Film Music

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Having done a smattering of film orchestration, I get the impression that some composers really relish the opportunity to compose "romantic" music - something that is frowned upon by our classical music "establishment".

[Serial_Apologist]

Hammer horrof film music - Radio 4 (16/1/23)

4pm - Music to Scream to: the Hammer Horror Soundtracks

Repeat of a programme previously broadcast:

Neil Brand unearths the story of the horror film studio's modernist soundtracks and their avant-garde composers. Hammer Films' prolific output in the late 1950s and 60s, including Curse of the Werewolf, The Brides of Dracula, Frankenstein and The Monster from Hell, featured music that was calibrated to set the pulses racing, composed by leading British composers. Brand explores the nuts and bolts of scary music - how it is designed to unsettle the viewer psychologically - and explores why avant-garde music is such a good fit for horror.

I always remember Elisabeth Lutyens' comment, recounted by Anthony Payne: "Two seconds - tart's legs - what am I supposed to do with that??"

Avant-garde composers - all of them?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001f6bj

[RichardB]

"romantic" music - something that is frowned upon by our classical music "establishment".

You could have fooled me!

[RichardB]

I'm reminded that one of the most beautiful film soundtracks I've heard recently was the one by Matthew Herbert (not someone I generally have much time for) for The Wonder, one of the best original film scores I'd come across since Mica Levi's for Under The Skin. I would say these relate to what contemporary composers are up to these days in the same way as the Hammer soundtracks did to the concert music of their time.

As for "avant-garde music" being such a good fit for horror movies, that's something I've often thought about. Of course a lot of music from the early 20th century onwards is intended not to reinforce expressive tropes familiar from earlier music but to invent new ones, and the resulting sometimes unsettling or disjointed quality is easily coopted by films intended to have a sense of foreboding or anxiety or fear. At the same time it's a shame that contemporary concert music can thus be oversimplified by some as sounding "scary".

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm reminded that one of the most beautiful film soundtracks I've heard recently was the one by Matthew Herbert (not someone I generally have much time for) for The Wonder, one of the best original film scores I'd come across since Mica Levi's for Under The Skin. I would say these relate to what contemporary composers are up to these days in the same way as the Hammer soundtracks did to the concert music of their time.

As for "avant-garde music" being such a good fit for horror movies, that's something I've often thought about. Of course a lot of music from the early 20th century onwards is intended not to reinforce expressive tropes familiar from earlier music but to invent new ones, and the resulting sometimes unsettling or disjointed quality is easily coopted by films intended to have a sense of foreboding or anxiety or fear. At the same time it's a shame that contemporary concert music can thus be oversimplified by some as sounding "scary".

Agreed. Nevertheless, with me it was the case of a 13-year old identifying with the emotional world of a great deal of the film music around at the time (late 50s/early 60s) that lured me further down the road. To take just one example, the number of my teenage contemporaries who, on hearing the third movement of Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta for the first time, turned to me and said "This sounds like film music" - NEVER the other way around!!!

[RichardB]

on hearing the third movement of Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta for the first time, turned to me and said "This sounds like film music"

Which of course it is, thanks to Stanley Kubrick! But its appearance in The Shining has added another dimension to my appreciation of it rather than cheapening it, as might with a lesser film have been the case. (I heard this piece in concert last week, and at no point was I reminded of its film appearance.)

[jayne lee wilson]

I'm reminded that one of the most beautiful film soundtracks I've heard recently was the one by Matthew Herbert (not someone I generally have much time for) for The Wonder, one of the best original film scores I'd come across since Mica Levi's for Under The Skin. I would say these relate to what contemporary composers are up to these days in the same way as the Hammer soundtracks did to the concert music of their time.

As for "avant-garde music" being such a good fit for horror movies, that's something I've often thought about. Of course a lot of music from the early 20th century onwards is intended not to reinforce expressive tropes familiar from earlier music but to invent new ones, and the resulting sometimes unsettling or disjointed quality is easily coopted by films intended to have a sense of foreboding or anxiety or fear. At the same time it's a shame that contemporary concert music can thus be oversimplified by some as sounding "scary".

Have you seen Aftersun? (an extraordinary and remarkably subtle film, deserving all of its praise and prize...). I'd love to know what you think of the soundtrack there, which struck me as contemporary, fresh and original in the ways you mention here (I know both of those films and concur).... with a strikingly offbeat, very insightful and deepening match of sound to image and atmosphere...

[RichardB]

Have you seen Aftersun? (an extraordinary and remarkably subtle film, deserving all of its praise and prize...). I'd love to know what you think of the soundtrack there, which struck me as contemporary, fresh and original in the ways you mention here (I know both of those films and concur).... with a strikingly offbeat, very insightful and deepening match of sound to image and atmosphere...

I haven't seen it yet but it's on my to-do list.

[gradus]

Oddly enough I've had the main themes of Laura (David Raksin) and A Place in the Sun (Franz Waxman) coursing through my inner ear this morning and then I find this thread reborn, a strange coincidence. Both scores are magnificent and the main melodies wonderful inventions.