Slightly OT: History of American Music: Film Music

[jsawruk 0]

I have been asked to teach part of a History of American Music course and my talk is to be about film music. My class session will run 2.5 hrs. The class is undergraduate non-music majors, so the discussion will mostly be about important people and watching the films to see how it all comes together.

I guess my question is: If I had to pick 5-10 composers to discuss covering a wide range of decades of film music, who would you recommend I talk about?

JW is a must because he is not only prolific, but he has had an impact on modern film music composition AND his themes are well known AND the class would enjoy having an excuse to watch their favorite Lucas or Speilberg film!

Since this is American music history, I request that all composers you suggest either be born in the USA OR have written more than one film score for a US film company.

[RomanticStrings 10]

Alfred Newman

Elmer Bernstein

Jerry Goldsmith

Thomas Newman

James Newton Howard

Danny Elfman

Michael Kamen

Randy Newman

Miklos Rosza (excuse my spelling, if it is wrong, but don't know nearly enough about him or any of the classic film composers, which I plan to remedy, so I just named the first one that came to memory, apart from Alfred whom I know more about)

And, like you said jsawruk, John Williams

~Conor

[RomanticStrings 10]

I picked those names because they seemed to have a wide variety of styles. Even within just the Newman family is there a wide variety.

~Conor

[scissorhands 16]

You can't forget these ones (different periods and styles):

MAX STEINER

ERIC-WOLFGANG KORNGOLD

BERNARD HERRMANN

LEONARD BERNSTEIN

HENRY MANCINI

ENNIO MORRICONE

JERRY GOLDSMITH

MICHAEL NYMAN

And I would also try with LALO SCHIFRIN

Of course, our maestro WILLIAMS

There are more, of course (NORTH, all the NEWMAN family....), and you will have to make a rigurous selection.

Good luck with your classes.

[jsawruk 0]

Nyman? I'm only familiar with him as a minimalist. What has he scored?

[scissorhands 16]

MICHAEL NYMAN. His filmography:

Hours, The (2002)

Subterrain (2001)

Stanza del figlio, La (2001) (piece "Water Dances" from 'Making a Splash (1984)')

Act Without Words 1 (2000) (TV)

Claim, The (2000)

"Nuremberg" (2000) (mini) TV Series

Purely Belter (2000) (from "Wonderland")

End of the Affair, The (1999)

Nabbie no koi (1999)

Wonderland (1999)

How to Make Dhyrak: A Dramatic Work for Three Players and Camera, Truncated with Only Two Players (1999) (V) (from "Ravenous (1999)")

Ravenous (1999)

"Titch" (1998) TV Series (theme song)

Gattaca (1997)

Unhold, Der (1996)

Anne no nikki (1995)

Carrington (1995) (also from "String Quartet No.3", "String Quartet No. 4" and "Three Quartets")

Mesmer (1994)

À la folie (1994)

"Ryori no tetsujin" (1993) TV Series (from "Zed & Two Noughts, A (1985)")

Piano, The (1993)

Fall of Icarus, The (1992)

Final Score, The (1992) (TV)

Michael Nyman Songbook, The (1992) (also from "Letters, Riddles & Writs" and "Prospero's Books")

Not Mozart: Letters, Riddles and Writs (1991) (TV)

Prospero's Books (1991)

Enfants volants, Les (1990)

Men of Steel (1990)

Mari de la coiffeuse, Le (1990)

Hubert Bals Handshake (1989)

Out of the Ruins (1989) (TV)

Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover, The (1989)

Monsieur Hire (1989)

Death in the Seine (1988)

Fear of Drowning (1988)

Drowning by Numbers (1988)

Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, The (1987) (TV)

Disputation, The (1986) (TV)

I'll Stake My Cremona to a Jew's Trump (1986)

Miraculé, Le (1986)

Ange frénétique, L' (1985)

Inside Rooms: 26 Bathrooms, London & Oxfordshire, 1985 (1985)

Kiss, The (1985)

Zed & Two Noughts, A (1985)

Making a Splash (1984)

"Fairly Secret Army" (1984) TV Series

Cold Room, The (1984) (TV)

Coastline, The (1983)

Frozen Music (1983)

Nelly's Version (1983) (TV)

Brimstone and Treacle (1982) (additional music)

Draughtsman's Contract, The (1982)

Terence Conran (1981)

Act of God (1980) (TV)

Falls, The (1980)

1-100 (1978)

Walk Through H: The Reincarnation of an Ornithologist, A (1978)

Tom Phillips (1977)

Goole by Numbers (1976)

Keep It Up Downstairs (1976)

Vertical Features Remake (1976)

5 Postcards From Capital Cities (1967)

Despite having composed for cinema since the seventies, he started to compose for Hollywood in 1997 with Gattaca. Then would come Practical Magic (unused in the film), the End of the affair....

[jsawruk 0]

I didn't need a complete filmography

Gattaca and the Piano wouldve been sufficient. However, if I want to discuss minimalism in film music, I think I would rather discuss Glass unless you have some extremely strong reason as to why you think I would be better discussing Nyman.

[Morn 8]

These guys have been influenial composers for the genre.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Max Steiner

Franz Waxman

Alfred Newman

Miklos Rozsa

Bernard Herrmann

Alex North

Jerry Goldsmith

John Williams

[Figo 2]

Yeah, you should definitely give the early guys their due. People like Steiner and Korngold, who laid the foundations for the entire art form. Then I would probably jump ahead to the '50s, when composers like North and Bernstein started to work with jazz, and more modernistic techniques became prevalent among the younger generation of composers. Williams and Goldsmith best represent the giants of the recent past, but their days (I hate to say it) are numbered. You can fill out the rest with whatever crap you can find by the under 50 crowd, because crap is what it is. That should give your students a pretty healthy idea of what's out there.

[Morn 8]

Should have samples of the music ready

[jsawruk 0]

Should have samples of the music ready

Not just music, but film too.

I know my discussion will start with silent films and how a pianist or organist used a film music book or written soundtrack and played along with the film.

Does anyone know the first film to be packaged with sound on the film? It was probably the Jazz Singer, which was the first talkie, but I'm just verifying.

Any films I shouldn't miss? I know that the original Planet of the Apes, Psycho, Jaws, and Star Wars are good examples of great film music. Any others?

Just verifying that all of these guys fit my definition of American film composer?

[Morn 8]

Umm, define American film composer. Because.... all those guys worked on American films, but not all were Americans.

[Marian Schedenig 8,198]

Any films I shouldn't miss? I know that the original Planet of the Apes, Psycho, Jaws, and Star Wars are good examples of great film music. Any others?

Why, The Fury, of course. Take Vision on the Stairs or something like that - I keep saying that I've never seen a film where visuals and score blend so perfectly.

Umm, define American film composer. Because.... all those guys worked on American films, but not all were Americans.

But then...Hollywood music has most of it's roots in Europe. Korngold and Steiner both came from Austria.

[RomanticStrings 10]

I would recommend viewing The Shadow. Maybe you should before showing it to your class, but I think that Jerry Goldsmith's score works extremely well in that movie. I truely believe that, but I am also doing this to spread the good news of The Shadow. It is a completely underrated movie, with an underrated score. In fact, I recommend that everyone who reads this go out and rent that movie at the nearest movie store. I don't like being one of the few posters who knows about this great movie.

~Conor

[The Five Tones 302]

J: Sounds like a blast! I have taught music, but would love to sit down and cover film music (not teaching at the moment, though). One of my fellow students did her PhD on "The Dialogic Aspect of Image and Sound in the Film Scores of JW" or something like that. It was always fun to attend her presentations.

2.5 hours will go by quickly, I would suggest that you narrow it down to 3-4 composers/examples (5 at the very most), to give yourself lots of time to present and leave lots of time for discussion. Don't try to do the ENTIRE history, that's unreasonable, just some key points, which might start some good discussion around the way film music works.

I wonder how many in your audience would have actually seen -- the shower scene from Psycho; the "Rosebud" scene from Citizen Kane, the rooftop chase from Vertigo, or that fabulous cab-out-of-the-steam shot from Taxi Driver? Not a subtle plug for Bennie Herrmann, but then he wasn't a subtle composer, which is one of the reasons why his scores were so successful. They refused to be decoration or background. Another reason is that Herrmann truly broke away from the European style traditions that other greats like Steiner were bound by. Herrmann seems to me (in my humble Canadian opinion) to be the quintessential American film composer, while Williams is simply a global phenomenon. But there would be no "Fury" without Herrmann.

[Ray Barnsbury 8]

This has probably already occured to you, but when showing movies/scenes to the class, try muting it first. Then watch it with the music. Often the best way to help people appreciate something, icluding film music, is to take it away.

Ray Barnsbury

[Figo 2]

Jeez, how could I forget Herrmann! :oops: Major league, my boy, major league.

As for the first original film score to be synchronized with the images, you may want to fact check this, but I believe the credit goes to none other than Camille Saint-Saens, who composed a score for the silent film L'Assassinat du duc de Guise (The Assassination of the Duke de Guise) in 1908.

[Marian Schedenig 8,198]

Herrmann truly broke away from the European style traditions that other greats like Steiner were bound by. Herrmann seems to me (in my humble Canadian opinion) to be the quintessential American film composer

He definitely didn't use that lush romantic sound Hollywood originally got from Europe, which is why I never thought of him as a Golden Age composer. Still, he sometimes sounds quite a lot like Jean Sibelius, the bathroom cleaning music in Psycho for example is clearly based (in style) on a Sibelius cue. That's not to say his music isn't also very American, but it also has roots in "different" European composers.

Marian - who thinks Herrmann had good taste.

[RomanticStrings 10]

You could watch The Matrix (or another film with the following feature), where you can select to have only the music play with the images. No sound effects or talking. It shows how just the music can tell the story.

~Conor

[Figo 2]

You could always scrap the whole survey thing and delve more deeply into the work of a single composer.

Prof. J. Sawruk - History of American Music 101: The Films of Marvin Hamlisch

[ZAMBELIS 0]

Do not forget Henry Mancini

[Hlao-roo 389]

Do not forget Henry Mancini

Hear, hear.

[Morn 8]

Or Hans Zimmer!

[ocelot 508]

Start with silent films and piano accompaniment... then ...

David Raksin/Charlie Chaplin - Raksin basically helped and really did a lot of the music on Chaplin's last films like "modern times" including the song smile.

Korngold - captain blood, adventures of robin hood, the sea hawk (these scores and his operas gave rise to John Williams of today).

Steiner - Now Voyager (kiss on the boat), casablanca, gone with the wind.

Waxman - bride of frankenstein, susnset blvd.

Alfred Newman, Hugo Friedhoffer, David Raksin.

That's what I would cover for the early people.

[Omen II 1,235]

I would also include Hans Salter and/or Herman Stein. In the 40s and 50s Universal had much smaller music budgets than most of the other studios so its composers really learnt how to be resourceful. They wrote some terrific scores within limited budgets and often to ridiculously tight deadlines. Many of the players in the Universal orchestras were able to play several instruments (and often did so on the same cue).

Often more than one composer worked on the same score but the results were usually seamless. When time and/or budgets did not allow, the process commonly known as 'Salterizing' was used, whereby suitable cues from earlier Universal scores were tracked in to the new score. A score such as Creature from the Black Lagoon features the work of about 5 composers.

Good examples of films that showcase Stein's and Salter's talent are 'It Came From Outer Space', 'House of Frankenstein', 'This Island Earth' and 'Mole People'. Also you can't beat a bit of theremin.

Damien

[Hlao-roo 389]

Or Hans Zimmer!  

Hopefully that's sarcasm.

(I know with me that it's hard to tell, but I wasn't being sarcastic about Mancini in the least.)

[Morn 8]

I was, I think Mancini is good, but he's.... too jazzy and pop like to be taken seriously as a film composer.

[Hlao-roo 389]

I was, I think Mancini is good, but he's.... too jazzy and pop like to be taken seriously as a film composer.

Sadly, Morn betrays his ignorance...

[Morn 8]

:roll:

[jsawruk 0]

I have compiled a list of what I think I want to cover in class, as far as listening examples. Tell me what you think of my selections, and feel free to add examples as you see fit, or specific scenes or tracks within the examples that really stand out. I would like to keep examples to a minimum, and probably only 3 will have the video to them as well, the rest on CD (just because its VHS system and not DVD).

Here's what I'd like them to listen to:

Steiner - King Kong, Gone With the Wind

Rozsa - Quo Vadis

Hermann - Citizen Kane, Psycho

North - Streetcar Named Desire

E. Bernstein - Magnificent 7

Mancini - Pink Panther

Goldsmith - Planet of the Apes

Williams - Jaws, Star Wars (probably epsiode IV)

I will also discuss briefly without musical examples composers not mentioned here, including Korngold, Raksin, et al.

Also, do you think I should include a contemporary non-Williams score, and if so, which one?

What contemporary composers should be mentioned? There are a lot, but who really stand out?

[ymenard 54]

Since it's teaching a class of students, you can't just start being a little too serious in the choice of either music or film. They really need to associate themselves, which can be hard. That's why I say you perhaps should stick with more commercial movies and their use of music.

- John Williams, obviously.

- Morricone is a great pick, if you try to show how his music acts towards the Leono Western Spaghettis of the 60's. They all know that, but not all of them might have seen the movies. The finale showdown of The Good, the Bad & The Ugly per example, or the important motifs like the harmonica in Once Upon a Time in the West, the musical box watch in For a Few Dollars more !!!

- Herrmann, for his use of music in Taxi Driver or Vertigo, especially the whole love thematic.

- Goldsmith or Goldenthal, for their more chaotic usage of music in movies.

[jsawruk 0]

But these are college students, and it is a college level class, though for non-music majors (fine arts liberal ed requirement). If this were not a college level class OR I wasn't concerned with teaching history of film music, I would agree with you.

However, you will notice that Psycho, Mag 7, Pink Panther, Star Wars, and Jaws do fit the criteria you mentioned of being "more easily accesible". The others I selected because the films themselves are well known and good films, except the Rosza, which I picked from my own personal taste

[Morn 8]

Of those scores, I'd say only Planet of the Apes is too serious, and I'm not sure about that either. Perhaps Total Recall would be better for Goldsmith, you don't want something too light but nor do you want something too heavy. I think it's better to show them what more film music has than the popular stuff which they probably would have already heard some of and would have formed preconceived notations about the genre from them. I also think it might be important to show that it can be very serious. Spartacus is better choice for North, it shows a larger range of his style, if you are going for lighter music, stick with Streetcar. Also, I suggest you replace King Kong with a Korngold score. You can't leave him out any more than you could leave out Beethoven in a discussion on classical music, he is simply too influenial.

[jsawruk 0]

Which Korngold score?

I picked Apes because it is 12-tone/serial (which one???).

[Morn 8]

Goldsmith said serial, if I remember. And for Korngold, I suggest The Adventures of Robin Hood.

[Morn 8]

Here is it, an excerpt from an interview with him.

Edwin Black: I've studied your music for two decades. Would it be incorrect to say that Planet of the Apes was the project in which you made the greatest leap forward and the greatest contribution to the repertoire?

Jerry Goldsmith: I don't know. I don't think there was anything groundbreaking there. The ground was really broken in the 1950s by Alex North in Streetcar Named Desire, then later with Lennie Rosenman, in The Cobweb. Lennie really wrote an avant garde piece for that film.

EB: Planet of the Apes offers several non-serial...

JG: ...No, actually Planet of the Apes is serial.

EB: Interesting. Yet I heard a little bit of "Survivor From Auschwitz" by Schoenburg.

JG: You'd probably hear more of Berg than Schoenburg. He's of greater influence. I had written in this style before when I did Freud. But that too was serial.

EB: I've never heard the Freud soundtrack. The platters are hard to get. Not everything has been re-released on CD.

JG: It will be re-released eventually. They're all coming out. If you record in Europe, it doesn't cost much. Somebody will pick it up.

EB: You've scored how many movies now.

JG: 175.

EB: I know how wrong it is to ask, but which ones of those stand out in your mind?

JG: This is the first time I've conducted Planet of the Apes in thirty years. And I find it amazing. Phenomenal. It's really quite good. And I was sort of surprised. Every film I did with Frank Schaffner helped me grow as an artist. Creatively, I think Planet of the Apes was certainly a growth experience for me. Patton was certainly "growing up" and being inventive. Papillon, I certainly grew in a lyrical sense. Islands In the Stream, I expressed myself in a romantic way that I never had before. And Boys from Brazil, I had a great time copying Wagner and Stauss. Like I said, every experience with Frank Schaffner has been an evolutionary experience.

EB: I heard Debussy in Papillon.

JG: Oh, you probably did. The story was after all French.

EB: And a little Ravel in there.

JG: I don't think you're ever going to hear any Hollywood scores without a little bit of Ravel, or Debussy - they are great influences. You know, when you're writing as much music as we write - this is my fifth film this year, including the new Star Trek Insurrection... And by the time I finish that one, I've written over six hours of music. Now, that's a lot of music in less than a year. So you're going to be a little willing to have some influences slip in.

[Guest]

What contemporary composers should be mentioned? There are a lot, but who really stand out?

Goldenthal - Alien3, or Don Davis - The Matrix. For the aleatoric and post minimalist techniques.

I picked Apes because it is 12-tone/serial (which one???).

Technically its 12-tone, which refers to the method. Serialism generally refers to the school of 12-tone composition in a particular period.

[Morn 8]

What contemporary composers should be mentioned? There are a lot, but who really stand out?

Goldenthal - Alien3, or Don Davis - The Matrix. For the aleatoric and post minimalist techniques.

Yes, but if he's already got Herrmann and North that should be enough.

[jsawruk 0]

Technically its 12-tone, which refers to the method. Serialism generally refers to the school of 12-tone composition in a particular period.

Actually, 12-tone (at least as I've been taught) means any piece of music composed using all 12 chromatic pitches with (roughly) equal distribution. Serialism and Free Chromaticism are disjunctive subsets of 12-tone music. Serialism is a systematic method of 12-tone composition, invented by Schoenberg. Free Chromaticism is 12-tone composition without a rigid system. (There are other techniques as well I assume, such as aleatory).

Therefore when I say 12-tone, I mean free chromaticism because most people don't know what free chromaticism is!

[jsawruk 0]

Goldenthal - Alien3, or Don Davis - The Matrix. For the aleatoric and post minimalist techniques.  

While these are both excellent choices (The Matrix especially because a lot have seen it, it is recent, and people enjoy the movie), I was thinking more along the lines of Elfman or Shore (or even Zimmer or Horner). But I do like this suggestion quite a bit.

Me - who is seriously considering the Matrix as the newest film music he will discuss , unless for some strange reason I discuss Episode II

[ocelot 508]

Since you are showing the history of film music, how can you skip how it all started which is in Silent films?

Also, I agree with Morn, you HAVE to mention Korngold, he is a HUGE influence.

And for Elfman, you could go with Edward Scissorhands. That's one everyone knows, or Batman, but I think Scissorhands is a better one.

Pink Panther is good, also Breakfast at Tiffanys. One of the best known songs was written by Mancini, Moon River.

Which was later taken by Barry and turned into Goldfinger.....

[Morn 8]

I think these composers are the must mention, Korngold, North, Herrmann and Williams. I think they are the most influenial. Korngold created the sound of the golden age(and a lot of the silver age), North was a big influence on Goldsmith and Williams plus did the first jazz based score and also did the first score to make major use of 20th century techniques and Williams is a big influence on the current young generation of composers.

[jsawruk 0]

Also, I agree with Morn, you HAVE to mention Korngold, he is a HUGE influence.

And for Elfman, you could go with Edward Scissorhands.  That's one everyone knows, or Batman, but I think Scissorhands is a better one.

But which Korngold? What of his really stands out? I wasn't familiar with anything he wrote, even though I agree he should be included.

As for the Elfman, Batman sounds like a great idea.

Also, those composers that I didn't mention in my list for listening examples will at least be mentioned in the discussion and in my handout. So Korngold was to be mention (as was Elfman), but without a listening example due to time constraints.

I wish I could just pop in 100 CDs and that be the class, but its not that easy LOL

[jsawruk 0]

Williams is a big influence on the current young generation of composers.

Tell me about it. EVERY film composer or aspiring film composer that I know personally cites Williams as a huge influence, especially myself LOL

[Marian Schedenig 8,198]

I'd says keep Planet of the Apes, by all means, and use it as one of the visual examples, i.e. with film. I don't think you'll find a lot of music that is a lot more important in setting the very mood of a film than some of the music during the planet exploration scenes. Basically, they're just boooring scenery shots, but with the music, they become truly alien. Perhaps it would be possible to show these scenes without sound first, and then with sound? You could do the same with the driving scenes in Psycho (very famous example). For Matrix, I'd suggest the rooftop chase - it might not be the best part of the score (though it's great), but at least with the visuals it's the most obvious bit of music.

Korngold....you should really listen to his music. Wonderful stuff. There are parts in Sea Hawk (I believe) where he combined the music with the dialogue, conducting dialogue snippets on the set so they would fit his score.

[ocelot 508]

OK Korngold

Kings Row main title sounds like a cross between Star Wars and Superman

But what I would go with is either Adventures of Robin Hood, Sea Hawk or Captain Blood. All three great swashbuckling scores that gave rise to the sound we hear now in stuff like, Star Wars, Indy, Cutthoat Island, Hook, The three musketeers etc etc etc

[Figo 2]

Here's what I'd like them to listen to:

Steiner - King Kong, Gone With the Wind

Rozsa - Quo Vadis

Hermann - Citizen Kane, Psycho

North - Streetcar Named Desire

E. Bernstein - Magnificent 7

Mancini - Pink Panther

Goldsmith - Planet of the Apes

Williams - Jaws, Star Wars (probably epsiode IV)

For what it's worth, I think these choices are fine, as long as you mention Korngold in conjunction with Steiner. It would be impossible to come up with a definitive list. I could say replace Mancini with Morricone or someone else, but he does typify a certain style of filmscoring. You have to walk the line between subjective and objective. (Of course, I say so at the risk of being called an "ass***e"). With the time you're allowed, I think you did a good job.

[Morn 8]

Streetcar Named Desire will cover that style anyway, by the guy who invented it (for film). Maybe it's not as good example, but it will work.