Classic Ross Amico

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Cool Movie Scores to Beat the Summer Heat KWAX

We’ve had it better than most this summer in the Trenton-Princeton area, but it’s been an unrelenting scorcher for many. This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll think cool thoughts with some chilly scores from world cinema.

“The Snow Storm” (1964) is an adaptation of Pushkin’s “The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkan.” The score’s Waltz and Romance enjoyed particular popularity, earning its composer, Georgy Sviridov, two of his greatest hits.

Then Arthur Honegger will take us to higher altitudes with his music for “The Demon of the Himalayas” (1935), complete with the eerie electronic timbre of the ondes Martenot.

Ralph Vaughan Williams will guide us to the South Pole with selections from his score for “Scott of the Antarctic” (1948). The music perfectly reflects the sublime, austere beauty of an unforgiving landscape. The score became the basis for the composer’s seventh symphony, “Sinfonia Antartica” (which is titled in Italian, hence the single “c”).

Finally, the “Battle on the Ice” sequence from “Alexander Nevsky” (1938) provides a textbook marriage of music and film. Director Sergei Eisenstein granted the composer, Sergei Prokofiev, the unusual luxury of having the images cut to suit his music, as opposed to the usual practice, which is the other way around. The result is not only one of the great films, but also one of the great film scores.

Feeling hot under the collar? Chill out with wintry scenes from world cinema this week, on “Picture Perfect,” music from 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 18, 2023
Scarlatti’s Musical Duels and Lasting Legacy

It seems as if it was only a matter of time before any Baroque musician of merit would become embroiled in a musical duel.

In the case of Domenico Scarlatti, he was challenged in Rome by none other than George Frideric Handel. The resulting contest led to Handel being judged superior to his rival on the organ; however, on the harpsichord Scarlatti was deemed to be supreme. In fact, Scarlatti’s unusual facility at the keyboard has had artists “keyed up” for centuries.

Born in Naples in 1685 – the same year as Handel and Bach – Scarlatti spent much of his career in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families. He wrote 555 keyboard sonatas, which have been admired by composer-performers from Frederic Chopin to Marc-André Hamelin.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll enjoy several works written in tribute to this Baroque master.

Charles Avison, whose life overlapped Scarlatti’s own (he was born in 1709, when Scarlatti was 23 years-old), arranged a number of his elder colleague’s keyboard works into a set of 12 concerti grossi. We’ll sample one of those, Avison’s Concerto No. 10 in D.

Then we’ll turn to American composer Norman Dello Joio. Dello Joio was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1957 for his “Meditations on Ecclesiastes.” From 1979, we’ll hear his four-movement piano work, “Salute to Scarlatti.”

Dmitri Shostakovich arranged two of Scarlatti’s keyboard sonatas for small wind ensemble and percussion. We’ll enjoy performances of these by members of the former USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky.

Finally, Alfredo Casella’s 1926 suite for piano and orchestra, “Scarlattiana,” draws its inspiration from dozens of Scarlatti sonatas. Though unquestionably high-spirited, it was not originally intended for the dance – but since it unabashedly recalls Stravinsky’s “Pulcinella,” it is hardly surprising that some clown decided to choreograph it.

I hope you’ll join me for a mixed salad of Scarlatti tributes, on “Italian Dressing,” 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 12, 2023
Zorro and Swashbuckling Film Scores on KWAX

Latin may be a dead language, but Latin swashbucklers live this week on “Picture Perfect!”

Alfred Newman gets the blood pumping with his virile soundtrack for “Captain from Castile” (1947), in which Tyrone Power flees persecution at the hands of the Inquisition to join Cortés’ expedition to conquer Mexico. Because conquest is so “in” right now. The film was shot on location with one sequence set against the backdrop of an actual erupting volcano!

Power, of course, was one of the screen’s great Zorros. However, with “The Mask of Zorro” (1998), Antonio Banderas becomes the Zorro for our time. He’s aided and abetted by Anthony Hopkins, as the elder Zorro who mentors him. TWO Zorros in one film! It can’t get any better than that. (Save your “Zorro, the Gay Blade” brickbats for the comments section.) Catherine Zeta-Jones is radiant, and the music by James Horner literally hits all the right notes.

This film was already a throwback on release, with plenty of real-life, real-time swordplay and stunts galore, and the barest minimum of computer-generated bells and whistles. I wish to the ghost of Douglas Fairbanks that popcorn entertainment could still be like this. As it was, “The Mask of Zorro” was like a belated last gasp of the 1980s. It was easily the best swashbuckler of the ‘90s – though, really, was there much competition?

Banderas got a chance to send-up his image in the Dreamworks’ computer-animated feature, “Puss in Boots” (2011), a spin-off from the Shrek series, which actually turned out to be a better sequel than “The Legend of Zorro” (2005).

The film sports plenty of Zorro in-jokes, which extend even to Henry Jackman’s entertaining score. How is it that animated movies are just about the only movies these days that seem to keep up the great symphonic tradition of classic film scoring?

Finally, Errol Flynn has one last swash left in his buckle for “The Adventures of Don Juan” (1948), his last wholly satisfying period adventure. Equally, Max Steiner rises to the occasion and provides one of his best scores, just about on the same level as those of the master of the genre, Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Gen-Xers may recognize the theme from its use in “The Goonies” – and, now that I think about it, “Zorro, the Gay Blade!”

I hope you’ll join me for an hour of Latin swords, 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 11, 2023
Hans Gál Tragedy and Triumph on the Lost Chord

He was a remarkable figure, who weathered much to create works of lasting beauty. This week on “The Lost Chord,” it’s the tragedy and triumph of Hans Gál.

Gál was born outside Vienna in 1890. He studied with, among others, Eusebius Mandyczewski, lifelong friend of Johannes Brahms. Gál himself became a serious Brahms scholar, co-editing the master’s complete works, in cooperation with Mandyczewski, in ten volumes. He edited other scholarly volumes on Brahms, as well.

It was while Gál was director of the Mainz Conservatory of Music that the Nazis came to power. Forced out of his position, he returned to Austria. Then the Anschluss drove him to Great Britain.

There, he made friends with the musicologist Donald Francis Tovey. Tovey, also a friend of Brahms, was based at Edinburgh University. Though Gál would be held in an internment camp during the war, Tovey eased the way for his subsequent employment at Edinburgh. Gál flourished there, becoming a respected member of the faculty and an influential teacher. He remained in Scotland for the rest of his very long life. He died there in 1987 at 97 years-old.

Gál composed in nearly every genre. He was lauded by many of the greatest musicians of his day. Yet somehow his music and reputation haven’t really pervaded the wider musical consciousness.

We’ll hear two works by this neglected composer, issued on the Avie label, which has done much to document Gál’s orchestral, chamber and instrumental music.

First, we’ll have the Piano Sonata, Op. 28, from a complete, 3-CD set devoted to Gál’s output for the keyboard. Gál was about 37 years-old at the time of the sonata’s composition. It’s sobering to think he yet had 60 years of life ahead of him!

Then we’ll hear his Cello Concerto, from 1944. Gál’s mother died in 1942. Shortly after, his aunt and sister took their own lives to avoid deportation to Auschwitz. Unable to bear up under the strain, the composer’s youngest son also committed suicide at 18 years-old. For all the turbulence and tragedy in Gál’s life, he managed to craft a rewarding and mellifluous work, which on occasion offers glimpses of his beloved Brahms. The concerto is elegiac, lyrical and deeply personal.

I hope you’ll join me for “Gál’s Worthy,” worthwhile music of Hans Gál, 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 5, 2023
Villa-Lobos’ Rainforest Sound on KWAX

We’re having a heat waaaave… a tropical heat wave…

What better conditions than these in which to enjoy some of the rainforest inspirations of Heitor Villa-Lobos?

Happily, there will be no vaccinations or machetes required for this particular expedition, when you join me for “The Lost Chord” on KWAX.

Heitor Villa-Lobos held a unique position in Brazilian music, blazing many trails, both figuratively and literally, to create a distinctive national sound, materials for which he found in the streets and jungles of his native land.

He turned his back on European models, learning much of his craft through osmosis. Through experiment and exploration, he arrived at his own unique harmonic language.

Around 1905, he began physically to explore the Brazilian rainforest, where he came into contact with and absorbed the traditions of its indigenous cultures. The expeditions continued for the better part of a decade. He was fond of relating a story about how he once escaped from a pack of hungry cannibals.

He used this field work to form the basis of two works he wrote in 1916, which draw from Brazilian legends and so-called primitive folk material. Both have been variously described as ballets and symphonic poems: “Amazonas,” about an Indian maiden’s encounter with a metaphorical monster, and its companion piece of sorts, “Uirapuru,” about a legendary bird that sings its song in an enchanted forest. We’ll have a chance to hear both.

In between, we’ll also listen to the “Danses Africaines” (or “Characteristic African Dances,” so-called), based on tribal music of the Caripunas Indians, in its original version for piano, from 1914-16, AND in its later orchestration, from 1953. The piano set was condemned by uptight critics as “degenerate” at its first performance in 1922.

These formative “jungle pieces” all date from the same era of the composer’s development. Though their first performances took place over many years, collectively their exotic allure brought Villa-Lobos to international celebrity.

Villas-Lobos once commented, “I don’t use folklore, I am folklore.” He remains Brazil’s most famous composer. For that matter, all of Latin America’s.

It’s not much of a stretch to imagine ourselves in the forests of the Amazon this week, as we travel off the beaten path with Heitor Villa-Lobos. Join me for “A Night in the Tropics” 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/

July 29, 2023

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