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Posted: |
Jan 11, 2005 - 3:51 PM
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By: |
swoony
(Member)
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Brooklyn Philharmonic at BAM
BROOKLYN GOES HOLLYWOOD
Saturday, January 15, 2005 at 8 PM
John Mauceri, conductor
Bernard Hermann: Prelude to North By Northwest (3’)
Aaron Copland: The Heiress—Suite (8’)
Arnold Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony No. 2 (22’)
Bernard Hermann: Psycho—A Narrative for Orchestra (14’)
Arnold Schoenberg: Theme and Variations Op. 43b (14’)
George Gershwin: Shall We Dance—Watch Your Step Ballet (New York Premiere)
John Corigliano: Altered States—Love Theme (Timing TBD)
Join us with Hollywood Bowl Music Director John Mauceri as we celebrate the great Brooklyn-born composers whose works have made the silver screen sing, from the heyday of blockbuster musicals to our own times. George Gershwin’s last orchestral work was for the movie Shall We Dance, and Aaron Copland’s score for The Heiress was just one of many he wrote for feature films and documentaries. Bernard Hermann’s Psycho and The Man Who Knew Too Much were among his great scores for Alfred Hitchcock. John Corigliano’s music for Altered States caused a sensation in 1980. We also feature two tonal late works of Arnold Schoenberg, himself a Hollywood resident and a teacher of George Gershwin!
*All concerts are preceded by Musical Chairs, pre-concert chats with members of the Brooklyn Philharmonic one hour prior to concert time.
*The concert will be followed by For Good Measure, post-concert dialogues with special guests including composers, soloists and others.
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Posted: |
Jan 16, 2005 - 3:53 AM
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By: |
Howard L
(Member)
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He really wowed 'em in Brooklyn, didn't he!
Just got back from my first trip ever to the Brooklyn Academy of Music (I finally hit Flatbush Ave. in real life!). The concert took place in the lovely Howard Gilman Opera House.
Our man The Mouch blew the place down. It was great! The verve with which he swiped the baton was matched by the panache with which he delivered between-piece intros and anecdotes. He’s utterly charming and overflowing with wit.
The program has already been posted so let me throw in a few brief highlights: you just don't get a better opener than the Prelude to North By Northwest, especially when This Man's ear told him it was at the precise tempo of the music as heard in the film. The Schoenberg Chamber Symphony No.2, Op. 38 earned a well-deserved extended applause. I found the Adagio highly reminiscent in mood of Moby Dick. Perhaps Schoenberg was also an influence on Sainton; the Con fuoco movement certainly was evidence of the Schoenberg influence on the Herrmann Twilight Zone psyche.
Psycho – A Narrative for String Orchestra proved a lifelong dream i.e. man, watch 'em slash them bows! Oh, what a performance. And the Gershwin number truly brought down the house.
At the conclusion of the program, audience members who remained were indeed treated to a post-concert talk a la James Lipton which they call "FOR GOOD MEASURE." Mr. Mauceri fielded questions; Yours Truly asked him if he had any particular yen for conducting film music in accordance with the tempo as heard in the picture. He seemed pretty into it while responding (of course it wasn't any match for how much I was into listening to him), mentioning how he does consult soundtracks but believes it is fine to wield interpretive powers all the same.
When the session ended, I and a few others approached the stage and just as I was about to extend a handshake, he looked up and exclaimed, "Skitch! Skitch!" Well, there's only one Skitch I know of and sure enough it was make way for the legendary Skitch Henderson. These two guys really appeared to be the best of old friends who hadn't seen each other in quite a while. Mauceri told Mr. Henderson where he lives and the latter wanted to take down the info. Boy, is Ma gonna be jealous when I tell her I met Skitch Henderson and loaned him my pen (note to our UK friends: it was my Harrod’s special!). He said thanks before taking off.
ANYWAY, I finally got my chance to introduce myself to Mr. Mauceri and let him know what a pleasure it was to see and hear him and the Philharmonic in action. He really is a very nice guy.
And what an added pleasure it was not to have to travel all the way to the West Coast to take in his act. Man, I gotta do this more often!
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Posted: |
Jan 19, 2005 - 2:13 AM
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By: |
Howard L
(Member)
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Getting back to the concert: yesterday I was unable to get "Shall We Dance" out of my head. I know I recorded the flick off of [traditional] AMC many moons ago. Gonna have to dig that video out just to play the ballet. What a corker.
And speaking of asking questions, I arrived a tad too late to attend the pre-concert chat with orchestra members as the small room was already overflowing. One of the staff told me that they will go for a larger room next concert; they weren't expecting so much interest. Anyway, I was hoping to ask if individual orchestra members might be a little more juiced up when it comes to Gershwin and/or film music. I think my question was answered during the evening by the Concertmaster. He seemed overly psyched, really into it. Of course, if that's his usual mien...
Oh, and during the Mauceri chat he called for John Waxman to take a bow, but Son of Franz had apparently left already. Just as well, I'd have tracked him down later and the two of us would probably still be talking right now. At least I would!
Finally, the lady talking to Mauceri before my turn asked him why he hadn't included an Elmer Bernstein piece tonight. Mauceri feigned mock disgust and said he couldn't include every Brooklyn-born composer in a 2-hour program.
Me, I woulda turned her around and got into her face ("Lady, who're you, JOAN HUE er somethin'?").
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Posted: |
Jan 19, 2005 - 5:21 PM
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By: |
Howard L
(Member)
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from today's NY Times:
A Symphonic Night at the Movies, Without the Movies
By BERNARD HOLLAND
A few years into the last century a number of musicians started thinking that art for art's sake wasn't such a good idea after all. They had had enough of musical heroism, big-bang tragedy and heaven storming. Music would be an asset to our daily lives, like toothpaste or automobile transmissions. Paul Hindemith codified a new stylistic camp and even gave it a name: "Gebrauchsmusik" or roughly "music to be made use of."
Nowhere has the conflict between old habits of veneration and new ones of practicality been more ambiguous and ambivalent than in the sound studios of Hollywood. John Mauceri - an excellent conductor and charming public speaker - brought these matters before a large, warm audience at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Saturday night. The Brooklyn Philharmonic was opening its 50th season, and the music was by Schoenberg, Copland, Gershwin, John Corigliano and Bernard Herrmann.
Does this music stand on its own feet, alone on a concert stage and deprived of the moving images it is meant to support? Is it supposed to? Put another way, if movie music transmits a genius of its own, is this just incidental, or even accidental. What purpose, you may ask, has a splendidly engineered transmission with no car to put it in?
Leaping out from this program was Gershwin's finale to the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie "Shall We Dance." This was not surprising given its nature. Indeed, the sequence, called "Watch Your Step," leads; it does not follow. Call it an extended dance scene or a ballet, as the program does, Gershwin's exuberant and ingenious music is the progenitor here; dancers draw their decisions from it, not the other way around.
Listening to Herrmann's "Psycho - a Narrative for String Orchestra" was to better appreciate the subtle shifts of string color ("black-and-white instrumentation for a black-and-white movie," as Mr. Mauceri pointed out). It let us admire again the squealing murder-in-the-shower scene. But one also had to recognize the limitations of Hermann's long, not very interesting stretches of dotted rhythm, all of which assuredly served Alfred Hitchcock's story board well.
Copland's music from "The Heiress" incorporated dutifully, but never very comfortably, the movie's theme song, "Parlez-Moi d'Amour." The snippet from Mr. Corigliano's "Altered States" was lovely. Then there was Schoenberg exotica: the Chamber Symphony No. 2 and the "Theme and Variations." Schoenberg, like his Los Angeles neighbor Stravinsky, yearned for the fame and especially the fortune of film music, but being of an older school he could not conceive of turning his finished product over to studio editors.
Both Schoenberg items were graciously tonal but still difficult to listen to. Maybe the problem in his other music is less the 12-tone language, more the claustrophobic density. The Brooklyn Philharmonic bravely announced its new season which, sorry to say, is a wan retreat from the high ambitions of a few years ago. I hope this orchestra finds its way if only for the employment it gives to first-class freelance musicians.
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}