I always loved when Warner Brothers took a break from Bugs Bunny to do these types of one-offs. This one’s a dream for classic movie buffs – with another lampoon of Leopold Stokowski outside of the famous “LEOPOLD!” episode. He’s introduced by Bing Crosby at around the 3:30 mark.
You might have to pause it in order to get some of the group shots. If you still think you missed some of the references, somebody else with a lot of time on his hands has done a breakdown.
Has anyone seen the film “Carnegie Hall?” Sure, it sports a corny plot about a young American pianist who turns the classical music world on its ear by becoming a jazz artist. Of course, the debut of his “avant garde” concerto (with Harry James as soloist) seems positively quaint from today’s perspective, as I’m sure it would have been even in 1947.
The main draw is the parade of real-life classical music superstars, including Jascha Heifetz, Gregor Piatigorsky, Arthur Rubinstein, Lily Pons, Rise Stevens, Jan Peerce, Ezio Pinza, Bruno Walter and Fritz Reiner, among others, all of whom get to perform.
The film was directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, who emerged from the German Expressionist movement (he claimed to have worked on “Metropolis” and “M”) to direct atmospheric Hollywood films like “The Black Cat” and “Detour.”
That experience obviously prepared him for this showcase of Leopold Stokowski, who in the film’s best sequence conducts a movement from Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. The camera angles are striking, the lighting dramatic, and Stoky’s hair just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
While we’re at it, here’s Stoky conducting his own transcription of music by Johann Sebastian Bach at the age of 90.
And since the comments section is bound to be filled with shouts of “LEOPOLD…”
Raise a stein to Stoky on his birthday, and then join me tomorrow for a transcendent recording of the “Good Friday Spell” and “Act III Synthesis” from Wagner’s “Parsifal.” It will be a Good Friday make-good, sometime between 4 and 6 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
With Hallowe’en fast descending on raven wings, what better time to don your black frock coat and brood over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore? I’ll conclude my shift early this evening on The Classical Network (the 6:00 hour) with music inspired by the writings of Edgar Allan Poe.
For the birthday of Arcady Dubensky (1890-1966), we’ll hear “The Raven,” a “melo-declamation” for narrator and orchestra. The work was given its premiere by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski at the Academy of Music in 1932. The performance was preserved on an experimental recording made by RCA Victor, on 35mm optical film, and issued as a special 78 rpm 2-record set. Included was the original poem, and monochrome engravings of Stokowski and Poe were etched into the shellac. The speaker will be Benjamin de Loache.
The fact that I will be in an hour earlier than usual enhances the atmosphere of eerie premonition. It should give us plenty of time also to observe the birthdays of composers Dag Wiren and Jaan Rääts, clarinetist and composer Bernhard Crusell, philosopher and composer Friedrich Nietzsche, and conductor Karl Richter.
Again, the Poe-inflected works will be heard in the final hour. Nothing assuages guilt and madness like laudanum and Edgar Allan Poe music. Join me one hour earlier today, from 3 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
