COTW - Film muzac

[gradus]

Just listened to David Raksin's Laura and The Bad and the Beautiful in the superb recordings he conducted with the New Philharmonia. For those who like sumptuous orchestral arrangements of inspired melodies brilliantly recorded, it doesn't get much better.
I thoroughly enjoyed the John Williams programmes, in particular the lovely music he wrote for Schindler's List.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well that is a matter of opinion.

True; but what is it that has led me to that opinion? I'll take the James Bond Theme as an example of good Musicianship used in a film score, partly because the two main melodies are not by the arranger, John Barry, but by Monty Norman. He wrote the main electric guitar tune (dum diddledadaah, da da da dum-diddledadaah, da da daetc,) and the Full Band (Dade, didaah do dahdaah, dadiddledadaaah di dah) second theme. Not bad pieces; JW could have written these. But what Barry does with this material is what puts him in a higher rank of composers: the first theme is played twice; on the second time, a muted trombone is given a counter-theme, which fills in the texture (exact repetition is anathema to Barry) but also presents the second theme surruptitiously, as a background idea, so that when the band belts out the second theme, the audience has already heard it, even if they might not be unaware of having done so. A mundane AABA structure is thus transformed into a more subtle A, A&B, B, A. RVW would have approved.

But there's more. Barry is also responsible for the chromatic ostinato that has become Bond's leitmotif (doodoodoodoo - I so wish there was a way of putting notation on these Boards!) - shiftily on edge, ambiguous - but also rooted (literally) to the syncopated tonic pedal, focussing the Music on the job at hand. A brilliant stroke that so sums up Bond that no subsequent composer has felt the need to alter it.

And Barry is also responsible for the opening chords that precede the first theme: a minor chord with an added major second: JW could have thought up this chord, but I don't know of anywhere in his work where he makes such varied use of it as Barry does in the Bond films. Most noticeably later in Dr No when the turantula crawls up his arm: the chord is frozen, and a series of ostinati all based on the notes of the chord crawl one-by-one from the different instruments in the orchestra, each getting louder as the arachnid gets closer to Bond's neck. (Barry pointed out the similarity of Bond's predicament here with that in the Laser Beam scene in Goldfinger - he uses the same Music).

Not that Barry rests too long on his laurels; the later Connery Bonds have their own distinctive sound world: non-tonal alto flutes create the undersea world of Thunderball; drifting key centres in You Only Live Twice accompany the gravity-free space walkers (and there's a Passacaglia before the opening Credits and main theme - a tune so glorious, by the way, that it probably keeps JW awake at nights - RVW would be even more pleased.)

This is the sort of factual evidence I use to come to my opinion that Barry is a much better composer (and not just "Film Composer") than Williams.

Tune in tomorrow, when I'll discuss Bernard Herrmann!

[teamsaint]

Ferney, please do it as a podcast, and "available across all digital platforms" , for us wage slaves !

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I so wish there was a way of putting notation on these Boards

So do I. I suppose you could save the music as an image (jpg or gif) and upload it to photobucket for a link?

[Herrmannesque]

The question we are asking is ‘is Composer of the Week’ the right place for it?’, especially in the current state of R3 where more spacialised interest that cannot be accommodated by any other BBC radio stations is blatantly neglected.

Well, to be more accurate, you're asking the question. Or is this some private members club I've wandered into?

The short answer is, yes, film music belongs on CoTW. Like it or not for the last 100 years a relationship has existed between the commercial world of the cinema and the concert hall and each has helped influence the other. The cinema helped introduce the rhythms and pulses and idioms of "classical" music to a wider public. It was certainly a gateway for me. On the other hand, composers like Korngold or Bernard Herrmann never saw themselves as "dumbing down" when they composed music for films - they remained serious composers wherever they wrote. Korngold approached film composition in exactly the same way as one of his opera's.

The only proviso I'd add is that the music needs to be presented in the form of orchestral suites or as works adapted for the concert hall (Here I'm thinking of works like Alexander Nevsky or Symphonia Antartica). Just playing a lot of cues wouldn't make for a very satisfying experience out of context.

I appreciate concerns over R3's content. Now that "Classical" music has been relegated to a niche interest it's easy for some R3 listeners (me included) to feel a bit beleaguered and, therefore, rather defensive. However, I think such defensiveness is misplaced in this instance.

[Flosshilde]

The only proviso I'd add is that the music needs to be presented in the form of orchestral suites or as works adapted for the concert hall (Here I'm thinking of works like Alexander Nevsky or Symphonia Antartica).

Well, exactly - & in creating the suite it's no longer film music but concert music

Just playing a lot of cues wouldn't make for a very satisfying experience out of context.[/QUOTE]

Exactly - which is why the score as composed for the film isn't terribly interesting without the film, & why the composer often feels the need to re-write it as a suite, or parts of it.

[Herrmannesque]

Well, exactly - & in creating the suite it's no longer film music but concert music

Just playing a lot of cues wouldn't make for a very satisfying experience out of context.

Exactly - which is why the score as composed for the film isn't terribly interesting without the film, & why the composer often feels the need to re-write it as a suite, or parts of it.[/QUOTE]

That's not entirely true - it depends on what function the music is expected to have in a particular film, how sensitive to music the director is and how talented the composer.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Isn't there a Lord of the Rings Symphony by Howard Shore?

[Serial_Apologist]

That's not entirely true - it depends on what function the music is expected to have in a particular film, how sensitive to music the director is and how talented the composer.

You are admitting, then, that such music is inseparable from the images it conveys on the screen. In which case its peformance on COTW means nothing to someone who has not seen the film in question. Which is why I avoided this particular COTW.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Isn't there a Lord of the Rings Symphony by Howard Shore?

Ah yes. Here it is.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I suppose you could save the music as an image (jpg or gif) and upload it to photobucket for a link?

???

Is it on the trolley?


... I'm so useless at computer technology: Amie had to explain what Spotify is to me yesterday!

[Herrmannesque]

You are admitting, then, that such music is inseparable from the images it conveys on the screen. In which case its peformance on COTW means nothing to someone who has not seen the film in question. Which is why I avoided this particular COTW.

That's not what I said. To repeat - it depends on what function the music is expected to have in a particular film. Film music varies not just in quality but in what it is expected to do in the context of a film.

Korngold’s film music, for instance, stands up very well. In fact, he called his scores "Opera's without singing" and that's exactly how he approached them. He never compromised and was able to ask for some sequences to be re-cut to fit his music. There is symphonic development of the themes (after the manner of Wagnerian leitmotif) and the use of logical key sequences. In pretty much any score you can lay the cues end-to-end and listen to them on their own and feel you have been listening to a symphonic poem. It helps that the films of the 40’s which he scored were still essentially an outgrowth of the theatre and the opera house.

On the other hand, Bernard Herrmann's scores are much more integrated with the images on screen and are therefore less likely to be able to stand on their own away from the film. As long as one bears these issues in mind and is aware of what one is listening to I have no problem in listening even to a well-integrated film score in its own right, especially when you have a composer with the individuality of a Bernard Herrmann. If you do then that's equally fine. I just object to the idea that film music has no place on Radio 3.

[Plebgate]

I think Herrmann concedes too much. Good film music has most of the things anybody could want from music - great orchestration, melody, rythm and emotion. If it was as worthless as the snobs on here think it is why do they imagine so many good composers have tried their hand at it?

You all want to think that 500 years of Western art music is such a delicate flower with so little inherent appeal to a wider public that its threatened by 5 hours of John Williams then you and it are very badly off indeed!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

You all want to think that 500 years of Western art music is such a delicate flower with so little inherent appeal to a wider public that its threatened by 5 hours of John Williams then you and it are very badly off indeed!

"All"??!!

[ahinton]

Those entry points, keys to the door, or whateve,r are really important, unpredictable, and very precious to us individually.

Fair commednt.

My entry point to Shostakovich was the Howard Goodall Programme. I am grateful to the programme and its maker, but in the end , I would probably have discovered DSCH some other way. But the point you make is important.

Mine was Shostakovich himself (or rather his music - sadly, I never met him personally). The Fourth Symphony. It doesn't get a whole lot more powerful an entry point than that.