Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Marni Nixon

“Dementia” and George Antheil’s Surreal Score

If you have a taste for surreal, low-budget horror in the vein of “Carnival of Souls,” you might be curious to watch “Dementia” (1955). The film contains no dialogue, so George Antheil’s music receives a real showcase. The film was banned by the New York State Film Board for being “inhuman, indecent, and the quintessence of gruesomeness.” Two years later, it was reissued – with narration by Ed McMahon! – as “Daughter of Horror.”

That’s Marni Nixon’s voice on the soundtrack. Nixon, secret weapon of the glossy Hollywood musical, ghost-sang for leading ladies Deborah Kerr (“The King and I”), Natalie Wood (“West Side Story”), and Audrey Hepburn (“My Fair Lady”), among others. Her husband, Ernest Gold (Academy Award winning composer of “Exodus”) conducts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF3Xfyj2Dak

The music from “Dementia” was issued in 2019, coupled with Gold’s Piano Concerto, on the Kritzerland label. I happen to own one of the 500 copies pressed. Of course, it still hasn’t sold out!

http://kritzerland.com/dementia.htm

FUN FACT: “Daughter of Horror” is the movie playing in the theater in “The Blob” when the Blob strikes!

Antheil, born in Trenton, NJ, in 1900, certainly scored some crazy movies.

In the past, I know I’ve shared my enthusiasm for Ben Hecht’s “Specter of the Rose” (1946), the ballet noir in which dancer Ivan Kirov (looking all the world like Steve Martin in “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid”) may or may not be murdering his wives. If you happened to miss the post, you’ll find my thoughts here:

Of course, Antheil’s most notorious hit was “Ballet Mécanique,” originally conceived as the soundtrack for a Dadaist experimental film by Fernand Léger. However, the two artists parted ways before the project could be brought to fruition, and “Ballet Mécanique” was introduced as an independent concert work.

And what a concert work! Affronted by a battery of player pianos, airplane propellers, bells and sirens, the opening night audience lost their minds and rioted vigorously into the streets of Paris. Needless to say, Antheil’s reputation was made.

Léger’s “Ballet Mécanique,” was united after the fact with Antheil’s music (which in concert runs a good ten or fifteen minutes longer than the film):

Antheil is buried in Trenton’s Riverview Cemetery. I wrote about my visit there and my tour of the composer’s childhood haunts for an article for The Times of Trenton in 2013:

https://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/2013/08/early_life_in_trenton_left_mar.html

October 15, 2021
Ernest Gold: Exodus Oscar Winner

While Ernest Gold embarked on his career as a composer of symphonies, his heart was always in the world of Max Steiner. Gold was born Ernst Sigmund Goldner, in Vienna, 100 years ago today.

If you missed my tribute to Gold Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” on WWFM – The Classical Network, the show is now posted as a webcast. On the program is his String Quartet No. 1, his song cycle “Songs of Love and Parting,” and two of his most famous film themes – those for “Exodus” and “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.” The songs are performed by Gold’s wife of 19 years, Marni Nixon, the soprano who “ghost voiced” for a number of the musicals’ leading ladies, in films like “The King and I,” “My Fair Lady,” and “West Side Story.”

https://www.wwfm.org/post/lost-chord-july-11-unalloyed-gold

As an addendum, it’s only within the last year or so that I discovered Gold’s Piano Concerto, written when he was 17 years-old. The recording appeared on a CD with George Antheil’s music for the film “Dementia.” Gold worked as an orchestrator on a number of Antheil’s films. When Antheil fell ill and was unable to follow through on a commitment to score “On the Beach,” Gold stepped up. The music earned Gold an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe.

In all, Gold would be nominated by the Academy four times. He was recognized with an Oscar for his powerful contribution to “Exodus” in 1960. Here’s another nice Gold tribute:

Eddie Harris riffs on “Exodus”:

Not really my cup of tea, but “Fight for Survival” from “Exodus” was sampled (a string passage, reversed) by Moby, great-great-great nephew of Herman Melville (!), for his song “Porcelain.”

All that glitters is Gold. Happy birthday, Ernest Gold!

PHOTO: With Bobby Darin, Sandra Dee, and his “Exodus” Oscar

July 13, 2021
Ernest Gold Hollywood’s Viennese Master

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’re on the quest for Gold – Ernest Gold, that is.

July 13 marks the composer’s centenary. Gold, who won an Academy Award for his work on “Exodus” in 1960, wrote nearly 100 film scores, including those for “The Defiant Ones,” “Inherit the Wind,” and “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.” He was perhaps Hollywood’s last major musical link with Old Vienna.

Though from the start his ambition was to write for film like his hero, Max Steiner, for a time he eked out a livelihood in New York, where he had settled following the Anschluss in 1938. There, he found work as a piano accompanist and a writer of popular songs. He used the income to formally study harmony and orchestration. He wrote a symphony in 1941. It was never performed in his lifetime, though his Piano Concerto made it to Carnegie Hall. It was damned by the critics for sounding like movie music, but Gold embraced the endorsement, packed his bags, and struck out for the West Coast. Eventually he would secure a foothold at Columbia Studios, where he worked with directors like Stanley Kramer and Otto Preminger.

Despite his love of film, he never lost his enthusiasm for composing absolute music. The result was a piano sonata, a Symphony for Five Instruments, and one of the works I’ll be featuring this evening, his String Quartet No. 1 from 1948. It had been Gold’s intention that it would be a very serious piece, of an uncompromising, modernist bent. But he soon struck up against a mental block and realized that the only way to go was to write from the heart.

For 19 years, Gold was married to Marni Nixon, the second of his three wives. If you’re a fan of screen musicals of the 1950s and ‘60s, you probably know that Nixon dubbed the singing voices of lead actresses in films like “The King and I,” “West Side Story,” and “My Fair Lady.”

Gold wrote his “Songs of Love and Parting” expressly for Nixon in 1963. The texts were drawn from a variety of sources, the better to convey the universality of love and the heartache of separation, including poetry by James Thomson, William Shakespeare, Robert Burns, Emily Dickinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Percy Bysshe Shelley.

In the few minutes remaining at the end of the hour, we’ll also have time for a couple of Gold’s classic film themes. I hope you’ll join me for “Unalloyed Gold,” a remembrance of Ernest Gold in advance of his centenary, this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

July 11, 2021
Ernest Gold Hollywood Composer Spotlight

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’re on the quest for Gold – Ernest Gold, that is.

Gold, who won an Academy Award for his work on “Exodus” in 1960, wrote nearly 100 film scores, including those for “The Defiant Ones,” “Inherit the Wind,” and “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.” He was perhaps Hollywood’s last major musical link with Old Vienna.

Though from the start his ambition was to write for film like his hero, Max Steiner, he eked out a livelihood in New York, where he had settled in the wake of the Anschluss in 1938. There, he found work as a piano accompanist and a writer of popular songs. He used the income to formally study harmony and orchestration. He wrote a symphony in 1941. It was never performed in his lifetime, though his Piano Concerto made it to Carnegie Hall. It was damned by the critics as sounding like movie music, but Gold embraced the endorsement, packed his bags, and struck out for the West Coast. He would eventually secure a foothold at Columbia Studios, where he worked with directors like Stanley Kramer and Otto Preminger.

Despite his love of film, he never lost his enthusiasm for composing absolute music. The result was a piano sonata, a Symphony for Five Instruments, and one of the works we’ll hear, his String Quartet No. 1 from 1948. It was Gold’s intention that it would be a very serious piece, of an uncompromising, modernist bent. But he soon hit up against a mental block and realized that the only way to go was to write from the heart.

For 19 years, Gold was married to Marni Nixon, the second of his three wives. If you’re a fan of screen musicals of the 1950s and ‘60s, you probably know that Nixon dubbed the singing voices of the lead actresses in films like “The King and I,” “West Side Story,” and “My Fair Lady.”

Gold wrote his “Songs of Love and Parting” expressly for Nixon in 1963. The texts were drawn from a variety of sources, the better to convey the universality of love and the heartache of separation, including poetry by James Thomson, William Shakespeare, Robert Burns, Emily Dickinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Percy Bysshe Shelley.

In the few minutes remaining at the end of the hour, we’ll have time for a couple of Gold’s classic film themes. I hope you’ll join me for “Unalloyed Gold,” this Sunday night at 10 EDT, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.

May 15, 2016

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