Game-changing scores

[Thor 7,473]

Is this the moment I chime in to say I never cared for the CASABLANCA score? (even if I think the film has a lot going for it, the 'celebration of clichées' and all that).

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

30 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

I'd have to check, but the Marseillaise tends to stick more in my mind when I think of the score.

 

You may be right. I just upgraded it to bluray and will check!

 

29 minutes ago, Thor said:

Is this the moment I chime in to say I never cared for the CASABLANCA score? (even if I think the film has a lot going for it, the 'celebration of clichées' and all that).

 

I understand what you mean about the score. To me, its main attraction is the song. It's a great song, and one of the very best uses of a song as part of a plot in a film, and I love Dooley Wilson's performance of it together with the awesome piano arrangement. The original piano arrangement as written by Hupfeld is already quite elaborate, but the Casablanca arrangement takes it to another level of brilliance.

 

And when it comes to the film, it's nothing short of great!

[SteveMc 2,674]

Rozsa's Quo Vadis was a game-changing score in my book.  It provided the template for the Biblical sound that dominated the epic landscape in Hollywood all the way up to Lawrence of Arabia.  It also predates John's Indiana Jones scores in this respect.

[Marian Schedenig 8,174]

30 minutes ago, Thor said:

Is this the moment I chime in to say I never cared for the CASABLANCA score? (even if I think the film has a lot going for it, the 'celebration of clichées' and all that).

 

Well, it's Steiner. As you can see from this discussion, the two most prominent themes aren't even by him. But the film makes good use of its music (the battle of the hymns is certainly rousing), and there's more to enjoy in the concert suite than one would except from watching the film.

 

12 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

You may be right. I just upgraded it to bluray and will check!

 

The Blu looks stunning!

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

13 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

there's more to enjoy in the concert suite than one would except from watching the film.

 

Are you referring to the one recorded by Gerhardt, or is there another suite?

[Marian Schedenig 8,174]

11 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Are you referring to the one recorded by Gerhardt, or is there another suite?

 

That's the only one I know of. I heard it performed live a couple of years ago, conducted by Frank Strobel. I believe it was the same suite.

[Thor 7,473]

I'm not going to dispute Steiner's position in film music history. KING KONG is a proper 'game changer', and I would have mentioned it if the timeframe went that far back (I see that Marian did it anyway). But outside that and THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE, THE ADVENTURES OF MARK TWAIN; maybe a couple of the film noirs, his style has always been....well, "scatterbrained" to me, in lack of a better word. That goes for CASABLANCA too. As you've all said, it's more about the songs and existing compositions, and their variations thereof.

[Marian Schedenig 8,174]

I absolutely know what you mean, and I often feel the same way about Steiner. The point I was trying to make was that the music in Casablanca works just fine for me and doesn't feel as disjointed as one might expect.

 

Also, I'd definitely add The Adventures of Don Juan to the list of "proper" Steiner scores.

 

And I started my listing with Kong because I didn't pay enough attention to the original post.

[TheUlyssesian 2,473]

Hey! What's this discussion about Steiner. The man only wrote the single greatest film score in history. Cut him some slack.

[Fabulin 3,510]

Steiner's weaknesses were mickeymousing and sugar overdose. Serious, darker films weeded these two out neatly.

[TheUlyssesian 2,473]

He had great dramatic instincts too. Something I'd venture a lot of the composers today don't have. Steiner's music genuinely seeks to complement the drama on screen.

[Fabulin 3,510]

.

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

What are some score-changing games?

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

4 hours ago, TheUlyssesian said:

Hey! What's this discussion about Steiner. The man only wrote the single greatest film score in history.

 

Gone With the Wind?

[mrbellamy 6,272]

14 hours ago, Thor said:

CASABLANCA...I think the film has a lot going for it

 

Lol understatement of the week

[Thor 7,473]

Well, it's not really a classic because it's such a groundbreaking film, necessarily. I love Umberto Eco's quote about the film:

 

Quote

"When all the archetypes burst out shamlessly, we plumb Homeric profundity. Two clichés make us laugh, but a hundred clichés move us because we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, celebrating a reunion" (Eco 1987: 209)

 

I've often used this quote myself, also in relation to other movies that qualify.

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

Well, Eco was a cliché himself, so...

[Thor 7,473]

As the brilliant semiologist he was, he would take that as a compliment.

[Miz 139]

Don't mistake a great, memorable theme that lasts down the ages, for a great score.

 

My entry is:

 

Battlestar Galactica by Bear McCreary

 

Before BG, was there a television score so smartly-conceived, richly-instrumented, varied in tone and thoughtfully-developed? I think it paved the way for Lost and its ambitious leitmotif landscape, for proper investment in scores for television, and all the other as-good-as-movies scores that have elevated the post-linear-TV landscape... a popular highlight being Game of Thrones.

[Fabulin 3,510]

5 hours ago, Borodin said:

What are some score-changing games?

The first Medal of Honor. It left a great mark on the way WW II videogames were scored, and was one of the first full-orchestra videogame soundtracks. I wouldn't be surprised if Spielberg had approached Williams first, and only after the latter declined did he look for a substitute (and "discovered" - in the old studio sense - the young Michael Giacchino).

 

 

[Thor 7,473]

35 minutes ago, Fabulin said:

The first Medal of Honor. It left a great mark on the way WW II videogames were scored, and was one of the first full-orchestra videogame soundtracks.

 

"One of", yes, but the first is generally attributed to Bruce Broughton's HEART OF DARKNESS (1998), i.e. when the orchestra wasn't just sampled through electronics.

[Edmilson 7,393]

I always thought the first orchestral game score was Giacchino's The Lost World in the mid-1990s. It was his breakthrough score. 

[TheUlyssesian 2,473]

9 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Gone With the Wind?

 

Yes!

[Tom 4,639]

The Birds.  Fortunately, Hollywood did not realize the cost-savings of such an approach.  

[Jay 37,301]

7 hours ago, Miz said:

Battlestar Galactica by Bear McCreary

 

Before BG, was there a television score so smartly-conceived, richly-instrumented, varied in tone and thoughtfully-developed? I think it paved the way for Lost and its ambitious leitmotif landscape, for proper investment in scores for television, and all the other as-good-as-movies scores that have elevated the post-linear-TV landscape... a popular highlight being Game of Thrones.

 

Paved the way for LOST?  The LOST pilot aired on September 22nd 2004.  Season 1 of BSG started airing in October 2004 in the UK, and January 2005 in the US (The miniseries from 2003 was scored by Richard Gibbs).

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

A few heterodox scores that haven't been mentioned.

 

Ennio Morricone - Battle of Algiers

 

Ryuichi Sakamoto - Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence.

 

Ryuichi Sakamoto & David Byrne - The Last Emperor

 

Peter Gabriel - The Passion of the Christ

 

Michael Danna - The Ice Storm

[Edmilson 7,393]

56 minutes ago, Jay said:

Paved the way for LOST?  The LOST pilot aired on September 22nd 2014

 

*2004

 

46 minutes ago, Sharkissimo said:

Peter Gabriel - The Passion of the Christ

 

 

John Debney did The Passion of the Christ, Peter Gabriel scored Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ

 

47 minutes ago, Sharkissimo said:

Michael Danna - The Ice Storm

 

I really like that one.

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

 

3 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

John Debney did The Passion of the Christ, Peter Gabriel scored Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ

 

Brain fart. The soundtrack album's titled Passion, which I play more frequently than the film.

[Marian Schedenig 8,174]

15 hours ago, Fabulin said:

The difference between his theatrical background and Korngold's purely musical one can be quite striking when the experience of their films is compared.

 

I wouldn't call Korngold's background purely musical, as his biggest success pre-Hollywood was as an opera composer (and co-writer of his own libretto). But I would argue that Steiner was a better film scorer than a composer, whereas Korngold was an (opera) composer who also wrote film scores which function like operas.

[Thor 7,473]

3 hours ago, Edmilson said:

I always thought the first orchestral game score was Giacchino's The Lost World in the mid-1990s. It was his breakthrough score. 

 

On paper, yes. But HEART OF DARKNESS took a long time to complete, and to get released. From what I've read, Broughton's score was recorded long before Giacchino's THE LOST WORLD.

 

Then you also have things like George Oldziey's WING COMMANDER III (1994), which was very orchestral in execution, but using samples. It was later recorded with a proper orchestra.

[SteveMc 2,674]

I've never warmed to Steiner, he's more important to the development of the Hollywood film score than he is exceptional as a composer.  And, over time, Korngold's operatic and thematic approach, centering on emotions, characters, and themes, has been more influential than Steiner's wall to wall literal approach to what's on screen.

[Fabulin 3,510]

58 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

I wouldn't call Korngold's background purely musical, as his biggest success pre-Hollywood was as an opera composer (and co-writer of his own libretto). But I would argue that Steiner was a better film scorer than a composer, whereas Korngold was an (opera) composer who also wrote film scores which function like operas.

Doch, doch! Korngold's taste for librettos and drama was judged as infantile even in his own time (Der Schneemann, Das Wunder der Heliane). And it is evident in the films such as the Sea Hawk, that he composed next to a film, an not within the film. The music meandered in its relatedness to the onscreen action, getting out of and on board now and then. Of course he thought of himself as a great musical psychologist, but when compared to real musical psychologists, such as Steiner, Herrmann, or Williams, his results in this aspect are not as impressive.

 

I prefer to give him due for what were really his merits: the first rate musicality of conducting and playing (and I mean first, first rate, like that of Mahler, or Bruno Walter), and a succesful amalgamation of the contemporary Viennese influences.

[SteveMc 2,674]

6 minutes ago, Fabulin said:

The music meandered in its relatedness to the onscreen action, getting out of and on board now and then. Of course he thought of himself as a great musical psychologist, but when compared to real musical psychologists, such as Steiner, Herrmann, or Williams, it is not as impressive anymore.

The fact that his scores did their own thing is a strength to me.

[Fabulin 3,510]

Yes, a hipster value. He could get away with that because of his star factor. But what exactly is the use of that, other than a vague showing-off that a musician can have a seeming social clout (really: marketability) too? His music ended up very homogenous (from work to work) anyway, which, at least to me, is not a desirable result.

[TheUlyssesian 2,473]

"thematic approach, centering on emotions, characters, and themes" - This isn't dissimilar to Steiner's approach.

 

I would say Korngold wanted to write great music and Steiner wanted to write great film music. Williams is somewhere in the middle but definitely closer to Steiner.

 

I think a lot of people tend to overlook the fact that, we are talking about a very specific art here - film music. It is necessarily written to accompany images on the screen. Steiner showed greater understanding of that concept and wrote better to films than Korngold even if you might think that Korngold's music is more enjoyable on its own.

 

I think the scoring of concepts and thoughts is very ably demonstrated by Steiner in Gone With The Wind - which I would argue is one of the most influential scores ever in how it emphasizes the thrust of the story and narrative. I think it is Steiner who truly demonstrated the outsize impact a composer can have in shaping narrative and providing emphasis as to what is important for the audience. I would call it being - the composer as auteur. Williams in his best work definitely plays that role. 

[Thor 7,473]

Long before Waxman became my favourite Golden Age composer, Korngold was "the man". He managed to compose self-sufficient setpieces without resorting to "cheapish" mechanisms the way Steiner did. I still think a piece like "The Duel" from THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER has a timeless quality; it could basically have been composed by Williams in the 80s. Now, Korngold never really had a 'game changing' score in his resume, even if he has some classics to his name (ELIZABETH AND ESSEX still remains one of my alltime favourite scores), but his cornerstone position in film music history remains. Here's "The Duel":

 

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

53 minutes ago, Thor said:

Now, Korngold never really had a 'game changing' score in his resume

 

Well, he pretty much defined the swashbuckler score.

[Marian Schedenig 8,174]

1 hour ago, TheUlyssesian said:

I would say Korngold wanted to write great music and Steiner wanted to write great film music. Williams is somewhere in the middle but definitely closer to Steiner.

 

I mostly agree with this, though I'd argue with your placing of Williams. Korngold may not have considered his "operas without words" to be relevant entries in his oeuvre (at least not in hindsight), but he definitely wrote them according to the same standards he wrote concert music and operas to. He never stopped thinking of himself as a composer of music, and was heartbroken when nobody cared for his music anymore after WWII. I'm not well versed in Steiner's biography, but I'm not aware of any purely musical ambitions of his - he seems to have been happy producing quality scores at a high throughput, at least often without any special care of their musical identity (see his frequent use of existing familiar themes) or their musical "value" when divorced from the film. Did he ever turn his film music into suites, or conduct some of it in a concert?

 

Williams is closer to Steiner insofar as he's perfectly happy in the world of film music. But like Korngold, he is certainly aware of and focused on his film scores having the aforementioned musical identity and merit on their own, and it seems to clear to me that this is not just a byproduct of producing sounds that support the picture, but a conscious intent of writing something with artistic value.

 

As for not simply replicating the on screen action but getting into the story and telling it along with the visuals in the "musical layer" - that's what makes the music interesting, after all. It's certainly at the very core of the M.O. (modus operandi) of composers like Herrmann, Goldsmith, and Williams. And I don't recall a moment where I felt that Korngold's music fails to support and enhance its film because of that.

 

Also, part of the critical reaction to Korngold's output was the view that his style was out of fashion and obsolete. Certainly something like Die Kathrin is quite pedestrian in its textual content, but take Die tote Stadt - at least nowadays, as far as can see, regarded as very modern and of its time (regarding the libretto). And while Heliane is in its setting closer to a fairy tale than Die tote Stadt's psychoanalytic verismo, Strauss and Hoffmansthal's Die Frau ohne Schatten is as well (or much of Wagner's output - Der Ring des Nibelungen is a philosophical drama first and a mythical fairy story second). And anyway - even Die Kathrin has some excellent and touching music, and if a film composer can transcend the visuals and perhaps even write good music for a bad film, evoking some genuine emotions even if the visuals themselves wouldn't, that's hardly a fault.

[Thor 7,473]

1 hour ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Well, he pretty much defined the swashbuckler score.

 

Yes, that's true.

[Marian Schedenig 8,174]

1 hour ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Well, he pretty much defined the swashbuckler score.

 

I.e. the type of score that Star Wars made fashionable again, for which it's usually considered a game changer.

[Fabulin 3,510]

from Steven C. Smith's Music by Max Steiner

 

 

 

 

[TheUlyssesian 2,473]

1 hour ago, Fabulin said:

from Steven C. Smith's Music by Max Steiner

 

 

 

 

 

He was being technical. Symphony of Six Million was the first modern symphonic wall-to-wall score that started the golden era of Hollywood film music.

King Kong was the first great modern symphonic wall-to-wall score.

 

One criteria to be have wide influence is to be widely seen. King Kong was widely seen. Symphony was not.

 

Symphony originated a new music art that King Kong made game-changing.

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

18 hours ago, Fabulin said:

The first Medal of Honor. It left a great mark on the way WW II videogames were scored, and was one of the first full-orchestra videogame soundtracks. I wouldn't be surprised if Spielberg had approached Williams first, and only after the latter declined did he look for a substitute (and "discovered" - in the old studio sense - the young Michael Giacchino).

 

 

 

Well, you know, I'm tired of all the games that come out nowadays. They need to make a Stepmom game, something to really shake up the competition.

[A24 4,326]

I mentioned Star Wars and Zimmer's 'Alpha' score as true game changers, but suddenly I remembered two more scores that changed the course of the river.

 

- Psycho: at the time the shrieks were unheard of, but in the decades that followed, it would become a must in horror movies. 

- Blade Runner: Probably the most influential synth score of all time. 

 

[Thor 7,473]

10 minutes ago, Alexcremers said:

- Blade Runner: Probably the most influential synth score of all time. 

 

Not as much as MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, but yes -- it belongs on the list, as previously mentioned.

[TheUlyssesian 2,473]

Spellbound (Rozsa) - First major score to use the theremin

The Third Man (Karas) - First major score to use the zither

 

These scores popularized a starring specialty instrument and introduced new sounds to film scoring.

[Marian Schedenig 8,174]

4 minutes ago, TheUlyssesian said:

Spellbound (Rozsa) - First major score to use the theremin

The Third Man (Karas) - First major score to use the zither

 

Was the zither a relevant instrument for film scores post Third Man though? Karas used it because he wrote his score in the style of traditional Viennese music, so it was a natural fit. Rozsa, on the other hand, deliberately picked the theremin to its eerie, other-worldy sound, and it stuck and became a major Hollywood trope.

[A24 4,326]

12 minutes ago, Thor said:

 

Not as much as MIDNIGHT EXPRESS ...

 

That would surprise me.

[Edmilson 7,393]

Midnight Express won an Oscar for Original Score, defeating pretty heavy competition: Goldsmith's The Boys from Brazil, Morricone's Days of Heaven, Grusin's Heaven Can Wait and Williams' Superman. 

 

Sure, it wasn't exactly the first synth score, far from it. But its success paved the way for all the others in the 80s.

[A24 4,326]

3 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

Sure, it wasn't exactly the first synth score, far from it. But its success paved the way for all the others in the 80s.

 

Oh, in that regard ... Well, I suppose it is then.