peterpandan

I'm on the fence with Giacchino. He certainly has some talent but none of his music really does it for me. I am very familiar with all of his TV work, his short film stuff (at least some of it), all of his film music and have heard clips of this 'symphony' he composed. His music in film seems to fit nicely, however, the concert music I have heard of his has no advanced grasp of form. Concert music can reveal a composer's weaknesses in no time at all. Not to say that those composers who happen to write film music and are great at doing it can't be called great composers, but the Giacchino concert music I have heard is average at best. It's hard to judge a symphony without hearing the whole thing, but what I did hear was basic sonata form, which is ok, but it in no way pushed any envelope in the symphonic musical lexicon. Each is entitled to his opinion, and there is certainly a lot of his music that I like, but this does not mean, at least for me, that it's great music. It's entirely possible to love a piece of music that truly sucks as a composition. The chase through San Francisco cue from 'The Rock' by Hans ZImmer is a good example. I love this track, but it's horrible music. I wish people more often could separate great music from music that you love. My assessment of Giacchino's music as art is best summed up as music that sounds like a bad class composition exercise.

I love how Prague is committed to recording as much film music as possible, I just wish they would stop doing it until they can find a way to put out albums that have good performances and good sound quality.

Herrmann Steiner Korngold Bernstein, Elmer North Raksin Goldsmith, the list goes on All of these composers not only felt the importance of the apprentice/mentor relationship, but at one point or another took on students in the art of composition. Correct me if I am wrong, but to my knowledge Williams has never taken on any serious student(s) in composition. Further, he has, on several occasions, gone out of his way to express his lack of interest in teaching. This happened most recently with the faculty at UCLA, I believe. Why would someone who credits much of his beginning to quasi-mentors such as Hermann and Newman be so against taking on the role and responsibility of mentor to someone else? So many great composers of the last 200 years have taken on, at one point or another, several apprentices in the art of composition. Sure, he's busy as all hell, but so what. Any thoughts on this one??

Have you ever seen The Fury? The first time I saw The Fury, the music gave me chills, literally!

John Scott is, indeed, a wonderful composer. He was a bit arrogant on stage I found at one the Hollywood Symphony concerts last year. He premiered the first major concert suite of music from Anthony and Cleopatra along with film, and gets on the mic to introduce the work and says with his quasi-British accent, "...and now the reason for tonight's concert." Pretty hillarious if you ask me.

Long time jwfan reader, never posted until now. I own Backdraft, Gladiator, The Rock and A League of Their Own. The only one that wasn't given to me and that I purchased is A League of Their Own, and bought it only for the Final Game cue - he had some great arrangers write that one for him! I'll listen to Zimmer every once in a while, mostly when I'm driving and I need to stay awake. However, I have a hard time giving him compositional kudos for anything. You can always weed out an average composer when they clearly have no control over form. But, his music does have it's good qualities - it's great for learning how to compose variations on the same theme and motives for over 10 years! On a serious note, Johnny Dub is a golden god.