Happy 40th anniversary, “Star Wars.” I do miss the giddy enjoyment of the original.
What would the film be like without John Williams’ immortal music? Watch here:
Then the way it should be:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH6a1iYQ0GA
Finally, Williams’ overblown concert version, which really makes sure we don’t miss the William Walton allusion:
“Star Wars” – the original, as opposed to “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope,” as it has been known since its 1981 reissue – was released for the first time, in theaters, on May 25, 1977. Needless to say, the film became a pop cultural phenomenon that went on to assume mythological proportions.
This week on “Picture Perfect,” we revisit a long time ago (40 years, to be exact) in a galaxy far, far away, as we listen to selections from John Williams’ classic score. In an era when pop music was threatening to swamp the movies, Williams’ paradoxically fresh-yet-retro heroic take was credited with singlehandedly reviving the fortunes of the orchestral film score. “Star Wars” went on to become the best-selling orchestral soundtrack of all-time.
The fashion these days is to present a score note-complete and sequentially, as it appeared in the film. But there was an art to how the composer and supervising music editor (in this case, Kenneth Wannberg) used to arrange these soundtrack albums to create a special kind of listening experience.
Buck the trend of digital complexity and note-complete soundtrack recordings by kicking back and listening to the music as you first enjoyed it at home in 1977, with selections from the original 2-record set. The exact contents of the double-LP album have been unavailable for years, until a quite recent vinyl reissue of the complete “Star Wars” soundtracks.
The Force is strong with this one. Join me for 40 years of “Star Wars” on “Picture Perfect,” this Friday evening at 6 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
And they’re off! On the eve of the 143rd running of the Kentucky Derby, “Picture Perfect” will focus on music from movies about horse racing.
“The Black Stallion” (1979), based on the classic novel by Walter Farley, depicts the bonding of a shipwrecked boy and an Arabian stallion, whose shared destiny takes them to the race track. Mickey Rooney’s uncharacteristically subdued performance as the former trainer who finds a new lease on life earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
Francis Ford Coppola executive produced the film, and his father, Carmine Coppola, wrote the music. Reportedly the unsung Shirley Walker, who had been hired as an orchestrator, wound up contributing a fair amount to it, when the composer was put off by requests from director Carroll Ballard that portions of the music be rewritten.
“The Reivers” (1969), after William Faulkner’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, is a coming-of-age story about a boy swept into automobile theft and illicit horse racing in the American south. Mark Rydell directed, and Steve McQueen starred as the rakish Boon Hogganbeck. The narration was by Burgess Meredith, who reprises his role in the recording we’ll hear, with John Williams conducting his own music.
For the film, Williams provided an alternately wistful and carefree Americana score. It’s said that the music for “The Reivers” is what moved Steven Spielberg to hire him to write the music for his first theatrical feature, “The Sugarland Express.” The Spielberg association brought Williams to “Jaws,” and the first of his truly iconic film scores. He also worked with Mark Rydell again, on “The Cowboys” (1972), “Cinderella Liberty” (1973), and “The River” (1984).
It was inevitable that the nonfiction bestseller “Seabiscuit: An American Legend” would be given the big Hollywood treatment. The miraculous ascent of the real-life dark horse who became a symbol of hope during the Great Depression seemed tailor-made for dramatization.
Though it presses all the right buttons, “Seabiscuit” (2003) is not to be confused with a superior documentary that was shown on PBS around the same time. Nonetheless, the film, which starred Tobey McGuire, Jeff Bridges and Chris Cooper, was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Randy Newman wrote the music.
Finally, we turn to “Hidalgo” (2004), also allegedly based on a true story, though the source material – the memoir of distance rider Frank T. Hopkins – has also inspired a fair degree of skepticism. In 1890, Hopkins became the first American invited to compete in a centuries-old 3000-mile survival race across the Arabian Desert.
Viggo Mortensen plays Hopkins, and Omar Sharif is the sheik who asks him to put up or shut up, over the claim made by Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show that he and his horse are the greatest distance runners in the world. The music is by James Newton Howard.
It’s a rare horse race in which everyone comes out a winner. Start your weekend with a mint julep on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Friday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
May the Fourth be with you!
Join me this morning on WPRB, as we listen to music by John Williams performed by the FilmHarmonic Brass. It’s one of at least 11 recent releases we’ll enjoy, with composers spanning from Robert Schumann to Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Shaw and performers ranging from the Philadelphia-based choral ensemble The Crossing to Yo-Yo Ma.
We’ll also have a couple of special guests in the studio. At 9:00, Clipper Erickson, piano, will drop by to share music from his new release of instrumental works by Laurie Altman. Erickson will be performing music by R. Nathaniel Dett and Modest Mussorgsky in recital at Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church in Princeton on Saturday at 5 p.m.
At 10:00 this morning, I’ll be joined by composer Zhou Tian, whose “Broken Ink” will be given its US premiere by the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Rossen Milanov, at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium on Sunday at 4 p.m. Our conversation will be followed by a broadcast of Zhou’s brilliantly orchestrated Concerto for Orchestra, written for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. (As an added bonus, tune in early, around 6:15, to hear Zhou’s “Morning after the Deluge,” performed by the Society for New Music.)
It will be raining new releases, hallelujah, from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. Après le déluge, c’est Classic Ross Amico.
One of Haydn’s most popular melodies wasn’t by Haydn at all.
Join me this afternoon on The Classical Network, as we listen to the “Haydn Serenade,” in reality composed by one Roman Hoffstetter. Hoffstetter was a Benedictine monk who evidently admired Hadyn to the point of successfully emulating his style.
It wasn’t until 1965 that musicologist Alan Tyson asserted that the six string quartets published under Haydn’s Op. 3 – including the fifth, which contains the celebrated andante cantabile widely known as the “Serenade” – were indeed the work of Hoffstetter. We’ll enjoy it this afternoon, on this, the anniversary of Hoffstetter’s birth.
We’ll also hear music for guitar and orchestra performed by John Williams (the guitarist, not the film composer), on his birthday, and a substantial fantasy on Ralph Vaughan Williams’ neglected opera, “The Poisoned Kiss.”
Name your poison, from 4 to 7:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
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