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Chica Chica Boom Chic

John Franceschina

in Hermes Pan: The Man Who Danced with Fred Astaire

After leaving RKO Hermes Pan joins Fred Astaire at Paramount to choreograph Second Chorus and Danny Dare at Republic Pictures to choreograph Hit Parade of 1941 before signing with Twentieth ... More

After leaving RKO Hermes Pan joins Fred Astaire at Paramount to choreograph Second Chorus and Danny Dare at Republic Pictures to choreograph Hit Parade of 1941 before signing with Twentieth Century-Fox to choreograph That Night in Rio with Alice Faye, Don Ameche, and Carmen Miranda. While at Fox Hermes initiates weekly luncheon discussion groups on topics ranging from religion to philosophy, one of the core participants of which, Angela (“Angie”) Blue becomes Pan’s favorite assistant and “dance-in” for films starring Betty Grable. At Grable’s request, Hermes appears onscreen as her dancing partner in several films, including Moon Over Miami, Footlight Serenade, and Coney Island. In his early days at Fox, Pan also designs dances for Sonja Henie, Rita Hayworth, and George Murphy.Less

Record Recollections

Berthold Hoeckner

in Film, Music, Memory

Chapter 1 demonstrates how vinyl recordings that served as a mnemonic tool for the storage of autobiographical memory have been used as a plot device to illustrate how film created new forms of ... More

Chapter 1 demonstrates how vinyl recordings that served as a mnemonic tool for the storage of autobiographical memory have been used as a plot device to illustrate how film created new forms of audiovisual memory. Through the technological reproducibility of temporal objects, records became not only instrumental in the transition from live to canned music; they were also deployed in sound films to show how cinema attaches a permanent visual component to auditory recollection, thereby creating a kind of a phono-photograph akin to the workings of Henri Bergson’s memory cone. The chapter’s case studies focus on films that exemplify a new mode of such medium self-consciousness. The Legend of 1900 (1998) dramatizes the momentous shift from episodic memories residing uniquely in the musician’s body to being stored externally in vinyl recordings produced for the masses after the turn of the century. Penny Serenade (1941) uses an album of phonographic records to narrate the story of a marriage, where the records become memory objects whose thingness may retain a connection to the contingency of the remembered event.Less

DISCOVERIES: As Far from West Chester as It Is in My Power to Be

Barbara B. Heyman

in Samuel Barber: The Composer and His Music

The chapter describes Samuel Barber's first few trips to Europe with fellow student David Freed, where his romance for European culture started, which greatly influenced his work. He sought the most ... More

The chapter describes Samuel Barber's first few trips to Europe with fellow student David Freed, where his romance for European culture started, which greatly influenced his work. He sought the most brilliant European artists, and musicians and musical professors during that time, immersing himself in their work and teachings. These first few trips left him with a greater passion for composition as he returned to the Curtis Institute, where he proceeded to write with an utmost intensity. But his writing at this time was not without the usual peaks and troughs as is the case with any artist. There were compositions wherein Barber doubted his talent. However, his perseverance and determination earned him his first prize in music—the Joseph Bearns prize. It was also at this time that the Serenade of 1929 was born, one of the earliest pieces that launched Barber's career.Less

Buzz’s Babes

Jeffrey Spivak

in Buzz: The Life and Art of Busby Berkeley

Buzz made the move to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) with none of the grief he had suffered from Sam Goldwyn under similar circumstances. The Wizard of Oz notwithstanding, Buzz's first true test at MGM ... More

Buzz made the move to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) with none of the grief he had suffered from Sam Goldwyn under similar circumstances. The Wizard of Oz notwithstanding, Buzz's first true test at MGM was Broadway Serenade. Soon after Broadway Serenade wrapped, Buzz got his first assignment: a job directing two of the biggest movie stars in the world, Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. The studio screening of Babes in Arms went well, and Louis B. Mayer was pleased. Meanwhile Gertrude liked Claire James. Busby Berkeley, then forty-six years old, married Claire James, then twenty-two years old, in Las Vegas on March 29, 1942. Whatever was said or written about Buzz, it is to his credit that he never, on the record, spoke deprecatingly about anyone. The news got worse for Buzz. Despite the numerous comments on the record about his marital tranquility, Claire James-Berkeley instructed her lawyer to file divorce papers just weeks after Buzz's dismissal from Girl Crazy.Less

From the Serenade (1932) to The Chesapeake Bay Retriever (1936)

Howard Pollack

in Marc Blitzstein: His Life, His Work, His World

This chapter discusses Blitzstein’s work from these pivotal years, including his string quartet, Serenade, premiered at Yaddo; his choral-opera inspired by Sacco and Vanzetti, The Condemned; some ... More

This chapter discusses Blitzstein’s work from these pivotal years, including his string quartet, Serenade, premiered at Yaddo; his choral-opera inspired by Sacco and Vanzetti, The Condemned; some chamber works that incorporate the sorts of serial techniques associated with Schoenberg; the Orchestra Variations; a work of agitprop for children, The Children’s Cantata; and a film short, The Chesapeake Bay Retriever.Less

Items The Plays, Novels, Short Fiction and Non-Fiction of Jack Kahane

in Obelisk: A History of Jack Kahane and the Obelisk Press

This chapter presents a list of plays, novels, short stories, and non–fiction written by Jack Kahane. These include Two Plays published by Sherratt and Hughes, Laugh and Grow Rich published by Grant ... More

This chapter presents a list of plays, novels, short stories, and non–fiction written by Jack Kahane. These include Two Plays published by Sherratt and Hughes, Laugh and Grow Rich published by Grant Richards Ltd., and The Vain Serenade published by Constable and Co. Ltd. This chapter provides information on the publication dates, title page, collation, pagination, binding, and cover image of these works by Kahane.Less

1934

James Steichen

in Balanchine and Kirstein's American Enterprise

This chapter chronicles the first public performances by dancers from the School of American Ballet in 1934. Although these performances have been construed as previews prior to the company’s ... More

This chapter chronicles the first public performances by dancers from the School of American Ballet in 1934. Although these performances have been construed as previews prior to the company’s official debut in 1935, both were important milestones in the life of the organization. The June 1934 performance at Woodlands, the family estate of Edward Warburg, was a somewhat makeshift affair and revealed the haphazard management of the enterprise. It offered not only the first public performances of Serenade but revised versions of two of Balanchine’s existing ballets, Dreams and Mozartiana. A second more public engagement in Hartford in December 1934 witnessed the premieres of two additional works, Transcendence and the collegiate satire Alma Mater (with a score by Kay Swift). These early offerings of the American Ballet met with mixed reactions and criticism as they were not geared to a wide audience and were not overtly American in character.Less

1934–1935

James Steichen

in Balanchine and Kirstein's American Enterprise

This chapter examines the March 1935 performances of the American Ballet at the Adelphi Theater in New York City, the official premiere of the company and its new repertoire. Preparations for the ... More

This chapter examines the March 1935 performances of the American Ballet at the Adelphi Theater in New York City, the official premiere of the company and its new repertoire. Preparations for the engagement revealed ongoing disagreement about the direction of the enterprise, and the performances met with a mixed reception. The engagement was an occasion for Kirstein and others to debate the goals and mission of the organization, and dance critic John Martin was one of many critical voices contributing to debate on their efforts. The American Ballet’s activities were in part a response to the Russian ballet companies then active in the United States, notably the troupe led by choreographer Léonide Massine. Massine’s recent innovation of “symphonic ballet” was one of many artistic trends with which Balanchine’s work was in dialogue, most notably in his ballet Serenade.Less

Discoveries: As far from West Chester as it is in my power to be

Barbara B. Heyman

in Samuel Barber: The Composer and His Music

This chapter describes Barber’s first few trips to Europe, with a fellow student, cellist David Freed, where his romance for European culture began and greatly influenced his work. He sought the most ... More

This chapter describes Barber’s first few trips to Europe, with a fellow student, cellist David Freed, where his romance for European culture began and greatly influenced his work. He sought the most brilliant European artists, musicians, and music professors during that time, immersing himself in their works and teachings. These trips left him with a greater passion for composition as he returned to the Curtis Institute, where he proceeded to write with an utmost intensity. But his writing at this time was not without the usual peaks and troughs, as is the case with any artist. There were compositions wherein Barber doubted his talent. However, his perseverance and determination earned him his first prize in music—the Joseph Bearns Prize for a violin sonata that was lost for many years. It was also at this time that the Serenade of 1928 was born, one of the earliest orchestra pieces that launched Barber’s career. The promotion of his work by Mary Curtis Bok, the founder of the Curtis Institute of Music, was substantial.Less

Ballet Nations: The New York City Ballet on Tour in the Soviet Union in 1962

Clare Croft

in Dancers as Diplomats: American Choreography in Cultural Exchange

This chapter focuses on the New York City Ballet’s State Department–sponsored tour to the Soviet Union in 1962. One of the largest tours in State Department history, it was also one of the most ... More

This chapter focuses on the New York City Ballet’s State Department–sponsored tour to the Soviet Union in 1962. One of the largest tours in State Department history, it was also one of the most politically intense, unfolding during the Cuban missile crisis. The chapter describes the politics involved in the US-USSR exchange program, which brought Russian companies to the US; the concerns of the ANTA panel about performing ballet in the Soviet Union, given the longstanding dominance Russian/Soviet ballet; and the NYCB’s triumphant performances in the Soviet Union’s major ballet houses, the Bolshoi and Marinsky, where the NYCB thrilled Soviet audiences with ballets including Jerome Robbins’ Interplay and George Balanchine’s Western Symphony and Serenade. As the superpowers stood on the brink of mutual destruction, American dancers and Soviet balletomanes, in their mutual celebration of ballet, disproved a central premise of the US-Soviet standoff: that American and Soviet cultures were diametrically opposed.Less

Eschatology

Peter J. Schmelz

in Sonic Overload: Alfred Schnittke, Valentin Silvestrov, and Polystylism in the Late USSR

The beginning of the third and final section of the book, Chapter 7, looks at another response to the anxieties accompanying the transition from Stagnation to Perestroika in the 1980s. The chapter ... More

The beginning of the third and final section of the book, Chapter 7, looks at another response to the anxieties accompanying the transition from Stagnation to Perestroika in the 1980s. The chapter studies the eschatological “postludes” cultivated by Valentin Silvestrov, including, most prominently, his monumental Fifth Symphony (1980–82), a nostalgic re-imagining of Bruckner and Mahler for the end of time. For Silvestrov the genre of the postlude represented a “collection of echoes, . . . a form . . . open not to the end, as is more usual, but to the beginning.” “It is not the end of music as art,” he added, “but the end of music, in which it may remain for a very long time.” This chapter thus considers the cultural work performed by Silvestrov’s resulting sense of “unending ending.” It treats his eschatology as a “useful fiction” to illuminate the conflicted sensations of stasis and acceleration that characterized the last decades of the USSR. Silvestrov, like many in the late twentieth century, began seeing the end everywhere. He responded by composing its echoes. The resulting music spoke to the sense of malaise and environmental catastrophe that gripped the USSR during its final years even as the promises of glasnost and perestroika took hold.Less

Piano Sonata (1924) and Serenade in A (1925)

Maureen A. Carr

in After the Rite: Stravinsky's Path to Neoclassicism (1914-1925)

Having transcribed and analyzed the fascinating compositional sketches for Sonata and Serenade at the Stravinsky archive, I observed how Stravinsky’s compositional process for these two works is ... More

Having transcribed and analyzed the fascinating compositional sketches for Sonata and Serenade at the Stravinsky archive, I observed how Stravinsky’s compositional process for these two works is shown through his reliance on the classical piano repertoire. For example, a very prominent quotation from a Mozart Sonata is found in the sketches for Stravinsky’s Sonata in different places within the sketches. Yet, in Stravinsky’s final rendition of the Sonata, his quotation from the Mozart excerpt is rather insignificant. In the sketches for the Serenade, Stravinsky repeats a different quotation in several places. As with the Mozart fragment in the Sonata, this example does not seem to be significant in the published edition. In both cases, Stravinsky seems to be using these sources as “musical conduits.”Less

Nat and Nelson: “Mona Lisa” to Two in Love, 1950–1954

Will Friedwald

in Straighten Up and Fly Right: The Life and Music of Nat King Cole

For Nat King Cole, the 1950s brought his first “birth child,” Natalie, and his next blockbuster hit “Mona Lisa,” which completed his transition to pop music. But his struggle with the Internal ... More

For Nat King Cole, the 1950s brought his first “birth child,” Natalie, and his next blockbuster hit “Mona Lisa,” which completed his transition to pop music. But his struggle with the Internal Revenue Service nearly cost him his home and everything he had achieved. He met Nelson Riddle, his new musical partner who helped Cole attain his greatest heights. Meanwhile, he continued to land cameos in several important films and to headline on such television shows as The Toast of the Town and Your Show of Shows. In 1951, Cole announced the end of the Trio; in 1952, he recorded his next piano instrumental album, Penthouse Serenade. He and Riddle climaxed the period with Nat King Cole Sings for Two in Love (1953), probably his greatest straight down the middle collection of songbook standards.Less

“Ballet Is a Flower”: New York City Ballet’s 1962 Tour of the Soviet Union

Anne Searcy

in Ballet in the Cold War: A Soviet-American Exchange

Chapter 4 analyzes New York City Ballet’s (NYCB’s) 1962 tour of the Soviet Union and the Soviet reception of NYCB choreographer George Balanchine. Previous scholarly accounts have claimed the Soviet ... More

Chapter 4 analyzes New York City Ballet’s (NYCB’s) 1962 tour of the Soviet Union and the Soviet reception of NYCB choreographer George Balanchine. Previous scholarly accounts have claimed the Soviet reviews of Balanchine’s works were heavily censored, and that, as a result, the tour undermined the authority of the Soviet government with the intelligentsia. Chapter 4 re-examines this tour, using transliteration as a way of modeling the Soviet response to Balanchine. This re-examination shows that Soviet cultural authorities were not at all hostile to the choreographer or his company. The Soviet critics mostly accepted Balanchine’s ballets, but they reframed his accomplishments within their own debates about drambalet and choreographic symphonism. According to Balanchine’s Soviet critics, his works were successful precisely because they reaffirmed the value of the Russian systems of training, artistry, and meaning.Less

Chapter 17

Mark Glancy

in Cary Grant, the Making of a Hollywood Legend

By 1941, Cary Grant had his pick of films. Almost everything was offered to him and everyone wanted to work with him. Wary of being typecast, he resisted making more screwball comedies. Instead, he ... More

By 1941, Cary Grant had his pick of films. Almost everything was offered to him and everyone wanted to work with him. Wary of being typecast, he resisted making more screwball comedies. Instead, he made the gentle “weepie” Penny Serenade (1941) with George Stevens directing and Irene Dunne co-starring. His performance, including a tearful moment when he must plead with a judge to maintain custody of an adopted child, brought his first nomination for an Academy Award. He made an even more dramatic departure from his established image playing the wayward, possibly murderous Johnny Aysgarth in Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion (1941). The making of this film was rocky, not least because of on-the-set friction between Grant and co-star Joan Fontaine, but Grant’s relationship with Hitchcock was strong both personally and professionally. His relationship with director Frank Capra, with whom he made Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), was not as strong. Grant hated his own manic performance in this slapstick comedy. Although the film was a big success at the time and still has many admirers, he always cited it as the least favorite of his films.Less