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Williams/Lucas: from Star Wars,
The Empire Strikes Back and The Phantom Menace
Stravinsky/Disney: The Firebird (depicted
in Fantasia 2000)
Herrmann/Hitchcock: from Vertigo,
North By Northwest
Rodgers/Hammerstein: South Pacific (Scenes)
By Elizabeth Weinfield
New York’s hippest orchestra returns
to The Town Hall in March 2007, one year after its triumphant
debut, with a theatrical bill designed to wow any audience
and make it sing. “We could hardly wait to come back
to Town Hall,” says violinist Sarah Badavas, when the
news of the rebooking spread through the orchestra. Many
will remember last year’s surprising encore in which
conductor, Sung Jin Hong, asked his long-time partner, managing
director, Adrienne Metzinger, for her hand in marriage. The
audience’s roar of applause rivaled their shouts of “Mambo!” which
had echoed through the hall, accompanying the orchestra in West
Side Story earlier in the program. Another life-altering
event this year? “Well, maybe not a marriage proposal,” laughs
Hong, “but I guarantee you there will be plenty of
surprises up our sleeves!” A program dominated by film
music presents the orchestra with the opportunity to experiment
with theatricality, and in this sense it reveals Hong and
his musicians at their best. As the ensemble brings to the
fore what is, in essence, meant as background, they fulfill
the mission of this orchestra: to inspire, engage and explore
the universality of music by inviting participation.
Bernard Herrmann’s reputation may today
be outshone by that of his co-collaborator, Alfred Hitchcock,
but the two men equal one another in artistic significance.
Hermann was an advocate of contemporary music, and as the
Chief Conductor for the CBS Symphony Orchestra, a role he
would take on in 1943, he did more to introduce the American
audience to new music than any other conductor before him.
In his film music, a novel orchestration results from his
meticulous desire to have the score stand on its own. Such
is the case in Herrmann’s score for Vertigo,
considered one of the best scores in cinematic history. While
Hitchcock manipulates the cinematography, famously distorting
the perspective that gives the film its title, Hermann employs
Wagnerian melodies than unearth the deeply rooted powers
of the human condition, all of which cast a more probing
light onto the interpretation of the film. This is particularly
powerful in the Scène d’amour, where
a theme reminiscent of Tristan und Isolde betrays
an obsessive love.
With every interpretation since its controversial
première by Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Paris
in 1910, music from Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The
Firebird continually redefines its own modernity. “Watch
him well,” Diaghilev is said to have remarked of the
composer and of his avante-garde approach to the tonal environment.“He
is a man on the eve of celebrity.” From the harsh rhythmic
pulsations in the brass and strings to the sexy, French-inspired
tonality that sifts through the winds, every instrument is
personified, veritably choreographed for the stage. The plot
depicts the tumultuous journey of Prince Ivan to the magical
realm of the Kastchei; the hero eventually meets the Firebird
and falls victim to infernal dances and sleep-inducing wizardry.
In addition to the original 50-minute ballet score, the piece
now exists in three suites for orchestra that Stravinsky
arranged for the concert stage. Today’s performance
makes use of the 1919 version, the most commonly performed
arrangement.
South Pacific had its première
on Broadway on April 7, 1949, with original music by Richard
Rogers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. Based on two short
stories by James A. Michener, the musical was awarded the
Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1950 and would run on Broadway
for over five years. Rogers and Hammerstein collaborated
successfully as a duo throughout the 1940s and 1950s, creating
a total of nine musicals together during the so-called “Golden
Age” of Broadway, and a legacy in the genre that has
yet to be equaled.
Music from the original epic trilogyStar
Wars would not only win John Williams both an Academy
and a Grammy Award, but it would also propel into the cultural
consciousness a universal music, uniting fans everywhere
and inspiring them alike. Williams was born in Los Angeles
and studied piano at the Juilliard School in New York,
where he supported himself as a jazz musician before devoting
himself entirely to film collaboration. A prosperous professional
relationship with director, Stephen Spielberg, would eventually
lead Williams to George Lucas, creator and director of Star
Wars, for which he would create a score selected in
2005 by the American Film Institute as the greatest American
movie score of all time. Like Bernard Herrmann before him,
Williams employs the Wagnerian concept of leitmotiv: each
character is given his or her own thematic music, a device
that allows the listener to recognize film’s protagonists
and predict their interactions.
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One
World Symphony welcomes you …Back… to The Town
Hall!