Category: On Music

One problem with taking a three-day weekend, with Monday as the third day, is that when I go back to work, my brain goes, “Yup, it’s Monday!”, and then only once we get close to dinner time does my brain go, “Oh shit, it’s Tone Poem Tuesday!”

But here we go.

Back in 1977, when Star Wars was sweeping across the world, it was generally unheard of for film music to be performed in concert by major orchestras. Of course, nowadays not only has film music found acceptance in the concert hall, but orchestras are finding major sources in revenue by literally performing entire filmscores as the movie projects above their heads. We live in amazing times…but in 1977, John Williams’s score to Star Wars was rewriting the rule books, and conductor Zubin Mehta came to record an album of selections from the Star Wars score, along with a suite from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. I wouldn’t discover this album’s existence until years later while I was digging through the classical section of some record store, but the album turns out to have been very highly regarded as a re-recording of movie music by a major orchestra. It was even nominated for a Grammy Award!

Film music is often edited into suites for more easy concert listening, as the individual tracks don’t always make for the most compelling listening on their own. The suite from Close Encounters that appeared on that album is probably the best representation of that film’s music other than the actual OST album. The performance is electrifying, and it thrillingly captures the logic of John Williams’s score structure even as it presents only about twelve minutes of the film’s music.

Here is the Suite from Close Encounters of the Third Kind by John Williams, with Zubin Mehta conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

 

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“Well, he must be too busy for a real post today, since he’s sharing something by Franz von Suppe!”

And that, Dearest Reader, is where you’re wrong! Because even though I am posting something by Franz von Suppe, it is not because his overtures are my go-to for when I’m too busy to actually say something about the work in question. Suppe is, of course, best known as the composer of a number of scintillating overtures (which have remained in the standard repertoire, especially for performances of “light” music) to operettas (which have almost entirely not). But those operettas and their overtures only represent the very surface of his output; Suppe was a prolific composer who worked in many genres, which leads me to hope more of his music may resurface and gain new attention…as did the current work.

Apparently conductor Ola Rudner found Suppe’s Fantasia symphonica languishing in an archive somewhere in Vienna, and now, after some musicological work to restore it, the work has been recorded, led by Rudner himself. The piece is, for all intents and purposes, a symphony; one wonders why Suppe didn’t just call it a symphony, and I wonder if it’s a combination of expectations for a composer of light theater music and the fact that the work is rather on the short side for a symphony of the Romantic era (didn’t stop Borodin, but he was Russian, and the rules were a little different in Imperial Russia), and it ends with some bombast that is decidedly unsymphonic. No matter; this is a delightful work that I am deeply glad has been found and brought forward. Hopefully there are more wonderful works by Franz von Suppe awaiting rediscovery!

Here is Fantasia Symphonica by Franz von Suppe…and not because I’m too busy!

 

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This is a kind of roundabout way to arrive at a work: a comic ballet called Pineapple Poll was created in the mid-20th century, using music from the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan. Later, the music from the ballet was itself reduced into a suite, which was then later arranged for wind ensemble. So, by the time we get to the present work, we’re something like…what? Three levels removed from the original composers?

And yet, the delight remains.

Here is Pineapple Poll for wind ensemble.

 

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One of those days, folks. Busy at work and then my annual eye-dilation exam right after. So, you know the drill: Franz von Suppe to the rescue!!!

 

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When you get to the point of having blogged for over 20 years (sheesh!), you start to worry about repeating yourself. At least, I certainly do! I find myself looking for pieces to share here, and then I think, “Nah, I’ve surely shared that before.” Such as this one, which I have indeed featured before on this site (well, not this site, but the previous version of it), but it turns out it was twelve years ago! So, here we go: the “March of the Belgian Paratroopers” by Pierre Leemans.

This is the rare march that is almost devoid of martial bombast; instead it opens and closes in relative softness.

Belgian composer Pierre Leemans began composing the “March of the Belgian Paratroopers” while serving in the army during World Wars I. Left incomplete, he returned to it decades later during World War II at the request of a group of paratroopers. His most famous composition is meant to portray a military patrol, approaching from a distance, passing by, and then leaving.

That structure calls to mind the great In the Steppes of Central Asia, by Alexander Borodin. This march, like the Borodin, is curiously optimistic in tone.

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