Classic Ross Amico

Tag: KWAX

Ennio Morricone Maestro of the Spaghetti Western

It often frustrated Ennio Morricone that he was so identified with the spaghetti western. After all, he composed music for some 500 film and television productions, of which only a few dozen were set in a highly stylized American west – more often than not recreated in Spain. It’s the price to pay for having brilliantly revitalized an exhausted genre.

Primarily for budgetary reasons (the Italians didn’t have the luxury of Hollywood’s overflowing coffers), but also, in part, as a reaction to the ballad scores of Dimitri Tiomkin and the neo-Coplandisms of Elmer Bernstein, Morricone brought his own quirky sensibility to bear on the classic western iconography. His music is offbeat, ear-catching, and almost absurdly cool.

This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll celebrate Morricone’s birthday (he was born on this date in 1928) with a heaping helping of spaghetti and selections from his scores for “A Fistful of Dollars” (1964), “For a Few Dollars More” (1965), “Once Upon a Time in the West” (1968), “Navajo Joe” (1966), and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” (1966).

His striking music for Sergio Leone’s “Dollars” trilogy, especially that for “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” became some of the most iconic of all time, frequently parodied, and as much a part of our collective cultural consciousness as that for “Jaws” and “Psycho.”

Morricone died in 2020 at the age of 91. His only competitive Oscar was for the Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight” (allegedly a spaghetti western homage) in 2016. Previously, he was nominated for “Days of Heaven” (1978), “The Mission” (1986), “The Untouchables” (1987), “Bugsy” (1991), and “Malena” (2000). He received an honorary award from the Academy in 2007.

Get ready for a serenade of clangy surfer guitars, whistles, harmonicas, whips, gunshots, jaw harps, preening trumpets, coyote howls, shrieks, wails, and barking male choruses.

Happy birthday, Ennio Morricone. Grazie, Maestro, for all the Colts and carbs. We’ll be ladling out the spicy marinara on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for the Trenton-Princeton area. Here are the respective air-times of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EST)

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EST)

Stream them here!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

The Spaghetti Western Database – SWDb

November 10, 2023
Ernest Fanelli’s Lost Mummy Masterpiece

By the time his music was performed publicly, it had been 18 years since the composer had stopped writing.

Ernest Fanelli is one of those poor, unsung prophets of music history who wrote works brimming with colorful ideas, expressed well ahead of their time. He was underappreciated, unnoticed, or fell short of his overall potential, yet later masters capitalized, either wittingly or unwittingly, on his remarkable innovations. Others undoubtedly lifted his discoveries to greater heights, but that doesn’t change the fact that Fanelli got there first.

This week on “The Lost Chord,” with Halloween only days away, we rediscover this forgotten composer and exhume his seminal masterpiece, “The Romance of the Mummy.”

It’s fairly obvious that Fanelli’s unpublished manuscript fueled the imagination of Claude Debussy, who in turn not only influenced the course of French music, but also changed the way artists and audiences thought about music heading into 20th century. That’s not to say that Fanelli was of the same caliber as Debussy. But like Hans Rott, whose lone symphony clearly influenced Mahler, he is an essential footnote in the history of a new kind of music.

Episodes from “The Romance of the Mummy” anticipate not only Debussy and Ravel, but also Paul Dukas and Florent Schmitt, Holst, Sibelius, Respighi, Richard Strauss and even Stravinsky, a figure Fanelli would not have known. Not all of these composers were familiar with Fanelli’s work – in many cases, it’s simply a matter of music history finally catching up – but Debussy most probably was. When Fanelli’s “Mummy” was finally given its first public hearing, Debussy did his best to distance himself from the composer. He was even known to have done an about-face if he happened to walk into a café and saw Fanelli sitting at the piano.

Fanelli lived from 1860 to 1917. A French composer of Italian descent, he studied at the Paris Conservatory for a stint – allegedly under Charles-Valentin Alkan (although it’s unlikely, since Alkan had already quit the Conservatory by the time he entered). Later, he returned to study under Léo Delibes. Fanelli was unable to complete either course, due to lack of funds. In the meantime, he eked out a career as a percussionist.

He was seeking employment as a copyist in 1912, when he showed Gabriel Pierné an example of his handwriting from one of his unpublished manuscripts, written some 30 years earlier. Pierné was so taken by the actual music that he arranged for the “Mummy’s” belated premiere.

“The Romance of the Mummy,” based on a novel by Théophile Gautier, tells the tale of an English archaeologist, who exhumes and falls in love with – well, a mummy. Papyrus rolls in her mausoleum reveal her back-story and fate. She is Tahoser, who falls in love of Poeri, a handsome Hebrew. The Pharaoh (unnamed, though it would have been Ramses II) desires Tahoser for himself. However, the lovely young woman falls ill when she finds Poeri is in love with Rachel. She is healed by the prophet Moses, who initiates her into the cult of Jehovah. Pharaoh becomes an enemy of the Jewish people and abducts Tahoser. When he dies in the Red Sea, in circumstances described in the Book of Exodus, Tahoser is crowned Queen of Egypt. Hence, her presence in the pharaoh’s tomb.

The first set of tableaux is titled “Thebes,” and is made up of the subsections “Before Tehoser’s Palace,” “On the Nile,” and “Triumphal Return of the Pharaoh.”

It was the conductor Adriano who discovered a second set of tableaux in the music library of Radio France, titled “Festivities in the Pharaoh’s Palace.” The three subsections of the second set are called “In a Room in the Palace – The Naked Jugglers,” “Grotesque Dance of the Egyptian Jesters,” and “Triumphant Hymns – Orgy.” The music received its first performance only in 2002 for this release, issued on the Marco Polo label.

Is it love or infatuation? Peer behind the bandages of music history on “Mummy Dearest,” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for the Trenton-Princeton area. Here are the respective air-times of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EDT)

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EDT)

Stream them here!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

October 21, 2023
Exorcist Curse Strikes Rescheduled Discussion

In case you haven’t heard yet, our discussion about “The Exorcist,” which was to have taken place tonight on Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, has had to be rescheduled. Roy and I are now planning our palaver about Pazuzu for this Sunday. If there was ever any doubt, the “Exorcist curse” is real! Be sure to join us in the comments section. Captain Howdy will be our moderator, when we livestream on Facebook, YouTube, etc., this Sunday evening at 7:00 EDT!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

Actually, now you’re free to listen to “Picture Perfect,” my film music show, on KWAX tonight at 8:00 EDT!

Stream it here:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

October 20, 2023
War of the Worlds & H.G. Wells on Picture Perfect

This week on “Picture Perfect,” with Halloween only days away, my thoughts turn to Grover’s Mill, the community located not far outside of Princeton, NJ, that became the focal point of Orson Welles’ notorious radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds.”

On October 30, 1938, Welles’ Mercury Theatre presented the classic’s dramatization after the manner of “breaking news,” with simulated live reports interrupting a program of regularly scheduled dance music. What the alleged reports described was chilling – a Martian invasion of rural America by hostile aliens bearing fiery weapons and poisonous gas. The whole story was authenticated, in real time, by a “Professor Richard Pierson of Princeton Observatory.”

Those who tuned in late or were only half-listening completely freaked out, and reacted in a manner unimaginable in an era of social media. Panicked mobs choked the streets, phone lines were jammed, and police flooded CBS Studios. Welles had dropped the biggest firecracker right in the middle of a United States already on edge, thanks to widespread access to radio reports of mounting tensions in Europe.

You might say Welles’ (and Wells’) fame skyrocketed. Orson Welles would match his early notoriety a few years later with his Hollywood debut, as producer, director, co-writer, and star of “Citizen Kane,” which inflamed William Randolph Hearst, while H.G. Wells’ novel has remained his most popular, the work having been adapted to film several times.

To mark the 85th anniversary of the radio broadcast and the 125th anniversary of the publication of the novel, we’ll hear music from a classic film, released 70 years ago, in 1953, produced by George Pal, with music by Leith Stevens; also, from the Steven Spielberg blockbuster, from 2005 (titled, simply, “War of the Worlds”), with music by John Williams.

The remainder of the hour will be devoted largely to other Wells creations, including “First Men in the Moon,” from 1964, with music by Laurie Johnson; “The Shape of Things to Come,” from 1936, with music by Arthur Bliss; and “The Time Machine,” from 1960, with music by Russell Garcia.

The capper will be a loosely-related thriller from 1979, called “Time After Time,” which is not actually based on any of Wells’ writings; however, Wells appears in the film as a character, and his Time Machine plays a very important role.

The screenplay is by Nicholas Meyer, who also directed. Meyer knew a thing or two about having fun with revisionist takes on well-worn, even iconic material, as evidenced by his earlier novel, “The Seven Percent Solution,” a new Sherlock Holmes adventure, which was made into a film, directed by Herbert Ross, in 1976.

Here, H.G. Wells pursues Jack the Ripper across time to modern day San Francisco. Malcolm MacDowell plays Wells, David Warner the Ripper, and Mary Steenburgen, the banker who assists Wells in the present. The music is by Miklós Rózsa, a brilliant choice, and the composer provides one of the better scores from the twilight of his career.

All’s well that’s based on Wells this week, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for the Trenton-Princeton area. Here are the respective air-times of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EDT)

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EDT)

Stream them here!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

October 20, 2023
Schwanda the Bagpiper Weinberger’s One Hit Opera

Capitalizing on the widely-held belief that the proper domain of the bagpipe is Hell, Jaromir Weinberger crafted his most popular hit. In fact, “Schwanda the Bagpiper” (in Czech, “Švanda dudák”) was his only hit. In 1927, the opera became an international sensation. But beyond a couple of orchestral highlights (the Polka and Fugue), even that one hit isn’t all that well known.

Learn more about this rollicking farce, involving a love triangle, a card game with the devil, and the beguiling power of the bagpipes. Jaromir Weinberger may have been a one-hit wonder, but there’s still plenty of bounce in this Czech. I hope you’ll join me for “Czech in the Balance” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for the Trenton-Princeton area. Here are the respective air-times of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EDT)

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EDT)

Stream them here!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

October 14, 2023

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS