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The Toronto Symphony Orchestra presents The<\/em> Wizard of Oz with Live Orchestra<\/em> conducted by Emil de Cou. Saturday, February 17, 7:30 p.m. Sunday, February 18, 3 p.m. Roy Thomson Hall, Toronto.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Wizard of Oz is one of the most difficult movies I have worked on\u201d, says conductor Emil de Cou. Having spent 20 years conducting film scores, he is no stranger to film music or the Wiz. He was the first to do a live concert format of the Wizard of Oz<\/em> at (American) National Symphony Orchestra Wolf Trap, the American national park devoted to music, in 2006. As part of the (American) National Symphony Orchestra, Wolf Trap and de Cou have played host to many live film concerts like Jurassic Park<\/em> and Raiders of the Lost Ark<\/em>. Last in Toronto in 2011 conducting the same program, he looks forward to exploring the score with the TSO again.<\/p>\n The Wiz represents a different time and era of music and movie-making, when music was more integrated and resourced in the process. De Cou talks about the famous cyclone scene as a case in point. What took the orchestrators and musicians a month to put together is only about three minutes on film. This is unheard of in modern composing; spending that much time and effort on one scene\u2019s music. Moreover, because of the technology available at the time, the detailed effort and thought is lost over the roar of the wind machine. \u201cBut the care \u2014\u00a0english horn, bass flute,\u201d de Cou shares, \u201cyou don\u2019t hear these things. The only time you hear it all in its brilliance is in live concert.\u201d<\/p>\n In that era of moviemaking, all the studios had multiple orchestras who recorded different parts of the score. The cyclone scene, de Cou explains, \u201cwas made up of 85 players working away\u201d while the musicians in \u201cOver the Rainbow\u201d were much fewer. The challenge in a live performance is to recreate the music despite original conditions and the less than ideal soundtrack and recording that survives. But, the longevity of the soundtrack continues. The Wizard of Oz is unique in that it was \u201cthe first major musical to ever record the orchestral, and voice tracks as separately as they could,\u201d says de Cou. In fact, the songs were all \u201crecorded before the filming began,\u201d says de Cou, \u201cwith the tracks played back as the characters lip-synced during filming.\u201d Because of the track isolation, there is less compression and better original sound quality; this has contributed to the film\u2019s longevity and its ability to be performed now, almost 80 years later.<\/p>\n The music is not easy, \u201cin 1939, Los Angeles had hundreds of top-rate musicians as every major studio had their own full symphony orchestra,\u201d shares de Cou, \u201cthe arrangers and composers wrote for some of the best musicians in the country as a result.\u201d The stamina required to play through the work is immense, even more so because the entire film is underscored – there is next to no silence – instruments are almost constantly playing. For musicians like TSO Principal Double Bassist Jeffrey Beecher, \u201cit can be a heavy lift physically, but also so much fun,\u201d he says. These are professional musicians, used to the rigours and resiliency needed to go through punishing film scores like Howard Shore\u2019s Lord of the Rings<\/em> or a Wagner Ring Opera.<\/p>\n New and old audiences alike will have much to gain from watching this film again. De Cou thinks of the film and its music in three major components. We start off in sepia, and a bland, lonely visual as Dorothy\u2019s loneliness and disenchantment are made clear. \u201cOver the Rainbow\u201d is a very simple tune without huge orchestrations and heavy instrumental sound. Its effectiveness is in its simplicity.<\/p>\n The second major change ties into technicolour \u201cand the music is suddenly incredibly vivid and colourful as it comes to life,\u201d says de Cou. A wordless women\u2019s chorus greets this transition. And nothing is quite as unique to the film as “Munchkinland.” Here, the conducting gets tricky as de Cou shares \u201cthe voices of the Munchkins were sped up to sound higher which also made them less rhythmically accurate;\u201d making this section one of the hardest to align. De Cou doesn\u2019t use a click track with the orchestra, knowing the score well. Musicians play and respond to his conducting and tempi as they would any other music.<\/p>\n And then finally, we\u2019re back in Kansas, and the return of the sepia-tones. It is different now though, having gone through the visual and musical journey, shares de Cou, \u201cthe music is poignant, in counterpoint, not intrusive and plays on emotions. In a philosophical way, we are all looking for home.\u201d So when the music returns, with the underscoring of \u201cOver the Rainbow,\u201d \u201cit\u2019s so effective at the end because we\u2019ve heard it before. The sentiment, it manipulates the audience.\u201d<\/p>\n De Cou has experience watching films without the music, with just dialogue and sound effects; it doesn\u2019t have the same emotional impact. De Cou gives the ending of E.T. as an example: the famous bicycle escape scene which Spielberg famously cut to fit John Williams\u2019 score; \u201cit totally transformed everything you see,\u201d he says, \u201ceveryone is in tears at the end of the movie because of the music. It bypasses your mind and goes straight to your heart.\u201d The Wiz has the same effect.<\/p>\n \u201cPerformances like this are great for kids & families,\u201d says de Cou, \u201cpeople feel like they are buying a ticket to a movie instead of a symphony.\u201c Musicians and audiences alike love these increasingly popular presentations of live film concerts. \u201cWe share the same passion for films as our audience,\u201d shares Beecher, \u201cthe stories, the actors, and of course the scores. For many of us, that first time listening to a John Williams score is what inspired us to be a musician.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s a special treat to be able to accompany an iconic voice like Judy Garland’s,\u201d says Beecher, \u201cAnd we’ll be just as excited by the flourish of technicolour as the audience.\u201d The Wizard of Oz is a timeless classic and what better way to reintroduce it to new generations than through music. \u201cIt speaks on so many levels,\u201d says de Cou, \u201ceveryone grew up with this music and this film as children. It is imprinted in our group musical DNA. It is all music we know and love.\u201d<\/p>\n The\u00a0Toronto Symphony Orchestra, The Wizard Of Oz With Live Orchestra takes place on Feb. 17<\/a> & 18<\/a> at Roy Thomson Hall. www.tso.ca<\/a><\/p>\n Want more updates on Toronto-centric classical music news and reviews before anyone else finds out? Follow us on\u00a0<\/i>Facebook<\/i><\/u><\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>or\u00a0<\/i>Twitter<\/i><\/u><\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>for all the latest.<\/i><\/p>\n Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh, my! Ludwig van Toronto chats with guest conductor Emil de Cou and TSO Principal Double Bassist Jeffrey Beecher about the upcoming performance of The Wizard of Oz with live orchestra.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":51015,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14761,12991,4557,63],"tags":[16734,5576,16733,3360],"yst_prominent_words":[16723,10617,16719,16727,16728,12167,12793,16725,16724,6616,15259,16722,16720,16729,6674,16726,6826,16730,16721,6825],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/02\/wizard-of-oz-preview.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-dgM","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51012"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51012"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51022,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51012\/revisions\/51022"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51012"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=51012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}LUDWIG VAN TORONTO<\/i>
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