Thanks to GFN Productions and their FILMHarnique Orchestra, we were finally able to see the program in Montreal Bugs Bunny at the Symphony created more than thirty years ago, an evening of cartoon screenings from Warner Bros. studios, during which an orchestra plays live the soundtracks that have done so much, through many generations, for the diffusion of classical music in the most diverse sections of the population.
It was George Daugherty, the instigator of the project himself, who conducted the concerts with the FILMHarmonique Orchestra, the Montreal ensemble which has given concerts in Quebec, Toronto and Montreal these days.
The voluble but fascinating conductor, who said he had this idea while he lived briefly in Montreal, attending in 1980, in this same Wifrid-Pelletier hall, a film concert where the OSM accompanied the Napoleon by Abel Gance, was full of praise for the FILMHarmonique Orchestra. We understand it.
Synchronization
The technique of click track, which allows synchronism between sound and image, is, he told us, the idea of Carl W. Stalling, the author, with Milt Franklyn, of this music for cartoons. The process then spread to the entire cinema industry. The FILMHarmonique Orchestra is experienced in the exercise of these precise accompaniments.
We addressed the question of humor and synchronism in the commentary on Dictator, by Charlie Chaplin, which contains a high-flying scene, that of the barber on a Hungarian dance by Brahms. The OSM and Timothy Brock had performed feats, but not miracles.
In the case of Saturday evening, the miracles kept coming. Everything seemed to be regulated to a thousandth of a second, even in the craziest moments, like the twists and turns in the final scene of The Rabbit of Sevillewhere Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny chase each other back and forth with increasingly oversized weapons.
This Rabbit of Seville also shows how, through cartoons, music entered a broad popular culture since the concert opens with the overture of the Barber of Seville, by Rossini, without any image. When the second theme arrives, part of the audience laughs, simply imagining Bugs punching Elmer!
It is ironic to note the enduring effectiveness of the instillation of classical music to an audience who absorb it naturally and happily through “innocuous” entertainment at a time when we are now capable, conversely, of , to make films (Maestro) on a soil of classical music, wallowing in all kinds of related themes, sexual and matrimonial, which do not make you want to listen to the slightest measure of music when leaving the room.
Formatted music
In Warner Bros. films, Stalling and Franklyn’s work is very subtle. The music is not an illustrated revival of classical works (as in Fantasy) ; it is adapted from it, to become an engine of narration and a factor of comic rhythm.
Furthermore, the exercise experienced in the gym is out of the ordinary; hearing these cinematographic works accompanied “in real life” gives flesh to the feat, a flesh all the more impressive since, as Daugherty pointed out, when Hollywood orchestras provided sound for films, they did so in 30-second sequences, whereas in concert the orchestra is on the go continuously for 6 minutes 20.
After Bugs Bunny at Broadway And Bugs Bunny at the SymphonyDaugherty created this show Bugs Bunny at the Symphony “Celebrating 30 Years” for which Warner Bros. studios. play the game. To this end, if the great classics — Baton Bunny, A Corny Concerto, What’s Opera, Doc? And The Rabbit of Seville — cement the program, new cartoons integrate it, such as a trilogy of Bip Bip and Vile Coyote produced in 3D set to music by Christopher Lennertz, as well as a breathtaking encore, Dynamite Danceon the Dance of the hours by Ponchielli, which seems to have been made just for this concert project.
Our discovery and favorite of the evening is no less High ratingcartoon by Chuck Jones (1960) of extraordinary poetry to music by Milt Franklyn, where an intoxicated note, which has slipped into another score, does not want to integrate its place into that of the Beautiful blue Danube. It’s worthy of Tex Avery at his peak, at once brilliant, funny and movingly beautiful.
Such an exhilarating experience, we ask for more at the first opportunity.