Westport Public Library MOVIE & MUSIC Blog

This weekend the library will host a viewing of Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July and film historian Dr. Martin Haas will reflect on the US value system leading to war and the struggle of a young man learning to accept the consequences of Vietnam for himself and the nation.

Thinking about this topic led me to wonder about other complementary films in the library’s collection which delve into the psyche of Vietnam veterans. In Search and Destroy, a decisively opinionated guide to the cinematic legacy of Vietnam, author Jack Hunter focuses on a compelling group of films in which the main characters are troubled vets. He cites films such as Coming Home and Scorsese's Taxi Driver as examples. Hunter notes that these drastically different films share something in common; they directly address America’s sorrow and guilt in the aftermath of the war. Not surprisingly, as the years distanced Hollywood from the war, well known movies such as Forrest Gump and In Country and even Good Morning Vietnam (although not the story of a returning vet) were much softer and the characters more sympathetic.

If these films lead you to wonder more about the effect of this “conflict” check out the docudramas Be Good, Smile Pretty which chronicles the loss shared by children whose fathers were killed in Vietnam and Hearts and Minds which chronicles the war from a psychological perspective.

Wednesday, January 31, 2007 marks the 210th anniversary of the birth of Franz Schubert. His lifelong passion for poetry led him to a prolific career as a composer of songs or lieder. His affinity for words and an innate grasp of the poet's intentions aided him in setting the poems of Goethe, Hölty, Körner, Kosegarten, Muller, and Schiller.

His first masterpiece was Goethe's Gretchen am Spinnrade. With this, he raised the level of lied from a minor, inconsequential musical genre to a stellar form of art. Schubert elevated the piano accompaniment to embody the words and create a psychological mood to the piece. As his expressive range developed, the integration of poetry and music into different layers of meaning and stylistic interpretations became flawless. His music not only reflects the physical scenes and settings of a spinning wheel, the undulations of a brook, or carefree perambulations but reveals an empathetic representation of feelings and musings. His extraordinary ability to fuse the words and emotions with the melody and harmony demonstrate his unique gift and genius.

For further exploration of the composer and his music, the library has Gerald Abraham's The Music of Schubert, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's Schubert's Songs: A Biographical Study, George R. Marek's Schubert, and Charles Osborne's Schubert and his Vienna. His songs are performed on compact disc by Elly Ameling in An Die Musik: Songs, Janet Baker Complete Songs, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau Winterreise, Matthias Goerne, Die Schone Mullerin, Jessye Norman Lieder, and Thomas Quasthoff Goethe-Lieder.

Tomorrow will be the 251th celebration of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. As many of us remember, the world rejoiced and enjoyed multiple concerts, galas, and parties for his 250th birthday.

One of the library's most recent Mozart acquisitions is The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia edited by Cliff Eisen & Simon P. Keefe. It is an alphabetically arranged collection of scholarly articles written in a clear, concise manner by internationally renowned experts in the field. Although there are no abstruse analyses, musical examples, or photographs, it does a superb job of covering Mozart's life and music. A fascinating entry on his "Medical History and Death" includes a chart listing his ailments, complaints, and symptoms. As the article on "Kitsch" points out, Mozart's popularity has caused him to be used as a marketing tool. Useful appendices abound covering his musical works, films made about him, his operas on DVD and video, organizations devoted to him, and relevant websites.

Some of our newer compact discs include the Complete Wind Concertos performed by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Cosi Fan Tutte starring Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Christa Ludwig, and Alfredo Kraus, The Mozart Album featuring opera arias performed by Anna Netrebko, Thomas Quasthoff, and Rene Pape, Piano Concertos 15, 21, & 23 performed by Alfred Brendel, the Requiem in D minor conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and Symphonies 40 & 41 conducted by Marc Minkowski.

On Friday, January 26, 2007, the Westport Arts Center will present the music of John Corigliano, winner of five Grammy Awards, a 1991 Grawemeyer Award for his First Symphony, a Pulitzer Prize for his Second Symphony, and an Academy Award for his score to Francois Giraud's 1997 film The Red Violin.

Corigliano, whose 1991 opera The Ghosts of Versailles was the first commission by the Metropolitan Opera in three decades, spent his boyhood summers in Westport. At a recent concert by the Norwalk Symphony, he reminisced that his father used to practice the great violin concertos outside his home on a hill on Valley Road. His father, John Corigliano, served as assistant concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic in 1935 and later became concertmaster from 1943-1966.

As part of the Composers Project, a series of concerts and conversations exploring 21st century musical compositions, Mr. Corigliano will be joined by Professor Paul Moravec, composer and 2007 WAC Artist in Residence, Amy Burton, soprano with the New York City Opera, and Stephen Gosling, pianist. Discussions, demonstrations of musical examples, and performances of his works will be heard at the Seabury Center.

The library invites you to sample his music including Creations and Other Works, Concerto for Piano & Orchestra, Of Rage and Remembrance, and The Red Violin: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack.

The 79th Annual Academy Award nominations have been announced. The library owns a majority of the nominated films and has plans to purchase the others as they become available. Do you agree with the academy?

It seems there is a day to commemorate everything. Today is National Belly Laugh Day, on which you are encouraged to have a hearty chuckle or a good guffaw. Why not do it with a film from the extensive comedy selection in the library’s collection? You can browse our comedy section for some favorites or watch one of the 100 Funniest American Films as compiled by the American Film Institute.

Number 1 on the list is Some Like it Hot directed by Billy Wilder.

Four is a magic number for Woody Allen. He directed four films on the list including Annie Hall (#4). Bill Murray is in good company with Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, as each appeared in four movies named by the AFI.

Mel Brooks once quipped, “Humor is just another defense against the universe.” Mel should know! Brooks (real name Melvin Kaminsky) directed three movies on the list. A box of his favorite candy Raisinets® (or at least he once said it was), to the first to comment and list all three by year released. And, Mr. Brooks, if a different candy has replaced the chocolate covered raisin, please write and let us know. Library blogs have a duty to get their candy facts right.

As a child of the sixties, it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the passing of Denny Doherty, a founding member of the folk-rock group, the Mamas and the Papas.

Doherty, who began his musical career with the folk trio Halifax Three, joined several different folk groups in New York City including the Big Three, the Mugwumps, and the New Journeymen. The New Journeymen, which consisted of Cassandra "Cass" Elliot, John Phillips, and Michelle Phillips, eventually moved to California in the mid '60's and evolved into the highly successful group, the Mamas and the Papas. The Mamas and the Papas, which were one of the first major bands to give equal billing and performing to both men and women, hit the pop charts with their hits "California Dreamin", "Monday, Monday", "I Saw Her Again", "Words of Love"and "Dedicated to the One I Love." Their accomplishments were recognized with entry into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. Denny Doherty's lead tenor provided the springboard for the group's mellifluous harmonies and guitar accompaniments.

After the break-up of the Mamas and the Papas, Doherty began a solo career and released several albums. Although a short-lived reunion with new members was attempted in the 1980's, Doherty returned to Canada as an actor and starred in Theodore Tugboat, a widely watched children's variety show.

Episodes from this program are available at the library as Theodore's Friendly Adventures and Theodore Helps a Friend. The Mamas and Papas are featured on The Complete Monterey Pop Festival, Ed Sullivan's Rock 'N' Roll Classics, and on a compact disc 16 of Their Greatest Hits.

The world of jazz and rock suffered a great loss this weekend with the passing of tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker. He was a consummate musician whose accomplishments were capped by eleven Grammy Awards.

Born to a musical family, he played drums, clarinet, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, and EWI, an electronic wind instrument. His musical sensibilities were shaped by Cannonball Adderly and John Coltrane. He applied Coltrane's language to popular music and performed with a wide array of artists including Aerosmith, James Brown, Elton John, John Lennon, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, James Taylor, and Frank Zappa. In the jazz world, he headlined the Brecker Brothers and the Steps (which later became the Steps Ahead). He worked as a saxophone soloist with Charlie Haden, Herbie Hancock, and Pat Metheny.

His enormous discography which encompasses over 900 albums, may be sampled in Chet Baker's You Can't Go Home Again, Paul Simon's The Rhythm of the Saints, and his own Nearness of You: the Ballad Book.

I had jury duty last week. Much to my relief (and somewhat to my disappointment) I did not get assigned to a panel. But give me four hours of uninterrupted thinking time, and a blog entry comes to mind. Clips of court room drama and famous jury scenes had plenty of time to replay in my head. Naturally the three classics, Sidney Lumet's Twelve Angry Men, Inherit the Wind and To Kill a Mockingbird sprang to mind.

Then as the hours dragged other movies came into focus. Richard Gere just can’t seem to stay out of a courtroom whether he is an American attorney on trial for murder in China (Red Corner) or a slick lawyer defending Edward Norton in Primal Fear. And yes, he even sings and dances his way as the suave Billy Flynn in Chicago. Al Pacino has plenty of billable hours in the legal thriller And Justice for All. Paul Newman is a washed up lawyer with a last chance to save his career in The Verdict.

As in real life, sometimes film trials can make us laugh. In a situation later to be copied in countless situation comedies, Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy find love and marriage can be a bit rocky when on opposite sides of the bench in Adam’s Rib. But for all time funny scenes, catch Marisa Tomei’s performance in My Cousin Vinny. Her scenes as an “expert witness” providing testimony about tires and tracks stole the movie and helped win her an unusual Best Supporting Actress Oscar in a comedy.

So what movies will you think about the next time you have jury duty? Darn! I really wanted to go through the voir dire process.

On Tuesday, January 16, 2007, the classical music world will remember the legacy of the legendary conductor, Arturo Toscanini on the fiftieth anniversary of his death.

Conductor Lorin Maazel, bass soloist Rene Pape, the New York Philharmonic, and Italy's Symphonica Toscanini will pay tribute to the late maestro with arias from Mozart's Don Giovanni, Verdi's Don Carlo and Macbeth, and Resphighi's Pines of Rome, R. Strauss' Don Juan, and Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini.

At Carnegie Hall, Peter Tiboris will lead the Manhattan Philharmonic, the Philharmonique Choir of Montreal, Connecticut Choral Society, and the New Jersey Choral Society in Verdi's Messa da Requiem.

Although we may remember Toscanini from his later years as conductor of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, he got his start as a cellist and an opera conductor at La Scala. As artistic director of La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera, he imposed strict, exacting standards on every aspect of operatic performance; this involved coaching the singers, improving the ensemble acting, overseeing the staging, and raising the audience's level of understanding and appreciation. He not only conducted the premieres of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci (1892, Milan) and Puccini’s La Bohème (1896, Turin), but received the highest accolade for a particular performance of Falstaff from Verdi himself with the message ‘Grazie! grazie! grazie!’.

The compact disc Le Festin de L'Araignée is a compilation of NBC radio broadcasts in New York between November 12, 1938 and March 27, 1948. His 1949 recording of Verdi's Aida with Herva Nelli, Eva Gustavson, Richard Tucker, Giuseppe Valdengo, and Norman Scott may also be sampled.

To gain a greater understanding of this demanding, imperious, uncompromising perfectionist and genius, one may read Mortimer H. Frank's Arturo Toscanini : The NBC Years, George Richard Marek's Toscanini, Harvey Sachs' Reflections on Toscanini, or Arturo Toscanini's correspondence in The Letters of Arturo Toscanini.

We will be celebrating the ideas and life of Dr. Martin Luther King this weekend. As we salute him and his stirring speeches, we may reflect on the civil rights movement.

Guy Carawan's Sing for Freedom : The Story of the Civil Rights Movement Through Its Songs, is a compilation of protest songs and gospel music of America's southern states. Harold Courlander describes the various forms of Negro music with examples in Negro Folk Music, U.S.A. The compact disc, The Best of Broadside 1962-1988: Anthems of the American Underground from the Pages of Broadside Magazine, not only includes songs and music of African-Americans but political ballads pertinent to all Americans. David Margolick explores the political and social views of jazz singer Billie Holiday and her era in Strange Fruit : Billie Holiday, Cafe Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights. A meaningful, moving survey of the civil rights movement and apartheid is rendered in the compact disc by Cece Borjeson called The Cost of Freedom.

Additionally, we may listen to the powerful, sensitive voices of Marian Anderson in Spirituals, Jessye Norman in Amazing Grace, and Paul Robeson in Songs for Free Men.

This week Nicolas Cage celebrates a birthday. The actor was born on January 7, 1964 into a family with quite a film pedigree. His birth certificate most likely lists his real name, Nicolas Coppola. Nephew of Francis Ford Coppola and older cousin to director Sophia, this actor is equally at home playing a melancholy romantic lead in Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, the hero in World Trade Center or the opera crazed one armed baker in Moonstruck. For an actor still in his early 40’s, he has quite a resume. The late film critic Pauline Kael once noted that Cage "may be the only young actor who can look stupefied while he smolders.”

The library offers a great selection of films featuring this fine performer.

What is the driving force behind one's creative impulse whether it be in art, music or writing? What is the innate characteristic of all humans who endeavor to do the impossible? How do innovative, often volatile artists come together to build a new edifice, shape a sculpture, choreograph a dance or compose a new work of music? Why would a person follow his dream and undertake the arduous, risky life as a 21st century composer?

These and other issues will be discussed by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Paul Moravec and music historian and author Vivian Perlis at the Westport Public Library on Thursday, January 11, at 7:30 p.m. Mr. Moravec, the recipient of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for his composition, Tempest Fantasy, is the chairman of the music department at Adelphi University. Ms. Perlis, winner of the esteemed Kinkeldey Prize of the American Musicological Society for her book Charles Ives Remembered: An Oral History, established the renowned Oral History, American Music archive of American composers and personalities at the Yale School of Music.

Books that describe the creative process include Howard Gardner's Art, Mind & Brain, Jonathan Harvey's Music and Inspiration and Ann McCutchan's The Muse That Sings: Composers Speak About the Creative Process.

The French composer, Erik Satie (1866 - 1925), summed it up in the December 1913 Bulletin des Editions Musicales, with this relevant quotation:

"Before I compose a piece, I walk around it several times, accompanied by myself."

One of the most momentous days during my teenage years occurred on February 9, 1964. That was the day that the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. I immediately became a die-hard fan and promptly ran out to buy their singles. To this day, I still keep a Beatles card in my wallet.

On Monday night January 8, 2007, local author and renowned music journalist Bob Spitz will speak about his book The Beatles: The Biography at 7:30 p.m. in the Library’s McManus Room. This huge tome, which took seven years to complete, was the culmination of numerous interviews, recollections, and archival resources. It is an engaging account of the rock band from their working-class Liverpool origins to their eventual, inevitable breakup.

Coincidentally, on January 9, 2007, the British Royal Mail will issue a set of stamps showing images of the Beatles famous album covers. The featured albums include Help!, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Abbey Road, and Let It Be. The U. S. Postal Service also had included them in their "Celebrate the Century Series: 1960's".

If you want to read more about the Beatles, feel free to browse our collection. Works include Hunter Davies' The Beatles, Mike Evans' The Art of the Beatles, Mark Hertsgaard's A Day in the Life: The Music and Artistry of the Beatles, Allan Kozinn's The Beatles, and Stephen J. Spignesi's The Beatles Book of Lists. For your listening pleasure, the library has The Beatles Anthology, Let It Be, Revolver, and Yellow Submarine.

The Beatles not only left their mark on our music, but on our culture.

One of the most enduring partnerships of the English theater was the pairing of Gilbert & Sullivan, the masters of mayhem, mistaken identity, and marvelous musical tunes. What is it about their music that keeps us listening and enjoying their boisterous satire and hummable melodies? Why do their words and music still resonant in our sophisticated 21st century lives and situations?

William Schwenck Gilbert was a comic journalist, drama critic, and playwright whose works included burlesques that were parodies of popular operas or plays. His Dulcamara or The Little Duck and The Great Quack of 1866 was a successful spoof of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore. His emergence as a lyricist was evident in the six miniature operettas that he wrote for Thomas German Reed's Royal Gallery of Illustration in the 1870's. His mastery of drama was seen in his plays The Palace of Truth, Pygmalion and Galatea, The Wicked World, and Sweethearts, all written in the early 1870's.

Arthur Seymour Sullivan was a pianist, composer, and professor at the Royal Academy of Music. While a twenty-year-old student at the Leipzig Conservatory, his incidental music for Shakespeare's The Tempest was successfully performed at London's Crystal Place. During the 1860's he composed concerti, piano music, a Symphony in E, overtures, an oratorio, and two comic operas, Cox and Box and The Contrabandista.

Although they had a perfunctory meeting in 1869, it was not until 1871 that impresario John Hollingshead sent Gilbert's libretto of Thespis to Sullivan for musical accompaniment. Unfortunately, this collaboration proved to be a huge flop. However, four years later, they made theatrical history at the suggestion of Richard D'Oyly Carte with the operas Trial By Jury, H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and The Mikado. Carte later built the Savoy Theater for their work; eventually, the Savoy Theater represented the culmination of their creative endeavors.

During the month of January, the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players will be performing The Rose of Persia, The Yeoman of the Guard, and The Mikado. Before attending these operas, come to the library to familiarize yourself with the plots and lyrics of these works in Frank Ledlie Moore's Crowell's Handbook of Gilbert and Sullivan or W. S. Gilbert's The Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan. Feel free to borrow the compact discs of The Yeoman of the Guard or The Mikado before the performance. For those unable to attend a live production, the Library has a DVD of The Pirates of Penzance, a video of The Gondoliers, H.M.S. Pinafore, or Ruddigore. Additionally, the 1999 movie Topsy Turvy does a superb job of portraying the music and the teamwork of Gilbert & Sullivan.

One of the most timely lines from H.M.S. Pinafore is sung by Sir Joseph Porter, the First Lord of the Admiralty. He sings about his job qualifications for serving in such an important position and ends the song with this astute advice:
"Stick close to your desks and never go to sea,
And you all may be Rulers of the Queen's Navee."
The Chorus then repeats these closing lines.

Once you explore the world of Gilbert & Sullivan, you may become an aficionado of their delightful, satirical melodramas and parodies of human nature.