MOODY BLUES

 

A seemingly simple but stunning artwork by Lee Everett Blair (1911-1993). A piece of concept art created for the live-action silhouetted orchestra shots leading iinto the opening, abstract sequence of Fantasia (1940) featuring Bach's 'Toccata and Fugue in D minor' as orchestrated and conducted by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Blair was an American artist, born in Los Angeles and died in Soquel, California, and was the younger brother of Preston Blair and husband of Mary Blair.

DARLING DEANNA

In 1940's Hollywood she was the epitome of the girl-next-door: a sweet, innocent, wholesome youngster who just happened to be able to warble operatic arias with the perfection of a seasoned soprano at the Met.

Deanna Durbin, who has just died aged 91, made a slew of sentimental movies in which she demonstrated her unique voice to the enraptured enjoyment of a raft of indulgently admiring character actors.

Here she is, alongside the great Leopold Stokowski, in their 1937 hit, 100 Men and a Girl, demonstrating how easy it is audition for an internationally famous conductor...

...and here she is singing Schubert's 'Ave Maria' for an audience (including Kay Francis and Walter Pidgeon) at the conclusion of Joe Pasternak's It's a Date...

It's a Date premiered in March 1940. How interesting that, eight months later, Walt Disney concluded his Fantasia with the same musical item and similar imagery of church windows, arches and processing choristers...

Anyway, from her debut co-starring with Judy Garland in Every Sunday (1936) to her last film, For the Love of Mary, in 1948, she won the hearts of a decade of picture-goers. Corny and implausible though many of her movies were, Deanna Durbin was a unique star in that once-glittering firmament that illuminated Hollywood's golden age.

DEANNA DURBIN

1921-2013

"DEAR MR STOKOWSKI..."

Sorting through more treasures for boxing-up, I stumbled on a photograph that brought back a flood of memories...

It was 1977 and Fantasia, that Disney film that has been such an obsession of mine for so much of my life, was once more being re-released – this time with a simulated stereo soundtrack.

Swept away yet again by the amazing combination of great music and amazing animation that had done so much not only to secure my passionate devotion to Disney but also to introduce me to classical music, I sat down and wrote a fan letter to the film's maestro, Leopold Stokowski.

Not knowing where to send it, I wrote care of the Disney Studio, an unnecessarily circuitous route as it happened, since by then he was living in Hampshire, England!

Months passed without a reply. Then, in September 1977, I read of Stokowski's death at the age of 95. I had waited too long; had written to my hero too late.

But no, that was not the case: the very next day, I received in the post what must have been one of the last photographs the conductor ever signed...

The 'W' shaped squiggle at the end of the signature represents a lyre and was a characteristic flourish with which Stokowski finished many of his autographs.