Your favorite film scores?

[Blu-baton]

The following post turned out to be a bit of a lecture, but I needed a break from writing music myself, so sorry for the lengthy post

Some fine non-commercial composers have written some great film scores. Even way back in 1933, Prokofiev wrote a great score for Lieutenant Kijé. The 30’s and 40’s saw many European composers expats working in Hollywood, and these guys could really write. Tyomkin, Rosza and especially Korngold wrote fabulous scores for film, and Korngold almost set the standard (There is no John Williams without Korngold). It’s still done: John Corigliano wrote fantastic music for Altered States and The Red Violin; Toru Takemitsu wrote for many Kurosawa movies and could pastiche almost any style. I realize that as a musician, I may over-appreciate the technical skills of these guys, as I tend to listen to a score very closely, and probably shouldn’t. What a score brings to the film overall is what matters and if we notice the score too much, it could very well mean it’s in the way. I find a lot of stuff written nowadays to be overly simplistic, and that includes very talented folks like Vangelis, Elfman, Zimmer and other big names who certainly have a lot of imagination, but somehow don’t always engage me (this is purely a personal opinion – I have written some music for documentaries etc … but I tend to write orchestral arrangements and orchestrations, and am a performer first and foremost, so I’m not pretending I can do better).

I do consider John Williams to be a leader in the field still. He’s got great control over his final products and one of his orchestrators once told me that his short scores are so complete that working for him is like being a very well paid secretary. Last week I conducted an overture by John Williams made up of tunes he wrote for the movie The Cowboys. That’s pre Star Wars and the writing is absolutely pristine in every way (form, orchestration, tunes, harmonies, counterpoint etc …). It’s great fun to perform stuff like that, but I realize that this does not always translate in a “good movie score” – though here it probably does (I have never seen the film …). Everyone (myself included)loves the LOTR score, but my wife played in the orchestra for the “LOTR Symphony” last month, and everyone in the band thought it was a snore to perform (the audience truly loved it though). So different people have different expectations of what film music is supposed to do.

Finally, I should add another name to the list. Carl Stalling was truly one of the great pioneers in the field, and also developed many techniques for perfect film to music synchro. Everyone has heard his music but few realize who he is: Any Warner cartoon made until 1958 (Bugs Bunny etc …) was accompanied by his music. The man was absolutely brilliant!