Classic Ross Amico

Tag: WPRB

Disney’s Fantasia: A Glorious Folly at 75

Try to forget for the moment that – between the acquisition of Marvel, The Muppets, Pixar, Star Wars and ABC (to say nothing of the cruises, resorts and theme parks) – Disney now owns the world. “A Night on Bald Mountain” was NOT intended as autobiography. This morning, we cast our thoughts back to simpler times when a visionary animator threw caution to the winds to forge “a new style of motion picture presentation.”

A guaranteed money-loser from the start, “Fantasia” was spared no expense as it pushed the state of animation, audio reproduction and family entertainment. There was no way, with the possibility of overseas distribution curtailed by World War II, this was going to be anything other than a quixotic venture. When was the last time Disney took a gamble on a scale of “Fantasia?” Now it’s considered bold if they adapt a comic book that’s not “Iron Man.”

I hope you’ll join me his morning as we celebrate the 75th anniversary of Disney’s most glorious “folly,” released on November 13, 1940. We’ll have abundant recordings of Leopold Stokowski, some made for the film (in experimental stereophonic sound), some earlier (in glorious mono) and some later, from his “Phase Four” period and beyond.

It’s all Stokie from 6 to 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM or online at wprb.com. Chernobog requests your presence, on Classic Ross Amico.

November 12, 2015
Fantasia’s Rite & Princeton Girlchoir Benefit

We’re fighting for the “Rite” to party this week. Coming up in just a few minutes, we’ll hear a vintage recording of the Philadelphia Orchestra performing “The Rite of Spring,” as we continue our celebration of the 75th anniversary of Walt Disney’s “Fantasia,” which was released on November 13, 1940.

Also keeping us young at heart, representatives of Princeton Girlchoir will drop by at around 9:30 to tell us about the group’s upcoming benefit concert, “Children Making a Difference,” which will be held at Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton this Saturday at 5:00. You can find out more about it at http://www.princetongirlchoir.org.

It’s all recordings conducted by Leopold Stokowski this morning, until 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM and online at wprb.com.

November 12, 2015
Fantasia’s 75th Anniversary Celebration

This week marks the 75th anniversary of the release of Walt Disney’s “Fantasia.” The film, of course, is made up of eight animated sequences, ranging from the comical to the visionary, set to a Chernobog’s handful of the world’s classics, performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of Leopold Stokowski.

Tomorrow morning on WPRB, we mark the event with vintage performances of music presented in the film, alongside additional works, all conducted by Stokowski.

“Fantasia” was first rolled out as a 13-city theatrical roadshow on November 13, 1940. A curio and a money-loser at the time of its release, its artistic vision, episodic, often non-narrative structure, and expense, in terms of both production and the installation of special equipment during its initial tour (“Fantasia” was the first commercial film presented in stereophonic sound) ensured that it couldn’t possibly recoup its costs, especially during wartime.

However, subsequent decades have solidified the film’s stature as a cult classic, reissued many times, so that it now stands, when adjusted for inflation, as the 22nd most profitable film in U.S. entertainment history.

The creative marriage of Disney and Stokowski was bound to yield fascinating results. Disney envisioned “a new style of motion picture presentation” that would bring classical music to an audience (among which he included himself) that ordinarily “walked out on this kind of stuff.”

Stokowski would prove to be an ideal choice. The conductor’s ability to conjure unusual colors from one of the world’s finest orchestras was captured on eight optical sound recording machines over seven weeks at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music. This kind of thing simply wasn’t done in 1939!

The development of “Fantasound” pioneered simultaneous multi-track recording, overdubbing and noise reduction techniques, all processes still in wide use today.

I hope you’ll join me tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 ET, as we celebrate the 75th anniversary of “Fantasia,” on WPRB 103.3 FM and online at wprb.com. We vicariously shake hands with the Mouse, on Classic Ross Amico.

November 11, 2015
Left-Handed Piano Music From WPRB

“I’d give my right arm to be ambidextrous” – one of the many quotes attributed to the late Yogi Berra, master of the malaprop, emperor of the oxymoron, and crown prince of the paradox.

Tune in this morning to enjoy left-handed rarities composed for Paul Wittgenstein, the remarkable Austrian pianist who lost his right arm in the First World War. Yet to come: music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Sergei Bortkiewicz, and a work by Paul Hindemith that was locked away in a trunk, unheard, for 80 years.

We’ll also hear Siegfried Rapp, another pianist who was maimed during the war, performing music of Bohuslav Martinu, originally written for Otakar Hollmann, who was shot in the right hand, and a concerto by Ned Rorem composed for Gary Graffman, whose two-handed career was curtailed by focal dystonia.

These pianists who met with misfortune brought us lots of glorious music, commissioned from some of the great composers of their day. It’s all piano music for the left hand until 11 ET on WPRB 103.3 FM and online at wprb.com.

November 5, 2015
Paul Wittgenstein Left-Hand Legacy on WPRB

An accurate assessment of the contributions of Paul Wittgenstein (1887-1961) is bound to come across as a left-handed compliment. Only, as applied to Wittgenstein, the concept is perhaps not entirely negative.

Tomorrow is the birthday anniversary of this remarkable Austrian pianist, who lost his right arm during the First World War. Rather than let it hamper his career, he went on to commission some of the great composers of his day to write new works for the left hand alone. The most famous of these is the “Concerto for the Left Hand” by Maurice Ravel.

Tomorrow morning on WPRB, we’ll have an opportunity to listen to a number of these, including works by Sergei Bortkiewicz, Benjamin Britten, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Sergei Prokofiev, Franz Schmidt, and Richard Strauss. We’ll also hear the world premiere recording, made by Leon Fleisher – another famous pianist who’s had right hand issues – of “Klaviermusik mit Orchester” by Paul Hindemith, a piece rediscovered in a Pennsylvania farmhouse, following the death of Wittgenstein’s widow, only in 2002.

Wittgenstein had his limitations. He had very conservative tastes in music and rejected some of the works he commissioned, like the Prokofiev and the Hindemith, which he deemed too modern. Since he owned the exclusive performance rights, this often led to the works going unheard for decades. Also, the recordings we have of him performing the Ravel concerto will undoubtedly raise a few eyebrows with the pianist’s “improvements” to what is already a perfect work, likely the best of its kind.

But he had an iron will to flourish, where many would have lapsed into despair, and the good sense to use the Wittgenstein fortune to enrich the repertoire in general and the left hand literature in particular.

As time allows, we’ll also hear works championed by Siegfried Rapp and Otakar Hollman, two other pianists maimed in the war, as well as pieces written for Fleisher and Gary Graffman, modern day keyboard artists who’ve grappled with focal dystonia, and a few unrelated left-hand contributions by earlier composers such as Johannes Brahms, Camille Saint-Saëns and Alexander Scriabin.

I hope you’ll me tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 ET, at WPRB 103.3 FM or online at wprb.com. We lend a hand to Paul Wittgenstein on Classic Ross Amico.

November 4, 2015

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