Classic Ross Amico

Tag: John Williams

John Williams Birthday Radio Tribute

In common with just about everyone of a certain age, I fell in love with John Williams’ transporting, often inspirational music through repeated listenings to the soundtracks for a string of blockbusters he scored, primarily from the late ‘70s, through the early ‘80s – “Star Wars,” “Superman,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “E.T.,” and so forth.

This week, on “Sweetness and Light,” to mark Williams’ 93rd birthday (he was born on February 8, 1932), we’ll hark back to some of these, but we’ll also hear a surprising number of “B-sides,” as they were once called. You know, like on a classic 45-RPM, with the hit tune on side A, and a lesser-known number on the flip-side. Yes, I’m dating myself, but if you’re old enough to have seen those movies in the theater, you know just what I’m talking about.

One of the things I absolutely love about Williams’ music is that, even in his most intense scores, he’s always able to find moments of light, warmth, and humanity. When you listen to John Williams, you remember how wonderful it is to be alive, in a world of limitless possibility. Moreover, he’s introduced countless people (I among them) to the delights of the symphony orchestra.

At the peak of his influence – a period of decades – he basically defined the sound of the movies. Sadly, Hollywood has given it all up to save a few pennies in settling for a computer-manipulated shorthand of ominous drones and heart-pounding but anonymous chase rhythms.

I hope you’ll join me in saluting the Last of the Movie Music Lions. It’s a John Williams’ miscellany – 15 selections in all, ranging from the 1960s to the 2000s – as we wish the composer a very happy birthday, on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

February 8, 2025
Spielberg Hitchcock Herrmann Williams Radio

When Steven Spielberg was introduced to Bernard Herrmann during a scoring session for Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver,” he wound up going all fan-boy.

“Oh, Mr. Herrmann!” Spielberg gushed. “I’m such an admirer of your work! You’re such an amazing genius!”

Herrmann, who was notoriously prickly, looked him up and down and scowled, before replying, “So why do you always hire John Williams?”

Interestingly, not long before, Spielberg, buoyed by the box office success of “Jaws,” worked up the courage to meet Herrmann’s one-time employer, Alfred Hitchcock, on the set of Hitch’s final film, “Family Plot” (which, coincidentally, Hitchcock also hired Williams to score).

Before Spielberg could say anything, Hitch had him escorted off set, commenting to actor Bruce Dern, “Isn’t that the boy who made the fish movie?”

The very night Spielberg met Herrmann (albeit briefly), the composer wrapped-up recording his music for “Taxi Driver,” went back to his hotel and died of a heart attack, in his sleep, in the wee hours of December 24, 1975. Hitchcock would follow his erstwhile collaborator in 1980.

I establish these connections, because two of my three radio shows this weekend focus on the music of Bernard Herrmann and John Williams.

In the mid-1950s, Herrmann and Hitchcock came together for a string of commercial, critical, and artistic successes, including, most notably, “Vertigo,” “North by Northwest” and “Psycho.” But the two collaborated on no less than nine films, if we count “The Birds,” on which Herrmann acted as sound consultant.

Today, on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll have selections from the other five – among them, “Marnie,” “The Trouble with Harry” and “The Wrong Man.”

Herrmann’s reworking of Arthur Benjamin’s “The Storm Clouds Cantata” was used at the climax of the 1956 version of “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” as a frantic James Stewart attempts to thwart an assassination plot at Royal Alert Hall. (In the film, Herrmann himself appears on the podium.)

We’ll also hear a portion of the rejected score for “Torn Curtain,” the project that ended the Herrmann-Hitchcock association. Hitchcock fired Herrmann, when the composer ignored his instructions to write something light and popular, under studio pressure. John Addison was hired as his replacement, and the film was a failure at the box office.

In recent years, Herrmann admirers have had several opportunities to sample the composer’s original thoughts. Quentin Tarantino is obviously a fan. He used some of Herrmann’s “Torn Curtain” music in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”

I hope you’ll join me for lesser-heard Herrmann-Hitchcock, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies.

But wait – there’s more!

Tomorrow is John Williams’ 93rd birthday. To celebrate, I’ve assembled a miscellany of the composer’s music for film, television, and the Olympic Games for “Sweetness and Light.” Among the offerings will be selections from several scores written for Spielberg and one (“Family Plot”) written for Hitch.

Hitch yourself to Herrmann, this Friday at 8:00 EST/5:00 PST; then send well-wishes to Williams, this Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST, on “Picture Perfect” and “Sweetness and Light,” respectively – exclusively 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 EST/5:00 PM PST

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – 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/

February 7, 2025
John Williams Birthday Salute on Sweetness and Light

I just finished producing a salute to John Williams, to be broadcast on the occasion of his 93rd birthday on “Sweetness and Light.” It turned out to be quite the miscellany – 15 selections – and I assure you, they’re not all the usual suspects, as you will divine from the CD on the top of the pile!

If you’re a Williams fan – and who isn’t it? – I hope you’ll join me this Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST. I’ll be lighting an awful lot of candles on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

February 6, 2025
Dystopian Movie Soundtracks on the Radio

If you think the world is in rough shape now, fasten your seatbelt; it’s going to be a bumpy 1,461 days.

This week on “Picture Perfect,” gaze into the crystal ball for an hour of dystopian visions – glimpses of a bleak future rendered hopeful, in large part, through music.

“Fahrenheit 451” (1966), based on the Ray Bradbury novel, presents a society in which books are outlawed by the state and burned as a means to control the masses. The title refers to the temperature at which paper will ignite. Oskar Werner and Julie Christie star in this Francois Truffaut-directed film. Composer Bernard Herrmann finds the heart at fire’s center.

A robot is left behind to clean up a long-abandoned Planet Earth, in “WALL-E” (2008), one of Pixar’s finely-crafted entertainments. This one has a serious subtext, about rampant consumerism and its impact on an earth made uninhabitable by the sheer volume of garbage.

But there’s also a love story, as WALL-E pursues another robot into outer space, with fate-changing consequences. The inventive score is by Thomas Newman.

As dystopias go, Steven Spielberg’s “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence” (2001) is a little more unpleasant than most. “A.I.” grew out of an incomplete project of Stanley Kubrick. Based on Brian Aldiss’s short story, “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long,” the film stars Haley Joel Osment as a child-like android programmed to love, only to be rejected by his adopted family. Abrasive blood sport, unpleasant visions of a debauched city, and human extinction ensue. A great time is had by all!

Also, the film doesn’t know when to end. Oh, how I hate this movie.

That said, John Williams gives it his usual best. The voice of soprano Barbara Bonney graces the admittedly gorgeous soundtrack.

One of the landmarks of silent cinema, Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” (1927) is an eerily prescient vision of a world divided between the “haves” and “have-nots.” Once seen, the subterranean hell of the workers “hive” is not soon to be forgotten. So much of the film continues to resonate, even as its iconography is shamelessly recycled.

Gottfried Huppertz’s original score already adheres to the Straussian model of Golden Age film scores, with leitmotifs representing the characters and ideas. It’s a concept that became associated with Max Steiner and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and which has had an enormous influence on film composers down through the decades, all the way to John Williams and beyond.

Learn more about the challenges of writing such a complex score – which was performed live, with orchestra, at showings of the movie, even as the film was still being edited right up until its premiere – when listening to tonight’s show.

In the meantime, hang on to your humanity! Join me for these cautionary tales about totalitarian government, corporate control, and technology gone awry, 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 EST/5:00 PM PST

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – 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/

January 17, 2025
De Palma’s Picture Perfect Soundtracks

Brian De Palma is an extraordinarily adept filmmaker, who has been criticized for his adherence to “genre trash.” He has always been attracted to suspense and crime thrillers, usually of an especially violent nature, many of them tinged with horror.

This week on “Picture Perfect,” with Hallowe’en right around the corner, we’ll hear music from four of De Palma’s films.

It’s hardly surprising that such an admirer of Alfred Hitchcock would also hire Hitch’s signature composer. Bernard Herrmann scored two films for De Palma – “Sisters,” in 1973, and “Obsession,” in 1976.

“Obsession” is a spin on Hitchcock’s “Vertigo.” A botched rescue attempt results in the death of a businessman’s kidnapped wife. Years later, he encounters someone who could be her doppelganger. The film stars Genevieve Bujold, John Lithgow, and a very tan Cliff Robertson.

“The Fury,” from 1978, is a supernatural thriller based on a novel by John Farris. Two teenagers, endowed with powers of telekinesis and extra-sensory perception, are targeted by researchers who plan to harness them for their own nefarious ends. For a time, Kirk Douglas has fun as a former CIA agent, and John Cassavetes is a particularly slimy villain. Cassavetes’ comeuppance makes for one of the most memorable movie endings of its era – and we’ll leave it at that!

Critic Pauline Kael praised the music, which is by none other than John Williams – hot off his third Academy Award, for “Star Wars” – characterizing it as “as elegant and delicately varied a score as any horror film has ever had.”

Of course, “The Fury” was not the first De Palma film to deal with telekinesis. His adaptation of Stephen King’s “Carrie,” from 1976, became one the decade’s landmark horror films. It broadened King’s popularity and propelled De Palma into the A-list of Hollywood directors. It also essentially launched the careers of Amy Irving, John Travolta, and Nancy Allen, among others. Sissy Spacek was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in the title role, as was Piper Laurie as Carrie’s overbearing, fundamentalist mother.

The music was by Pino Donaggio. The director had wanted to continue his collaboration with Herrmann, but the composer died before the film could be completed. Donaggio, though classically trained, made his fortune writing popular songs. His biggest hit was “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me,” which was recorded by Dusty Springfield and treated to a well-known cover by Elvis Presley. Donnagio went on to become a regular De Palma collaborator, providing the music for seven of his films.

Finally, we’ll turn our back on horror, to listen to music from a successful period crime thriller, loosely based on the real-life exploits of Eliot Ness and his fellow prohibition agents – “The Untouchables,” from 1987. Kevin Costner plays the by-the-book federal agent who is given a valuable lesson in street smarts by an Irish beat cop played by an Academy Award winning Sean Connery. (“He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way, and that’s how you get Capone.”) Capone is played, incidentally, by a baseball bat wielding Robert De Niro.

The score is by Ennio Morricone. Morricone, of course, was propelled to fame through his work on Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns. He applies some of that same mythmaking skill to this big screen adaptation, which had previously been published as a memoir and developed into a popular television series starring Robert Stack. The high point of the film must be the director’s nail-biting homage to Sergei Eisenstein, a slow motion shoot-out around a baby carriage as it teeters down the stairs of Chicago Union Station.

Start your weekend with a step in the right direction, with music from the films of Brian De Palma, 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!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

October 4, 2024

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS