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Pirate Music: Korngold vs Zimmer


Fabulin

Pirate Music: Korngold vs Zimmer  

38 members have voted

  1. 1. Whose music do you prefer?

    • Korngold & Co. - Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk, The Sea Wolf
    • Zimmer & Co. The Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man's Chest, At World's End


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At World's End is one of my favorite scores ever, pirates or not. However, I'm not that into the other POTC scores...

 

Curse of the Black Pearl was composed by 20 or so people and it's a clear case of "too many cooks". Dead Man's Chest is okay but nowhere near AWE and by the fourth one it was clear Zimmer was tired of the franchise.

 

As for Korngold, I haven't listened much of his works yet :( 

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I prefer Zimmer over Korngold in general, but Korngold wins this particular category. It's not Zimmer's pirate music, in particular, that attracts me to him.

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50 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

I don't really see how to compare them, operating in completely different paradigms.  But Zimmer does nothing for me and I adore Korngold's scores so I'm voting that way without really comparing them necessarily.


Ditto

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48 minutes ago, Drawgoon said:

Neither. Bear McCreary's title theme for "Black Sails", or Jesper Kyd's "Pirates: Tides of Fortune" are closer to my liking there.

The Black Sails theme is awesome, but clearly inspired by Zimmer and Tyler’s Black Flag. 

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Wouldn't it make more sense to set Hans Zimmer's work for Muppet Treasure Island against those Korngold titles instead? They are still not in the same league obviously but at least we are crossing the "Bruckheimer" factor out of the list. I mean, could Korngold write any of that stuff if those films had Bruckheimer as the producer?

 

5 minutes ago, Koray Savas said:

The Black Sails theme is awesome, but clearly inspired by Zimmer and Tyler’s Black Flag. 


Any particular HZ cues to help me see the connection?

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2 minutes ago, Tom said:

I am too lazy to look this up, but isn't Klaus Badeat the composer the of the main pirate theme for POTC?  

No, I think Zimmer gave him credit to get his name out there, and he was originally supposed to write the score himself, but something happened that caused the score to be rushed, and therefore to need many other composers, with Zimmer as the new head. He composed the main theme and suite, Sparrow's material, and some other stuff like Bootstrap Bill's theme (I think). Klaus mainly handled the undead themes (with the "Moonlight Serenade" one from the complete score being written by Geoff Zanelli). 

 

As for the poll, I haven't listened to Korngold yet either so I have to vote Zimmer for now, even though I'm sure Korngold's work is technically better and more fitting. 

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With Klaus Badelt and Pirates of the Caribean seems to be some kind of Monty Norman situation.

2 hours ago, Thor said:

Should we a top 10 favourite pirate scores, or has it been done already?

I know hardly 10 pirate movies. Top 5 would be more than enough.

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3 hours ago, superultramegaa said:

No, I think Zimmer gave him credit to get his name out there, and he was originally supposed to write the score himself, but something happened that caused the score to be rushed, and therefore to need many other composers, with Zimmer as the new head. He composed the main theme and suite, Sparrow's material, and some other stuff like Bootstrap Bill's theme (I think). Klaus mainly handled the undead themes (with the "Moonlight Serenade" one from the complete score being written by Geoff Zanelli). 

 

As for the poll, I haven't listened to Korngold yet either so I have to vote Zimmer for now, even though I'm sure Korngold's work is technically better and more fitting. 

 

Yeah, as far as I can remember there was some exclusivity deal with a film Hans was doing at the time (I *think* it was The Last Samurai) so he couldn't legally put his name on the credits as "Music by" on POTC, but as Silvestri was fired very late in the game despite writing demos for less than a third of the movie's runtime, Bruckheimer called Hans and they worked it out so that Badelt would get main credit and Zimmer could provide the foundational work so that team could compose and record the score in what I remember was less than 12 days.

 

The details are fuzzy, so those who have the actual scoop don't hesitate to correct me, but that's what I can remember right now.

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I like Zimmer just fine, but this comparasion is a bit preposterous, to a point that it's actually unfair to Zimmer.

 

Korngold, of course, wins by landslide.

 

But the Monkey Island scores will always be my sentimental favorite when it comes to Pirate music

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1 hour ago, Mephariel said:

At World's End is my favorite. But The Sea Hawk is better than any of Zimmer's other Pirates scores.

Maybe I should have made it just about At World's End vs The Sea Hawk – the comparison that actually sparked this question.

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2 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

"Films: Bergman vs Bay"

 

Obviously incompatible sizes in style and approach, but I'm a fan of both. In fact, as much as I enjoy several Bergman films, I think I'd have to go for Bay.

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3 hours ago, Fabulin said:

Maybe I should have made it just about At World's End vs The Sea Hawk – the comparison that actually sparked this question.

 

I'd be surprised but heartened if there were actually a serious discussion about AWE being better, given that we're comparing a golden age score with Zimmer. But I guess this isn't a typical JWFan Zimmer-bashing thread :) 

 

I'd completely agree that AWS is by miles the best score in that franchise. The first score is just a hodgepodge of things, the second one is more consistent, but outside of Davy Jones' and Jack Sparrow's themes, pretty forgettable. AWE made an instant positive impression on album, with really catchy melodies, and action which largely escapes the typical RCP style.

 

I have a Sea Hawk Suite from god knows where - probably a Silva compilation. I originally knew about it due to WIlliams including it in the Oscar medley from a decade or so ago. The bit he included is nice.... the rest not really my thing.

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I mentioned it before in another thread where somebody asked for good examples of pirate music. My personal favorite pirate music is neither from The Sea Hawk nor from Pirates of the Caribean, but from the old animated Disney Classic Peter Pan. It is probably the pirate music I heard most often in my life. As a kid I had the audio play from the movie on LP.

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13 hours ago, Romão said:

I like Zimmer just fine, but this comparasion is a bit preposterous, to a point that it's actually unfair to Zimmer.

 

Korngold, of course, wins by landslide.

 

But the Monkey Island scores will always be my sentimental favorite when it comes to Pirate music

 

I like some Zimmer just fine. I even like most of AWE, even though I strongly dislike most of the rest of (what I've heard of) his POTC stuff. But I'll easily rank the Monkey Islands much closer to Korngold than Zimmer on this scale.

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7 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

I like some Zimmer just fine. I even like most of AWE, even though I strongly dislike most of the rest of (what I've heard of) his POTC stuff. But I'll easily rank the Monkey Islands much closer to Korngold than Zimmer on this scale.

 

Agree on all counts

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14 hours ago, Romão said:

I like Zimmer just fine, but this comparasion is a bit preposterous, to a point that it's actually unfair to Zimmer.

 

Korngold, of course, wins by landslide.

 

But the Monkey Island scores will always be my sentimental favorite when it comes to Pirate music

 

Actually I just re-read the poll title, and it's 'prefer' not 'best'.

 

Although even if it were 'best', it's a dark day when it's a hard and fast rule that a score by a golden age composer is automatically better than a contemporary one. That's unfair to everyone composing today.

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This isn't just any golden age composer.  It's effing Korngold.  He defined what a swashbuckler score is!  70 years later Zimmer was still basically working within (or at least reacting to) parameters set by Korngold.

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