Welcome the Year of the Rat! This week on “Picture Perfect,” on the eve of Lunar New Year, we travel the Silk Road to China.
We’ll have music from “The Adventures of Marco Polo” (1938), which features Gary Cooper, of all people, as the medieval merchant-explorer. The score was the first by Hugo Friedhofer (born in San Francisco, despite his über-German name). Freidhofer had been laboring as an orchestrator for bigger-named composers, such as Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Max Steiner. He would go on to win an Academy Award for his music for “The Best Years of Our Lives.”
Then we’ll hear selections from two big screen presentations of the exploits of Genghis Khan. In the best Old Hollywood tradition, “Genghis Khan” (1965) had quite the multi-national cast: Omar Sharif, Stephen Boyd, James Mason, Robert Morley, Francoise Morleac, Telly Savalas, Eli Wallach, Woody Strode, and hordes of extras. The music was by Yugoslavian composer Dusan Radic.
“Mongol” (2007) was a joint production of Russia, Germany and Kazakhstan, but the film was actually shot in China. The music is by Finnish composer Tuomas Kantelinen, supplemented by contributions by the Mongolian rock band Altan Urag. We’ll stick with the orchestral stuff.
The score is striking for its use of khöömii throat-singers, female soloists lamenting and ululating over the orchestra, as well as the unique art of “urtiin duu,” traditional Mongolian long-singing. “Mongol” received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.
Finally, we’ll hear selections from “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (2000), with music by Tan Dun. The film was the winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Score. It was also nominated for Best Picture.
Yo-Yo Ma performs the cello solos. One of the tracks is titled “Silk Road.” In 1998, Ma founded his Silk Road Ensemble.
Slip into some sensible shoes. We’ll travel 7000 miles along the Silk Road this week, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Friday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
