Extraordinary. Dr. George Horner, Terezin and Auschwitz survivor, performing music he played at at the Terezin concentration camp seven decades earlier. Only this time, he’s at Symphony Hall in Boston, joined by no less a figure than Yo-Yo Ma. The 90-year old Horner says quite simply: “Without music, I wouldn’t be here.” Thanks to the Terezin Music Foundation for posting this video.
Unlike last year, I won’t be in front of the boobtube tonight for Oscar night; instead I’ll be doing one of my Concert Previews at a Washington Performing Arts Society – sponsored “house concert” featuring a terrific young Chinese cellist named Jian Wang, who’s in town to play various of the six solo cello suites by J.S. Bach. The Bach suites are both one of the absolute monuments for anybody who’s ever tried to pull a bow across a cello (or doublebass, or viola, or trombone, or, or, or…) but for my money they’re one of the Great. Alltime Works. By Anybody. Ever.“Bach has no shallow or transitory emotions, no momentary anger, no bad words or fleeting embraces – his emotions are as vast a scale as Shakespeare’s, yet common to all people on earth, from the most northerly to the most southerly races. We all weep when we suffer, we all know tears of joy. It is these fundamental emotions that Bach transmits in his suites.”
In fact, I think there is something kind of miraculous about this music — music written almost 300 years ago that at times is the essence of simplicity, particularly the broken-chord arpeggios that lead off the First Suite – as simple, Rostropovich said, as breathing: “The phrase generates energy (inhales) untill it reaches a certain point when it is released (exhales).” If that sounds too technical, it doesn’t when you hear it.
And out of this solo music Bach spins music more compelling than a symphony of a thousand, or a full-blown band with the volume turned up to 11.So all that got me to thinking about the juxtaposition of Bach and the movies, which after all are all about playing with our transitory emotions, fleeting embraces, and so on to create some usually mawkish, but very occasionally something profound and deeply moving.
Which then got me to thinking about one of my all-time favorite movies, Truly Madly Deeply, made in 1990, and starring a very un-Severus Snapeish Alan Rickman and the terrific English actress Juliet Stevenson, and directed by Anthony (”English Patient”) Minghella. The Ghost-like plot (also from the same year!) revolved around the relationship among dead-cellist Rickman, his wife-in-another-life Stevenson, and her new beau….and the music of Bach is so powerful it’s almost another character in the film.Bach’s soundtrack abilities have not been lost on other directors, it seems.
Turns that T,M,D is but one of 207 feature films that have been documented to use Bach’s music, with a surprisingly large percentage of them devoted to none other than the solo cello suites. And it seems that if you put a Bach solo-cello piece into your film, your chances of being nominated – or winning! some Oscar hardware go up exponentially. For certain film directors (hello Ingmar Bergman!), you might even call it “that old Bach magic.” On the other hand, a few directors have some explaining to do….Here’s
The Official List of Bach Cello Suites Used in Movie Soundtracks:
Another Woman – Gena Rowlands, Mia Farrow, Dir. Woody Allen, 1988
Cello Suite No. 6
Antonia’s Line – Dir. Marleen Gorris (Netherlands) – 1996 1 Oscar: (Best Foreign Film)
Cello Suite No. 1
Autumn Sonata – Dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1978. 2 Oscar nominations (Best Actress – Ingrid Bergman; Original Screenplay: Ingmar Bergman)
Cello Suite No. 4 [Sarabande]
The Company – Neve Campbell, dir. Robert Altman, 2003
Cello Suite No.1 [Minuet]
Cries and Whispers –Dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1972. 5 Oscar nominations, (Best Picture, Best Director, Adapted Screenplay, Costume Design), 1 win (Best Cinematography – Sven Nykivst)
Cello Suite No. 5
Hilary & Jackie – Emily Watson, Rachel Griffiths, 1998. 2 Oscar nominations (Best Actress – Emily Watson; Supporting Actress – Rachel Griffiths)
Cello Suite No. 1 [Prélude & Gigue]
Cello Suite No. 3 [Prélude]
Cello Suite No. 6 [Gavotte]
The Hunger – Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie, Susan Sarandon 1983
Cello Suite No.1 [Prélude]
J´Embrasse Pas – Emmanuelle Béart, 1991 (France)
Cello Suite No.1 [Prélude]
Grey Knight, a/k/a The Killing Box – Corbin Bernsen, Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Sheen (1993)
Cello Suite No.1
Lost and Found – David Spade, 1999
Cello Suite No.1 [Prélude]
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World – Russell Crowe, dir. Peter Weir, 2003. 10 Oscar nominations (Best Picture, Director, Art Direction, Costume Design, Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects, Makeup); 2 wins (Cinematography & Sound Editing)
Cello Suite No.1 [Prélude]
Music of the Heart – Meryl Streep, West Craven (!), dir. 1999. 2 Oscar nominations: Best Actress (Streep); Original Song
Cello Suite No.1
The Pianist – Adrian Brody, dir. Roman Polanski, 2002. 7 Oscar nominations (Best Picture, Cinematography, Editing, Costume Design); 3 wins (Best Director, Actor, Adapted Screenplay)
Cello Suite No. 1
The Prince and Me – Julia Stiles, dir. Martha Coolidge, 2004.
Cello Suite No.1 [Prélude]
A Simple Twist of Fate – Steve Martin, Gabriel Byrne, 1999.
Cello Suite No.1 [Prélude]
The Sleepy Time Gal – Jacqueline Bisset, 2001
Cello Suite No. 5
Small Time Crooks – Woody Allen, actor/dir, 2000
Cello Suite No. 2 [Sarabande]
Through a Glass Darkly – Ingmar Bergman, 1961. 2 Oscar Nominations (Original Screenplay); 1 win (Best Foreign Film)
Cello Suite No. 2 [Sarabande]
You Can Count on Me – Mark Ruffalo, Matthew Broderick, Kenneth Lonergran, writer/director, 2000. 2 Oscar nominations (Best Actress-Laura Linney; Best Writer – Kenneth Lonergan)
Cello Suite No. 1
Yo-Yo Ma: Inspired by Bach – Atom Egoyan, five others (1997) – 2 Emmy AwardsNot a movie per se (although it was screened in other countries and at film festivals) about a decade ago Yo-Yo Ma made a series of six short films devoted to exploring the Bach solo cello suites from a different artist perspective, including, film, dance, and architecture. The best known (and probably most successful) of the six is Suite No. 4, Sarabande, directed by Atom Egoyan, which “tells the story of a failed relationship that culminates in the couple attending a Yo-Yo Ma performance of the piece at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto.”
Fanny and Alexander – Ingmar Bergman, 1982. 6 Oscar nominations, including Best Director & Screenplay; 4 wins (Foreign Film, Cinematogrpahy, Art Direction, Costume Design)
Vast amounts of ink have been spilled about Bergman’s masterful use of music in the movies, particularly of Bach and Mozart. But in this film you won’t hear any of Bach cello suites; instead, Bergman makes the unorthodox choice of using the three solo cello suites written by English composer Benjamin Britten! (In fact, that’s Britten’s music you hear at the very opening of the film.)
Which brings us back to the beginning of this post, for Britten was also “inspired by Bach,” as it were….he wrote and dedicated the pieces to his close friend Mstislav Rostropovich after hearing the cellist play……..you guessed it, one of Bach’s solo suites.
By the way, a tip o’ the hat to Naxos, both for their work in promoting and recording soundtracks by dedicated film composers, as well as for putting together a nice new database of classical music at the movies.
There’s also a nice site called Classics of the Silver Screen.
Finally, if I ever get asked to choose a piece of Bach’s cello music for the silver screen, I think I’d pick this.
Driving back from New England over the holiday weekend gave me the chance to hear both an appearance by Yo-Yo Ma on the Diane Rehm show (though the Silk Road Project seems a bit of a stretch for MLK Day), and a fascinating discussion on the World Café between host David Dye and the new singer-songwriter It Girl Ingrid Michaelson.In his intro to the show (also a holiday repeat, but since it first ran the Friday before Christmas, we can be forgiven for missing it the first time around!) David talked about Michaelson being a model for how to make it the new media landscape, and I think he’s on the mark: Unsigned and proud of it, instead she’s built a career through a mixture of MySpace and TV placement – both via Grey’s Anatomy, One Tree Hill, and more famously through an Old Navy ad that prominently uses her breakout song “The Way I Am.” (destined to be a wedding-song staple for the rest of the decade, I suspect…)Ingrid is talented enough, I suppose, and has written a couple of lovely songs. But what struck me about the interview was her savvy and clearheaded understanding about into the business of the music industry right now, and where she sits in it:
I’m thinking about it [signing to a record label]. I’ve always been thinking about it. But these great opportunities keep being handed to me. I think a lot of it is because I’m independent and it’s such a great story. There’s such a shift going on in the music world right now, and I’m sort of little guinea pig. Everyone’s helping out. At some point, if it gets to be too much, I’ll look for a partnership. I never liked the idea of being dragged around as a new artist. So I just want to get to a point where I have power and control and work with somebody, and not FOR somebody.
For more of Ingrid Michaelson’s back story check out this recent profile from the New York Times (buried in the NY/Region section, not the Arts page, and also just before Christmas in case you’re wondering). Sample grab:
Not bad for someone who, until May, was teaching in an after-school theater program in the Stapleton neighborhood of Staten Island, where she still lives with her parents, a dog and a pet rabbit in the house she has inhabited since she was born. “It’s so uncool, it’s cool,” said her mother, Elizabeth Egbert, the executive director of the Staten Island Museum.
So Madonna has given Warner Brothers the boot in favor of concert promoter Live Nation, while at the same time Radiohead has devised a pay-what-you’d-like scheme for their latest self-produced, self-distributed release, thumbing their noses at long-time label EMI. All in the space of a few days. The blogosphere – and the mainstream media, for that matter, are all a-twitter.
Have we reached, then, the Tipping Point? Is it curtains for certain for the much-lambasted Record Industry?
Frankly, I think the tipping has already happened. And I’m also not persuaded that the record industry’s days are over …. so long as they don’t think of themselves solely as purveyors of recorded, um “product” as Billboard magazine terms it.
One of the things I’ve discovered in plying the classical, jazz, folk, etc. waters over the years is that these minority formats tend to be the canaries-in-the-coal-mine for the bigger genres. Long before it was a gleam in Thom Yorke or Trent Reznor‘s eye, the excellent classically-oriented Magnatune label was offering the pay-what-you-think-its-worth option. And for some serious artists with serious credentials, too, many of whom had recorded for the so-called “major” labels. The Economist introduced me (and, it turns out, a whole of folks) to the Magnatune concept more than two years ago:
From a listener’s point of view, the firm’s website is enticing. You can legally listen, free of charge and with high sound quality, to full albums by any of the 200 or so artists who have signed to the label. (Your correspondent was immediately hooked by a song called Making Me Nervous by a one-man electro-pop band from Ottawa called Brad Sucks.) Music streamed is free, but to download it to your computer or burn CDs, you have to pay. Just how much is a matter of choice—Magnatune allows you to decide what the music is worth, and to pay as little as $5 for an album or as much as $18. Once paid for, the music is not locked up using digital-rights management software, so you are not prevented from making copies.…
Magnatune was born out of the simple reality that is known to any classical musician: You don’t make your money from record sales. There are possibly a half-dozen living classical musicians you have a positive income stream from their recordings: Yo-Yo Ma, James Galway, Renee Fleming, Placido Domingo, Van Cliburn, and… Andrea Bocelli? Go ahead, name another.
Same is true in jazz. I’ll bet the only artists that actually get any meaningful income from records are Dave Brubeck (thanks to the perennial popularity of Time Out, released in 1959) and maybe Diana Krall.
And even in larger the pop-music sea, that’s not and never has been where the money is — for 90% of the artists, that is. Even in the best of times working with a label was a deal-with-the-devil cost-of-doing-business proposition: You signed with a major because of the potential they represented to promote, market, and, if you got lucky, actually to move mass quantities of your physical “product” into the hands of your fans. Can’t do that selling your self-produced record out of the back of your trunk and running handbills off on a mimeo machine in the back room.
Hmmm…but in the iTunes world you suddenly don’t have to worry about having the supply to meet the demand, do you? Thus a big-name well-established act like Radiohead, with a carefully-cultivated image-conscious fan base, doesn’t really have much more use for EMI. No wonder the label’s new prez Terry Hands said it was a “wake up call,” according to a leaked internal e-mail:
The recorded music industry… has for too long been dependent on how many CDs can be sold,” Hands wrote. “Rather than embracing digitalization and the opportunities it brings for promotion of product and distribution through multiple channels, the industry has stuck its head in the sand.”
Hands warned that more artists could follow Radiohead’s lead and take their careers into their own hands. “Why should [superstar acts] subsidize their label’s new talent roster – or for that matter their record company’s excessive expenditures and advances?” asked Hands.
Why indeed? And that’s where the Madonna / Live Nation model is so interesting — it’s part of a larger chess match within the music industry:
Madonna’s deal to abandon Warner Music for concert promoter Live Nation signals more than just a tectonic shift in the music distribution business: It shows how far Live Nation is willing to go to break the hammerlock Barry Diller‘s Ticketmaster has on online concert ticket sales.
The core benefit to Live Nation of the $120 million recording and touring contract with the pop superstar is the opportunity to tap into concert, recording, merchandising and other lucrative revenue streams. But don’t discount the role that lowly ticket fees play.
Ticket buyers may be annoyed by the $5 or more in fees tacked on to every ticket ordered online or over the phone, but they’ve proven to be a gold mine for Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster’s revenues jumped 14 percent to $1.1 billion in 2006 and generated almost a 25 percent operating profit margin.
Thus, To these eyes the “three-CD deal” (with up to $50 million in “advance payments”) is really a “signing bonus” for Madonna, in order to cash in on where the REAL money will be made. I think Digital Music News editor Paul Resnikoff gets it right:
“…You can’t download a live concert – at least the real, in-the-flesh experience. Maybe you can hop onto BitTorrent and grab some amazing concert footage. Or even purchase a live performance album release. But what is your girlfriend (or boyfriend, bff, sibling, spouse, child, etc.) going to get more excited about – a video download, or a real ticket to a real show?One can be duplicated, viewed on-demand, and buried within a massive iTunes library. The other is a one-time, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Labels are now specialized in producing assets that can be reproduced instantly and infinitely. They are also specialized in an asset that is increasingly generating excitement for other assets they do not control.
Live Nation makes its money off of something that can never be duplicated. And that is why they can afford the elephantine deal terms to lure Madonna.
And even, if they don’t get all of the $120 million back out of Madonna (who will be 60 when the deal ends!), what’s the value to Live Nation if they can break Ticketmaster’s hammerlock on sales??? I’d say……Priceless.
So after reading all this, there IS a next logical step for the much-maligned record companies….what if Ticketmaster, for example, went out and bought EMI, a well-oiled production, distribution, and marketing machine?
Roedeo Productions 