The second half of Thanksgiving is giving. I hope, if you’re in a position to do so, you will donate to a charitable cause of your choice this Giving Tuesday. And I especially hope you will remember all the animals who, for good or for ill, are subject to man’s whims. Wherever you decide to give, may it be to a cause that tries to make the world a better place, or a kinder one.
Tag: Thanksgiving
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Thanksgiving Music Movie Americana
There’s more to Thanksgiving than just turkey and football. This week on “Picture Perfect,” we count our blessings and aspire to do better, with music from movies reflective of what’s best in human nature and most admirable in the American character.
Aaron Copland’s work on “The Cummington Story” (1945), a semi-documentary produced by the Office of War Information, underscores the gradual acceptance of European war refugees into a cautious but fundamentally decent New England community. The music is pure Americana, with some of the material later finding its way into Copland’s Clarinet Concerto and “Down a Country Lane.”
“Field of Dreams” (1989) is one of those rare films that has the ability to reduce manly men – even those without father issues – to a pool of tears. Phil Alden Robinson’s superior adaptation of W.P. Kinsella’s novel, “Shoeless Joe,” is a male wish-fulfillment fantasy, in which a man finds redemption, and a new understanding of his father, in the enchanted cornfields of America’s heartland. And it’s all brought about courtesy of America’s pastime, baseball. The evocative score, much indebted to Copland, is by James Horner.
“The Best Years of Our Lives” (1946) is one of the great American classics. This touching film tells the tale of the three WWII veterans struggling to readjust to civilian life. It isn’t easy, but with the support of family and friends, there’s plenty of hope for the future. Hugo Friedhofer wrote the Academy Award-winning score, earning the film one of its seven Oscars. The orchestrations were by Copland protégé (and composer of “The Big Country”) Jerome Moross.
Finally, Daniel Day-Lewis elevates Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” (2012) to greatness with one of the uncanniest performances ever captured on film. Day-Lewis’ gentle but shrewd Man of Destiny would go to any lengths to hold the country together. John Williams taps into America’s proud musical heritage, clearly influenced by Copland and Ives to create a score of stirring nobility.
I hope you’ll join me as we give thanks for family, community and country 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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Happy Thanksgiving Gratitude and Aaron Copland
Thankful for friends past and present, family alive and gone, good health, and a more-or-less fortunate life. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
Aaron Copland got mail:
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Vivaldi’s Turkey Concerto Thanksgiving Gem
And so it begins: bracing for that first step onto the greased slide through the Crazy House. January 2, where art thou?
To get you in the proper mindset for Thanksgiving, here’s a rarely-heard work by Antonio Vivaldi.
The story goes that it was Igor Stravinsky who quipped that Vivaldi wrote the same concerto 500 times. Without making claim to having heard all of them, I have to say, they seem to be of uniformly high quality, if in binge-listening they do tend to become a mite indistinguishable. Would “The Four Seasons” ever have gained the traction it has without its programmatic associations?
Anyone familiar with classical music can tell you that concertos and symphonies with nicknames tend to have a better chance of getting played or at the very least remembered.
A few years ago, one of my colleagues was searching through the station’s CD library, when he stumbled across an album titled “Viva Vivaldi: The Unknown Gems” (Centaur Records #3299). From this disc, we were astonished to learn of a certain “Turkey” Concerto, RV 506.
It turns out the canny artists themselves named it such, because of the “fiendish, cascading broken third passages in the solo lines in the 3rd movement.” In any case, it’s a good way to get your disc played. On reflection, why should a nickname bestowed in the 18th century be any more valid?
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Picture Perfect Thanksgiving Movie Music
Thanks to the support of listeners like you, we were able to make our 7-day goal of $70,000 yesterday, and the WWFM fall fund drive has concluded. Thank you again for your continued generosity! Here’s to a holiday season full of inspiring and cozy classics.
My movie music show, “Picture Perfect,” ordinarily broadcast on Saturdays at 6 p.m. EST, was to have been preempted this past week, because of fundraising obligations. But then we wound up making our quota for the day, and the show aired after all!
Due to the last-minute change in plans, the announcement wasn’t posted on Facebook until 6:00. I suspect very few people, beyond those actually listening to the station at the time, knew to tune-in in to be able to hear it.
Therefore, here’s a link to the webcast, which might serve as an appropriate soundtrack to your Thanksgiving preparations. Enjoy selections from “Friendly Persuasion” (Dimitri Tiomkin), “Our Town” (Aaron Copland), “Plymouth Adventure” (Miklós Rózsa), and the building-the-barn sequence from “Witness” (Maurice Jarre). And if you’re so inclined, save me a piece of pie.
https://www.wwfm.org/post/picture-perfect-never-too-early-give-thanks
Thank you for your continued support of WWFM – The Classical Network, and Happy Thanksgiving.
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