Concert Review: Bring on the Dancing Hippos

The New York Philharmonic plays Fantasia.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Hyacinth Hippo and Ben Ali Gator dance a pas de deux in Fantasia.
Image © 1940 The Walt Disney Company.

Outreach is vital for a great orchestra's survival. This weekend, the New York Philharmonic may have won itself a new and younger generation of concert-goers with its presentation on Friday and Saturday of three concerts featuring clips from the Disney films Fantasia and Fantasia 2000, accompanied by the full might if the orchestra under the baton of assistant conductor Joshua Gerstein. Saturday's evening concert, starting at a family-friendly 7pm had an audience including current  New York Philharmonic music director Alan Gilbert.

Movie Review: Four Against Beethoven

Superconductor takes on A Late Quartet
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Fugue String Quartet (l.r.) Mark Ivanir, Philip Seymour Hoffman,
Catherine Keener, Christopher Walken. Image © 2012 RKO Pictures.

It's all Haydn's fault.

Ever since that composer came up with the idea of writing sonata forms for the combination of two violins, viola and violoncello, the string quartet has been one of the most intimate forms of musical expression. Composers have used this format to express their innermost thoughts, delving to depths of misery and despair (Shostakovich) or expressing cosmic truths (Beethoven) through this unique combination of instruments.

A Late Quartet, the new film by Yaron Zilberman explores not just the music but the complex personal intertwinings of the four members of the (fictional) Fugue String Quartet. They are New Yorkers who find themselves thrust into chaos when their cellist, Peter Mitchell (Christopher Walken) develops Parkinson's disease. With retirement looming, he decides to end his concert career with Beethoven's difficult Op. 131, a seven-movement marathon that must be played attacca--without pauses between movements.

The screenplay (by Mr. Zilberman with Seth Grossman) takes pains to explain that the cello's role is to support the other instruments as it moves through the musical depths of a piece. And Mr. Walken's character provides that support--serving as a surrogate father figure to Juliette Gelbart, the group's violist (Catherine Keener) , and paterfamilias to the whole ensemble and their inner circle.

Koyaanisqatsi in 5 Minutes

This is your brain.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

This is your brain on drugs.

Well, not really.

Tooling around on the Inter-tubes today, I found a version of Godfrey Reggio's 1978 film Koyaanisqatsi, sped up 1,552% by visual artist Wyatt Hodgson. Mr. Hodgson's version uses a different score ("The Holy Egoism of Genius" from The Seduction of Claude Debussy by The Art of Noise) and has been compressed to run for just five minutes. The song's been cut a little short too.

If you're not familiar with Koyaanisqatsi, it is a meditation on the imbalances of modern life. It is assembled footage, dating from just before its 1982 release to documentary footage and stock imagery dating all the way back to a NASA film from 1962.

Although it is only 86 minutes long, time speeds, slows and bends in upon itself as the images fly by. The images range widely: staring pedestrians shot on the street, cars and televisions being assembled, and the most famous, iconic shots: clouds racing across mirror-front skyscrapers.

Enjoy.

Balance Out of Life from Wyatt Hodgson on Vimeo.

And here's Godfrey Reggio's original on YouTube.

Five Movies Featuring the Ride of the Valkyries

The helicopter attack from Apocalypse Now. © 1979 American Zoetrope Studio/Lions Gate Pictures

In the 20th century, the surging strings and triumphant horn calls that open Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries have transcended the operatic stage and the Germanic gods of the Ring Cycle to become standard Hollywood accompaniment to movie scenes featuring Wagnerian amounts of butt-kicking. Let's take a look at movies that use the curtain-raiser as a different kind of dramatic device.

Wings Over Bayreuth: Wim Wenders to Direct the Ring

Image from Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire.
Photo by Wim Wenders, © 1998 Wim Wenders.

An article in Tuesday's Der Spiegel names director Wim Wenders as the next director of Wagner's Ring at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. The German director is best known for such art films as Wings of Desire, Until The End of the World and The Million Dollar Hotel.

The choice of Mr. Wenders to direct the Ring continues the Bayreuth trend of bringing in major stage and film directors to tackle Wagner's massive four-part tetralogy. This tradition began in 1976 with the choice of Patrice Chéreau as the director of the so-called "Centennial Ring." Other Ring directors at Bayreuth have included Sir Peter Hall, Harry Kupfer, Alfred Kirchner, and Jürgen Flimm, with varying degrees of artistic success.

The Wenders Ring is scheduled to open in 2013. It will replace an unpopular production by director Tankred Dorst which opened in 2005 to scathing reviews. Mr. Dorst was, in turn, a replacement for Swedish filmmaker Lars von Triel, whose eleventh-hour decision to pull out of the Ring left the Festspielhaus in chaos.

Written over a 26-year period in Wagner's life, the Ring cycle (full title: Der Ring des Nibelungen) retells the mythic saga of the hero Siegfried, the Valkyrie Brünnhilde, and the struggle over a cursed magic ring that allows its wearer to rule the world. The four complex operas (Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, Götterdämmerung) present considerable hurdles to any director, requiring gods, dwarves, giants, two dragons, magic fire and an apocalyptic climax that portrays the end of the world in fire and flood.

This production represents Mr. Wenders' operatic debut.