What are you listening to?
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Allhallowsday
- Posts: 1594
- Joined: November 17th, 2022, 6:19 pm
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Allhallowsday
- Posts: 1594
- Joined: November 17th, 2022, 6:19 pm
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Allhallowsday
- Posts: 1594
- Joined: November 17th, 2022, 6:19 pm
Re: What are you listening to?
David Burns made numerous movies and television appearances between 1918 and 1971, but it's for his work on stage, particularly in musicals, that he is best known. He created three important supporting roles in three of the best known Broadway musicals, and, in a non-musical comedy, created the role that Jimmy Durante immortalized on screen: that of Banjo in The Man Who Came to Dinner.
Burns's two Tony Awards for Best Featured Actor in a Musical were for his performances as Mayor Shinn in The Music Man and Senex in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. His best known musical role may have been that of Horace Vandergelder in Hello, Dolly!, in which he introduced this song:
Although I like the film of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, I was disappointed that this song, sung by David Burns in the Broadway production, was not included in the film. It's a great song, about a father and son lusting after a beautiful Roman lass:
David Burns appeared in many other plays and musicals on Broadway, including in Face the Music, which starred Mary Boland, Two's Company, which starred Bette Davis, and Do Re Mi, which starred Phil Silvers. But it is for Music Man, Forum, and Dolly that he's best remembered.
Burns's two Tony Awards for Best Featured Actor in a Musical were for his performances as Mayor Shinn in The Music Man and Senex in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. His best known musical role may have been that of Horace Vandergelder in Hello, Dolly!, in which he introduced this song:
Although I like the film of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, I was disappointed that this song, sung by David Burns in the Broadway production, was not included in the film. It's a great song, about a father and son lusting after a beautiful Roman lass:
David Burns appeared in many other plays and musicals on Broadway, including in Face the Music, which starred Mary Boland, Two's Company, which starred Bette Davis, and Do Re Mi, which starred Phil Silvers. But it is for Music Man, Forum, and Dolly that he's best remembered.
Re: What are you listening to?
Seong Jin-Cho, winner of the Chopin competition in 2015, playing the Sonata No. 2 in B Flat Minor by Chopin. A gorgeous man and musician who, when he won the award, told the Polish people in the hall that night that he couldn't believe he was standing on a stage in Poland - the country of Chopin's mother - receiving the award through playing that composer's music. I was watching the live stream and was very moved by his gratitude and humility. A wonderful artist. You can follow along with the score if you can read music. Seong-Jin Cho is South Korean and lives in Paris:
Here is Cho playing the Presto (4th movement) from Chopin's 3rd Piano Sonata in a wonderful performance of a very ecstatic and difficult piece: how he keeps the melody calm and cantabile at the same time as those blistering semi-quaver ostinatos and filigree/chord progressions defies my imagination:
And, finally, Chopin's Vier Balladen. Glorious works, extremely difficult. Ballade 2 is just phenomenal and brings me to my knees every time.
Here is Cho playing the Presto (4th movement) from Chopin's 3rd Piano Sonata in a wonderful performance of a very ecstatic and difficult piece: how he keeps the melody calm and cantabile at the same time as those blistering semi-quaver ostinatos and filigree/chord progressions defies my imagination:
And, finally, Chopin's Vier Balladen. Glorious works, extremely difficult. Ballade 2 is just phenomenal and brings me to my knees every time.
Re: What are you listening to?
THE ARTISTRY OF CONRAD SALINGER
The separated score to "The Trolley Song" from "Meet Me in St. Louis". Martin and Blain composers. The reason for posting this here is that you can hear the phenomenal orchestration of the STUNNING Conrad Salinger. He contributed so very much to the artistry of the MGM Freed Unit. Salinger was a painter of orchestral tone colours, nonpareil. Apart from the iteration of the main theme right at the end of the song, "The Trolley Song" orchestration does not follow the melody line; it complements the vocal line with vigorous and complex counterpoint and countermelody.
I've made a study of this fabulous orchestrator over the years; he has been unjustifiably neglected and his death in 1962, less than a year after the Bel Air fires in Los Angeles, largely passed un-noticed. Here is one of Salinger's masterful orchestrations; this time the music of Lerner & Loewe. The richness of the texture elevates this music into the realm of art. "Heather on the Hill" from "Brigadoon".
Another sublime orchestration, this time from "The Bandwagon". "Dancing in the Dark" - and, god, what dancing!!
"We're a Couple of Swells" from "Easter Parade", 1948 "Conny" Salinger at his most light and humorous.
The opening titles sequence of "Showboat", 1951, has "Conny" Salinger written all over it. He even gets a credit, though you've got to be quick to notice. It's absolutely masterful:
The separated score to "The Trolley Song" from "Meet Me in St. Louis". Martin and Blain composers. The reason for posting this here is that you can hear the phenomenal orchestration of the STUNNING Conrad Salinger. He contributed so very much to the artistry of the MGM Freed Unit. Salinger was a painter of orchestral tone colours, nonpareil. Apart from the iteration of the main theme right at the end of the song, "The Trolley Song" orchestration does not follow the melody line; it complements the vocal line with vigorous and complex counterpoint and countermelody.
I've made a study of this fabulous orchestrator over the years; he has been unjustifiably neglected and his death in 1962, less than a year after the Bel Air fires in Los Angeles, largely passed un-noticed. Here is one of Salinger's masterful orchestrations; this time the music of Lerner & Loewe. The richness of the texture elevates this music into the realm of art. "Heather on the Hill" from "Brigadoon".
Another sublime orchestration, this time from "The Bandwagon". "Dancing in the Dark" - and, god, what dancing!!
"We're a Couple of Swells" from "Easter Parade", 1948 "Conny" Salinger at his most light and humorous.
The opening titles sequence of "Showboat", 1951, has "Conny" Salinger written all over it. He even gets a credit, though you've got to be quick to notice. It's absolutely masterful:
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Allhallowsday
- Posts: 1594
- Joined: November 17th, 2022, 6:19 pm
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Allhallowsday
- Posts: 1594
- Joined: November 17th, 2022, 6:19 pm
-
Allhallowsday
- Posts: 1594
- Joined: November 17th, 2022, 6:19 pm
-
Allhallowsday
- Posts: 1594
- Joined: November 17th, 2022, 6:19 pm
-
Allhallowsday
- Posts: 1594
- Joined: November 17th, 2022, 6:19 pm
