by Jarrett Hoffman
HAPPENING TODAY:
At noon, stop by Trinity Cathedral or hop online for a Brownbag Concert featuring Britten’s seasonal masterpiece A Ceremony of Carols (freewill offering).
Then at 7:30, head over to St. Bernard Catholic Church in Akron to catch conductor Nic McGegan’s debut with Apollo’s Fire in Handel’s Messiah — the first of five area performances. Read Mike Telin’s conversation with McGegan here, and get tickets here.
TODAY’S ALMA-NEWS:
Today we pair a musical anniversary with a recent piece of musical news, and with an event on this weekend’s calendar.
On December 8, 1978, The Deer Hunter had its premiere in Los Angeles. An epic war drama set in both Vietnam and in the town of Clairton, PA (some of it was shot in Cleveland), the film is remembered today for several reasons. Those include the performances by Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, and Meryl Streep, the direction by Michael Cimino, and the honors it hauled in for all involved: five Oscars, a place on several best-films-ever list, and preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
Then there’s the soundtrack, highlighted by Stanley Myers’ Cavatina in a performance by guitarist John Williams (above, right). For many, it’s inseparable from the film, and is often referred to as simply its theme: a lyrical line unfolding gently over unhurried arpeggios, against a backdrop of strings (and a lovely appearance from the wind section about three-quarters through), and with an emotional palette of pure wistfulness. Listen here as you watch “the deer-hunting scene.”
What many people don’t know — including at first those who made the film, to the displeasure of their wallets — is that this wasn’t the Cavatina’s first marriage. Eight years earlier, it was used as the main theme of the British crime drama film The Walking Stick. (An undisclosed sum had to be exchanged for the rights to the music.) Watch a short clip that includes it here.
Like what you hear? You’ll want to jot down the date for a virtual concert coming up from the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society: a free program by Mak Grgic (below) titled “Mostly Movies” on Saturday, December 11 at 7:30 pm. (See the full program here, and RSVP here. The program will also be available on-demand.)
Musically, another interesting scene in The Deer Hunter recreates the American evacuation of Saigon in 1975. Director Michael Cimino asked composer Stanley Myers to come out on location, and Myers ended up crafting his music for the scene in the same key as the honking horns of vehicles that he heard — an interesting blend of sound effects and music.
I mentioned news earlier, didn’t I? In an article in the Los Angeles Times titled “The L.A. Phil looks at the unexpected places film music is going,” Mark Swed reviews a fascinating festival put on by the orchestra this past month.
Whereas Grgic will focus on film music from the ‘60s to the ‘90s in his program for the Guitar society, the three composers featured in this festival — Hildur Guðnadóttir, Kris Bowers, and Nicholas Britell— were all born in the ‘80s, with very recent releases on their resumes in film, television, and video games.
That doesn’t mean it was all music from the present day. Each day over the three-day event, “a different composer curated a program of their music along with works by colleagues and classical composers, whether or not written for film, they found meaningful,” Swed writes.
The article covers the unique approaches to composing and to programming demonstrated by the three featured artists, as well as some of the challenges that film composers face as a result of their medium — and as a result of longstanding biases related to genre. Read here.
Mak Grgic photo by Melani Topalovic.