March is Early Music Month. While the concept may seem somewhat remote from the world of film music, this week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll set the Wayback Machine and enjoy four scores that employ melodies and modes of the Middle Ages.
We’ll hear selections from “Becket” (1964), by Laurence Rosenthal. In the film, based on a play by Jean Anouilh, Richard Burton plays the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Peter O’Toole, King Henry II. The music is reliant on chant, with a quotation from the familiar Gregorian melody “Dies Irae” (“Day of Wrath”), occurring fairly early in the action.
Then we’ll hear music from “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1939), by Alfred Newman. This time based on a novel – “Notre Dame de Paris,” by Victor Hugo – the film features Maureen O’Hara as Esmeralda and Charles Laughton as Quasimodo, with Cedric Hardwicke, Thomas Mitchell, Edmond O’Brien, and Harry Davenport in the supporting cast. The project was one of nine scored by Newman that year, which many historians regard as Hollywood’s finest. Again, the composer evokes the era through sacred choral passages and secular dances.
“The Warlord” (1965) starring Charlton Heston, Richard Boone, and Rosemary Forsyth, is the tale a knight who falls in love with a peasant woman, and in order to keep her, claims his right of “droit du seigneur” – his prerogative to spend the first night with any bride among his serfs. Unfortunately, she falls in love with him, and all hell breaks loose.
It was an unusual project for the composer, Jerome Moross, who is best-known for the kind of breezy Americana sound employed in his best-known music, that for “The Big Country.” Here, he evokes the 11th century with an underscore that, again, finds inspiration in authentic music of the era.
Finally, we’ll turn to “The Lion in Winter” (1965), adapted from a play by James Goldman, an historical drama set at the Christmas court of Henry II – again, as in “Becket,” played by Peter O’Toole. Henry spars with his estranged wife, the temporarily paroled Eleanor of Aquitaine (played by Katherine Hepburn), in a familial power struggle, which also involves their three sons, played by Anthony Hopkins, John Castle, and Nigel Terry. Timothy Dalton appears as Philip II of France.
The film was the winner of three Academy Awards, including one for Best Original Score. The composer was John Barry. Yet again the music is steeped in that of the Middle Ages, yet given a distinctly modern twist.
Plentiful intrigue and funny haircuts are guaranteed. However, there’s nothing Middling about the music. Film composers make history, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!
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Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EST/8:00 AM PST
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
https://kwax.uoregon.edu
Tag: Jerome Moross
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Big Country Jerome Moross Picture Perfect
August starts BIG this week, on “Picture Perfect,” as we hit the sundrenched plains and wide-open spaces, with music from outsized movies set in the American West.
On the birthday of Jerome Moross, we’ll begin with the composer’s most famous score, that for “The Big Country” (1958).
Directed by William Wyler, the film’s cast includes Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Carroll Baker, Charlton Heston, Charles Bickford, Chuck Connors, and Burl Ives (who won an Oscar). Some big personalities! So it’s hardly surprising that not all the drama was limited to what we see on screen. The actors bristled against constant rewrites and Wyler’s ambiguous directing style. Some of them refused to talk about it, and a few of them refused to talk to each other. Ives, the exception, seemed to be above it all. He maintained he really enjoyed making the picture. In the end, Wyler had to delegate the film’s climax to his assistant, also the film’s editor, Robert Swink, as he had to leave for Rome to prepare for “Ben-Hur.”
Fortunately, the entire technical crew was first-rate and brought its A-game. It’s a Hollywood miracle that all the pieces of “The Big Country” fit together as well as they do. It really says something that, alongside the awesome scenery, more than anything, it is the music that really solidified the film’s enduring popularity. Moross’ score is right up there, alongside Elmer Bernstein’s music for “The Magnificent Seven,” at the top of the genre.
Though Moross was adept at writing music in many forms – including concert pieces (a symphony for Beecham), musical theater (the cult classic “The Golden Apple,” including the evergreen “Lazy Afternoon”), and opera (“Sorry, Wrong Number”) – unquestionably he is best known for his work in film. He spent much of his career ping-ponging back and forth between New York and Hollywood.
When “Porgy and Bess” concluded its New York run in 1935, George Gershwin invited Moross to join the show, on tour, as a pianist. It was while on a bus trip to Los Angeles to participate in “Porgy’s” west coast premiere that the 23-year-old made a stop in Albuquerque.
“[A]s we hit the Plains I got so excited,” Moross recollected. “. . . [T]he next day I got to the edge of town and then walked out onto the flat land with a marvelous feeling of being alone in the vastness, with the mountains cutting off the horizon. The whole thing was just too much for me . . . it was marvelous, and I just fell in love with it.”
This communion with the American West stayed with him. It would be 23 years before he composed his big screen magnum opus. The vitality, invention, and lyricism of “The Big Country” was recognized with an Academy Award nomination. The “Western” sound would color Moross’ subsequent film and concert works, with the energetic syncopations of his native New York City bolstering an easy lyrical gift that could easily pass for genuine American folk music.
Rounding out today’s program will be selections from “The Big Sky” (Dimitri Tiomkin), “Big Jake” (Elmer Bernstein), and “Silverado” (Bruce Broughton).
It’s all BIG. Saddle up for music by Jerome Moross and friends on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
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Jerome Moross Hollywood’s Western Troubadour
“[A]s we hit the Plains I got so excited,” recollected Jerome Moross. It was 1936 and, at George Gershwin’s invitation, he was en route to Los Angeles to participate in the West Coast premiere of “Porgy and Bess.” When he stepped off the bus in Albuquerque, it changed him forever.
“…I got to the edge of town and then walked out onto the flat land with a marvelous feeling of being alone in the vastness, with the mountains cutting off the horizon. The whole thing was just too much for me… it was marvelous, and I just fell in love with it.”
Moross would recall this powerful communion with the American West decades later, when he came to write his best-known music, the Academy Award-nominated score for “The Big Country” (1958). Indeed, the “western sound” would color many of his future film and concert works, with the energetic syncopations of his native New York City supporting an easy lyrical gift that could easily pass for authentic American folk music.
This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll saddle up for selections from four of Moross’ big screen westerns. The success of “The Big Country” put Moross much in demand as Hollywood’s troubadour of the great outdoors. The trail was still fresh when he was enlisted to score “The Proud Rebel” (1958). The film starred Alan Ladd, as a Civil War veteran with a troubled past, and the Olivia De Havilland, as the ranch owner who takes responsibility for him. Tensions mount as a corrupt landowner and his sons attempt to drive the woman off her ranch.
While “The Proud Rebel” tapped into predictable western archetypes, “The Valley of Gwangi” (1969) exploded all expectations. A cross-genre western that might best be described as “Annie Get Your Gun” meets “King Kong,” the film’s premise hinges on the discovery by an enterprising band of cowboys of an Allosaurus in a lost valley in Mexico, which of course they press into service at their Wild West show. What could possibly go wrong? In a time before starships and superheroes dominated the cinematic landscape, “Gwangi” must have been very heady stuff for six-year-old boys everywhere.
The project was conceived decades earlier by Willis O’Brien, the special effects legend who created Kong. But it was left to his protégé, the great Ray Harryhausen, to bring the film to fruition. The result, while never scaling the operatic heights of “Kong,” is a fascinating mélange, a movie that is part cowboy, part creature-runs-amok.
For those of a certain age, one of Moross’ most recognizable melodies must surely be the theme to the television series “Wagon Train.” Somewhat awkwardly, that music was soon discovered to bear a striking resemblance to a secondary theme in “The Jayhawkers” (1959). Fortunately for Moross, competing studios were willing to look the other way. “The Jayhawkers,” which starred Jeff Chandler and Fess Parker, is set in the days of Bleeding Kansas.
Join me for an hour in the open air with Jerome Moross. We’ll be borne west on music of great vitality, this week on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
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Classic Movie Scores & Film Composers on KWAX
Time was when a good film score was expected to be both melodic and memorable. This morning on “Sweetness and Light,” with the Academy Awards coming up, we’ll take a nostalgic look back to some indelible themes from classic movies of years past.
I don’t want to lay it all out in my Facebook teaser – in fact, during the course of the show, I won’t even identify the pieces until after each one is played, so that you can guess along at home – but trust that you’ll likely recognize most of them, all Best Original Score winners or nominees from highly-decorated films.
Be there at the start for a 90-second montage of introductory fanfares from the great studios of Hollywood’s Golden Age. The fun begins this morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST!
Then later today, on “The Lost Chord,” it’s another in a periodic series of shows built around concert works by composers better known for their work in film.
This time, we’ll have a concerto for violin, cello and orchestra by James Horner (“Field of Dreams,” “Braveheart,” “Titanic”) and a concerto for flute and strings by Jerome Moross (“The Big Country,” “The Cardinal,” “The Valley of Gwangi”). I hope you’ll join me for “Typcast V” – the fifth in the series – on an all-new “The Lost Chord.”
Both shows are now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the university of Oregon!
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link:
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday on KWAX at 8:00 AM PACIFIC TIME (11:00 AM EASTERN)
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EASTERN)
PHOTO: Oscar-winner John Williams (right), with presenters Henry Mancini and Olivia Newton-John, in 1978
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Big Western Movie Music on Picture Perfect Radio
Having had the seat of my radio shows shifted to the West Coast, I can assure you it is a big country. Thankfully, the distance is handily overcome through the miracle of online streaming, the transcontinental railroad of the digital age.
This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll hit the sundrenched plains and wide-open spaces, with music from outsized movies set in the American West. Live large with selections from “The Big Country” (Jerome Moross), “The Big Sky” (Dimitri Tiomkin), “Big Jake” (Elmer Bernstein), and “Silverado” (Bruce Broughton).
With independence thrust upon me, my declaration is that it’s all BIG, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
See below for streaming information.
Keep in mind, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for the Trenton-Princeton area. Here are the respective air-times of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EDT)
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EDT)
Stream them here!
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