Music Tonight: A preview of tomorrow's Sunday Classics post devoted to "comfort music"

In this 1953 MGM CinemaScope film, Johnny Green and the MGM Symphony Orchestra have a grand time with one of my all-time best-loved pieces of music, Otto Nicolai's Merry Wives of Windsor Overture. (Note: When the "HQ" button appears, click on it to view in "High Quality," assuming your system is appropriately equipped. See the technical note below.)

by Ken

For once, instead of bitching about the available clips, I've got too many for tomorrow's classical music post, so we're jumping the gun with this delightful clip, really a self-contained little MGM film -- in 1953 CinemaScope! (Unfortunately it's still in mono. By 1954 MGM was recording these little films in stereo, and we've got one of those on view tomorrow.) The performance is just a shade pressed for my taste, especially in the fast sections, but it really is a wonderful performance of this piece, especially the shimmeringly beautiful opening section, which has been known to lift me out of some of the darkest moods. (In case you're wondering whether the "which" refers to "this piece" or "the shimmeringly beautiful opening section," the answer is yes.)

A beneficent soul has posted a bunch of these little MGM films featuring the MGM Symphony Orchestra, in the MGM Concert Hall, many conducted by composer-arranger-conductor Johnny Green (1908-1989), who from 1944 through the late '50s pretty much was the musical voice of MGM (general music director, 1950-58). Later in his career he went back to just "John" rather than "Johnny" Green, but by either name, and wearing all his many musical hats, he was a fabulous musician, and it's a delight to discover these film souvenirs. This Merry Wives Overture is a seriously big-time piece of music-making.


TECHNICAL NOTE: Sorry if the right side of the image is cut off in your display of the clip, as it is in mine. I guess we're not set up for wide-screen here -- I really didn't want to compress the image any more. Suggestion: Watch the clip on YouTube directly. It really looks swell.

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