Classic Ross Amico

Tag: KWAX

Circus Movie Music Picture Perfect on KWAX

Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls! Children of all ages! May I have your attention, please?

This week on “Picture Perfect,” it’s music from movies about the circus!

In 1964, George Pal produced and directed an adaptation of Charles G. Finney’s dark fantasy novel, “The Circus of Dr. Lao.” “7 Faces of Dr. Lao” was envisaged as a real showcase for its star, Tony Randall, who plays not only the mysterious proprietor of an itinerant Old West circus, but also Merlin the Magician, the great god Pan, a Serpent, the fabled monster Medusa, the blind fortune-teller Appolonius of Tyana, and the Abominable Snowman!

The unusual score is by Leigh Harline, who freshens up tropes of the American Western by applying some Eastern spice. We’ll hear selections from the film’s original elements, remastered for the Film Score Monthly label.

We’ll also have music from two Academy Award winners: Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Greatest Show on Earth,” voted Best Picture of 1952, with a score by Victor Young, and Federico Fellini’s “La Strada,” Best Foreign Language Film of 1956, with music by Nino Rota.

Malcom Arnold wrote the music for “Trapeze,” Carol Reed’s 1956 love triangle on high (with Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, and Gina Lollobrigada), and Danny Elfman understands that every day’s a circus for Paul Reubens in “Big Top Pee-Wee,” from 1988. I know you are, but what am I?

Further emphasizing the dark underbelly of the big top, we’ll hear a suite from Hammer Film Productions’ “Vampire Circus,” from 1972, in which all of the attractions, even the panther, are vampires! And you thought clowns were scary. The composer is David Whitaker, of “The Sword and the Sorcerer” cult status.

Step right up! It’s a clown car full of calliopes, as music for the circus takes center ring 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/

September 8, 2023
Labor Day Lost Chord Medtner Rosenthal Carpenter

This week on “The Lost Chord,” it’s a working weekend, as we salute the laborer for Labor Day.

Nikolai Medtner, classmate and friend of Sergei Rachmaninoff, wrote an awful lot of music for the piano. Alas, comparatively little of it is heard with any frequency. Pianists are said to adore his music, but for those in charge of concert venues the composer remains a tough sell. Medtner’s curiously titled triptych, “Three Hymns in Praise of Toil,” from 1926-27, consists of three movements: “Hymn Before Work,” “At the Anvil,” and “Hymn After Work.”

Manuel Rosenthal’s original compositions have been eclipsed by his arrangements for the runaway success, “Gaité Parisienne.” Rosenthal wrote music for the stage, orchestral pieces, pieces for voice and chorus, and instrumental works, but none of them have attained anywhere near the recognition of his Offenbach ballet, on which his name, if it appears at all, does so in rather small print. He did enjoy a successful career as one of France’s most prominent conductors. Interestingly, he was also the third and last pupil of Maurice Ravel.

We’ll hear Rosenthal’s “Les petits métiers” (“The Little Trades”), from 1933, ten deft orchestral sketches, including “The Farrier,” “The Herbalist,” “The Puppeteer,” “The Night-Watchman,” “The Postman Déodat,” “The Barber,” “The Cornet-seller,” “The Grinder,” “The Nanny,” and “The Little Telegraph-Boy.” If you don’t know what a farrier is, it’s a specialist in equine foot care!

According to the composer, “In this score, I have put my memories of the urchin I once was in the streets of Paris. They were full of songs of the trades-people, glazier, knife-grinder and so on. But I did not forget the wet-nurses who fed the new-born children of richer families, the soldiers or the little telegraph-boys, urchins of 12 or 13 years-old, who carried telegrams by bicycle. In short, all those little trades that favored exchange between people and contributed to a very French and very cheerful atmosphere.”

Speaking of horse feet, we’ll also enjoy a brief part-song by Gustav Holst, called “The Song of the Blacksmith,” a folk song arrangement from 1917. Holst later included the melody in his Second Suite in F for military band, with a lively part for anvil!

Finally, American composer John Alden Carpenter’s ballet “Skyscrapers,” from 1924, is set against the backdrop of a big city, with workmen in overalls exerting themselves amidst the haste and confusion of urban life. A whistle blows. There’s a side trip to an amusement park, with suggestions of carousels and raucous dance bands. These are interrupted, briefly, by a flashback to the idea of work, the workmen swinging their hammers and preparing to rivet. Then a reversion to play, with sailors, flappers and midway types performing a succession of colorful dances. The whistle blows again, and the laborers are summoned back to the job at hand.

Pull up a girder and get out your Stanley thermoses. I’ll be doing the heavy lifting as we punch the clock for Labor Day with “Labor Intensive” 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/

September 2, 2023
Dead Poets Society Phony Movie Music From School

I ran this show a few years ago, and I must have been feeling particularly ill-tempered, as I totally went off on “Dead Poets Society” for being so phony. I was surprised to learn that many of you felt the same way. The comments were quite lively! I was amused when revisiting the old post here:

At any rate, it’s back to school time, so get out your Golden Rod tablets and No. 2 pencils. You don’t want to be held back (again) for flunking your exam about music from movies with academic settings.

I’ll be getting all pendantic, with selections from “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” (Richard Addinsell), “Dead Poets Society” (Maurice Jarre), “Back to School” (Danny Elfman), “Mr. Holland’s Opus” (Michael Kamen), and “Tom Brown’s School Days” (again, Richard Addinsell).

Minds will be sharpened and buttons will be pushed, 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/

September 1, 2023
British Light Music for Late Summer Evenings on KWAX

I think we can all use more light in our lives.

This week on “The Lost Chord,” British Light Music is a genre I think perfectly suited to the month August, when it is still summer, but the light begins to take on a more lambent quality.

Furthermore, the music is all very civilised [sic], conjuring a world of palm courts and spa orchestras, comfortable evenings spent around the radio, and carefree days by the sea.

Take a nostalgic journey with an hour of vintage recordings of works by Albert Ketèlbey, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Sir Edward Elgar, Richard Addinsell, George Scott-Wood, Haydn Wood, Billy Mayerl and Eric Coates.

You provide the tea and cucumber sandwiches; I’ll supply the sweetness and light. I hope you’ll join me for “Distant Light,” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Keep in mind, 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/

August 26, 2023
Picaresque Novels on Film Summer’s Last Adventure

When I think back on the summers of my youth, I remember my elation at three months of illusory freedom – sucking the marrow out of life for the first half of the season or so; then getting drawn into family visits and vacations and losing track of friends; and finally, with the new school year looming, that last desperate frenzy to LIVE SUMMER!

This week on “Picture Perfect,” with the season winding down, it’s one last grasp for adventure. Revel in some freewheeling lack of judgment, with an hour of films based on picaresque novels.

Novels, you say? As in literature?

And picaresque? Ain’t that one of them 20-dollar words???

I suppose, in its way, it is also a foretaste of the classroom. But trust me, there will be enough impulsive behavior by rapscallions and scapegraces to keep things interesting.

In case you weren’t an English major, picaresque novels are frequently characterized by rogues and anti-heroes as protagonists, episodic, wayward structure, and not infrequently lowly humor.

We’ll hear music from “The Reivers,” after William Faulkner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, a coming-of-age story about a boy swept into automobile theft and illicit horseracing in the American south. Mark Rydell directed the 1969 film, which starred Steve McQueen as the rakish Boon Hogganbeck and featured narration by Burgess Meredith. John Williams wrote the breezy Americana score.

Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is frequently characterized as an American picaresque. It’s certainly one of the funniest of “serious” books. A middling film adaptation was made in 1960, directed by Michael Curtiz, with Tony Randall given top billing, shifting the focus of the story to the con artistry of the King and the Duke. It features an evocative score by Jerome Moross.

If Hervey Allen’s “Anthony Adverse” had any humor to begin with, it was definitely lost in translation. (Too bad the novel was written in English.) However, the 1936 screen adaptation certainly does sprawl. One could say it’s picaresque in the worst way. It just doesn’t go anywhere. It does, however, feature a top-notch cast (Frederic March, Olivia De Havilland, Claude Rains, etc.) and an Academy Award-winning score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

While the modern picaresque novel had its roots in the Renaissance, the genre really seemed to hit its stride in the 18th century, with comic novelists like Henry Fielding. Fielding’s “Tom Jones,” perhaps the quintessential picaresque, was made into a film in 1963. It went on to win Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director (Tony Richardson), Best Adapted Screenplay (John Osborne) and Best Original Score (John Addison). Addison’s music suits Richardson’s quirky virtuosity like an off-kilter powdered wig.

Get ready to wear some holes into your new school clothes. We’re up to no good, with an hour of picaresque adventures, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Keep in mind, 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/

August 25, 2023

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