The Lion in Winter

While others in my household watched Hallmark holiday specials, I viewed a different kind of holiday film -- "The Lion in Winter." It's the kind of dichotomy that's become the norm here.

Although many don't, technically one could consider this a holiday movie. The plot involves a family with strained relations gathering together for Christmas, where they air all their differences, and in the end, reconcile somewhat with each other.

In this case, the family is the highly dysfunctional one of Henry II. Henry invites his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine who has been kept locked up for some ten years (after siding with two of his sons in an aborted rebellion), to the winter court for Christmas. He also requires the presence of his three surviving sons. The eldest, Richard is Eleanor's favorite, while the youngest, John is the Henry's. The middle son, Geoffery most bargain for what position and power he can.

Added to the mix is Alais, Henry's current mistress, who came over 16 years before from France with a dowry and a promise of marriage. Also guesting with Henry is young Philip II, the new king of France, come to demand either a return of the dowry or the long-overdue marriage to one of the king's sons.

Ostensively, Henry's gathered everyone to announce his heir apparent -- and all involved (save poor Alais) play everyone against each other to ensure the right son is chosen.

OK, so it's not the kind of "comfort food" drama normally served up on TV at Christmas time, but that's part what made it so appealing. Almost everyone's lived through some kind of familial awkwardness this time of year, and "Lion in Winter" takes some of those spats and distorts them to funhouse mirror proportions.

The cast is superb, and the writing absolutely flawless. Peter O'Toole plays Henry II masterfully. He previously portrayed the character in the 1964 film "Becket" (with Richard Burton in the starring role), and this film seems very much like a sequel, giving O'Toole an opportunity to further develop the role.

Katherine Hepburn plays the iron-willed Elanor, and the rest of the cast is equally strong. Anthony Hopkins plays Richard (historically to become Richard the Lionheart, and Henry's heir) as a brooding warrior with dark secrets lurking just beneath. Nigel Terry (later to win fame as King Arthur in "Excaliber") portrays the snivelling weakling John, who would later be Robin Hood's enemy (according to legend) and sign the Magna Carta (according to fact). The biggest surprise was the appearance of Timothy Dalton as the young king of France (I didn't know he started films that early).

The film is based on a stage play by James Goldman, which means it's light on special effects, but heavy on dialogue. And what great dialogue it is!

Here's Eleanor scolding her children and perhaps saying something that's relevant today.



After all, if as Elanor says, the whims of rulers -- rather than events -- determine whether there's war or peace, then what does that say about the actions of current world leaders?

Yes, I could watch "Love's Enduring Promise" or some other holiday fluff, but I think I'll revisit the dysfunctional Plantagenets. Whip-smart dialogue, fully-realised characters -- and I haven't even mentioned the air of authenticity achieved by filming on location and an amazing attention to historic detail. No wonder it won three Oscars.

In one scene Elanor chases Henry from the room, making him physically ill with a detailed description of her affair with his father (which may or may not be true -- such is the level of mind games in this film). As he flees the room, she calmly observes, "Well, every family has their ups and downs."

It sure puts mine in perspective!

- Ralph

How to Make Classical Music Boring

Yes, I know. Many people already consider classical music boring. But public radio has figured out how to make it even more so by borrowing a page from commercial radio.

Audiences continue to drift away from commercial radio, in part because each song is market-tested to within an inch of its life. Only the songs that test well and appeal to the broadest part of the demographic get in -- bland, generic songs tend to do the best, as they offend the least.

The New York Times recently published an article recently about how fewer songs were being played more often.

Tom Owens, the executive vice president of content for Clear Channel Communications, ... said that “Apologize” [the song that's the subject of the article] deserved such heavy airplay because it had received “off the charts” results in listener research testing, and added that the song is devoid of content that might prompt more conservative pop stations to limit its airplay. [emphasis mine]

The article goes on to explain:

Some analysts say that responding to the decline by repeating the big hits even more will set broadcasters on a path to losing listeners.

“What most of these folks do is retreat to a more safe position, and in radio, the safer position is to play fewer songs more often,” said Mike Henry, chief executive of Paragon Media Strategies...

So in November, the Public Radio Program Directors organisation announced the results of their in-depth study of midday classical listener preferences. By rigorously testing focus groups with 30-second excerpts, they were able to determine that

The High Appeal sounds were positive and uplifting, with a soothing or reassuring familiarity, in style and overall texture if not always in terms of the actual melody....

Familiarity was important to both Serious and Casual listeners. There was no evidence of “burn‐out” of often‐played music nor do Serious listeners show a great desire for obscure or challenging music on radio in middays.

In other words, music devoid of content that might prompt more conservative stations to limit its airplay.

And so public radio continues at an ever-increasing pace down the road commercial radio's travelled.

So what's the big deal? Well, first off it's a given that general managers throughout the public radio system will use/misuse this info to make their program and music directors keep middays mellow -- you know, the way they used to on those easy listening stations. Which means fewer pieces in heavier rotation.

So what's wrong with that? Many people consider classical music boring already because they perceive it as a dead artform of little relevance to their lives. And, given the programming on most stations, they're not far wrong. According to the bulk of what's played, classical music apparently started around 1700 with Vivaldi and ended around 1880 with Brahms. And one would think that everyone either wrote for orchestra or solo piano; that no one wrote for other solo instruments (especially the organ), or chamber music, or the solo human voice, or choral music. It would seem that no female ever wrote classical music, and all the men that did died over a century ago.

If public radio stations programmed rock the way they did classical, you'd only hear doo-wop and early sixties pre-British invasion girl groups. If that was your only exposure to rock, would you think it relevant? Would you be surprised to find out that new rock music is being written, performed and recorded today?

Ditto with classical music. There are composers writing exciting well-crafted works right now, being played by young musicians right now, aimed at audiences who are alive right now -- and you will very, very rarely hear a note of it on public radio. And for stations that follow this study's findings and stick to the familiar few works, that chance plummets to zero.

And I have a concern with the methodology. I'm not convinced 30-second sound bites are an accurate way to evaluate classical music. For most genres, sound is pretty consistent throughout the song. In general, once the tempo's established it's set for the rest of the track. The timbre usually remains consistent throughout, and although it might vary in dynamics, in most 3-4 minute songs volume significantly changes perhaps once or twice.

Classical music is all about contrast. Tempos vary greatly between the movements of a work, or even within an individual movement. A full orchestra may consist of 80 members but rarely do they all play at the same time. Orchestral compositions routinely vary the combinations. You might hear a solo instrument one minute, all the strings the next, and then a brass choir after that.

Thirty seconds can give you a good idea of what an average pop song is like, but is it really a fair way to judge the character of a work lasting 10-40 minutes?

Here's a little test. If you were in one of those focus groups, which of the following selections would you like to hear on the radio? Which would you not?

1. Selection 1: Smooth orchestral sounds
2. Selection 2: Winds, brass and percussion ensembles
3. Selection 3: Operatic voices singing in a quartet
4. Selection 4: Full chorus

Of course, it's a trick question -- all four samples come from the same piece -- the final movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. So if you said "no" to any of the choices above, you've voted to ban the work from the air -- even if you said "yes" to the other choices!

In most markets, the public radio station is the only source for classical music on the air. Instead of continually narrowing their programming choices, what if those stations took the lead and began actively promoting the music of THIS country and/or THIS century? I'm not talking about contemporary music that sounds like a toolbox descending a staircase. I'm talking about the melodic music of substance that the casual listener, as well as the serious classical music fan, could enjoy.

It's not that hard. I do it every Wednesday morning on WTJU. Classical music really is an exciting, vibrant, living art form -- even if it doesn't test well in focus groups.

- Ralph

All Through the Night - a forgotten classic

Hooray for Netflix! Thanks to their deep catalog I revisited a movie this weekend that I hadn't seen since I was twelve -- and it was even better than I remembered.

"All Though the Night" (1941) casts Humphrey Bogart as "Gloves" Donahue, a dapper sports promoter/gambler that would be quite at home in a Damon Runyon story. His affable gang includes a young Jackie Gleason, Frank McHugh and a dour-faced William Demarest (Uncle Charlie on "My Three Sons") as Sunshine. And there's additional comedic help from Phil Silvers, Edward Brophy, and Wallace Ford.

There's a raft of other well-know character actors as well. Conrad Veidt and Peter Lorrie play the bad guys, along with ice queen Judith Anderson. Barton MacLane barks his way through another film, along with Edward Brophy. The redoubtable Jane Darwell (from "The Grapes of Wrath") plays Donahue's mother.

On the surface, it's a breezy little thriller where gangsters cross paths with Nazi spies. A good example of the comedic flavor occurs when Gloves Donahue and Sunshine assume the identities of two spies to infiltrate a Fifth Column meeting and discover their plans. It turns out the identities they stole belonged to the two out-of-town munitions experts who now must make a report. They stall for time with some classic 1940's double talk.

But the movie has a serious side, too. The spy ring forces an expatriate, Leda Hamilton (Kaaren Verne), to work for them by holding her father at Dachau. Gloves, who begins the movie not caring at all what happens on the front page of the paper, eventually finds out what Dachau is, and what the Nazis are all about. The film follows an American moving from apathy about world events to an understanding that what happens abroad impacts his daily life -- and even his way of life.

An interesting turning point comes when the urbane master spy Franz Ebbing is confronted by Donahue. From Ebbing's point of view, they should be allies. And at the beginning of the film Donahue might have agreed. But not after learning about what Ebbing stands for.

The past is often filtered through the experience of the present, and I wonder how others might interpret that scene. I can see some people identifying the current administration in Ebbing's words.

"It's a great pity, Mr. Donahue, that you and I should oppose each other. We have so much in common. You are a man of action. You take what you want and so do we. You have no respect for democracy. Neither do we. It's clear we should be allies."

While others might point to this dialogue to demonstrate the danger of disunity in the face of terrorism (our latter-day Fifth Columnists).

"Do you ever see the faces of these Americans as they read the headlines? Already we have split them into angry little groups flying at each other, unconscious that they are doing our work. You'll see. In a year, perhaps less than a year, they will all be taking their orders from us."

Of course the original message was a lot simpler -- be a patriot, and do your part.

I saw this aired on WTTG 5 in Washington way back in the 1960's when they did Sunday movies. I only saw it once, but always remembered it fondly -- especially Bogart's rapid-fire banter.

I've never met anyone who's seen this film, and that's too bad. If you only know Bogart through "The Maltese Falcon," or "Casablanca," give "All Through The Night" a try. It's an evening's entertainment for sure.

- Ralph

Correcting an Icon

This past weekend we attended our niece's graduation from Patrick Henry High School in Emory, VA. I'd attended several for daughters and children of family friends at Orange County High School, and naturally there were many differences between the ceremonies of the two schools.

One thing was the same, though -- a sonic icon was mangled yet again.

Orange always listed the "Pomp and Circumstance March" by Alger. Patrick Henry listed the "Processional March" by Edgar. And in neither case did the school band play anything but the middle part of the piece -- although Patrick Henry's had an arrangement which tacked on a brief intro!

Because of the nature of the event, I don't expect to see the full title of the work in the program (Pomp and Circumstance March, Op. 39, No. 1 in D major), but I do expect an institute of learning to get the name right.

Edward Elgar is one of the most famous composer's people don't know. His "Enigma" Variations was the first British score to achieve international success since the days of Henry Purcell, reestablishing the UK as a major musical center. His cello concerto and violin concertos are repertoire standards, and some of his shorter works, such as his Serenade for Strings are frequently performed.

Personally, I think his symphonies are underperformed, and there are several other Elgar compositions I revisit on a regular basis.

It's a shame most graduation ceremonies only opt for the slow portion of the Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 (he wrote five, all about equal in quality). The bustling opening section maintains the same tempo, yet provides some interesting contrasts. And it gives the middle section more weight when heard in context.

Consider this an example of an icon that misrepresents what it stands for. The "Graduation March" does a disservice to Elgar's ouvre -- not to mention the work its excerpted from. Maybe misidentifying the composer is a plus.

Which leads me to wonder what other icons are distortions -- rather than representations -- of their sources?

- Ralph