Judy and noozguru, I think music for a movie is simply another art form, best
appreciated on its own merits rather than compared to another context of
musical creation. When I think of some of the wonderful music I've encountered
in movies, I only feel gratitude to those who created it. One of the first
movies to bring my attention to its score was Chariots of Fire with its
compositions by Vangelis, who also wrote the haunting music for Year of Living
Dangerously. Also the music by Maurice Jarre in Peter Weir's Witness. I could
go on and on but only want to honor the composers who wrote such incredible
works even though they knew their sounds might play second fiddle to the
visuals.
On Thursday, December 12, 2013 6:36 PM, "authfri...@yahoo.com"
<authfri...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Some original movie and TV scores are excellent, worth listening to as music
for its own sake. Others...not so much. For that matter, there's plenty of
"real" popular music as well (e.g., the Beatles). And some musicals have had
excellent music (much of Rodgers and Hammerstein, also Loesser's Guys and
Dolls). The song "My Boy Bill" from R&H's Carousel is a full-blown operatic
aria (performed brilliantly by Gordon MacRae).
My use of the term "real music" had to do with quality, not genre or medium
snobbery.
I've been immersed in good classical music (i.e., serious music, not restricted
to the classical period) literally since I was in the cradle, FWIW. My father,
himself an amateur musician, was a musical scholar who taught college courses
in various types of serious music. My sister sang with the Boston Symphony
Chorus. I've sung with good amateur choruses as well. I'm not exactly a
neophyte, as you'd know if you listened to the videos I linked to. It's all
accessible, but I doubt any of it is on any orchestra's "top 40" list.
I'm not sure what the background of serious composers has to do with the
appreciation of their music qua music. Wagner was an anti-Semite. Bach was a
pain in the butt. Schumann was bipolar and died in a mental asylum. So what?
Their music is transcendent. So is Mozart's. As far as Amadeus is concerned, it
has quite a few historical inaccuracies; Mozart was not the inane fop portrayed
in the movie (or the stage play). But it wouldn't matter if he were.
And BTW, while sponsorship was a factor as late as Mozart's day, its importance
lessened pretty quickly after that; composers of the Romantic period generally
didn't have to cater to aristocrats for their income (OTOH, a lot of them lived
in straitened circumstances).
Yes, it's scandalous that orchestras need to put on so many "top-40" type
concerts in order to have sufficient funding. The neglect of music education in
public schools is appalling.
I'm of two minds about the use of existing serious music in films. On one hand,
at least moviegoers get some exposure to it. On the other, it imposes a kind of
sentimentality (positive and/or negative) on the music that is not native to it
and that can impede genuine appreciation. The ultimate horrible example, for
me, is the use of "Ride of the Valkyries" as background for the atrocities
portrayed in Apocalypse Now. It's almost impossible to hear the music without
the mental intrusion of images of helicopters slaughtering innocent Vietnamese
civilians. Yes, both have to do with battles, but of very different types--one
mythical and gloriously heroic, the other utterly depraved.
I don't believe any of the music for Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet was genuine
"Baroque music," by the way, as opposed to pseudo-Baroque pieces composed for
the movie. The only previously existing serious music used in the film, as far
as I'm aware, is from the Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, written
in the 1850s.
Bhairitu wrote:
> > Amusing. I was an honors music student at a major university with
> > composition as my strength. What was interesting was learning how these
> > guys actually came up with their music. There even are some pieces that
> > are adaptations of bar songs of the composer's day.
There really is no venue for serious composers in this age but
writing movie scores and for TV is one for them. Even some of my
composition professors at the university wrote for film. Murphy's
"Adagio in D minor" is a simple and beautiful piece which
functions as mood generating background for the film. Hans Zimmer
also wrote a simple piece for the film "Inception" called "Time"
which is also very popular and spiritual. Funny thing is I
noticed it was "Blue Moon" chords played backward. :-D
The public isn't of course aware (unless they took some good music
appreciation classes) of the background of a lot the "serious"
composers of the past. I always thought that "Amadeus" told the
story well that they had to cater to the aristocrats of the day
who might accuse them of writing "too many notes." Some of these
people lived short lives and some were drunkards. Shubert died at
an early age of syphilis.
The pubic is told to hold them in high esteem not that they
recognize why. I was always amused at how symphonies needed to
put on their "classical top 40" concerts rather than present new
music or obscure pieces.
Randy Newman wrote the music for the film "Pleasantville" and the
DVD contains a wonderful commentary by him. Of course he grew up
hanging out with his uncles who wrote for Hollywood film and talks
about how Jerry Goldsmith would rip apart many of Beethoven's
works in discussion. Such discussions were also not unusual when
having coffee with some of my music school professors. > >
