Alan Silvestri

[ebertfan92 0]

Very underrated composer. He takes jobs for the money quite often - The Mummy and Van Helsing come to mind - but he's done some amazing work. His score for "Predator" is one of my favorite soundtracks - works well within the film just as well as it does on its own. The main suite for "Cast Away" is one of the most moving pieces I've ever heard - it's not loud, manipulative or forceful like his socre for "Forrest Gump" (which is still very good) but rather very subtle and quiet with intermittent surges. The full version (the seven-minute + track) ends with a three-minute clip of waves splashing silently against sand, with the occasional instrumental segment thrown in. Unfortunately it's not available for purchase and you have to search eBay (or file sharing software) for Academy Award screeners which were sent out for nomination back in 2000.

Silvestri's scores do sound similar at times but it's more of a "signature" sound rather than pure repetition - it's certainly not as repetitious as Williams and is more like Morricone's - they can sound very similar at times but even his poorest works have something work remembering.

Oh, and let's not forget Back to the Future and What Lies Beneath - the former a classic and the latter a great homage to Herrmann.

[Romão 2,276]

Just listen to Williams' 2005 output, and tell where he was repetitious.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

He takes jobs for the money quite often - The Mummy and Van Helsing come to mind .

Jerry Goldsmith scored The Mummy, probably for the money too, what's your point?

[Ray Barnsbury 8]

The full version (the seven-minute + track) ends with a three-minute clip of waves splashing silently against sand, with the occasional instrumental segment thrown in. Unfortunately it's not available for purchase and you have to search eBay (or file sharing software) for Academy Award screeners which were sent out for nomination back in 2000.  

I have that track, on the album Cast Away: The Film of Robert Zemeckis/The Music of Alan Silvestri. I agree, it's beautiful, although the waves get old after a while.

Ray Barnsbury

[Ollie 1,064]

I would say Silvestri is more repetative than Williams. His action music mostly sounds the same.

Silvestri also has his own wine vineyard so maybe "the money" isn't a factor.

[crocodile 8,045]

He's overrated.

Karol

[tpigeon 3]

Silvestri can write an enjoyable music, but if you're going to make an argument for a composer who writes very "simple" music, it's Silvestri. He always does the expected: the piano for sentimentality, big common brassy action music. Don't get me wrong. he's good at it. But much of his music tends to be on the generic side. Not that Williams hasn't done generic music (The Patriot, for example), but stretches himself musically much more than the common listener gives him credit for. In short, I think Silvestri is a reliable composer for a safe, orchestral score. He can write exciting action music and sugary, sentimental music, and is in tune with what audiences desire from a score, which speaks for itself, I suppose. He does that better than most composers. But he doesn't push himself with the exception of a chosen few scores (Cast Away).

Ted

[Trent B 337]

ebertfan92, Silvestri scored The Mummy Returns not The Mummy. As Stef stated Goldsmith scored The Mummy.

For Silvestril my favorite scores from him are:

The Abyss

Back To The Future I-III

Flight Of The Navigator (even though it's synth music)

The Mummy Returns

Predator

Volcano

Those are the only ones I really like from Silvestri. I will agree he does good work and he is underrated.

[Justin 2]

I like Silvestri's earlier style. I.E. Back To The Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Wacky italian stuff.

Justin - Who thinks it'd be nice is Silvestri actually wrote some music anytime soon.

[robthehand 3]

Who Framed Roger Rabbit is brilliant.

[Marian Schedenig 8,240]

I like Silvestri's earlier style. I.E. Back To The Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Wacky italian stuff.

Italian?

[JMan 0]

Polar Express

[BigMacGyver 0]

As the silvestri fan that I am, Night At The Museum will be a must-see and hopefully there will be an album with a good amount of score.

The saddest thing is that most of Silvestri's really impressive works are still unreleased. Siegfried & Roy: The Magic Box is an absolute thrill but there is only a bootleg. The Polar Express is a really outstanding effort, probably his best score ever but there is only a short promo and 9 minutes on the album. I won't even start talking about BTTF. His very first orchestral score for Fandango was an outstanding work but remains unreleased and very few bits were used in the messed up film. I think if there would be more releases of the really good Silvestri scores and not just his comedy and action stuff people would finally realize what an amazing talent this guy is and how big his range actually is. He can switch from complete action overscoring ala mummy returns which despite being overbusy always ends up as really exciting, to marvelously spotted, careful dramatic stuff like Cast Away - seemingly within a heartbeat.

He is even doing music for free as it was the case with Two Soldiers, Aaron Schneider's Academy Award winning short film, which I heard is excellent as well and I wish there would be a way to enjoy it. A DVD iso score was planned but the DVD got cancelled for reasons unknown.

It's great that Silvestri has established strong friendships with Zemeckis and Sommers, because there is some really amazing stuff

coming from these guys and Silvestri will almost certainly score all of them. In an interview with music from the movies, Stephen Sommers said: "My next Movie will be composed by Alan Silvestri!". Sommer's company has a lot of cool stuff in the works, such as Nightmare Academy, The Mummy 3, When Worlds Collide, Jason and the Argonauts, Flash Gordon, Magic Kingdom for Sale and many more. Zemeckis is currently working on Beowulf and the official site of this one is already up with a demo cue of Silvestri's music!

Besides being an excellent artist and master of his craft, he is also a very nice person. He donated an expensive recording studio to a music school which is a very kind gesture and he even invites his closest fans to scoring sessions.

There surely can't be a cooler guy than Silvestri in the business right now. And he is just getting better and better with each film he is scoring. IMO, the guy has just began... he is going to surprise a lot of people in the years to come.

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

Who Framed Roger Rabbit is brilliant.

Yes, it is.

[Red 75]

I'm a fan of Silvestri. I'll agree that he doesn't produce great work all the time, in fact, there are only a handful of his scores that I would call fantastic.

[King Mark 3,631]

I like Contact,BttF and Stuart Little.

Not fond of Van Helsing,it seems MVised

K.M.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Van Helsing is MV music done by a composer with talent and an actual voice of his own.

It's fun and satisfying like a huge strawberry milkshake.

[Ollie 1,064]

Well said.

[Hlao-roo 389]

He has an excellent given name, perhaps the best in the industry.

[ChrisAfonso 188]

I'd give that credit to Menken

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

As Stef stated Goldsmith scored The Mummy.

I'm surprised Steef let you get away with that one!

[Richard Penna 3,751]

I've been a little disappointed with both Silvestri's output and the treatment of that output recently.

Neither Van Helsing nor The Wild impressed me, the former being fairly boring to me, and the latter just too damn noisy.

I'm also very annoyed that no one saw the potential of releasing a score CD for The Polar Express (I guess cost was probably an issue, but this is a major film we're talking about).

It's almost like composing is a secondary job for him, after his vineyard - I think the guy needs a LotR scope project to really show what he can do

[Josh500 1,615]

Silvestri can write an enjoyable music, but if you're going to make an argument for a composer who writes very "simple" music, it's Silvestri. He always does the expected: the piano for sentimentality, big common brassy action music. Don't get me wrong. he's good at it. But much of his music tends to be on the generic side. Not that Williams hasn't done generic music (The Patriot, for example), but stretches himself musically much more than the common listener gives him credit for. In short, I think Silvestri is a reliable composer for a safe, orchestral score. He can write exciting action music and sugary, sentimental music, and is in tune with what audiences desire from a score, which speaks for itself, I suppose. He does that better than most composers. But he doesn't push himself with the exception of a chosen few scores (Cast Away).

Ted

The Patriot is not generic! Listen to the whole score fifty times, and you'll know what I'm talking about!

[BigMacGyver 0]

It's almost like composing is a secondary job for him, after his vineyard - I think the guy needs a LotR scope project to really show what he can do

It seems that Silvestri was a bit more selective with his projects, especially last year, to spend more time with the family and develop the vineyard because he is aware that the next few years are going to be pretty busy. Stephen Sommers has a lot of pictures in development and Silvestri is always involved when Sommers or his friend Ducsay are doing new stuff (with Ducsay, the chances are at least very high). Projects with a big LOTR scale are also on his list of upcoming scoring jobs. I only say Beowulf and When Worlds Collide, it can't get bigger than that. But I can fully understand that he did not want to score stuff like Click or Firewall and the bad performance of The Wild wasn't really foreseeable for him because he already joined that project way back in 2004. It seems he does not want to be rushed into tight post-pro schedules anymore.

Now if Robert Zemeckis is really going to direct the christmas drama The Corrections in 2007 besides Beowulf's post-pro, it is going to be a great new year for Silvestri fans.

[tpigeon 3]

Silvestri can write an enjoyable music, but if you're going to make an argument for a composer who writes very "simple" music, it's Silvestri. He always does the expected: the piano for sentimentality, big common brassy action music. Don't get me wrong. he's good at it. But much of his music tends to be on the generic side. Not that Williams hasn't done generic music (The Patriot, for example), but stretches himself musically much more than the common listener gives him credit for. In short, I think Silvestri is a reliable composer for a safe, orchestral score. He can write exciting action music and sugary, sentimental music, and is in tune with what audiences desire from a score, which speaks for itself, I suppose. He does that better than most composers. But he doesn't push himself with the exception of a chosen few scores (Cast Away).

Ted

The Patriot is not generic! Listen to the whole score fifty times, and you'll know what I'm talking about!

I've listened to the score quite a bit. There are many things I like about it and not all of it is generic. But the main patriotic theme is rather generic.

Ted

[JMan 0]

I heard he had a daughter who got her Bachelor's at University of Hartford, in CT. Thats where I got my undergrad degree.

Polar Express is gorgeous, and I actually love the Spirit of the Season out of all themes.

[Pieter Boelen 740]

I was very much unaware that there are so many people who don't have high opinions of Alan Silvestri. I always thought he is one of the best composers around and am quite surprised to find out there are so many people who don't think he is such a good composer.

[BLUMENKOHL 1,070]

I was very much unaware that there are so many people who don't have high opinions of Alan Silvestri. I always thought he is one of the best composers around and am quite surprised to find out there are so many people who don't think he is such a good composer.

It's a perpetual cycle of someone being overrated round here.

It goes Jerry Goldsmith -> Hans Zimmer -> James Horner -> Alan Silvestri

[Josh500 1,615]

Silvestri can write an enjoyable music, but if you're going to make an argument for a composer who writes very "simple" music, it's Silvestri. He always does the expected: the piano for sentimentality, big common brassy action music. Don't get me wrong. he's good at it. But much of his music tends to be on the generic side. Not that Williams hasn't done generic music (The Patriot, for example), but stretches himself musically much more than the common listener gives him credit for. In short, I think Silvestri is a reliable composer for a safe, orchestral score. He can write exciting action music and sugary, sentimental music, and is in tune with what audiences desire from a score, which speaks for itself, I suppose. He does that better than most composers. But he doesn't push himself with the exception of a chosen few scores (Cast Away).

Ted

The Patriot is not generic! Listen to the whole score fifty times, and you'll know what I'm talking about!

I've listened to the score quite a bit. There are many things I like about it and not all of it is generic. But the main patriotic theme is rather generic.

Ted

Just because the Patriot main theme sounds a bit like Amistad, it doesn't necessarily mean it's generic! I think the movie itself gets worse every time I watch it, and the score's still the best part of it (plus perhaps the performance of the little girl who plays Susan)! I think The Patriot (the score) is hugely underrated, like most of the lesser-known JW scores.

[Red 75]

Would you say that Amistad is better than Patriot? I would.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Amistad, while being a flawed score is better.

[Elmo Lewis 6]

Would you say "Amistad is flawed" sooner than "it's not my cup of tea"? I don't see anything technically or artistically wrong with it, although it may not appeal to me as much as other CDs.

[BurgaFlippinMan 7]

i donno, amistad is more boring than the patriot to me

[Morlock 11]

It's a perpetual cycle of someone being overrated round here.  

It goes Jerry Goldsmith -> Hans Zimmer -> James Horner  -> Alan Silvestri

Hans Zimmer was never overrated around here.

I've listened to the score quite a bit. There are many things I like about it and not all of it is generic. But the main patriotic theme is rather generic.

I find most of the score to be generic, except for the love theme.

Amistad, while being a flawed score is better.

I agree. I think it's much better, actually.

Would you say "Amistad is flawed" sooner than "it's not my cup of tea"? I don't see anything technically or artistically wrong with it, although it may not appeal to me as much as other CDs.

The horn theme for John Quincy Adams is way over-done. In the film, it is annoying and disruptive. We didn't need a French horn to tell us John Quincy Adams is noble. I do like it on the album, however.

[Composer_Fan 2]

I enjoyed the Van Helsing score, and didn't find it boring. Some of it does seem synthed up, but I thought it was impressive.

I didn't even blink when "The Wild" came out....

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

It's a perpetual cycle of someone being overrated round here.  

It goes Jerry Goldsmith -> Hans Zimmer -> James Horner  -> Alan Silvestri

Jerry? Overrated? I think not!

[Ollie 1,064]

It's a perpetual cycle of someone being overrated round here.  

It goes Jerry Goldsmith -> Hans Zimmer -> James Horner  -> Alan Silvestri

Hans Zimmer was never overrated around here.

Goldsmith is "under" appreciated.

Hans Zimmer is "over" discussed here.

Silvestri would be the underated one.

[Datameister 2,073]

I like Silvestri's work in the BTTF movies. Fun stuff, and the first films that exposed me to him. Unfortunately, I find that most of his action music in other scores just shouts "BACK TO THE FUTURE!" at me. Roger Rabbit comes to mind.

The main theme in the BTTF movies, while way overused, is nevertheless great fun. The love theme in the third movie is a bit unconventional and a bit wandering, but I love it nevertheless. The muted trumpet statements of the theme (V I IV#) in the first movie strike me as very nostalgic for some reason, and I'm blown away by the unreleased music that plays as Marty looks down the dirt path that will someday be his neighborhood. (It's actually possible to rip this cue pretty cleanly from the DVD...)

[rocnathan 0]

Goldsmith is "under" appreciated.

Hans Zimmer is "over" discussed here.

Silvestri would be the underated one.

That's about my assessment, except for Goldsmith being underappreciated, but then, I haven't been around long enough to know about all the subtle wars going on here. There seem to be plenty of ape masks

Personally, I think the "mummy returns" score would beat the crap out of anything else Silvestri has done if I wasn't quite a fan of the "judge dredd" score (Sad? Probably, but then I also liked the movie).

[tpigeon 3]

Is Goldsmith really so underappreciated on this Board? If so, that is a huge shame. He is one of the very finest composers to write for the screen.

Ted

[Ollie 1,064]

At times I think he is. I don't think he's underated because most members here know who he is and have his scores in their collection.

I just think they don't appreciate his writing style, especially his peak years.

[tpigeon 3]

When would you consider Goldsmith's peak years? It's tough, but if I had to single it out to a decade, I would probably say the 80's. He experimented with a lot of electronics, came up with whole new sounds for scores (like "Legend"), and wrote brilliantly emotional themes that were both subtle and grand.

Ted

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

When would you consider Goldsmith's peak years? It's tough, but if I had to single it out to a decade, I would probably say the 80's. He experimented with a lot of electronics, came up with whole new sounds for scores (like "Legend"), and wrote brilliantly emotional themes that were both subtle and grand.

Ted

I'd say from 1975-1986.

[pi 0]

John williams is bald.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

He should have gone to Clive Hair Clinic!

[Dr.ZacharySmith 0]

Goldsmith wrote music that could give you goosebumps. You only have to listen to his score for Star Trek-TMP or the music for the documentary opening to "The Agony & the Ecstasy." He was a brilliant, urbane and gifted human being.

[rocnathan 0]

I'd say from 1975-1986.

There was a time - when it came out - that I actually like "Supergirl" better than Star Wars, just because of Goldsmith's theme. I think he had two great periods, one around 1980 and one around 2000 with "The Mummy" and ST: Insurrection (best version of the ST main theme IMO).

[Red 75]

John williams is bald.

Hans Zimmer sucks.

[Miz 139]

Chiming in to mention Flight of the Navigator; an eighties kids sci-fi flick with a synth-based score just on the right side of tasteful. Wicked main theme, and I love the 'source' track 'Star Dancing': Silvestri was proving his worth from the start.

[Ollie 1,064]

Even "Delta Force" is catchy.