Why on earth would a film score ever need 230 (or 550) musicians?

[Bayesian 1,364]

I'm genuinely curious about this. I recently learned Lorne Balfe used 230 musicians (including six flutes and 30 brass) for MI: Fallout and something like 550 musicians for MI: DR Part 1. These numbers, especially the latter, are absurd. The guy's no Wagner (and even that megalomaniac would probably have balked at counts like these) and he operates in an industry where instrument striping, synth choirs, electronic overlaying, and audio processing make musician counts like these preposterous overkill.

 

So what is it, then? I have some theories:

 

1. Balfe is a mediocre film scorer at best and he knows it. Having reached the limits of his composing talent, he believes the best way to make an impression going forward is by maximizing the production value of his so-called music. He may only know how to write the epic equivalent of "Hot Cross Buns" but, by God, he'll scour the planet for the largest possible number of the best conservatory-trained instrumentalists to play the ever-loving hell out of that three-chord-and-zero-modulation theme.

 

2. Balfe is trying to gain credibility on the cheap. Even though he knows he can't write a melody or develop a theme to save his life, he still craves respectability. And one way to get it is to bury your work under so many layers of borrowed prestige and reflected glory that to question the quality of the music itself almost becomes an act of disrespect. What's better than being able to say that a renowned soloist performed your music for a film? Getting to say that a dozen of them did (q.v. Zimmer and his drumming circle for some Superman movie). Slaving for well over a year on a score and then hunting down 550 of the best musicians in Europe to perform it? What churlish misanthrope is going to criticize your music after you tell them that?

 

3. Having Peter-principled his way to the top ranks of his industry, Balfe doesn't actually recognize how untalented he is and genuinely believes he needs five hundred musicians to properly deliver on the quality and potential of his latest writing.

 

Sorry for the tirade, Balfe/Zimmer/RCP fans, but for fuck's sake -- what happened to our beloved art form? A beautiful garden -- the clever and delightful use of dynamics, tone color, leitmotif, orchestra hits, non-Western scales, and key change to set up scenes, accentuate story beats and deliver payoffs -- has turned into a dumpster fire of wall-to-wall noise that's sucked far more oxygen out of the room than it deserves to.

 

Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Balfe's music really does warrant musical forces of that magnitude. If someone wants to give a shot at explaining it, I'm ready to listen.

[HunterTech 994]

There's only so much complaining about the common banality of RCP music can do before you might as well start actually calling the audience completely braindead idiots for eating it up. I would point to this being the film equivalent of going from classical to pop music, but then someone much smarter than me would tell me that there was much more sophisticated work in even the novelty songs of the 60s than what we hear now. Makes it a bit hard for me to know how to argue, other than my initial tastes in music making it easier for me to appreciate the dumb fun sound.

 

(Also, you could probably blame the suits for wanting everything to be so homogenized, especially with composers that we know can tackle various sounds. I really don't know why that's so hard to reconcile.)

 

(Also also, given how much people have been concerned about the potential loss of hired musicians for projects like these, are we actually pissed off that the guy who could easily work without them is still keeping them employed?)

[Edmilson 7,474]

17 minutes ago, Bayesian said:

I'm genuinely curious about this. I recently learned Lorne Balfe used 230 musicians (including six flutes and 30 brass) for MI: Fallout and something like 550 musicians for MI: DR Part 1. These numbers, especially the latter, are absurd. The guy's no Wagner (and even that megalomaniac would probably have balked at counts like these) and he operates in an industry where instrument striping, synth choirs, electronic overlaying, and audio processing make musician counts like these preposterous overkill.

 

So what is it, then? I have some theories:

 

1. Balfe is a mediocre film scorer at best and he knows it. Having reached the limits of his composing talent, he believes the best way to make an impression going forward is by maximizing the production value of his so-called music. He may only know how to write the epic equivalent of "Hot Cross Buns" but, by God, he'll scour the planet for the largest possible number of the best conservatory-trained instrumentalists to play the ever-loving hell out of that three-chord-and-zero-modulation theme.

 

2. Balfe is trying to gain credibility on the cheap. Even though he knows he can't write a melody or develop a theme to save his life, he still craves respectability. And one way to get it is to bury your work under so many layers of borrowed prestige and reflected glory that to question the quality of the music itself almost becomes an act of disrespect. What's better than being able to say that a renowned soloist performed your music for a film? Getting to say that a dozen of them did (q.v. Zimmer and his drumming circle for some Superman movie). Slaving for well over a year on a score and then hunting down 550 of the best musicians in Europe to perform it? What churlish misanthrope is going to criticize your music after you tell them that?

 

3. Having Peter-principled his way to the top ranks of his industry, Balfe doesn't actually recognize how untalented he is and genuinely believes he needs five hundred musicians to properly deliver on the quality and potential of his latest writing.

 

Sorry for the tirade, Balfe/Zimmer/RCP fans, but for fuck's sake -- what happened to our beloved art form? A beautiful garden -- the clever and delightful use of dynamics, tone color, leitmotif, orchestra hits, non-Western scales, and key change to set up scenes, accentuate story beats and deliver payoffs -- has turned into a dumpster fire of wall-to-wall noise that's sucked far more oxygen out of the room than it deserves to.

 

Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Balfe's music really does warrant musical forces of that magnitude. If someone wants to give a shot at explaining it, I'm ready to listen.

You're pretty much right on all your accounts. Balfe is a mediocre composer who tries to disguise his banal music with all this PR bullshit. "Look how talented I am, I used 500 of the most talented European musicians to perform my score!", when it's actually two hours of "epic trailer music".

 

But this is what the audiences like these days, so there's nothing we can do.

[Marian Schedenig 8,211]

I saw a post by him saying that they recorded all over the world, trying to record in all the locations where they were filming. So surely the total number of musicians comes from all of these sessions added together. Part of the score was recorded at Vienna's Synchron Stage (as many modern blockbuster scores are).

 

In his post, Balfe claims that recording in the cities of the actual filming locations lends a flair of authenticity and locality to the music. There's certainly something to be said for a composer being part of the pre-production and production process (if they're the kind of composer who likes that sort of thing, at least). But I doubt that the streamlined sight-reading style of a modern film scoring session leaves much room for local flair (especially if little to none was written into the score to begin with).

 

For what it's worth, I thought the score to MI7 was a hundred times better than that for MI6. Meaning that it actually noticeably supported the film, most of it seemed to do *something* (rather than just scream trailer music at 11 non-stop), and there's probably three or four bits in there that might even be musically interesting. Which still doesn't leave enough for me to be even marginally interested in the album, or to remain a glimmer of an interested in modern blockbuster film music. But when it stayed away from Schifrin's material (where the clash with the score's MV stylings is just too grating), it actually seemed appropriate for the film. And I guess that's something.

 

That sad truth seems to be that the time where a Hollywood blockbuster had room (stylistically and marketing-wise) for properly interesting *music* really is completely gone.

[Jurassic Shark 12,094]

Good post, @Bayesian.

[Marian Schedenig 8,211]

[Bayesian 1,364]

1 hour ago, Marian Schedenig said:

In his post, Balfe claims that recording in the cities of the actual filming locations lends a flair of authenticity and locality to the music. There's certainly something to be said for a composer being part of the pre-production and production process (if they're the kind of composer who likes that sort of thing, at least). But I doubt that the streamlined sight-reading style of a modern film scoring session leaves much room for local flair (especially if little to none was written into the score to begin with).

That is such a load of PR puffery, I might have actually lost five minutes of life expectancy seething at the utter ridiculousness of the idea. Do we get L.A. vibes when we hear music performed by the studio orchestra on the Sony scoring stage?? Of course not. Can anyone tell me what the hell was Venetian about any of the score playing during the party or in the alleys and canals afterward? Is there such a thing as an Abu Dhabi sound that would have somehow belonged in scenes set in an airport? And someone please tell me what musical signature applies to a passenger train traveling to Austria? To claim that the music somehow gains character by being played in situ is the highest form of masturbatory preening, worse even than the way wine critics write about nose and terroir.

 

Here’s an idea, Balfe: Write music that weaves regional characteristics into your M:I sound and let the ace musicians who already live and work in London give you the world flair you seek. A talented composer would already know to do that—and know how to do that, of course, and not try to make an end run by claiming that recording in Venice somehow makes the notes special. But you’re not that composer, are you?

 

I can’t wait for the PR for the score to DR Part 2. I fully expect to read that Balfe recorded a hundred-strong Slavic male choir in the bowels of a decommissioned nuclear sub. You know, so we the audience really get to understand the Entity. All in a year’s work for this brave musical pioneer.

[Jurassic Shark 12,094]

12 minutes ago, Bayesian said:

I can’t wait for the PR for the score to DR Part 2. I fully expect to read that Balfe recorded a hundred-strong Slavic male choir in the bowels of a decommissioned nuclear sub. You know, so we the audience really get to understand the Entity. All in a year’s work for this brave musical pioneer.

 

[Faleel 5,364]

28 minutes ago, Bayesian said:

That is such a load of PR puffery, I might have actually lost five minutes of life expectancy seething at the utter ridiculousness of the idea. Do we get L.A. vibes when we hear music performed by the studio orchestra on the Sony scoring stage?? Of course not. Can anyone tell me what the hell was Venetian about any of the score playing during the party or in the alleys and canals afterward? Is there such a thing as an Abu Dhabi sound that would have somehow belonged in scenes set in an airport? And someone please tell me what musical signature applies to a passenger train traveling to Austria? To claim that the music somehow gains character by being played in situ is the highest form of masturbatory preening, worse even than the way wine critics write about nose and terroir.

 

 

Miklos Rozsa seemed to think so when he recorded outdoors in Rome.

[Quppa 117]

Conan the Barbarian infamously used 24 French horns.

[HunterTech 994]

Ah, but this community likes those two, so they don't count 

[Datameister 2,044]

I know nothing about these scores or this composer, but I'll offer my completely uneducated opinion anyway: I would be shocked if all those musicians were ever in the same room at the same. Sounds like a case of multiple recording sessions with different sets of musicians.

[Bayesian 1,364]

2 hours ago, Quppa said:

Conan the Barbarian infamously used 24 French horns.

 

2 hours ago, Signals said:

Miklos Rozsa seemed to think so when he recorded outdoors in Rome.

I didn’t know about these examples. Thanks for sharing. My position about excess in this regard remains unchanged, and indeed I wonder if anyone who’s familiar with these examples can tell me if the results are worthy of their respective stunt.

Maybe I’m being too much of a purist or elitist about all this. From what I understand, Balfe isn’t formally trained in music, so it may be unreasonable for me to expect him to be grounded in the traditional elements of composition. In that sense, he joins Zimmer and Elfman and probably others who have found great success in an industry that doesn’t gatekeep (at least with regard to credentials). I don’t begrudge his success in any way other than that he uses his clout to promote a scoring style whose creative potential went stale years ago and has since been thoroughly exhausted. Why oh why did it have to be Zimmer/RCP who became the 800-lb gorilla and handed the mantle to Balfe?

[Holko 9,532]

1 minute ago, Bayesian said:

and indeed I wonder if anyone who’s familiar with these examples can tell me if the results are worthy of their respective stunt.

Well the Rome cues in Ben-Hur sound like absolute ass recordingwise compared to the cues from the other sessions...

[Bayesian 1,364]

8 hours ago, HunterTech said:

(Also also, given how much people have been concerned about the potential loss of hired musicians for projects like these, are we actually pissed off that the guy who could easily work without them is still keeping them employed?)

That’s an explanation I could get behind. Balfe giving hundreds of players some piece work and maybe even a share of the royalties would be a gracious gesture. And not calling attention to it as a make-work stunt would be respectful and classy; all the locale-flavor PR nonsense would just be cover.
 

If that’s truly the underlying reason, I’ll cop to my judgy attitude. It wouldn’t change the fact that we badly need to move on to a different soundscape for film scores (from composers who aren’t Zimmer-issued) and that we as moviegoers and film music enthusiasts will continue to suffer until that happens. But at least it means Balfe’s heart is in the right place. I’m not convinced that’s actually the situation, but it’s nice to think of it as a possibility. 

[HunterTech 994]

I think a lot of the RCP crew are fairly open about how happy they are to work with various people, given how disconnected they could be from the outside world, depending on the project they're working on. Perhaps the issue is that since they're so used to working in particular modes, they might subconsciously realize that the fruits of their labor won't exactly be apparent to many listeners, so it's something they make sure to emphasize in interviews when discussing the work (to which Balfe is certainly happy to do if he's quite keen to make mention of the music editor and his team during this particular press junket).

 

Sure, it might just be cynical PR fluff, yet I think this is probably a more intriguing way of selling the score to someone than just saying it all took place in a small studio, since it might have the chance of inspiring those to look into the field with more of a vision (assuming the studios would be gracious enough to let them, that is):

 

[JTN 2,048]

11 hours ago, Quppa said:

Conan the Barbarian infamously used 24 French horns.

Yes, but they were all French.

[Richard Penna 3,696]

It's definitely a PR thing, at which Zimmer is an expert.

 

The problem I see is the RCP style getting the safest reaction from audiences and therefore that's what McQuarrie and Cruise ask for. If Balfe uses hundreds of musicians to achieve that, employing players around the world, surely that's a good thing?

 

However, I'm not a total Balfe apologist - this isn't the ideal way of scoring the franchise.

[Jurassic Shark 12,094]

3 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

If Balfe uses hundreds of musicians to achieve that, employing players around the world, surely that's a good thing?

 

He doesn't need musicians for that.

[Chen G. 3,952]

17 hours ago, Bayesian said:

I'm genuinely curious about this. I recently learned Lorne Balfe used 230 musicians (including six flutes and 30 brass) for MI: Fallout and something like 550 musicians for MI: DR Part 1. These numbers, especially the latter, are absurd. The guy's no Wagner (and even that megalomaniac would probably have balked at counts like these) and he operates in an industry where instrument striping, synth choirs, electronic overlaying, and audio processing make musician counts like these preposterous overkill.

 

I dunno why Wagner is associated with large ensmbles: only The Ring has an ensemble that could be considered particularly big, and even that its on the smaller size, when it comes to Romantic-period orchestras. Far bigger divas, in terms of calling for large forces, were Mahler (the eigth, most famously, but also the Fifth), but also Berlioz (the Requiem, to name just one example), Schoenberg (Gurre Leider) and then of course there's Havergal's The Gothic.

 

To be fair, composers always liked having a lot of musicians on-stage, if only as a piece of showmanship. I think Mozart got a very big orchestra with which to debut his Symphony number 36 and he was absolutely delighted at the prospect of the enormous string section.

 

What about Maurice Jarre getting 24 Balalaikas (!) for Lara's theme? Williams also likes fairly big ensembles, especially for special effects: he loves evoking the sound of grinding gears with quintuple high winds: whenever there are Walkers or anything mechanical on the screen in any of the Star Wars films (also the mine cart in Temple of Doom), five Piccoli and oboes are never too far away. 
 

The Lord of the Rings Live to Projection, which only uses a portion of what the conductor's scores call for, requires a minimum of 330 musicians to stage; and in The Hobbit Shore also calls for an entire Gamelan ensemble and 20 Didgeridoos: what’s that it not largesse?

 

I don't think, for Mission: Impossible, they had a 550 musicians on the stage at any one point: the way I read it, they used, over the various sessions, 550 different musicians.

 

14 hours ago, Quppa said:

Conan the Barbarian infamously used 24 French horns.

Those were overdubs. I believe they had about six horns on the stage at any one point.

[TolkienSS 407]

17 hours ago, Bayesian said:

I'm genuinely curious about this. I recently learned Lorne Balfe used 230 musicians (including six flutes and 30 brass) for MI: Fallout and something like 550 musicians for MI: DR Part 1. These numbers, especially the latter, are absurd. The guy's no Wagner (and even that megalomaniac would probably have balked at counts like these) and he operates in an industry where instrument striping, synth choirs, electronic overlaying, and audio processing make musician counts like these preposterous overkill.

 

So what is it, then? I have some theories:

 

1. Balfe is a mediocre film scorer at best and he knows it. Having reached the limits of his composing talent, he believes the best way to make an impression going forward is by maximizing the production value of his so-called music. He may only know how to write the epic equivalent of "Hot Cross Buns" but, by God, he'll scour the planet for the largest possible number of the best conservatory-trained instrumentalists to play the ever-loving hell out of that three-chord-and-zero-modulation theme.

 

2. Balfe is trying to gain credibility on the cheap. Even though he knows he can't write a melody or develop a theme to save his life, he still craves respectability. And one way to get it is to bury your work under so many layers of borrowed prestige and reflected glory that to question the quality of the music itself almost becomes an act of disrespect. What's better than being able to say that a renowned soloist performed your music for a film? Getting to say that a dozen of them did (q.v. Zimmer and his drumming circle for some Superman movie). Slaving for well over a year on a score and then hunting down 550 of the best musicians in Europe to perform it? What churlish misanthrope is going to criticize your music after you tell them that?

 

3. Having Peter-principled his way to the top ranks of his industry, Balfe doesn't actually recognize how untalented he is and genuinely believes he needs five hundred musicians to properly deliver on the quality and potential of his latest writing.

 

Sorry for the tirade, Balfe/Zimmer/RCP fans, but for fuck's sake -- what happened to our beloved art form? A beautiful garden -- the clever and delightful use of dynamics, tone color, leitmotif, orchestra hits, non-Western scales, and key change to set up scenes, accentuate story beats and deliver payoffs -- has turned into a dumpster fire of wall-to-wall noise that's sucked far more oxygen out of the room than it deserves to.

 

Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Balfe's music really does warrant musical forces of that magnitude. If someone wants to give a shot at explaining it, I'm ready to listen.

 

Among the ridiculous glorification of Balfe's music, you forgot to mention that he "specifically looked at Rachmaninoff and Igor Stravinsky" for M:I 7.

Statements that disingenuous people like Broxton are happy to repeat to keep a foot in the door.

[Thor 7,525]

17 hours ago, Bayesian said:

Sorry for the tirade, Balfe/Zimmer/RCP fans, but for fuck's sake -- what happened to our beloved art form? A beautiful garden -- the clever and delightful use of dynamics, tone color, leitmotif, orchestra hits, non-Western scales, and key change to set up scenes, accentuate story beats and deliver payoffs -- has turned into a dumpster fire of wall-to-wall noise that's sucked far more oxygen out of the room than it deserves to.

 

I'm a fan of Zimmer, some Balfe and some RCP composers, but I have no trouble recognizing what you speak of, and I agree. NOT a fan of the "wall of sound" approach either. Balfe has proven many times that he can create excellent music without that orchestra size -- HIS DARK MATERIALS, AD ADSTRA, TETRIS etc. I hope he nurtures those more restrained landscapes further.

[TolkienSS 407]

14 hours ago, HunterTech said:

Ah, but this community likes those two, so they don't count 

 

They're also able to write music with a sense of place. It has zero to do with sympathy.

Though the sympathy wanes when you realize Balfe has to know he's lying through his teeth 

[mstrox 6,651]

I’m sure he didn’t have 550 in a room at the same time.  Given the amount of material recorded and the extremely long post-production period for this movie, the musicians probably changed from session to session.

[Richard Penna 3,696]

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

I don't think, for Mission: Impossible, they had a 550 musicians on the stage at any one point: the way I read it, they used, over the various sessions, 550 different musicians.

 

And if you looked at any score with a long, protracted scoring process, the number of musicians involved overall is probably rather big.

 

But this information is not normally publicised or mentioned - they just get on with it. Had Balfe said some random, off the cuff comment about using 3,900 pieces of sheet music throughout the sessions, we'd get a thread dedicated entirely to making fun of this, without considering for a moment whether that was actually normal for a large scoring process.

 

I just listened to a bit of DR again and it was largely as boring and variation-free as it was the first time. However, we're seeing a connection attempted to be made here between the number of players and musicians involved in makng a score, and its compositional quality and musical interest, and I don't think there is one?

[Jay 37,375]

The blurb posted in LLL's email flyer makes it clear the musicians were not all used at once:

 

For this score, we were able to record in cities which form the locations of the filming, bringing a different level of authenticity and emotional connection to the music. We recorded Choirs in Venice, The Swiss Drums Corps in Switzerland, Orchestra’s in Venice, Vienna and London along with an epic bongo session made up of 35 players, it sounded incredible in the room and a nice ode to Fallout. This is by far my most expansive score to date with 555 musicians playing across 5 cities. It was an honour to work with such world-class talents and an excellent team that helped cultivate a finished score that is truly special.

[Tom Guernsey 2,287]

7 minutes ago, Jay said:

The blurb posted in LLL's email flyer makes it clear the musicians were not all used at once:

 

For this score, we were able to record in cities which form the locations of the filming, bringing a different level of authenticity and emotional connection to the music. We recorded Choirs in Venice, The Swiss Drums Corps in Switzerland, Orchestra’s in Venice, Vienna and London along with an epic bongo session made up of 35 players, it sounded incredible in the room and a nice ode to Fallout. This is by far my most expansive score to date with 555 musicians playing across 5 cities. It was an honour to work with such world-class talents and an excellent team that helped cultivate a finished score that is truly special.

I ran it through Google Translate and got "I couldn't believe how much my music budget was so I figured I might as well use it to have a jolly time flying around to places that were vaguely connected with the film and something, something, something...  abort, retry, fail?"

[Faleel 5,364]

12 hours ago, Bayesian said:

 

I didn’t know about these examples. Thanks for sharing. My position about excess in this regard remains unchanged, and indeed I wonder if anyone who’s familiar with these examples can tell me if the results are worthy of their respective stunt.

Maybe I’m being too much of a purist or elitist about all this. From what I understand, Balfe isn’t formally trained in music, so it may be unreasonable for me to expect him to be grounded in the traditional elements of composition. In that sense, he joins Zimmer and Elfman and probably others who have found great success in an industry that doesn’t gatekeep (at least with regard to credentials). I don’t begrudge his success in any way other than that he uses his clout to promote a scoring style whose creative potential went stale years ago and has since been thoroughly exhausted. Why oh why did it have to be Zimmer/RCP who became the 800-lb gorilla and handed the mantle to Balfe?

Even better:

 

The score to Knights of the Round Table had three sessions: in Culver City, first half conducted by John Green cues, the rest with Rozsa conducting (some Green cues revised and re-recorded), and then a full re-recording in London with Muir Matheson for contractual reasons.

 

Quote

 

I couldn’t record the music, because I still had to compose. So they brought in John Green, the head of the music department at M-G-M. He conducted the first half of the score and I listened to it through the telephone, and went on writing. Anyway, the film was in the cinema by Christmas.

However, the orchestra was an American orchestra, the musicians had to be repaid, which is an enormous cost. Because it was an English picture, the actors had to be English, with few exceptions—the stars could be American—the composer had to be English, and if he wasn’t then the musicians had to be. They re-recorded the whole thing with Muir Mathieson conducting.

 

 

[Marian Schedenig 8,211]

17 hours ago, Quppa said:

Conan the Barbarian infamously used 24 French horns.

 

And Herrmann had 9 harps in Beneath the 12-Mile Reef. From what I remember, Williams had 4 pianos for the Hoth sequence, and Goldsmith had at least 4 in Twilight Zone. But in all of these cases, specific instrument was multiplied to create a distinct sound, or to be able to write for a particular instrument against a massive orchestral backdrop.

 

When it comes to the whole orchestra and a massive sound, it's not really the size of the orchestra that matters. More often than not, a large orchestra doesn't mean extra loud all the time, but rather different colours in different sections (without thinning out the sound). Therefore you have a larger number of players and instruments in each instrument group, but they're not usually playing at the same time. Or perhaps you've got extra string players because you put two separate string orchestras at different ends of the room - it's still a specific effect that's the goal, not merely massive sound.

 

As Richard Strauss showed, an orchestra of just 36 players (and that includes 3 percussionists, two harps, and three keyboards!) can sound just like the proverbial massive Wagner orchestra. Compare the Mozart-like opening of the prologue to the epic finale:

 

[crocodile 8,020]

11 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 From what I remember, Williams had 4 pianos for the Hoth sequence, and Goldsmith had at least 4 in Twilight Zone. 

Meh, Horner had 5 grand pianos on (very good) Flightplan.

 

By the way, Alex North was quite famous for bizarrely exaggerated orchestrations.

 

Karol

[Chen G. 3,952]

29 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

And Herrmann had 9 harps in Beneath the 12-Mile Reef. From what I remember, Williams had 4 pianos for the Hoth sequence, and Goldsmith had at least 4 in Twilight Zone. But in all of these cases, specific instrument was multiplied to create a distinct sound, or to be able to write for a particular instrument against a massive orchestral backdrop.

 

Usually, when Hermann went wild with certain sections of the orchestra - and there are other scores of his that call (I can't remember which or where) for twelve flutes, another for a very large ensemble of horns, etc - he would reduce in another. The overall size of the ensemble would scarcely be in the ballpark of a really big orchestra.

 

29 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

From what I remember, Williams had 4 pianos for the Hoth sequence, and Goldsmith had at least 4 in Twilight Zone. But in all of these cases, specific instrument was multiplied to create a distinct sound, or to be able to write for a particular instrument against a massive orchestral backdrop.

 

Two, I believe, alongside with the quintuple high winds I mentioned. Also a third harp somewhere (my memory is its at the end of the film), and a fourth bassoon for the Boba Fett scenes, and lots of percussion (as many as eight players at once). Other parts of the Star Wars series call for more low strings, two timpanists, etc.. so he certainly doesn't shy away from big forces.

 

29 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

As Richard Strauss showed, an orchestra of just 36 players (and that includes 3 percussionists, two harps, and three keyboards!) can sound just like the proverbial massive Wagner orchestra.

 

You could just as soon take an example from Wagner himself. Something like Meistersingers (which Stephen Fry bizzarely cites for its "massive resources of huge orchestra") has the exact same orchestra size as Fidelio, and the other dramas like Tristan or Lohengrin are not too far off from that either.

 

Only The Ring has a really big ensemble, and by the standard of late-Romantic orchestras and large-scale film-scores, its postively modest: just shy of 110 players in the pit, and about 20 stage musicians across the four evenings, and its all positively muffled by the Bayreuth pit. Its hardly too far from the full forces Williams calls for in the Star Wars series, or a big Alex North score like Cleopatra, and certainly not even in the ballpark of Berlioz' Requiem, or Schoenberg's Gurre Lieder.

[Marian Schedenig 8,211]

23 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

As Richard Strauss showed, an orchestra of just 36 players (and that includes 3 percussionists, two harps, and three keyboards!) can sound just like the proverbial massive Wagner orchestra. Compare the Mozart-like opening of the prologue to the epic finale:

 

What makes this even more fascinating to me is that it came hot on the heals of Strauss' Alpensinfonie with its orchestra of at least 107 players on stage (plus an off-stage orchestra that brings Strauss' own ideal orchestra size up to 129). Despite its huge resources, the orchestrations are often called "chamber-like", and Strauss himself said of it after completing it: "Now I've finally learned how to orchestrate":

[Chen G. 3,952]

2 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Despite its huge resources, the orchestrations are often called "chamber-like",

 

Mahler's Ninth is also not terribly loud a lot of the time: he was just looking for more freedom to play with the colours.

[Marian Schedenig 8,211]

12 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Mahler's Ninth is also not terribly loud a lot of the time: he was just looking for more freedom to play with the colours.

 

Also a follow-up to a truly massive work, his 8th. Rule of thumb: The size of the choir is a better indication of the overall volume of a work than the size of its orchestra.

[Chen G. 3,952]

2 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Also a follow-up to a truly massive work, his 8th.

 

Yeah, I meant the eighth. 

[Marian Schedenig 8,211]

Oh. But that *is* massive at least in parts (I don't know it too well). When you have two (or more) gigantic choirs singing at full volume trying to be audible over the orchestra, it *is* loud.  

[Chen G. 3,952]

18 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

When you have two (or more) gigantic choirs singing at full volume trying to be audible over the orchestra, it *is* loud.  

 

It does get loud, but not all throughout.

 

And its still more modestly orchestrated than Gurre Lieder and lor knows from Havergal's Gothic! I mean, just look at this monstrosity!

 

[Quppa 117]

Another example where a large orchestra arguably made sense: Desplat used a 108-piece ensemble for Godzilla (2014), plus an 80-person choir.

[Manakin Skywalker 4,897]

 

[Mephariel 451]

I think a better question is, why do you care? At the end of the day, he can use a 1000-piece orchestra or 50, but the music is either good or not. I don't particularly like Fallout or Dead Reckoning that much, but I couldn't care less what his methods are. To HunterTech's point, why are we angry he is employing more musicians?  

[Schilkeman 964]

This the film score equivalent of having twenty symbols and twelve toms at a rock concert. I only know one (ok, two) drummer(s) in pop music who can handle a kit like that, and even then it's mostly for show, just like this.

[Faleel 5,364]

2 minutes ago, Schilkeman said:

This the film score equivalent of having twenty symbols and twelve toms at a rock concert. I only know one drummer in pop music who can handle a kit like that, and even then it's mostly for show, just like this.

What about two drummers?

[Schilkeman 964]

4 minutes ago, Mephariel said:

but the music is either good or not

Exactly. A good composer will use exactly the forces they need to achieve the sound they want. But a composer must be well-versed in orchestration to do this properly. Composers who know orchestration seem to have no place in the colorless wall of trendy mediocrity that is current film music.

4 minutes ago, Signals said:

What about two drummers?

If the music is using rhythm that genuinely can't be played by one person, fine. Or if they just want to double a part for added volume, sure. But I've seen quite a few drummers who seem weak on fundamentals trying to cover it with stupid-large kits. And similar to modern film music, most people are too ignorant of music to know they're being hoodwinked.

[Chen G. 3,952]

9 hours ago, Quppa said:

Desplat used a 108-piece ensemble for Godzilla (2014), plus an 80-person choir.

 

Am I the only one who doesn't see this as being particularly large? Williams often calls for a 100+ orchestra, and Horner and Powell scores often push 120 (which, I would say, is where it starts being really big). Since so much of this kind of film scoring is in a late-Romantic idiom, those kinds of ensemble sizes are par for the course.

[Richard Penna 3,696]

5 hours ago, Mephariel said:

I think a better question is, why do you care? At the end of the day, he can use a 1000-piece orchestra or 50, but the music is either good or not. I don't particularly like Fallout or Dead Reckoning that much, but I couldn't care less what his methods are. To HunterTech's point, why are we angry he is employing more musicians?  

 

I think the answer to 'why do you care' is always the same one: some take the public perception of film music and their favourite composers far too seriously and if there's discussion around about Balfe using hundreds of musicians or travelling the world, there's an urge to quash any idea that these are good things in case it spreads a sense that his music is good.

[Tom Guernsey 2,287]

Glad my jokey response hasn't resulted in Hans sending me a defensive/shitty message... but in all seriousness, the one thing that strikes me about this "I went here and there to get inspired" stuff is that it's one thing to, say, undertake a musicological study of historic music* to inform your writing, but for an action movie of this sort is it really going to make any difference? Would the music have been better had he LB flung himself off the side of the Burj Khalifa tower (no comment) to be better informed of how gravity works and the adrenaline rush of doing so?! Seems unlikely.

 

*Miklos Rozsa did for a number of his scores - even if the results still basically sound like fairly standard Rozsa with that strong Hungarian musical aesthetic.

[Brónach 1,302]

yeah but listening to a cantiga from the 1200s through his voice is fun.

[Richard Penna 3,696]

1 hour ago, Tom Guernsey said:

Glad my jokey response hasn't resulted in Hans sending me a defensive/shitty message

 

If Zimmer is lurking here, there's far worse material for him to find than anything in this thread 

 

Although come to think of it, where's Koray when you need him to fly in and provide the defense of a composer being tweated howwibly....  I'd forgotten about the Fallout episode.

[Stark 316]

There are plenty of good Balfe compositions, although I think few of them are in either Mission Impossible score. As far as why he’s using so many performers... with the obviously overblown budget he’s received, why not go overboard?

[Tom 4,673]

On 26/07/2023 at 5:52 AM, JTW said:

Yes, but they were all French.

And horny.