Classic Ross Amico

Tag: John Williams

Why I (Sometimes) Hate Mozart

Dear Wolfgang,

Sorry for being such an idiot. I confess to feeling total disappointment when your music is listed on a concert program or announced on the radio, yet when I actually listen to it, it almost always yields rewards.

You wrote my favorite opera of all time (“The Marriage of Figaro”). You wrote the favorite opera of my youth (“The Magic Flute”). You wrote a piece I could not stop listening to when I was in high school (“Eine kleine Nachtmusik”). There are pieces you wrote that I adore. So why do I bear so much prejudice against you?

Maybe it’s for the same reason some people hate John Williams or Stephen King. If it’s popular, it can’t be good, right? Right?

(Please note: I adore John Williams.)

Happy birthday, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791).

With a shout-out to poor Edouard Lalo (1823-1892)!

Very truly yours,

R

January 27, 2015
John Williams’ Lost Western Film Scores

Looking back on the cinematic western, by the mid-1970s it was definitely time to water the horses. For much of the preceding decade, most of the important statements in the genre had gone elegiac, revisionist, spaghetti, or some combination of the three.

With the release of “Star Wars” in 1977, elements of the western survived, but beyond a handful of exceptions, the western, like the swashbuckler, had moved to outer space.

Though John Williams became inextricably linked with the intergalactic spectacle, it is little known that he, like most of his contemporaries, scored a number of actual, old school westerns. This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll listen to music from four of them.

Westerns don’t become much more primal than when revenge is concerned. Mark Rydell’s “The Cowboys” (1972), one of the better of John Wayne’s later films, draws blood when Bruce Dern commits an unspeakable crime against the American West. If you’re a collector of Boston Pops records, you may be familiar with the rousing overture Williams assembled from his score.

Before his career devolved into an excuse to bring together his celebrity friends to goof off in front of the camera and then cash the paycheck, Burt Reynolds made a number of effective dramatic films. In “The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing” (1973), Reynolds plays a laconic train robber haunted by something in his past, who finds a second chance with Sarah Miles, the wife of one of his pursuers, who rides along with his gang. Williams provided a really groovy opening number for this one.

Despite the how-could-it-possibly-miss teaming of Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson – with “Bonnie and Clyde” director Arthur Penn at the helm – “The Missouri Breaks” (1976) bombed with both critics and audiences. (If you ever wanted to see Brando in drag, then this is the film for you.) Williams took a different approach with this one, providing a more intimate, if off-kilter score, tinged with jazz and pop elements, and featuring guitar, banjo, harmonica, honky tonk piano, electric harpsichord, etc.

“The Rare Breed” (1966), on the other hand, is straight-down-the-middle, with James Stewart and Maureen O’Hara introducing Hereford cattle to the American west. Brian Keith, as Stewart’s rival, sports a red beard and a Scottish burr, for some reason. Williams, however, is wholly himself, providing an uplifting, wide-open main theme. Would that film composers still wrote like this…

Join me for an hour of Williams Westerns this week, on “Picture Perfect,” this Friday evening at 6; or listen to it later as a webcast, at http://www.wwfm.org.

PHOTOS: (clockwise from left) Reynolds loves Cat Dancing; Brando in touch with his feminine side; the Duke; and an unrecognizable Brian Keith

August 28, 2014
Friendly Alien Film Scores E.T. & Beyond

People of Earth! We come in peace!

This week on “Picture Perfect,” we listen to scores from films about benevolent extra-terrestrials. Friendly E.T.’s have been out of fashion now for quite some time. We seem to be mired in some neo-‘50s zeitgeist, as far as paranoia and invaders are concerned. But that certainly wasn’t the case back in 1982, when Steven Spielberg’s “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” almost singlehandedly turned everything on its head.

No more invaders from Mars. Spielberg would get to that a couple of decades later, when he remade H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds.” No, during the Reagan Era, with the Cold War winding down and terrorism not yet so much in the news, cinematic E.T.’s were benevolent at best, or at worst, just trying to do their thing. They were there to be misunderstood and even imperiled by man until the warm, fuzzy, often poignant finale.

Spielberg had already explored the concept of the benevolent visitor from space, of course, with 1977’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” But there was an ambiguity for much of the film as to what exactly the aliens’ intentions were. In fact, there is at least one sequence that would give a child nightmares (at least by 1977 standards). Whatever tension is generated dissolves in a euphoric finale, centered around the communicative power of music. Like so many films back then and so few now, “Close Encounters” doesn’t so much exhaust the viewer as leave him or her with a feeling of hope.

John Williams wrote the music for both “Close Encounters” and “E.T.” (winning his fourth Academy Award for the latter), and the two scores couldn’t be more different. In particular, he absorbs the avant garde syntax of composers like Gyorgy Ligeti and Krzysztof Penderecki for the eerier sequences of “CE3K” before reverting to unabashed lyricism for the transcendent finale. For “E.T.,” he takes a much more intimate approach for a moving story of friendship between a boy and a stranded space botanist. I admit to feeling mild dread when first seeing the trailer for “E.T.,” already thinking Spielberg had traveled this route before. Little did I realize that within a few weeks I would assess it as his masterpiece (John Williams’, too), as I still do today.

The “friendly” alien of “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” Klaatu, may come in peace, but it is a message delivered with tough love. If mankind refuses to abide, his robot Gort will destroy the planet. At a time when Martians invariably meant trouble (1951), this was actually progressive. Bernard Herrmann’s score is one of his best, and certainly one of his most interesting. Always an eccentric orchestrator, Herrmann’s concept of extra-terrestrial music incorporates violin, cello, electric bass, two theremins, two Hammond organs, a large studio electric organ, three vibraphones, two glockenspiels, two pianos, two harps, three trumpets, three trombones and four tubas. Overdubbing and tape-reversal techniques were also employed. Now this guy was a composer!

Finally, Ron Howard’s “Cocoon” is one of the more worthwhile of the seemingly endless procession of extra-terrestrial films to be released in the wake of “E.T.” At least this one took a different approach by bringing alien forces into contact with a Florida retirement community with the unexpected result of rejuvenating its inhabitants. A modern take on the fabled Fountain of Youth, the film is a showcase for veteran actors Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Jack Gilford and Don Ameche (who won an Academy Award). James Horner’s score is much sought after by collectors.

People of Earth! Be there for the touchdown of friendly alien films, on “Picture Perfect” – music for the movies – this Friday evening at 6 ET. Or listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.

Klaatu barada nikto!

August 7, 2014
Film Scores Why Aren’t They Great Anymore

The Orquestra Sinfônica Brasileira strikes back with music of John Williams:

http://www.classicfm.com/music-news/latest-news/john-williams-youtube-save-brazilian-symphony/

Granted, the story is a year old, but clearly people still respond to this music. So why are most film scores today so anonymous, slipshod or just plain lacking in craftsmanship? I understand that a tight post-production schedule can leave little time for the film composer to do his job, but surely there must be someone of a caliber of a Jerry Goldsmith out there, who could churn out a decent score before breakfast.

There are probably still a lot of people who don’t actively think about the fact that the music they hear in the movies is being played by very talented orchestral musicians. (That is, when it isn’t being sampled on a keyboard.) For them, perhaps, it’s just something that emanates from the screen. Exposure is key. Ironically, in an age when everything is a keystroke away, there seems to be less of that than ever before. It’s a useful endeavor to bring this music to the public and to play it with passion and commitment.

I wonder if the day will ever come when the very best music written for film will be held on a level with incidental music written for plays by earlier masters? It would be nice to hear something more than snappy main title music dished up on pops concerts or, what seems to be the latest trend, music performed live with the actual movies. These practices have their place, but why not program a suite from “E.T.” or “Ben-Hur” or “The Bride of Frankenstein” or “The Adventures of Robin Hood” once in a while? Let the music speak for itself.

And spare me the condescending program notes. Other folks besides Prokofiev and Walton have written great music for the screen.

The Philadelphia Orchestra will be performing musical selections from Pixar films at The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts this Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. The press release promises selections from 14 films, so expect a lot of short pieces, with film clips. Still, with music by Michael Giacchino, Thomas and Randy Newman, and Patrick Doyle, why complain? They’re some of the best film composers working today, and Pixar makes some of the best movies. It seems like an ideal intro for the kids.

http://www.philorch.org/concert/philadelphia-orchestra-pixar-concert

July 23, 2014
John Williams Night on TCM

The always masterful programmers over at Turner Classic Movies: TCM are devoting prime time tonight to the artistry of John Williams. Williams, of course, is the world’s most famous (and most successful) film composer, having written music for “Jaws,” “Star Wars,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Superman,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,” “Jurassic Park,” “Schindler’s List,” the first three “Harry Potter” films, and well, I’m sure you could name a half dozen others.

His longest collaboration has been with director Steven Spielberg, with 26 features (most recently, “Lincoln”) and counting. TCM will be kicking off what should be an exceedingly interesting evening for Williams aficionados with Spielberg’s theatrical debut, the undershown “The Sugarland Express” (1974), at 8 p.m. ET. Goldie Hawn and William Atherton play a Texas couple – Atherton an escaped convict – who lead the police on a wild chase as they attempt to prevent the adoption of their son. Along the way, they become unlikely folk heroes. That’s harmonica legend Toots Thielemans on the soundtrack.

That’s followed at 10 p.m. with a rebroadcast of “AFI Master Class – The Art of Collaboration: Spielberg-Williams,” in which the two screen titans discuss their 40 year association before an audience of aspiring filmmakers at the AFI Conservatory.

Then at 11 p.m. comes the rare opportunity to see “The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing” (1973), with Burt Reynolds as the head of a band of train-robbers in the old west, again on the run, forced by circumstance to ride with the wife (Sarah Miles) of the Wells Fargo agent who pursues them. The music (actually replacing a rejected score by Michel Legrand) melds a pop-tinged main title with the Williams sound we all know and love.

Experience John Williams before “Jaws” (1975) and “Star Wars” (1977) made him a household name, tonight on TCM.

Music from “The Sugarland Express”:

And from “The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing”:

PHOTO: Williams in the ‘70s

July 19, 2014

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS