In this year of America 250 observations, naturally I would be inclined to look back to the 18th century. While a frigid New Year’s Day at the Philadelphia Mummers Parade is the big New Year’s tradition around here (it’s a regional thing; if you don’t know it, look it up), I’ll welcome 2026 in a more civilized manner: in my periwig, seated at the harpsichord, pecking out these “Auld Lang Syne Variations.”
It’s a new discovery for me, by a composer named… Ross!
Happy New Year, everyone!
Franz Waxman, of course, was one of the great film composers. His music can be heard in “The Bride of Frankenstein,” “Rebecca,” “The Philadelphia Story,” “Sunset Boulevard,” “A Place in the Sun,” “Rear Window,” “Peyton Place,” “The Spirit of St. Louis,” and dozens of others.
It was customary that Waxman and his family would get together with their neighbors, the Jascha Heifetzes, to welcome the new year with an evening of chamber music. Other guests on these occasions would include violist William Primrose and cellist Gregor Piatigorsky.
Mainstream classical fare would dominate the festivities until the countdown to midnight. With the turn of the year, the musical selections would become a bit more frivolous.
Waxman composed his “Auld Lang Syne Variations” in 1947, for one such gathering. This party piece sends up the traditional New Year’s anthem in the styles of several well-known composers.
Feel free to play along and test your musical knowledge. You’ll find further clues in the work’s subtitles, listed below the video on YouTube. One can only imagine Heifetz stepping out in “Chaconne à Son Gout.”
Happy New Year!
It’s always good practice to pay proper obeisance to a man with a scythe and nothing to lose. So try not to make too big a fuss about the kid in the diaper this week on “Sweetness and Light.”
I hope you’ll join me for a playlist that will blend the wisdom of experience with the exuberance of innocence. We’ll flip the hourglass to enjoy a few selections from operetta, including a concert overture on themes from Franz Lehár’s “The Merry Widow,” a duet from Oscar Straus’ “A Waltz Dream,” and the irresistible “Song of the Laugh,” an insert aria employed in Sidney Jones’ “The Geisha,” in a vintage recording, performed by Ukrainian soprano Claudia Novikova. Trust me, it will put a smile on your face.
In addition, we’ll have some variations on the familiar New Year’s melody “Auld Lang Syne” – one a playful multi-movement set in the styles of different composers by Franz Waxman (who wrote scores for such classic films as “The Bride of Frankenstein,” “Sunset Boulevard,” and “The Nun’s Story”), conceived for an informal New Year’s Eve get-together with his neighbor, Jascha Heifetz, and friends; the other, an orchestral showpiece incorporating parodies of no less than 129 familiar melodies, by British Light Music master Ernest Tomlinson.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who enjoyed a successful run of reviving the operettas of Johann Strauss II, brought some of that same breezy Old World elegance to his own Hollywood film scores, proving that you can take the composer out of Vienna, but you can’t take Vienna out of the composer, as demonstrated in his “Flirtation Waltz” from the 1936 Errol Flynn classic “The Prince and the Pauper.”
With only days left in 2024, Father Time still has a few tricks up his sleeve. I hope you’ll join me in raising a mimosa (or two) to the old man this week on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Stream it wherever you are at the link:
I hope you’ll join me on this Saturday morning, the last of 2023, for some uplifting music calculated to charm and to cheer, on an all-new episode of “Sweetness and Light.”
We’ll enjoy selections from operetta, including a concert overture on themes from Franz Lehár’s “The Merry Widow,” a duet from Oscar Straus’ “A Waltz Dream,” and the irresistible “Song of the Laugh,” an insert aria employed in Sidney Jones’ “The Geisha,” in a vintage recording, performed by Ukrainian soprano Claudia Novikova. Trust me, it will put a smile on your face!
In addition, we’ll have some variations on the familiar New Year’s melody “Auld Lang Syne” – one a playful multi-movement set in the styles of different composers by Franz Waxman (who wrote scores for such classic films as “The Bride of Frankenstein,” “Sunset Boulevard,” and “The Nun’s Story”), conceived for an informal New Year’s Eve get-together with his neighbor, Jascha Heifetz, and friends; the other, an orchestral showpiece incorporating parodies of no less than 129 familiar melodies, by British Light Music master Ernest Tomlinson.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who enjoyed a successful run of reviving the operettas of Johann Strauss II, brought some of that same breezy Old World elegance to his own Hollywood film scores, proving that you can take the composer out of Vienna, but you can’t take Vienna out of the composer, as demonstrated in his “Flirtation Waltz” from the 1936 Errol Flynn classic “The Prince and the Pauper.”
I’ll be wishing you a sweet New Year this week on “Sweetness and Light.” Sweeten your morning and lighten your spirit by listening to it on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon, this morning at 11:00 Eastern Time (8:00 on the West Coast). Stream it effortlessly at the link!
This week on “Picture Perfect,” spring into the new year with an hour of time travel adventures!
Look forward – and back – to selections from “The Time Machine” (1960) by Russell Garcia, “Time After Time” (1979) by Miklós Rózsa, “Somewhere in Time” (1980) by John Barry, and “Back to the Future” (1985) by Alan Silvestri.
It’s a time travel toddy for New Year’s, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
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