Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Memorial Day

Memorial Day Movie Music Tributes

It’s all about valor and sacrifice this week on “Picture Perfect,” as we anticipate Memorial Day.

Memorial Day has its roots in Decoration Day, established in 1868 to honor the Civil War dead. We’ll hear music from “Glory” (1989), inspired by the extraordinary courage of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw’s 54th Massachusetts Voluntary Regiment, an all African American outfit that distinguished itself in an impossible assault on Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina. The outstanding cast features Morgan Freeman, Matthew Broderick, and Cary Elwes, with an Oscar-winning performance by Denzel Washington. The poignant score is by James Horner.

Gary Cooper had one of his best roles as “Sergeant York” (1941), based on the true story of Alvin C. York, who went from backwoods hell-raiser to devout pacifist. After a period of soul-searching, York was able to reconcile his strong moral convictions with the unfortunate reality that sometimes it really is necessary to fight. He went on to distinguish himself on the battlefield and become one of the most-decorated soldiers of the First World War. The folksy score, evocative of York’s Tennessee roots, is by Max Steiner.

In director Michael Cimino’s “The Deer Hunter” (1978), three men from a small Pennsylvania steel town serve in Vietnam, then struggle to cope with the war’s psychological impact. The harrowing film, especially memorable for its scenes of Russian roulette in a P.O.W. camp, won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Christopher Walken was honored with the award for Best Supporting Actor. Stanley Myers wrote the music. We’ll hear his famous “Cavatina,” performed by guitarist John Williams, not to be confused with…

… composer John Williams, who provided one of his sparser scores for “Saving Private Ryan” (1998). Steven Spielberg’s war-is-hell narrative yet manages to honor the sacrifice of the fighting men of World War II. The opening – a sustained “you-are-there” battle sequence on Omaha Beach – is unforgettable. Remarkably, it is presented wholly without music, Williams preferring to allow the tension of the mise-en-scène to speak for itself. Spielberg picked up his second Academy Award for Best Director. The film, however, inexplicably, lost to “Shakespeare in Love.”

I hope you’ll join me for music from these cinematic meditations on the costs and consequences of war, as we honor the sacrifice of soldiers who died while serving in America’s armed forces, this Friday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

May 25, 2018
Memorial Day Remembrance on The Classical Network

If the rain is keeping you indoors on this Memorial Day, consider tuning in to The Classical Network this afternoon for some musical remembrances of those who laid down their lives in war. We’ll also have a nostalgic diversion by Samuel Barber, who served in the U.S. Army Air Force; an operatic intermezzo by Enrique Granados, who died after his ship was torpedoed by a German submarine; and nods to the birthday anniversaries of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Isaac Albeniz, and Frederick Septimus Kelly, who survived injury at Gallipoli only to be killed on the Somme.

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

More about “In Flanders Fields” and the history of the poppy as “flower of remembrance” here:

http://www.womensoutdoornews.com/2017/05/memorial-day-flanders-fields/

May 29, 2017
Military Symphonies for Memorial Day

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” in anticipation of Memorial Day, we’ll have two symphonies composed for the armed forces.

Morton Gould wrote his Symphony No. 4 for the United States Military Academy at West Point. It was his first large scale piece for symphonic band. The score calls for a “marching machine,” but the recording we’ll hear, issued on the Mercury label, employs the feet of 120 musicians of the Eastman School Symphony Band. Frederick Fennell directs the Eastman Wind Ensemble.

Samuel Barber composed his Symphony No. 2 in 1943, while he was serving in the U.S. Army Air Force. 20 years later, he revised and published the slow movement as a separate opus, titled “Night Flight,” and then jettisoned – and actually tried to destroy – the rest. The work was reconstituted after the composer’s death, and is now back in circulation. We’ll hear a recording with Marin Alsop and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

I hope you’ll join me for “Orchestrated Maneuvers” – American military symphonies for Memorial Day – tonight at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Corporal Samuel Barber with the score of his Second Symphony

May 28, 2017
Ravel’s War A Memorial Day Tribute

With the outbreak of World War I, Maurice Ravel did his patriotic duty and enlisted in the French army. He was rejected from the infantry and the air force on account of his diminutive size and precarious health, but he learned to drive a truck and cared for the wounded at Verdun on the Western Front.

Ravel survived the war, but six of his friends were not so lucky. His “Le tombeau de Couperin” was ostensibly written as a tribute to the Baroque master, Francois Couperin, but each of the movements is dedicated to one of the fallen. Hear it this morning on WPRB103.3 FM and wprb.com, as part of a Memorial Day salute to the musical dead of all countries – the soldiers who laid down their lives in combat and the unfortunate civilians who were collateral casualties.

We’ll have pieces of war and prayers for peace until 11:00 EDT on Classic Ross Amico.

Read more about Ravel’s war experiences here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z2nk6sg

PHOTO: Ravel in uniform

May 25, 2017
Foulds’ World Requiem on WPRB

Coming up on WPRB in the 9:00 hour EDT: John Fould’s “A World Requiem.”

Scored for a mass of soloists, choristers and orchestral musicians to rival those of Mahler’s “Symphony of a Thousand,” the Requiem was conceived by Foulds as a memorial to the dead of all nations in the wake of the First World War. It was given its first performance at Royal Albert Hall on Armistice Night, November 11, 1923. It then lay in neglect for 80 years, until its resurrection by Leon Botstein, who conducted the work’s revival at Royal Albert Hall on November 11, 2007. We’ll hear his recording of the piece, which was issued two months later, on the Chandos label.

Listen now to WPRB103.3 FM or wprb.com. We remember the soldiers who laid down their lives in combat and the unfortunate civilians who were collateral casualties, in our salute to the musical dead of all countries, for Memorial Day, on Classic Ross Amico.

May 25, 2017

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