Film Score Friday 3/3/00
by Lukas Kendall
We've lost another one -- George Duning passed away Sunday, February
27 of cardiovascular disease at the age of 92. He did most of his feature
work at Columbia Pictures (where he was under contract for 16 years) and
was nominated for five Oscars, for Picnic, From Here to Eternity, The
Eddy Duchin Story, No Sad Songs for Me and Jolson Sings Again.
Among his two hundred other feature scores: 3:10 to Yuma, Salome
(oops -- I almost typed "Salmon"), The World of Suzie Wong
(now on CD from RCA in Spain), Any Wednesday, Bell Book and Candle
and Houseboat. He also wrote television scores for Star Trek,
The Big Valley, Naked City and others. Two of his Star Trek
scores have been recorded, "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" and
"The Empath"; the others are "Return to Tomorrow,"
"Metamorphosis" (which is absolutely beautiful) and "And
the Children Shall Lead."
Duning's background was in jazz and his most memorable scores combined
light orchestrations with indelible melodies and jazz harmonies. Sadly
he is not well represented on CD, but Picnic is recommended as a
great budget-priced disc for those wishing to sample his work. Duning received
the Career Achievement Award from the Society for the Preservation of Film
Music (now The Film Music Society) in 1987; in recent years he had been
largely incapacitated due to the effects of a stroke.
A full obituary will follow in the hardcopy magazine of Film Score Monthly.
Bill Conti at SCL Concert
Bill Conti will appear as special guest composer-conductor at the Second
Annual SCL/UCLA Intern Concert next Wednesday, March 8. He will premiere
the wind ensemble version of his "Trumpet Concerto" and also
present music from The Right Stuff; trumpet soloist, Jon Lewis. Also on
the program from the UCLA Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Dr. Thomas
Lee: Leonard Bernstein's "Overture to Candide," John Cacavas'
"Boris Godunov," John Williams' "Saving Private Ryan,"
Philip Sparke's "Dance Movement," and a special arrangement by
the three UCLA interns of Marc Shaiman's "The American President,"
Jerry Goldsmith's "Chinatown," and John Barry's "Dances
With Wolves."
The evening will include a reception starting at 6:00PM with entertainment
by UCLA Chamber Groups, a dinner, concert at 8:30 and post concert reception
Tickets are available for $100.00 per person. For more information and
reservations, call Ben Boish, SCL Administrator at: 310.281.2812 ext.#3.
Ennio Morricone Live in Ghent
The Flanders International Film Festival -- Ghent will present an Ennio
Morricone concert on June 9 featuring the Maestro conducting Belgium's
National Orchestra and both the Cantabile - Rondinella and Vivente Voce
choirs. The first half of the concert will feature Morricone's original
score to the 1912 silent film, Richard III, and the second half will feature
an anthology of the composer's work. The event takes place on the eve of
Euro 2000, the European Football Championship in Belgium and The Netherlands.
From the Festival's press release:
This unique concert takes place on June 9, 2000, at 8pm, in Kuipke
(aka Sportpaleis Ghent). Admissions: 950 Bf, 1300 Bf, 1600 Bf, en 2000
Bf. Tickets are available at all Fnac stores in Belgium and France. Ticket
hotline 0900-00600 (in Belgium only!), and +329-2428060 (from abroad).
Reservation fee: 50 Bf,- at Fnac; 75 Bf,- (telephone + mailing).
Addinsell Reviews
See Harry Long's CD reviews of Richard
Addinsell's work last Monday.
From: "Dennis Logsdon" <logied@mediaone.net>
For those score fans who can't write to express there musical views
like me, I commend FSM for once in a while presenting an on the mark review
like this one. I like the history presented with the review so that a time
and place can be put with the result. The reviewer does not drag down the
CDs by to many comparisons and presents them as they stand on their own.
Nice job.
From: "David Wishart" <musickco@musickco.screaming.net>
I'm glad that Harry Long has highlighted the music of Richard Addinsell.
There is now also a second volume of Addinsell on ASV Records. Whilst my
old friend and colleague Kenneth Alwyn has great enthusiasm for Addinsell's
music, the driving force behind all of the recent recordings of Addinsell
is producer and "musical reconstructuralist" Philip Lane. Whilst
Harry may long for more substantial suites from certain of Addinsell's
film scores the target audience for these discs really verges on the "light
music" side ... and generally folks seem very content with the length
of the given suites (the albums have been successful). A great deal of
the music on these discs has had to be totally reconstructed by Philip,
and it is one thing to arrange and reconstruct a ten minute suite - but
quite another to totally reconstitute an hour-long score! One published
suite - Under Capricorn (which I premiered on disc about seven years ago)
- was put together by hands other than Addinsell's at the time of the film's
original release. Addinsell was a favourite with film producers because
he could instantly capture (and play for them on the piano) the precise
type of music they were looking for; he was a genius at scoring films -
but, alas, he could not orchestrate, and looked to other talents to do
this for him. The three albums of Addinsell's film and TV music currently
available contain very attractive music - and I would guess this is Addinsell's
strength - his gift for melody; delve deeper into his film music, provide
more esoteric or involved selections, and the magic, for many people, may
evaporate.
Question
If anybody knows the answer, please write in. I'm stumped!
From: James J Perry <jperry000@juno.com>
I host a weekly radio show "Music from the Silver Screen"
broadcast out of Trinity University in San Antonio, TX. I hoping you can
help me answer a listener's query.
He asked if Catherine Deneuve used her own voice for the singing
or was she dubbed in the 1964 film "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg"
directed by Jacques Demy. I used your website to out if CD's of the Michel
Legrand are available. Looks like they are. I'll pass that information
on to my listener and the answer to his question if you can help.
I enjoy the website muchly.
Links
Our Japanese-language
companion site now has a translation of Jeff Bond's article on the
Iron Giant film score ("Iron Mike") from our August 1999 issue
(hardcopy only). Iron Giant will be released in Japan on April 15 where
maybe it will be promoted this time.
Roger Hall has a new message board at his site, Film Music Review, since
it will still be some time before we get our FSM board back running again.
Visit Film Music Soundstage at http://hometown.aol.com/MusBuff/page2.htm.
Finally, see Soundtrack.net for a review of our new Flim
Flam Man CD: http://www.soundtrack.net/soundtracks/database/?id=2403
Happy weekend!
MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com
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