Happiest Tunes on Earth

May 15, 2009

Author: Michael Bowen

Position: Staff Writer

Source: The Inlander

You’re watching an animated Disney movie. Now close your eyes. That’s what Friday’s pops concert will be like. (OK, now you can peek.)

What if you watched a Disney movie with your eyes closed?

You’d hear the music. Really hear it. Tarzan swinging on his vines, Mary Poppins gliding under her umbrella — if you’re not watching their movies, the images fade and the music comes to the forefront.  The Little Mermaid’s “Under the Sea,” for example, would be less about the calypso swagger of cute little shellfish and more about the calypso swagger of Alan Menken’s orchestration.

MARY POPPINS
The Sherman brothers — Richard M. and Robert B. — wrote “A Spoonful of Sugar” and “Chim-Chim-Cheree” for this 1964 movie, along with that song nobody can spell the title of.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
For the title song and score, Alan Menken won dual Oscars in 1991 for Beauty and the Beast. “A lot of these recent Disney scores,” says the Spokane Symphony’s resident conductor, Morihiko Nakahara, “are more ‘song’ (vocal)-driven rather than orchestral (like John Williams scores) — thus enlisting the talent/experience/appeal of folks like Elton John [for The Lion King] and Phil Collins [for Tarzan].

“To me, the Menken scores [also including The Little Mermaid, Hercules, Aladdin and The Hunchback of Notre Dame] tend to work better in a purely orchestral setting, because his ‘songs’ are more like extensions of classic Disney film scores with contemporary spices.”

ALADDIN
“A whole new world / A new fantastic point of view / No one to tell us no, or where to go”: At a pops concert like this, Tim Rice’s lyrics recede in the face of Menken’s lush string arrangements. Close your eyes and go on your own magic carpet ride.

THE LION KING
A song like “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King” is infectious, and Nakahara says that Elton John kept the music in The Lion King pretty simple “so that kids (young and old) can remember the lyrics. I mean, the words and melodies of ‘Hakuna Matata’ are stuck in my head after all these years.”

Morihiko Nakahara conducts the Spokane Symphony in “The Magical Music of Walt Disney” at the Fox on Friday, May 15, at 7:30 pm. Tickets: $32-$37; $14, children. Visit www.spokanesymphony.org or call 624-1200.