Classic Ross Amico

Tag: John Williams

John Williams Piano Concerto Premiere NYC

It’s that time of year again. All the musical arts organizations have been sending out emails to announce their 2025-26 seasons, hoping to entice us to subscribe. In fact, I get so many of these, I often just wind up scrolling quickly through them or putting them aside for later and then forgetting all about them. Catalogues and brochures that show up in the actual, honest-to-goodness U.S. Post receive closer scrutiny.

For me, computer screens are just so claustrophobic. And inconvenient. I hate having to scroll up and down and click through endless links while trying to compile a fantasy subscription season. I especially dislike when marketers reduce otherwise interesting programs to yawn-inducing teasers such as “Mitsuko Uchida Plays Mozart.” And then you have to click on the link to see if there’s anything else actually worth hearing. Because if you don’t, you just know it’s going to be some opulent, hour-long, fin-de-siècle symphonic poem that will only get programmed once in a lifetime.

For the big orchestras that offer some 130 concerts a season, the whole online process is infuriatingly inconvenient. It’s a waste of my time and it’s not good for my blood pressure.

But I digress. With a quick flash of the middle finger to the marketers, I now move on to the exciting news that it looks like John Williams finally finished his Piano Concerto for Emanuel Ax, as it will be performed by the New York Philharmonic on a series of concerts, February 27 – March 3, 2026, not long after the composer’s 94th birthday (on February 8 ). Ax is slated to give the work its world premiere with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood in July.

Why it’s taken Williams so long to get around to writing a concerto for his own instrument is anyone’s guess. Over the past 50 years, he’s written concertos for violin, viola, cello, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, French horn, tuba, and maybe a few others I’m forgetting, since the works are not always titled “concerto.”

The New York Philharmonic program will also include Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis” and Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s Symphony No. 5. Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla will conduct. The whole prospect is so thrilling that I don’t know how I’m supposed to wait an entire year!

How do the marketers drain all the excitement out of it? They’re titling it “Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla & Emanuel Ax.” That’s guaranteed to get butts in the seats.

Despite their best efforts to keep me away, I will be there.

https://www.nyphil.org/concerts-tickets/2526/mirga-grazinyte-tyla-and-emanuel-ax/

March 30, 2025
March Madness Marches on KWAX Radio

Yesterday was so busy, I didn’t get around to submitting my annual “March Madness” show until this morning. The program includes 12 marches by nine composers. (And yes, John Williams is one of them.) Enjoy it on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon. Stream it wherever you are at the link.

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

March 21, 2025
Golden Age Movie Music on KWAX

Musically, the Academy Awards lost me some time ago. I’m an orchestra guy and a product of the 20th century (if not the 19th). This morning on “Sweetness and Light,” we’ll hark back to a halcyon era when indelible movie themes were indispensable components of the overall cinematic experience.

I don’t want to give it all away in my Facebook teaser – in fact, during the course of the show, I won’t even identify the pieces until after each one of them is played, so that you’ll have the added enjoyment of guessing along at home – but trust that you’ll likely recognize most of them, all Best Original Score winners or nominees from highly-decorated films.

As a bonus, the show will open with a 90-second montage of introductory fanfares from the great studios of Hollywood’s Golden Age. So you’ll want to be there when the lights go down. Celluloid memories will be stirred by reel music, 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/

PHOTO: Oscar-winner John Williams (right), with presenters Henry Mancini and Olivia Newton-John, in 1978

March 1, 2025
Jerry Goldsmith Overshadowed Genius

Two days after John Williams’ birthday falls the anniversary of the birth of Jerry Goldsmith. Unfortunately, this would essentially become the story of Jerry’s life, as despite being three years Williams’ senior and having cracked the A-list ahead of his younger colleague, Goldsmith often seemed to be caught in Williams’ wake.

Sure, he distinguished himself with some of the great film scores of his time, including those for “The Sand Pebbles” (1966), “The Blue Max” (1966), “The Flim-Flam Man” (1967), “Planet of the Apes” (1968), “Patton” (1970), “Papillon” (1973), “Chinatown” (1974), “The Wind and the Lion” (1975), “MacArthur” (1977), “The Boys from Brazil” (1978), “The Great Train Robbery” (1979), “Alien” (1979, butchered in the sound editing), and “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” (1979). For television, he wrote for “Dr. Kildare,” “The Twilight Zone,” “Gunsmoke,” “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” and “The Waltons.”

But by the 1980s, the films began to get weaker. It seemed like Goldsmith was always getting tossed the projects Williams passed on, or cheap knockoffs of Williams’ successes. By his final decade, he was stuck writing for such garbage as “The Mummy” (1999), “The Haunting” (1999), and “Looney Tunes: Back in Action” (2003). A notable exception was “L.A. Confidential” (1997), but rarely were his later projects up to his talent. I can recall many a moviegoing experience in which Goldsmith’s music wound up being the only redeeming quality.

Furthermore, he had a reputation for being able to compose at white heat, so he was frequently called upon to write replacement scores for films like “The River Wild” (1994), “Air Force One” (1997), and “The 13th Warrior” (1999). He composed and recorded the score to “Chinatown,” one of the best of the 1970s, in only ten days.

Criminally, he was honored with but a single Academy Award, for his influential score to “The Omen” (1976).

Goldsmith died in 2004, at the age of 75. If he were to come back today, he would mop the joint with all the Hans Zimmers of this world. Like the John Henry of Hollywood composers, he’d be churning out quality film scores to put all the cheap-ass computer steam-drillers to shame.

Happy birthday, Jerry Goldsmith!

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Planet of the Apes

Patton

Chinatown

The Wind and the Lion

The Omen

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

February 10, 2025
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

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS