The Lyric for Strings by George Walker.
What’s that tune in ‘Outlaw King’?
We noticed the new trailer (kind of violent) for “Outlaw King” on Netflix uses a famous classical tune as underscoring. The tune? Albinoni’s Adagio, of course, which probably wasn’t actually composed by Albinoni, but by 20th-century musicologist Remo Giazotto. Here’s
Shostakovich’s ‘Festive Overture,’ for ocarina septet
Shostakovich composed his Festive Overture for full symphony orchestra, of course, and that’s the version that conductor Carl St.Clair and Pacific Symphony will perform at the annual Tchaikovsky Spectacular on Sept. 8. Meanwhile, here’s another version, amusing but impressive all
Single tickets on sale, suggestions made
Tickets to individual concerts in Pacific Symphony’s 2018-2019 season go on sale today. This next season marks the orchestra’s 40th anniversary. The offer includes classical concerts, pops concerts, and special events.* Go to pacificsymphony.org or call (714) 755-5799. Go to
Books on classical music: Some essentials (4)
By TIMOTHY MANGAN Two autobiographies … “The Memoirs of Hector Berlioz” by Hector Berlioz. Berlioz was the archetypical Romantic — sensitive, poetic, experimental, nostalgic, given to flights of fantasy, easily wounded, progressive, dramatic verging on melo-. He was also a
Interview: John Williams
(Here’s an interview with composer John Williams that I wrote for England’s Gramophone magazine back in 2005. Richard Kaufman conducts Pacific Symphony in Williams’s Oscar-winning score to “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” for a screening of the film Saturday night. Tickets here.) By
Bernstein: ‘Slava! A Political Overture’ (1977)
Another Bernstein rarity, this one written for the inaugural season of Mstislav Rostropovich (Slava) as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. There’s a nifty part for electric guitar partway through, and a taped sequence of political
Scoring ‘E.T.’
Here’s an interesting short documentary (10 minutes) on the making of the film score (by John Williams) to Steven Spielberg’s “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.” Williams and Spielberg have made 23 films together by my count, with at least one more in
Bernstein: ‘Elegy for Mippy II’
As we approach Leonard Bernstein’s 100th birthday on August 25, I’ve been featuring a number of his lesser-known pieces in this space. Here’s another: The “Elegy for Mippy II” for solo trombone, composed in the late 1940s. Mippy was the
Great moments in film music: ‘North by Northwest’
The opening titles, designed by Saul Bass, for Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest,” music by Bernard Herrmann. That’s Hitch himself, missing the bus at the end. https://youtu.be/xBxjwurp_04