wizard,” an overture clearly inspired by Harry Potter. Instead, I came up with countless videos of “The Gonk,” which achieved cult status thanks to its use in George A. Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead.”

More recently the music has been used to sell Newcastle Brown Ale:

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/7I07/newcastle-brown-ale-great-times

Herbert Chappell was 85 years-old.

A more complete biography:

http://www.musicsalesclassical.com/composer/short-bio/herbert-chappell

“The Gonk:”

A little more substantial, Chappell’s “Caribbean Concerto” for guitar and orchestra:

PHOTOS: (counterclockwise from top) Chappell, the Three Tenors, and three zombies

November 7, 2019
Herbert Chappell Dawn of the Dead Composer Dies

The composer and producer Herbert Chappell has died. Chappell had his fingers in a lot of pies. For television, he wrote music for “The Pallisers” and “Paddington Bear.” He also worked in feature films in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s.

He achieved a popular and critical success with his documentary “African Sanctus,” which follows composer David Fanshawe on his quest to write and record his most famous work. The piece juxtaposes the Latin Mass with traditional African music.

Without doubt, however, Chappell’s greatest coup was the deal he cut on behalf of Decca records for his production of the first “Three Tenors” telecast. No one, not even the tenors themselves, anticipated its staggering success. This led to some resentment on behalf of the artists, who had taken their cut upfront. (Luciano Pavarotti, a Decca artist, was able to renegotiate his contract for an additional $1.5 million.)

Let’s just say that Herbert Chappell was not your stereotypical starving artist.

To include in my “31 Days of Halloween” posts, I was hoping to locate an online audio file of Chappell’s “Boy Wizard,” an overture clearly inspired by Harry Potter. Instead, I came up with countless videos of “The Gonk,” which achieved cult status thanks to its use in George A. Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead.”

More recently the music has been used to sell Newcastle Brown Ale:

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/7I07/newcastle-brown-ale-great-times

Herbert Chappell was 85 years-old.

A more complete biography:

http://www.musicsalesclassical.com/composer/short-bio/herbert-chappell

“The Gonk:”

A little more substantial, Chappell’s “Caribbean Concerto” for guitar and orchestra:

PHOTOS: (counterclockwise from top) Chappell, the Three Tenors, and three zombies

November 7, 2019
Herbert Chappell TV Music Legend Dead at 85

The composer and producer Herbert Chappell has died. Chappell had his fingers in a lot of pies. For television, he wrote music for “The Pallisers” and “Paddington Bear.” He also worked in feature films in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s.

He achieved a popular and critical success with his documentary “African Sanctus,” which follows composer David Fanshawe on his quest to write and record his most famous work. The piece juxtaposes the Latin Mass with traditional African music.

Without doubt, however, Chappell’s greatest coup was the deal he cut on behalf of Decca records for his production of the first “Three Tenors” telecast. No one, not even the tenors themselves, anticipated its staggering success. This led to some resentment on behalf of the artists, who had taken their cut upfront. (Luciano Pavarotti, a Decca artist, was able to renegotiate his contract for an additional $1.5 million.)

Let’s just say that Herbert Chappell was not your stereotypical starving artist.

To include in my “31 Days of Halloween” posts, I was hoping to locate an online audio file of Chappell’s “Boy Wizard,” an overture clearly inspired by Harry Potter. Instead, I came up with countless videos of “The Gonk,” which achieved cult status thanks to its use in George A. Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead.”

More recently the music has been used to sell Newcastle Brown Ale:

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/7I07/newcastle-brown-ale-great-times

Herbert Chappell was 85 years-old.

A more complete biography:

http://www.musicsalesclassical.com/composer/short-bio/herbert-chappell

“The Gonk:”

A little more substantial, Chappell’s “Caribbean Concerto” for guitar and orchestra:

PHOTOS: (counterclockwise from top) Chappell, the Three Tenors, and three zombies

November 7, 2019

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