Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Picture Perfect

Ten Commandments Score 60th Anniversary

For the 60th anniversary of Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments,” the Intrada label has handed down, like stone tablets from Mount Sinai, a definitive, 6-CD box set of music from the film. The collection includes the complete 2 ½ hour score, three commercial soundtrack releases, and bonus material intriguing enough to curl Charlton Heston’s beard.

This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll share lovingly remastered selections from the 1960 Dot and 1966 United Artist soundtrack re-recordings, the Pillar of Fire and parting of the Red Sea sequence from the actual film, and rare demos, prepared for Mr. DeMille by the composer, Elmer Bernstein, who will introduce his themes from the piano.

So let it be written, so let it be done! Join me for the definitive “The Ten Commandments,” on “Picture Perfect,” this Friday evening at 6 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.

April 7, 2017
Oscar Music Special on WWFM

This week on “Picture Perfect,” join me for a special, two-hour edition, as we anticipate the 89th Academy Awards. We’ll hear selections from the five nominees for Best Original Score (“Jackie,” “La La Land,” “Lion,” “Moonlight,” and “Passengers”), alongside music from established, Oscar-winning classics, like “Lawrence of Arabia,” “The Godfather,” and “Gone with the Wind,” and more recent favorites, like “Titanic,” “The Lord of the Rings,” and “The Hateful Eight.”

You supply the popcorn. I’ll cue the music, this Friday evening from 6 to 8 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.

February 24, 2017
Steampunk Movie Scores on Picture Perfect

This week on “Picture Perfect,” things get pretty steamy, though not in the way you might think. We’ll have an hour of scores from films exemplifying the science fiction subgenre known as “steampunk.”

Generally speaking, steampunk employs forward-looking technologies and gadgetry – in many cases literally powered by steam – in incongruous, quasi-Victorian settings.

We’ll hear selections from Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” (2011), with its abundant gears, steam, and free-writing automaton, with music by Howard Shore; “The Golden Compass” (2007), with its carriages, old-fashioned air ships and vintage arctic gear, with music by Alexandre Desplat; “Wild Wild West” (1999), with its cowboys, proto-James Bond gadgetry and Gustave Eiffel-style iron spider, with music by Elmer Bernstein; and “Time After Time” (1979), with one of the genre’s spiritual fathers, H.G.Wells, as an actual character, who pursues Jack the Ripper to the present day via a time machine of his creation, with music by Miklós Rózsa.

We’re powered by steampunk this week, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Friday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Battling a giant iron spider from a flying bicycle? It must be steampunk!

February 3, 2017
Sabatini, Swashbucklers & Silver Screen Gold

Though Rafael Sabatini’s popularity has faded somewhat over the decades, in his day the Italian-English writer might have been regarded as the heir apparent to Alexandre Dumas. His bestselling novels are full of romance and swordplay. However, I’m not sure if any of them have really endured in the public consciousness.

Sabatini’s incident-filled pages seem ready-made for the silver screen. Film adaptations of “Scaramouche,” “The Sea Hawk” and “Captain Blood” were made during the silent era. A long-lost John Gilbert classic, adapted from Sabatini’s “Bardelys the Magnificent,” has only recently been rediscovered. Several of these, of course, were remade, more or less, to great success during the era of talking pictures.

This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll hear Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s music for the Errol Flynn classics “Captain Blood” (1935) and “The Sea Hawk” (1940). The former film provided Flynn with his breakout role; the latter actually has nothing at all to do with Sabatini’s original plot, despite his onscreen credit.

We’ll also enjoy Alfred Newman’s rollicking main title music for the pirate opus “The Black Swan” (1942), which starred Tyrone Power, and one of Victor Young’s most rousing and melodically inventive scores, for “Scaramouche” (1952), which featured Stewart Granger in probably the best swashbuckler of the 1950s.

“Picture Perfect” sets sail at 6:00 this evening. Tune in a little earlier to enjoy a broadcast concert by Concordia Chamber Players, as always compellingly curated by the ensemble’s artistic director, Michelle Djokic.

The program will include one of Korngold’s finest chamber works, his Suite for Two Violins, Cello and Piano Left-Hand, written for the one-armed Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein (for whom Ravel wrote his famous piano concerto); also the String Quartet No. 1 by Korngold’s teacher, Alexander Zemlinsky. Glenn Smith will be your host for this special concert, which will come your way at a special time.

You’ll get two faces of Korngold today, with Concordia Chamber Players at 4 p.m. EST and on “Picture Perfect” at 6 p.m., on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.

January 20, 2017
Big Cats & Movie Music Picture Perfect

Any excuse to get “The Wind and the Lion” and “The Leopard” in the same show…

This week on “Picture Perfect,” the focus will be on metaphorical big cats.

Simone Simon’s barely repressed desires are made manifest in Val Lewton’s “Cat People” (1942). Lewton was a master of suggestion, with a majority of the horrors in his films imagined, rather than seen. Part of the approach was practical, the result of shoestring budgets imposed by RKO. Whatever the case, the insinuating weirdness undeniably produced psychological chills. In fact, it was only as a concession to the studio that a literal big cat was included at all. The music was by RKO workhorse Roy Webb.

Sean Connery plays a Berber chieftain who faces off against Teddy Roosevelt in “The Wind and the Lion” (1975). In a letter to Roosevelt (played in the film by Brian Keith), Connery’s character writes, “I, like the lion, must stay in my place, while you, like the wind, will never know yours.” Jerry Goldsmith provided one of his best scores for the Moroccan adventure. In fact, he was fairly confident he finally had a lock on the Oscar. He experienced a harsh reality check when he went to see “Jaws.” (Goldsmith would win his only Academy Award the following year for his music to “The Omen.”)

Luchino Visconti’s epic telling of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s “The Leopard” (1963) is a melancholy exploration of the fading Sicilian aristocracy. A bewhiskered Burt Lancaster plays Prince Fabrizio, who feels himself slipping into obsolescence. Nino Rota gives the film a full-blooded, operatic soundtrack, full of lyricism and pathos.

Finally, Lyn Murray provides the breezy accompaniment for Alfred Hitchcock’s “To Catch a Thief” (1955), with Cary Grant a reformed burglar, known as The Cat, who attempts to clear himself of some “copycat” crimes while romancing Grace Kelly on the French Riviera. It was Murray who introduced Hitchcock to Bernard Herrmann, when the director was looking for a composer for “The Trouble with Harry.” He described the meeting as love at first sight. Herrmann and Hitch would work together on seven more films.

The cat’s out of the bag this week, on “Picture Perfect” – music for the movies – this Friday evening at 6 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.

September 30, 2016

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