Enemy at the gates - Horner ripping people off on theme

[pi 0]

Close your eyes and watch the top of this movie, sound a little like Braveheart? Holy crap!!

The theme is a combination of Schindler's List and Shostakovitch Second Piano Concerto 1st movement.

This guy is such a rip off artist.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Old, very old news.

Stefancos- who can't take serious a guy with a Zimmer avatar!

[pi 0]

Yes but I am sure no one mentioned the Shostakovitch.

-Pi - who does not have the ancient threads memorized

PS i can change my icon to Horner if u wish.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

i can change my icon to Horner if u wish.

I deny you the pleasure!

[BurgaFlippinMan 7]

and a lot of danger motifs...

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

Yes but I am sure no one mentioned the Shostakovitch.

Someone probably did.

- Marc, who recognized Horner after one note in Enemy at the Gates

[Ollie 1,059]

Yes his music is pretty recognizable these days.

[scissorhands 16]

The theme is basically Horner, no Schindler, no Shostakovich piano concerto. In fact, this is the 3rd time this motif makes its appearance, after Balto and Apollo 13. Not much Braveheart in this (in my opinion, Horner's best) Enemy at the Gates score.

I'm getting pretty sick of this late "Horner official bashing". I think the man has proved to be a solid composer in the last years, The New World and Chumscrubbers sound fresh to me, and the Legend of Zorro was one of the best action scores he's ever written.

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

Yes, I recently gave Legend of Zorro a listen, and it's a very good score. Horner definitely surprised me on that one.

[Luke Skywalker 1,792]

Legend of Zorro was one of the best action scores he's ever written.

That's not saying much...

But by the way, we need these other composer's bashing to dilute the John Williams bashing that plagues these boards recently...

Legend of Zorro could have used a little thematical originality or at least old themes creativity...

You dont need Mask of Zorro if you have Legend, the latter is more enjoyable.

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

Admittedly, I've only heard LoZ once, but I don't think it beats Aliens.

[Luke Skywalker 1,792]

Me neither, and see there he used some creativity with Goldsmith stuff.

[crocodile 7,983]

Legend of Zorro could have used a little thematical originality or at least old themes creativity...  

You dont need Mask of Zorro if you have Legend, the latter is more enjoyable.

And it has somewhat less self-ripoffs

Karol

[Sandor 796]

The theme is basically Horner, no Schindler, no Shostakovich piano concerto. In fact, this is the 3rd time this motif makes its appearance, after Balto and Apollo 13. Not much Braveheart in this (in my opinion, Horner's best) Enemy at the Gates score.

I'm getting pretty sick of this late "Horner official bashing". I think the man has proved to be a solid composer in the last years, The New World and Chumscrubbers sound fresh to me, and the Legend of Zorro was one of the best action scores he's ever written.

Thank you!

Basically you're saying what I've been trying to say for years (but you said it better). Kudos man!

[crocodile 7,983]

The theme is basically Horner, no Schindler, no Shostakovich piano concerto. In fact, this is the 3rd time this motif makes its appearance, after Balto and Apollo 13. Not much Braveheart in this (in my opinion, Horner's best) Enemy at the Gates score.

I'm getting pretty sick of this late "Horner official bashing". I think the man has proved to be a solid composer in the last years, The New World and Chumscrubbers sound fresh to me, and the Legend of Zorro was one of the best action scores he's ever written.

Thank you!

Basically you're saying what I've been trying to say for years (but you said it better). Kudos man!

2005 was pretty good year for Horner. And even if I can actually see his much hated habits myself, he's very good dramatist IMO.

Karol, who thought that The Flightplan was also a good score.

[David Coscina 3]

Zorro = Miklos Rosza's El Cid

Enemy at the Gates has some prominant use of Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky "Crusaders in Pskov" 2nd theme group.

Willow = Schumann's 3rd Symphony

Sneakers = Adams' Grand Pionalo Music

Search for Spock = Romeo & Juliet

and the list goes on and on and on ad infinitum.....

[King Mark 3,625]

He's copied Goldsmith too.Klingon Battle in Battle Beyond the Stars,note for note lifts.And now that I've heard Goldsmith's Night Crossing,he's copied segments of that too.

K.M.

[Romão 2,274]

I don't doubt his talent, just his originality sometimes.

[pi 0]

Oh this is the BEST and most BLATANT copying I have ever heard!!!!

Willow Elora Danan

58 seconds the next phrase is EXACTLY out of the Mozart Requiem in D minor, right before the most beautiful Lacrimosa. Exact same idea, nearly identical - a touch different.

Why does he need to copy he is good with out copying?

The theme is basically Horner, no Schindler, no Shostakovich piano concerto. In fact, this is the 3rd time this motif makes its appearance, after Balto and Apollo 13. Not much Braveheart in this (in my opinion, Horner's best) Enemy at the Gates score.

.

Are we listening to the same thing? Under Pressure and Cant touch this - they sound different too?

[publicist 4,643]

Since it obviously is a possession of a large demographic of film music freaks to flog a dead horse mercilessly into the ground they shouldn't step too high on their little pedestals: it's not any better than the 'maestro' using that damn Gayaneh-adagio the zilcht time...

I'd argue that Horner, how uneven his works may be, still can produce real music with a somewhat symphonic fervour. There's so much music released these days, the 2 or 3 Horner scores per year really can't be that hard on people's ears to produce so much vitriol. So it's the old 'put composer x down to elevate composer Y' (who that may be? :roll:)

Just enjoy the actually good stuff he writes...and 'Zorro' is hands down the best adventure score of the past years, best orchestration and all.

[Sandor 796]

Under Pressure and Cant touch this - they sound different too?

Don't you mean: Under Pressure and Ice, Ice Baby?

[Luke Skywalker 1,792]

'Zorro' is hands down the best adventure score of the past years, best orchestration and all.

Was thats some hidden pun? (Conrad Pope and all...) 8O

[publicist 4,643]

Do you mean the waterproof evidence of the 'i have it on good authority'-poster? 8O

These clowns make the round on film music messageboards, trying to stir some pots.

Just ask yourself a question: if that were the case (large parts of 'Zorro' written by Pope), who could possibly know? a) Horner B) Pope...Two people who have good reason not to discuss this matter too loud...

Now a visitor of JWfan.net claims to have exactly this knowledge...did the cue sheets on the 'Train'-sequence said 'Pope'? Very unlikely. Did he, maybe, speak to some people of the music crew of said film and heard it in some hushed remarks? Possible...but how trustworthy is the information then, filtered through zig sources adding their own slant on it?

It just adds up to nothing more then a storm in the teacup....and i've heard the cue in question and flat-out deny the accusations. Pope may have had a hand in constructing the last minutes, but most of the composition is unmistakable Horner.

[crocodile 7,983]

it's not any better than the 'maestro' using that damn Gayaneh-adagio the zilcht time...  

I have to agree on this one. But I'm pretty sure that in the case of A.I. it was intentional as a homage to Kubrick.

Karol

[sound67 0]

On 9/7/2006 at 7:05 AM, pi said:

Oh this is the BEST and most BLATANT copying I have ever heard!!!!

Willow Elora Danan

58 seconds the next phrase is EXACTLY out of the Mozart Requiem in D minor, right before the most beautiful Lacrimosa. Exact same idea, nearly identical - a touch different.

Why does he need to copy he is good with out copying?

Are we listening to the same thing? Under Pressure and Cant touch this - they sound different too?

 

The Elora Danan theme is a copy of a Romanian chant, "Mir Stanke Le" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXQ-eZqnVe0

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

[ymenard 54]

15 years and no mention of Mahler's 8th?   It's moot to even post about this anymore.  I'm guilty, it's too simple to find dozens of them everywhere.  He did great things, but also copied himself by changing a note or two throughout his career, and especially copied existing material by other composers hundreds if not thousands of times.  Those composers, they were the ones who were the true artists.

 

Oh Hi little theme:

Oh hello again:

Countless re-orchestrated versions found in Enemy at the Gates (Oh hey it's Schubert's AVE MARIA right after at 1:20 LOL)

 

[Thor 7,465]

The "Horner plagiarism accusations" put me to sleep at this point. We all know he did it. But it's never bothered me much. He always countered it with his own unique trademarks.

[Edmilson 7,385]

We're already on the 2020s, and there's still people whining at Horner's self plagiarism?

[Thor 7,465]

Yes, as if it's some major revelation (to be fair, though, this thread is 14 years old).

[ymenard 54]

He's been dead for 5 years!  Time goes fast...

[Edmilson 7,385]

To be honest, I dislike when Horner's self quotations cheapens the quoted score. For example, on Bicentennial Man and Bobby Jones: Stroke of a Genius, that re-use parts of Braveheart in a way that makes me like less that theme.

[Quintus 5,399]

6 hours ago, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

 

The Weekend at Bernies reunion looks weird.

[Remco 685]

I don’t know much about Horner, but these painful examples of self-borrowing combined with that infamous interview I’ve heard from him, don’t create much sympathy for the man.

[SteveMc 2,674]

5 hours ago, ymenard said:

15 years and no mention of Mahler's 8th?   It's moot to even post about this anymore.  I'm guilty, it's too simple to find dozens of them everywhere.  He did great things, but also copied himself by changing a note or two throughout his career, and especially copied existing material by other composers hundreds if not thousands of times.  Those composers, they were the ones who were the true artists.

 

Oh Hi little theme:

Oh hello again:

Countless re-orchestrated versions found in Enemy at the Gates (Oh hey it's Schubert's AVE MARIA right after at 1:20 LOL)

 

So, the theme Horner uses and reuses reminds me a lot of the Mahler, espeically outside of Balto, where it feels totally different from the other uses and from Mahler.  But, the way the melody is structured seems like something where the similarity could be a structural similarity that just happened..  Though, of course, we know Horner borrowed a lot.

[1977 1,743]

Fortunately for me I don't listen to any classical music, so I am able to enjoy Horner's cover versions to the fullest 

[TownerFan 4,983]

When I was younger and much more naive, I used to get bothered by James Horner's rip-offs and verbatim quotes, both from himself and from the classical repertoire.

 

After learning better how a film score is put together, how a composer works, and how many of the choices are actually the result of compromise rather than being the immaculate vision of an artiste, I learned to better contextualize many of said rip-offs and quotes, and I started to sincerely appreciate the craft and the mastery found in many of James Horner's scores. Of course, as every film composer, I think there are works more successful than others, but overall he maintained a high level of musicianship even when working under less than ideal circumstances.

[Kühni 485]

Weirdly enough, this is in my Top Three Horner Scores. Its "desolatedness" and forcefulness is very appealing. Like in this instance:

 

And here's what Doug Fake had to say about it 19 years (!) ago (emphases mine):

 

  1942.  Germany invades Russia.
     Stalin orders the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) to be held at any cost.  The Nazis soon find themselves battling the same adversary Napoleon once fought.  Russian winter.
     The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the most important battles of World War II.  Germany suffered its greatest defeat in history.  In February 1943, the Nazis went in retreat.  They never recovered.
     During the battle, a real-life Russian sniper rose to prominence, boosted morale.  Germany countered with a sniper of their own.  A personal battle within a bigger battle.  This story forms the core of ENEMY AT THE GATES.
     I'm anxious to see it when it opens.  Word ahead of time is mixed, but I'm up for it.  James Horner certainly was.
     People sometimes ask how film music can be discussed without seeing the movie first.  That's what it's for.  It's reason for being.
     Yes.  As film music.  But as music in my living room, without pictures, that's something else.  Now it's abstract.  It's Copland's ballet music without dance.  It's Puccini's operas without costume.  It's Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker without a sugarplum fairy.  And it works just fine.
     Sometimes.
     Great film composers fashion music that serves a movie now, plays by itself later.  If the movie score is a series of short cues, ideas to simply illustrate specific gestures on screen, maybe the music by itself is tame, unrewarding.  But if the composer can lay a foundation, build his composition, work with it.  That's something else.  And it's a treat.
     James Horner may be the most symphonic of composers today.  He no longer attempts to mirror specific actions, the "mickey mouse" approach.  His music scores moods, images as a whole.  More than any other composer Horner writes substantial cues, movements, whole pieces where you can hear structure and development.  If the vernacular isn't always wholly original the treatment is.  Horner is composing for film the way one approaches a symphony.  There are big ideas and little ones.  They relate to each other!  Openings are planned out, subsequent ideas get presented with logic, endings are literate, profound.
     So it is with James Horner's ENEMY AT THE GATES.  His world is one of Shostakovich and Prokofiev.  Colors are vast, the array is huge.  Orchestra and chorus, chimes and percussion to bring down the roof.
     The first cue ("The River Crossing To Stalingrad") is more than fifteen minutes long!  No cut-and-paste job either.  It's a magnificent assembly of ideas.
     It begins with the tiniest of gestures.  High violins, harmony in two parts.  A phrase is played then - and this is rare - a pause.  Not just a break, a real musical pause.  Silence that's part of the music.  The violins continue, the silences recur.  Already Horner's fashioning music with a game plan.
     Most of his primary ideas become part of the movement.  There's a rapid triplet figure, heard first against a descending chromatic line in the bass.  Despair, defeat from the get go.  There's an anthem, the main theme.  The chorus, percussion, all get their say.  Fragments of a tune on trumpet foreshadows another important theme coming later in the score.
     It's a big cue.  Rhythms appear, the massive weight of armies and war.  When it's played through, in brilliant fashion, Horner brings it all back down to those violins in two parts.  Then down to a single soloist on one note.  Wow!
     An important device is Horner's shaping of themes.  They're almost always stepwise, moving from one note to the next, up or down.  They rarely leap in intervals.  The triplet motif, the anthem, the secondary theme, all move around by steps.
     While it's been touched on through several cues Horner finally exposes his secondary theme on clarinet with track six, "Bitter News".  Dramatically, it's heard without introduction, without harmony or accompaniment of any sorts.  Minor chords enter, the mood darkens.  Later the line is repeated in two part harmony, bringing unity with the original opening violin idea.
     The triplet figure is developed during "The Tractor Factory".  While other ideas are touched upon, the triplet takes front and center.  Sometimes alone, sometimes with the descending chromatic line, always close at hand.  Late in the cue French horns play in two parts.  More unity.  It all climaxes with a crash of the tam-tam.
     The highlights are many.  This is a massive, major work.  There are themes, developments, crescendos, intimacies, rampages, thunder.  You name it.
     It all probably comes down to Horner's finale.  The secondary melody starts it.  The main theme takes it across the finish line.  With chorus in front, Horner lets the material soar.  A variant of the secondary theme in violins leads to a series of rich string chords.  The secondary theme again tries to assume importance, again on clarinet.
     This time it does.  With flute and chorus joining, it moves towards conclusion.  Then Horner brings solo trumpet into view.  He reduces things.  Soon it's solo horn over chimes.  Then, finally low strings in unison.
     I've said it before and it's evident here.  No composer working in film today concludes a score with such care, such musical reward.  It's a business where most composers deliver cut-and-paste finales, building simple medleys from earlier cues with jarring edits.  Long scores, sometimes really good ones too, come to uninspired "made-on-the-fly" conclusions.
     But James Horner takes his movie music to another level.  He presents his finished composition with dignity.  He's saying if you stick with his stuff for an hour or so, he'll tell you a story, finish all the chapters, close the book.
     That counts for a lot with me.

 

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

I love those 90s Horner OSTs where you really have to crank up the soft parts but then it gets loud and blows up your equipment due to the dynamic range.