Classic Ross Amico

Tag: KWAX

Shakespeare’s Birthday Celebration on KWAX

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

We don’t know exactly when Shakespeare was born, but he was baptized on April 26, 1564 – which means it could have been a few days earlier. Since he died on April 23, 1616, and because everyone loves symmetry, his birthday is most commonly observed on the presumptively-shared anniversary of his death. His little life may have been rounded with a sleep, but posterity has fluffed the pillows in an impulse to keep things tidy.

At any rate, we hardly need an excuse to celebrate his plays, which have inspired lots of colorful music. This morning on “Sweetness Light,” we’ll quaff our fill of Shakespearean comedy, with selections by Otto Nicolai, Edward German, Felix Mendelssohn (as transcribed and performed by Sergei Rachmaninoff), and William Walton.

We’ll also hear a fragment of a projected opera by Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky on the subject of “Romeo and Juliet,” left incomplete at the time of the composer’s death. It was edited and orchestrated by his pupil, Sergei Taneyev. You may not know the fragment, but you will most definitely recognize the thematic material!

Partying is such sweet sorrow. We’ll celebrate the Bard 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/

IMAGE: William Hamilton, “As You Like It” (1790)

April 26, 2025
Armchair Travel Through Film Scores on Picture Perfect

This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll settle in for a little armchair traveling as, musically, we follow the English abroad.

We’ll hear selections from “Enchanted April” (Richard Rodney Bennett), “A Passage to India” (Maurice Jarre), “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” (Thomas Newman), and “Around the World in 80 Days” (Victor Young).

Bennett, quite the accomplished concert composer (and occasional torch song singer), supplies a sensitive score for the 1991 Merchant/Ivory adaptation of Elizabeth von Arnim’s novel about four English ladies who spend an idyllic month at an Italian villa.

Jarre received his third Academy Award for his music to David Lean’s final film, a 1984 adaptation of E.M. Forster’s novel of repression and racial tension in colonial India.

Newman incorporates traditional Indian elements into his score for “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” the 2012 surprise hit about English pensioners reinventing themselves in retirement in Jaipur.

And Young won his only Oscar (alas, posthumously bestowed) for “Around the World in 80 Days,” the star-studded, light-as-a-feather, though admittedly charming mega-victor at the 1956 Academy Awards. It takes longer to watch the movie than it does to read Jules Verne’s novel – though it does provide a rare opportunity to see Ronald Colman in color.

No need to haul that steamer trunk. It will be an hour of transporting selections 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!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

PHOTO: There’s no balloon in Verne’s original, but as long as there’s champagne, who cares?

April 25, 2025
Easter with Peter Rabbit Sweetness and Light on KWAX

This week on “Sweetness and Light,” with Easter hopping up on us, we’ll do our best keep it fluffy, with selections for Peter Rabbit and friends from “Tales of Beatrix Potter.” This 1971 ballet film features dances choreographed by Frederick Ashton and performed by members of the Royal Ballet.

The director, Reginald Mills, worked as an editor on Powell-Pressburger classics such as “The Red Shoes” – for which he was nominated for an Academy Award – and “The Tales of Hoffman,” also incorporating dance. John Lanchbery arranged the music from Victorian era carrot sticks by Michael Balfe and Sir Arthur Sullivan.

Then, in the warm glow of a sugar-high, we’ll luxuriate in the mingled sense of well-being and accomplishment that comes from having polished off all the chocolate, with the “Cottontail Rag” by Joseph Lamb.

No need to adjust your rabbit ears. We’ll be keeping all our jelly beans in one basket on “Sweetness and Light,” an hour of leporine light music for Easter, 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/

April 19, 2025
Biblical Epics on Film Radio Show KWAX

This week on “Picture Perfect” it’s the second installment in a mini-festival of very big films, as we present another hour of Biblical epics, though this time with a twist. Rather than go directly to the Gospels, these are all films adapted from bestselling historical novels.

Lloyd C. Douglas’ “The Robe” was given the Hollywood treatment in 1953. Richard Burton plays Marcellus, the Roman tribune who oversees the crucifixion and wins Christ’s robe in a game of dice. Victor Mature (last week’s Samson) is his well-oiled slave, Demetrius, and Jean Simmons, his childhood sweetheart, now betrothed to Caligula (a scene-stealing Jay Robinson).

“The Robe” holds the distinction of being the first film released in CinemaScope. Allegedly, it is also the only Biblical epic ever to yield a sequel (“Demetrius and the Gladiators”). The score, by Alfred Newman, has always been popular.

Thomas B. Costain’s “The Silver Chalice” was brought to the big screen in 1954. The film introduced Paul Newman in the lead, as a lowborn artisan commissioned to fashion a decorative casing for the cup from which Christ drank at the Last Supper (i.e. the Holy Grail).

The film is interesting in that it features quasi-abstract sets by stage designer Rolfe Gerard and a stunning score by Franz Waxman, which incorporates the “Dresden Amen,” also used in Wagner’s “Parsifal.” However, Newman was mortified by his performance and famously took out an ad in Variety, essentially to apologize.

“Barabbas” is worlds away from the usual Hollywood epic. Based on the Nobel Prize-winning novel of Pär Lagerkvist, the film is a ruminative slog through the guilt-ridden psyche of the title character, played by Anthony Quinn. Barabbas is the thief who is pardoned to make way for the crucifixion of Christ. He spends the rest of his life searching for meaning in a meaningless world.

In a quixotic attempt at verisimilitude, director Richard Fleischer shot the crucifixion scene during an actual solar eclipse. Mario Nascimbene (who composed the music for last week’s “Solomon and Sheba”) wrote the score.

Finally, we’ll wrap things up with music from one of the all-time Oscar champs, “Ben-Hur,” from 1959. Based on the 1880 novel of General Lew Wallace, “Ben-Hur” was honored with 11 Academy Awards, including those for Best Picture, Best Director (William Wyler) and Best Actor (Charlton Heston).

The highlight of the film, of course, is the amazing chariot race, but there is a grandeur to the whole which makes it difficult to look away. Miklós Rózsa wrote the magnificent score, arguably the best of any film of its kind. (Parenthetically, today is the composer’s birthday!)

The “Ben-Hur” Oscar record has been tied twice – in 1998, by “Titanic,” and in 2004, by “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” – but this is before computer generated imagery, folks. They just don’t make ‘em like this anymore.

The New Testament is all-new, by way of adaptations from historical novels, 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 – 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/

April 18, 2025
Paris Spring Music KWAX Radio

This morning on “Sweetness and Light,” join me for an hour of cherry blossoms and sunshine, birdsong, and café au lait. It’s our annual celebration of spring in the City of Light!

We’ll hear April-and-Paris themed songs by Charles Trenet and Vernon Duke, a suite for four pianos by Darius Milhaud, a jaunty work for trumpet and winds by Jean Françaix (who sounded the “x” when pronouncing his name), a couple of pieces of British Light Music on Parisian themes, and the world premiere recording of George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris,” performed by musicians of the Philadelphia Orchestra (masquerading as the Victor Symphony), with the composer himself on the celesta. It’s music as good as spring itself!

I hope you’ll join me for an hour of cafés and croissants, boulevards, blossoms, and bisous, on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/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/

April 12, 2025

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