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RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra (Ireland) William Perry (b.1930) The RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra plays a central rôle in classical music in Ireland, through live performance, broadcast and touring. As an integral part of RTÉ, the orchestra reaches a great number Music for Great Films of the Silent Era of listeners through its weekly broadcasts on RTÉ lyric fm and through its association with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). In addition to its annual subscription season, Horizons contemporary music William Perry has been associated with film and stage, both as a composer and as a producer, series, national tours and summer concerts series, the orchestra continues to make a name for itself internationally through its recordings with Naxos, Marco Polo and on the RTÉ label. In 2004, the RTÉ through much of his creative life. His six definitive films based on the major works of Mark NSO won the Orchestra and Concerto: CD Première category of the Critics’ Awards in the Cannes Twain won the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award. (His music for these films is available Classical Awards for its recording of Joly Braga Santos’ Symphony No. 4 under conductor Alvaro on Naxos 8.570200.) His Broadway musical, Wind in the Willows, for which he wrote the music Cassuto. In 2005, Gerald Barry’s opera The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant was released on the RTÉ label and co-authored the lyrics, was nominated for three Tony Awards. There is an Emmy Award to considerable acclaim, as part of a new Composers of Ireland series. This has been followed by CDs of work by Raymond Deane, Seóirse Bodley, Deirdre Gribbin and Ian Wilson, the latter three on the RTÉ among the many other awards for his more than seventy programs produced for American Public lyric fm label. www.rte.ie/nationalsymphonyorchestra Television. It is likely, however, that no achievement is more lasting or important than the contributions William Perry has made to the remarkable resurgence of interest in the great films of the silent era. For twelve years as Music Director of the Film Department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, he provided virtuosic piano accompaniments to the showings of silent films at the Museum and other major film centers, and he composed more than one hundred scores for the Museum’s collection. His television series, The Silent Years, hosted by Orson Welles and Lillian Gish, brought many of these scores to audiences throughout the world who were experiencing the beauty and excitement of classic silent films for the first time. Now another generation can participate in the silent film renaissance through acquaintance with Perry’s scores in the full symphonic treatments offered on this recording. The Gemini Concerto: An Entertainment for Violin, Piano and Orchestra, composed for and performed here by the Albek Duo of Switzerland, draws on music from seven classic silent films. The Silent Years: Three Rhapsodies for Piano and Orchestra offer three of Perry’s best-known scores in piano concerto form: The Beloved Rogue, Blood and Sand and The Gold Rush. And in Six Title Themes The marquee pictured on the cover is from the historic Mahaiwe Theatre in Great Barrington, in Search of a Movie, Perry provides a whimsical overview of a cinema composer’s quest for ever Massachusetts. Opened in 1905, the Mahaiwe flourished during the silent film era and is one of the oldest surviving theatres in the United States. Now known as the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, this more films in need of his music. landmark building is listed on the United States National Register of Historic Places.

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Gemini Concerto: An Entertainment for Violin, Piano and Orchestra by Todd Machover, commissioned by the Boston Pops expressly for him. In 1994 he released on CD 1 I. Introduction and Travel Music 2:26 a collection of his original arrangements of music from movies entitled Cinematic Piano. Since then, he has recorded three more film discs: Palace of the Winds, Christmas at the Movies and Love at the 2 II. Dublin: Celtic Air and Runaway Reel 4:09 Movies. Michael Chertock serves as Assistant Professor of Piano at the University of Cincinnati, 3 III. Berlin: Cabaret March and Berliner Lied 5:25 College-Conservatory of Music, is principal keyboardist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and 4 IV. Moscow: Twilight Troika and Romance 6:06 is conductor of the Blue Ash-Montgomery Symphony. 5 V. Vienna: Polytonal Polka and Waltz: ‘Wiener Wein’ 6:30 Helen Kearns 6 VI. New York: Broadway Ballet and Finale 7:29 Irish soprano Helen Kearns is one of the rising stars among opera and concert singers in Europe. Born in Dublin, she studied there at the Royal Academy of Music and later was awarded a scholarship to study The Gemini Concerto: An Entertainment for appearances and seeks to capture the flavor of under José Van Dam at the Opera Studio of La Monnaie National Opera Theatre and La Chapelle in Violin, Piano and Orchestra was written for music characteristic of each locale. Brussels. In 2009 she was selected as the Irish representative for the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World identical twin sisters, Ambra and Fiona Albek, The opening movement introduces the travel where she was given the Annie Sankey Bursary Award. She won First Prize and the Audience Prize at who gave the première of the work on 8th May, music theme that will be heard throughout the the International Young Singers Competition in Vienna and the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury at the 2010 in Greenfield, Massachusetts with the concerto as a link between cities, and the initial International Singing Competition of Marmande. At 24 she made her début with Opéra de Rennes, Pioneer Valley Symphony conducted by Paul sound is a blast on an Acme Thunderer, the Opéra de Nantes and Opéra d’Angers, singing the leading female rôle in John Casken’s opera Golem Phillips. Ambra (violin and viola) and Fiona legendary brass whistle that is used to start trains in its French première. Since then she has appeared in numerous venues around the world including La (piano) comprise the Albek Duo and are from throughout Europe and which composer Richard Scala in Milan, Opéra de Szeged in Hungary and the Sala Cecília Meireles in Rio de Janeiro. Orchestral Lugano, Switzerland. Rodney Bennett famously used in Murder on the appearances have included engagements with the Orchestre National de Belgique, Sinfonia Varsovia The Concerto calls for both lyric and dramatic Orient Express. and the London Chamber Orchestra. playing with some visual requirements as well. At Our first visit is to Dublin, represented by the one point the violinist moves through the orchestra typical melody of a Celtic Air played over a drone Paul Phillips challenging the various string sections and later, in bass with conspicuous harp chords. This is Paul Phillips, Director of Orchestras and Chamber Music at Brown University and Music Director of the waltz movement, the violinist walks down followed by a reel with the type of wild fiddling the Pioneer Valley Symphony and Chorus, conducted the premières of all the works on this recording. through the audience. In the third movement and that might be heard in an Irish pub. The finish of He has recorded with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and Pioneer Valley Symphony, guest conducted again in the finale, the violin is exchanged for a the movement combines the reel with a return of the San Francisco Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Netherlands Radio Chamber viola. As the music builds at the end of the the Celtic Air. Orchestra, Boston Academy of Music, and Opera Providence, and received ten ASCAP Awards for Concerto, the pianist is playing with fists and We are next in Berlin, and the music recalls the Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music. Educated at Eastman, Columbia, Cincinnati, forearms and finally stands to perform a series of days of the Weimar Republic. A cabaret march Aspen, and Tanglewood, he began his conducting career at the Frankfurt Opera and Stadttheater black-key glissandos. portrays an assemblage of clowns, stilt-walkers Lüneburg, later holding posts with the Greensboro Symphony, Savannah Symphony, Maryland William Perry has provided the following and jugglers circling the stage. Then a poignant Symphony, and Rhode Island Philharmonic. His compositions include the orchestral works Brownian notes: serenade played on a viola captures the beauty of Motion and Celestial Harmonies, and musical play War Music based on Christopher Logue’s poetry. “As with much of my concert music, there is a Berlin when the linden is in bloom, but this is a His arrangement of Stravinsky’s Mavra was published in 2010 by Boosey & Hawkes. Considered the cinematic aspect to the concerto and a kind of depiction as it might be seen through the prism of foremost exponent of the music of the British composer-novelist Anthony Burgess, Phillips has edited scenario. It describes five cities that the Albek Marlene Dietrich leaning against a piano in a and given premières of numerous Burgess compositions and written extensively on the subject, including Twins visit on their wide-ranging concert smoky room. his new book, A Clockwork Counterpoint: The Music and Literature of Anthony Burgess.

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William Perry The Moscow movement depicts a sleigh drawn “Spritzig,” and the sound of corks popping and American composer and producer William Perry was born in Elmira, New York and began actively by three black horses carrying a young nobleman glasses clinking is frequently heard. composing and conducting at the age of fifteen. This led to musical study at Harvard University, where through a snowy landscape to the grand dacha of The journey ends in New York, where the his teachers included Paul Hindemith, Walter Piston and Randall Thompson. He is today best known his beloved. The sound of sleigh bells and a travel music takes on a distinctly Broadway beat, as a film composer, but in addition to his more than one hundred film scores and five stage musicals, balalaika (piano tremolos) enhances the mood of and the soloists and orchestra enjoy swinging Perry has been active as a composer of concert music, and his orchestral scores have been performed expectation. Trumpet fanfares announce the some melodies that might have come from the by the Chicago Symphony, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the symphony orchestras suitor’s arrival, and a broad and increasingly pens of George Gershwin or Irving Berlin. At one of Minnesota, Montreal and Hartford as well as the Vienna Symphony and other orchestras in Europe. ardent romantic theme suggests that his trip was point the famous sound of the Glenn Miller band Among his best-known compositions are the Trumpet Concerto (1986), the Summer Nocturne for Flute not in vain. is turned upside down when the orchestra, instead and Orchestra (1988) and the Jamestown Concerto for Cello and Orchestra (2007), written to celebrate In the days of the Strauss dynasty, the Viennese of presenting a clarinet lead over saxophones the 400th anniversary of the first permanent colony in America (available on Naxos 8.559344). Perry’s polka provided amusing pictures of steam engines, offers a saxophone lead over clarinets. In a scores combine broad-based melodies and multi-hued harmonies with more than a hint of wit and good hunting parties, thunder and lightning, and moment of seriousness, we briefly revisit the main humor. Dance forms, both period and contemporary, are a dominant element in the bright rhythmic pizzicato-prone violinists. Our polka features themes from Dublin, Berlin and Moscow in structuring of his film and concert music. polytonality, where the violin and piano play recognition of the great immigrations to New York simultaneously in two different keys with the from Ireland, Germany and Russia in the Albek Duo orchestra then adding a third. This leads to a chain nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Ambra and Fiona Albek are identical twin sisters from Lugano, Switzerland, who together form the Albek of waltzes celebrating the virtues of Austrian wine, Concerto then gathers its forces and sweeps to a Duo, Ambra on violin and viola and Fiona on piano. Their impressive concert career has taken them especially the fizzy kind. The music is marked jubilant conclusion.” throughout Europe, North and South America and Australia, and their recent CD South of the Alps has received wide acclaim. After early studies in Lugano, they both graduated with honours from the Musikhochschule in Zürich and then attended Narciso Masi’s chamber music classes at the International Silent Film Themes in the Gemini Concerto Academy in Imola, Italy, where they graduated with Masters’ degrees. Advanced study included work with such chamber specialists as Peter Rybar, Emanuel Hurwitz, Gérard Poulet, Ingolf Turban, Arnulf The classic film composer, Erich Wolfgang (1925) for the Dublin movement and music from von Arnim, Sergio Fiorentino, Paul Badura-Skoda and Robert Cohen. The Albek Duo regularly performs Korngold, based his popular violin concerto on The Last Laugh starring Emil Jannings (1924) for at music festivals and cultural events where they have performed a number of pieces specially written themes he had written for four films: Another Berlin. Tempest, a John Barrymore film set in the for them. Most recently this has included a series of Opera Fantasies composed by Alessandro Lucchetti Dawn (1937), Juarez (1939), Anthony Adverse closing days of Czarist Russia (1928) provides the and the Gemini Concerto by American composer William Perry, of which they gave the première in the (1936) and The Prince and the Pauper (1937). love music for Moscow, and the waltz theme from United States in May 2010. William Perry, in writing his Gemini Concerto, A Kiss for Cinderella, with Betty Bronson (1925) has adopted the same approach and has drawn on carries us to Vienna. The final movement, set in Michael Chertock thematic material from seven of his popular silent New York, draws on three silent scores: Show Pianist Michael Chertock has fashioned a successful career as an orchestral soloist, collaborating with film scores. People with Marion Davies and William Haines conductors such as James Conlon, Jaime Laredo, Keith Lockhart, Erich Kunzel and Andrew Litton. His After presenting the travel music theme in the (1928), the Gloria Swanson comedy Fine Manners many orchestral appearances include solo performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Orchestre first movement and using it thereafter to introduce (1926), and the King Vidor masterpiece, The Symphonique de Montréal, the Toronto Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, each subsequent movement, Perry uses a theme Crowd (1928). and numerous other orchestras. He made his Carnegie Hall début in 1999 with the Cincinnati Pops from Little Annie Rooney, starring Mary Pickford Here are the themes: Orchestra and in June 2005 with the Boston Pops Orchestra, he performed the world première of a work

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instrument not often heard in concert except at the which leads to a triumphal march when the craft culmination of works like the Mahler symphonies. clears the pad successfully. A broad lyric theme Here the use is more wistful. suggests the beauty of outer space, though there is The March actually derives from a score I wrote a temporary interruption when a malfunction for the silent film, What Price Glory. That story occurs. The voice of a Siren lures the spacecraft was set in World War I, but the music is equally too close to the fiery surface of Sirius, and the appropriate for a World War II setting. voyagers barely avoid destruction. With the ship The Nocturne, featuring piano and alto sax, has once again under control, the lyric theme returns, the film noir feeling of a Manhattan nightclub now joined by the Siren Song, and the expedition sometime after midnight. moves to a grand conclusion.” The Sirius Finale begins with a space launch Siren Song: Wayfarers from afar, Pilgrims in Outer Space, Searching the brightest star, Dreaming a nobler place, Hark now the song of Sirius, Follow the road to Sirius, Whose voice mysterious Whose blaze imperious Will guide your fate Shines through the night To the gate Till the light Of Heaven! Glows in Heaven!

The Orchestrations The typical William Perry orchestra and the instruments are often called for, such as the Irish brilliant orchestrations of Robert Nowak typically bodhran and the Acme Thunderer whistle in the call for three flutes (doubling piccolo), two oboes Gemini Concerto; the anvil in The Gold Rush; and (2nd doubles English horn), two clarinets and bass the accordion in Six Title Themes. Perry’s future clarinet, alto saxophone, two bassoons, four horns, projects include a Concerto for Ophicleide and three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, Orchestra. percussion, celesta, harp and strings. Unusual

Six Title Themes in Search of a Movie The Silent Years: Three Rhapsodies for Piano and Orchestra 0 I. Dance Overture from the film Wild Nights in Toronto 4:05 7 I. The Beloved Rogue 8:09 The Roaring Twenties: gun-molls and gangsters, Roxy Hart and Al Capone, 8 II. Blood and Sand 7:44 rum-running ra-ras and the wild and crazy city that was … Toronto! 9 III. The Gold Rush 7:51 ! II. Waltz from the film The Raincoats of Dijon 3:01 In composing The Silent Years, William Perry has narrative of the late Middle Ages, and this is The touching story of a pretty little French railway ticket agent who loved above selected three of his best-known film scores and announced at the very beginning by the brass her station. given them a full concert orchestral treatment, with section playing fanfares in open fifths. The music @ III. Serenade from the film Angelus for an Angel 4:08 the solo piano celebrating the many unheralded for Blood and Sand, with Rudolph Valentino, Angelus for an Angel is about a church in Italy and of an angel who comes to earth accompanists who provided music during the silent reflects the torrid atmosphere of Andalucia, with a whenever the steeple bells ring out a call for help. But even for an angel, answering era. Each film stars one of Hollywood’s leading strong minor key opening foretelling a fateful those bells can sometimes take its toll. screen actors of the 1920s, and their colorful destiny for those who choose to be bullfighters. character themes are combined with luxuriant love The Gold Rush captures the spirit of the Klondike # IV. March from the film The Bridge on the River Platte 2:07 music since each is in thrall with a beautiful lady in 1897 with an orchestral anvil portraying the A World War II epic depicting the heroic efforts of the Army Corps of Engineers who becomes the all-encompassing focus of his pickaxes of the prospectors. Throughout what is to build a bridge that would link two parts of Nebraska. life, and in one instance, death. effectively a concerto, the solo piano explores the $ V. Nocturne from the film The Black Marigold 2:53 Each story has a unique setting, and the music emotions of the leading characters and glowingly Sam Shovel comes out of retirement to tackle a difficult case. But the real mystery must quickly establish a sense of time and place. introduces the love music. is whether a 95 year old private eye can still cut the mustard in his Gulden Years. The Beloved Rogue, starring John Barrymore, is a % VI. Sirius Finale from the film Voyage to the Dog Star 6:30 I. The Beloved Rogue (1927) Directed by Alan Crosland A space mission is launched from Labrador to retrieve information about the Dog Star. Opening Music (François Villon) • At the Gates of Paris – The Duke of Burgundy • King Louis XI This may be the most important expedition since Darwin’s Beagle. All Fool’s Day • Villon’s Farewell to His Mother • Love Music • The King Gives His Blessing The composer has provided the following have indulged in the luxury of inventing whimsical This is the story of François Villon (John Villon, favorite of the masses and reigning additional notes for this work. film titles and plot suggestions. Barrymore), the swashbuckling fifteenth century monarch of All Fool’s Day, taunts Burgundy as he “The film composer must be able to write music The Dance Overture is intended to introduce a scoundrel and poet who wrote “Mais où sont les rides to the Palace and accuses him of seeking to in a variety of styles and provide scores appropriate film musical in the Broadway tradition of the ’30s neiges d’antan? – “But where are the snows of control France. To appease his guest, the King exiles to many different cultures and historical periods. In and ’40s. Major and minor keys are freely inter- yesteryear?” Villon from Paris and is persuaded to agree to the between assignments and by way of maintaining a mingled, and the middle section is a triple dance The Duke of Burgundy (Lawson Butt) arrives at marriage. But Villon and Charlotte meet, run off backlog of potential themes, he or she will break that presents a rumba, a bolero and a tap the gates of Paris intent on arranging a marriage together and find refuge in the home of his mother, sometimes develop musical ideas for films which dance. between one of his henchmen and Charlotte de where he is later found and sentenced to death. have not yet been made or even conceived, and it The Waltz reflects a Parisian ambiance that Vauxcelles (Marceline Day), ward of the king. Villon’s life is spared when he takes advantage is in this spirit that I wrote some thematic material almost invariably includes the sound of a bal Crafty and superstitious, Louis XI (Conrad Veidt) of Louis’s superstition by telling him that he, that I hoped might one day find a home. As it turns musette accordion. asks the advice of his Court Astrologer (Nigel de Villon, is fated to die 24 hours before the King. 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meet Charlotte and proclaim his love. Burgundy, leads the beggars of the Court of Miracles to the penniless, Charlie makes his way to town and but Georgia never comes. determined to see his plans carried through, rescue and vanquishes Burgundy. Charlotte asks enters the Monte Carlo dance hall, where he Big Jim chances upon the dejected Charlie and abducts Charlotte, and Villon is captured when he permission to marry Villon, and the King gives his instantly falls in love with the spirited Georgia enlists his help in rediscovering his claim. After a tries to rescue her. Disguised as a cripple, the King blessing. (Georgia Hale). As a lark, she accepts his invitation perilous escape from a teetering cabin, they come to a New Year’s Eve dinner. The table set and the upon the gold. Charlie, now a multi-millionaire, II. Blood and Sand Directed by Fred Niblo meal cooking, Charlie dreams of Georgia and finds Georgia again and wins her hand. Opening Music (The Moment of Truth) • Seville – The Market Place; Juan Gallardo performs the famous table-top dance of the rolls, Plumitas, the Bandit; Serenade to Carmen • Castanet Dance The Seduction of Gallardo – Doña Sol • The Arena and Death of Gallardo The Beloved Rogue Blood and Sand Based on the Blasco Ibañez novel, Sangre y arena, castanets at the wedding, but for her he then gives this is the story of Juan Gallardo (Rudolph up the café life he loves, and the castanets sound no Valentino), an awkward small-town lad who more to Juan’s fiery flamenco. becomes Spain’s most celebrated matador. His Don Joselito (Charles Belcher), a philosopher career begins when he finishes a bull that has gored who comments on the action throughout the film, a friend in a small village ring. Watching him from predicts tragedy when Juan encounters the alluring a hillside is the bandit and outlaw, Plumitas (Walter and aristocratic Doña Sol (Nita Naldi). She draws Long), who is drawn to Juan through a spiritual him into a reckless affair which he is powerless to bond of their common destinies. He follows Juan’s stop, and humiliates his wife. career from afar. Juan and Plumitas both face death in a climactic Juan’s fame spreads in Seville, and after a scene at a crowded arena – the outlaw Plumitas at victorious ride through the streets, he serenades his the hands of the police and Juan, remorseful at childhood sweetheart, Carmen (Lila Lee), who having betrayed Carmen, as a willing victim of his The Gold Rush becomes his wife. They dance to the rhythm of dangerous profession. He dies in Carmen’s arms.

III. The Gold Rush Directed by Charles Chaplin Opening Music (Alaska, the Chilkoot Pass); Charlie The Tramp; In Search of Gold – Big Jim; The Storm; Thanksgiving Dinner; Monte Carlo Dance Hall; Georgia; New Year’s Eve and Dance of the Rolls; Discovery of Gold and Reunion with Georgia A long procession of prospectors, including Charlie food available, together they relish the joys of the tramp (Charlie Chaplin), makes its way through Thanksgiving dinner by boiling one of Charlie’s the Chilkoot Pass in Alaska in search of that boots. Charlie eats his portion with the elegance illusory mountain of gold. One prospector, Big Jim of a true gourmet. (Mack Swain), who has staked a large claim, takes When better weather arrives, Big Jim goes back shelter in a cabin during a snowstorm where he to his claim but is knocked on the head by an encounters a cold and hungry Charlie. With no adversary and loses his memory. Lonely and 8.572567 8 9 8.572567