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Du murmure au grand souffle orchestral

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 11:02:29 GMT

Entre minimalisme et grandeur orchestrale, faisons le portrait d'un compositeur illuminé par toutes les images... David Reyes !

Entretien conçu à partir des questions de Pascal Dupont,

Avec les réponses de David Reyes.

Retranscription et adaptation par Manon Léger.

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À l’occasion du centenaire de la naissance de Georges Delerue (1925), le No Limit Festival a décidé de rendre un hommage vibrant au compositeur français. Lors de cet événement exceptionnel, un trophée honorifique a été remis à sa fille, Emmanuelle, célébrant ainsi l’héritage musical d’un artiste dont les œuvres ont profondément marqué le cinéma français et international.

C’est dans le cadre de la préparation du centenaire Delerue que j’ai eu la chance de découvrir ce compositeur d’un talent rare, pour qui le violoncelle et d’autres instruments n’ont aucun secret. Passionné, créatif et toujours en quête de nouvelles explorations musicales, David Reyes surprend par la richesse et la profondeur de son univers sonore. Déjà reconnu pour ses accomplissements, il conserve cette énergie créatrice qui lui permet de partager avec enthousiasme les processus et la passion qui animent sa musique. Véritable passeur entre son et image, il sait révéler la profondeur d’un récit, mettre en lumière ce que les images seules ne disent pas, tout en respectant l’univers du réalisateur.

Pour Cinescores Center et suite aux festivités du centenaire de Georges Delerue, je lui ai proposé de prolonger cette aventure en approfondissant son œuvre et en contribuant à la faire connaître au-delà des frontières européennes. Il a généreusement accepté cet entretien, auquel il a consacré beaucoup de temps. Cet échange permet de comprendre son regard, sa méthode et sa manière unique d’habiter le son et l’image. Dans un monde saturé de sons et de références, David Reyes rappelle que la vraie musique de film reste humaine, instinctive et irremplaçable.

Il ne reste plus maintenant qu’à lire, écouter et ressentir, en admirant la singularité et la force émotionnelle qui animent sa musique.

Pascal Dupont : Pour débuter cet entretien j’aimerais faire un rapprochement avec le parcours de Bill Conti. Lors de ses études à l’Université LSU de Bâton Rouge en Louisiane, certaines personnes lui ont suggéré d'apprendre le basson plutôt que le piano, estimant que cet instrument offrait des perspectives plus ouvertes qu’une discipline jugée saturée.

Vous êtes violoncelliste de formation, votre parcours avec cet instrument a-t-il été similaire ou l’avez-vous choisi pour d’autres raisons ?

Pouvez-vous nous expliquer comment vous avez découvert cet instrument ?

Était-ce un choix spontané, un coup de cœur, ou bien une décision stratégique pour vous démarquer dans un environnement musical donné ?

David Reyes : L’association avec Bill Conti est amusante, car je connais finalement assez peu son œuvre – si ce n’est qu’il a signé la musique de la version américaine du Grand Bleu, ce qui me fait sourire puisque je suis un grand admirateur de la version originale d’Éric Serra.

Pour en revenir à mon parcours, le violoncelle a été un véritable atout. C’est grâce à lui qu’à l’âge de 11 ans j’ai intégré l’orchestre du Conservatoire de Verviers. Le répertoire que nous abordions a nourri mon envie de continuer dans la musique. Le chef de l’époque, Alain Janclaes – qui débutait également à la tête de cet orchestre – avait dans sa sacoche des partitions mêlant Stravinsky et Mozart ainsi que des partitions comme Hook de John Williams ou encore un medley de Duke Ellington. Cette ouverture m’a permis de découvrir d’autres univers, hors du strict cadre classique, et notamment la partition de Hook qui m’a profondément marqué. C’est ainsi que, chaque samedi, j’avais hâte de retrouver l’orchestre pour explorer de nouvelles œuvres. Cette expérience, associée à la pratique du violoncelle, a profondément influencé mon écriture pour les cordes, qui restent aujourd’hui la famille d’instruments que j’affectionne le plus.

Si j’ai choisi le violoncelle, c’est aussi par désir d’échapper à la tradition familiale : ma mère est professeure de piano, ma sœur est pianiste, et l’un de mes beaux-pères l’était également. Je voulais un instrument qui me laisse un espace à moi. Ma mère raconte d’ailleurs que je l’ai choisi parce que je souhaitais jouer d’un instrument en position assise – ce qui est également le cas du piano, sauf peut-être chez Michel Berger, mais passons.

Je ne regrette absolument pas ce choix, tant le répertoire du violoncelle est magnifique. Pour autant, je ne me voyais ni devenir instrumentiste, ni faire carrière dans la musique… jusqu’à ce que je découvre ma passion pour la composition. Étant un grand amateur de cinéma, j’ai vite compris qu’allier les deux seraient le métier idéal. Cette passion s’est révélée à l’adolescence, contrairement à ma sœur, pianiste prodige qui a commencé à 3 ans. Lorsqu’un talent se manifeste aussi tôt, il laisse peu de place au choix. Pour ma part, la musique a été une décision consciente, et non un destin tracé.

P.D. : Le violoncelle est reconnu pour son expressivité et pour la richesse de son timbre, à la fois chaleureux et profond, capable d’allier puissance et douceur dans des nuances allant du sombre au lumineux. Il est parfois perçu comme l’instrument qui incarne le mieux le sentiment de solitude.

Pour vous, est-ce un instrument de nuance ou plutôt de narration spécifique ? Peut-on faire « parler » un violoncelle ?

D.R.: Je comprends parfaitement cette métaphore, d’autant que l’on dit souvent que le violoncelle est l’instrument le plus proche de la voix humaine, ce qui est vrai tant par sa tessiture que par son timbre. C’est un instrument d’une grande expressivité, doté d’un son profond, de vibratos riches et d’une palette étendue du grave à l’aigu. Je le préfère par exemple au violon, que je trouve parfois trop aigu, voire légèrement strident. Je redécouvre également l’alto, dont j’apprécie beaucoup le timbre, proche de celui du violoncelle, et que je trouve par ailleurs sous-exploité.

Le violoncelle offre des possibilités immenses. Il est particulièrement intéressant pour tracer des lignes mélodiques naturellement expressives. Cela dit, de nombreux instruments possèdent une force expressive propre, liée à leur timbre singulier. Je suis, par exemple, très sensible au cor anglais, au basson, au cor, au célesta, ainsi qu’aux instruments ethniques. Jouer une simple note au duduk suffit à créer instantanément une atmosphère, tant son timbre est chargé d’émotion. Comme il se distingue de ce que l’on entend habituellement dans un orchestre classique, il apporte une puissance expressive remarquable.

C’est pour cette raison que, dans mes compositions, j’aime associer des instruments ethniques à l’orchestre classique, non pas pour leur connotation géographique, mais pour leur couleur sonore singulière qui capte immédiatement l’oreille. C’est d’ailleurs l’un des atouts de la musique de film : on peut oser toutes les combinaisons instrumentales, à condition que l’émotion suscitée soit juste par rapport à ce que l’image raconte.

Pour revenir au violoncelle, ce n’est pas un instrument que j’associe à une émotion unique. Il peut se montrer tour à tour lyrique, sautillant ou mélancolique. Mais je crois que cette polyvalence est vraie pour de nombreux instruments : tout dépend de la manière dont on les met en valeur, et c’est précisément ce qui rend leur exploration si passionnante.

P.D. : L’apprentissage du violoncelle confère-t-il, selon vous, un avantage spécifique pour mieux cerner la symphonie et l’orchestre, comparativement à des instruments comme la batterie ou la guitare ?

Pensez-vous que cela a influencé de manière notable votre manière de composer ?

Bien entendu, tout le monde ne devient pas compositeur comme vous, mais j’aimerais savoir si votre pratique initiale du violoncelle a été pour vous une étincelle créative, ou si l’écriture musicale vous a toujours semblé presque une évidence ?

D.R.: J’ai déjà un peu répondu à cela dans la première question sur le choix du violoncelle : c’était effectivement un atout de jouer d’un instrument d’orchestre, parce que cela m’a permis de comprendre de l’intérieur comment écrire pour un orchestre. Le vrai privilège, c’était surtout de faire partie de l’orchestre : les répétitions me donnaient l’occasion de décortiquer les orchestrations en direct. En revanche, je dois avouer que je suis assez mauvais pour écrire du rock… Si j’avais été batteur, je serais sans doute plus à l’aise dans ce domaine ! Finalement, chacun ses atouts.

Pour la deuxième partie de la question, je dirais qu’au départ je n’étais pas très disposé à écrire de la musique. Dans ma famille, tout le monde en faisait, et j’avais envie de prendre un autre chemin. J’ai d’abord voulu être journaliste, pharmacien… ou même Louis de Funès ! Puis j’ai pensé à devenir réalisateur, car j’étais bien plus passionné par le cinéma que par la musique. Composer me semblait hors de portée. Pour faire de la musique de film, il fallait habiter Hollywood, pas Verviers ! Mon idée était donc de réaliser mes propres films pour pouvoir en écrire la musique. Finalement, c’est ce métier qui s’est imposé à moi presque malgré moi.

Avec le recul, je pense que si j’avais appris le piano, cela m’aurait beaucoup aidé comme compositeur. Ma mère a essayé de m’y initier, mais je refusais catégoriquement ! Bref, l’étincelle créative ne vient pas vraiment du violoncelle, mais du cinéma. C’est le cinéma qui me faisait rêver, et comme j’aime profondément la musique, il a été le moyen d’y accéder.

P.D.: Par la suite, vous vous êtes spécialisé dans la composition de musique de film. Parmi vos premiers souvenirs musicaux de cinéma, quelles bandes originales ont véritablement retenu votre attention ?

D.R. : C’est indéniablement la musique de film qui m’a donné l’envie de devenir compositeur, bien davantage que la musique classique, même si mes premiers chocs esthétiques sont liés à cette dernière. Je pense, par exemple, à la Symphonie alpestre de Richard Strauss, qui fut mon tout premier CD, ou encore à Daphnis et Chloé de Maurice Ravel dont l’orchestration demeure pour moi un modèle de perfection. Et comment ne pas évoquer l’électrochoc provoqué par Music for 18 Musicians de Steve Reich, une œuvre qui a profondément marqué et orienté mon écriture par la suite.

La musique de film, toutefois, possédait une dimension supplémentaire : non seulement elle intensifiait l’émotion des images, mais elle déployait également un lyrisme, une richesse mélodique et une expressivité exacerbée qui m’ont bouleversé dès mon enfance. Je garde en mémoire des découvertes fondatrices telles que E.T. de John Williams, Basil détective privé d’Henry Mancini ou encore Qui veut la peau de Roger Rabbit d’Alan Silvestri. Toutes ces partitions se sont imprimées en moi avec une force indélébile.

Le tout premier film que j’ai vu reste néanmoins Dumbo. La musique d’Olivier Wallace y a laissé une empreinte ineffaçable. Revoir récemment ce chef-d’œuvre m’a confirmé l’extraordinaire maîtrise de son écriture : une partition parfaitement autonome lorsqu’on l’écoute isolément, mais qui épouse aussi avec une justesse remarquable chaque mouvement de l’image, sans jamais céder à un mickeymousing caricatural. C’est un véritable travail d’orfèvre. Et cette scène bouleversante où la mère berce Dumbo derrière les barreaux demeure, pour moi, l’une des plus poignantes du cinéma. Cette chanson possède un pouvoir émotionnel si fort qu’entendue hors du film, elle ravive instantanément ce souvenir et me tire encore aujourd’hui une larme.

Au fil des années, d’autres œuvres ont continué à nourrir ma réflexion sur le rapport entre musique et image comme Microcosmos de Bruno Coulais, Le Cinquième élément d’Éric Serra, American Beauty de Thomas Newman, ou encore la trilogie Jason Bourne mise en musique par John Powell. À chaque découverte, je mesure l’exigence et l’inventivité de ce langage singulier. Et chaque année encore, je découvre des œuvres capables de me surprendre, de m’inspirer, et de me donner l’élan nécessaire pour tenter, à mon tour, de me hisser à ce niveau.

P.D.: Le film Jennifer 8 dont Christopher Young a composé la B.O., est remarquable pour les magnifiques passages de violoncelle qui se croisent avec l’histoire. La protagoniste, incarnée par Uma Thurman, joue de cet instrument, ces solos viennent enrichir les thèmes du film. Il s’agit d’un exemple frappant de la façon dont un instrument peut accompagner et souligner le récit.

De votre côté, quelle a été votre expérience la plus marquante avec un violoncelle dans vos créations cinématographique ? Pouvez-vous citer un ou plusieurs moments où l’instrument a joué un rôle clé dans l’expression émotionnelle ou narrative ?

D.R.: Je n’ai pas encore vu Jennifer 8, mais je connais un peu le disque de Christopher Young, il faut dire que je dois posséder près de 5 000 bandes originales si je compte les CD et le numérique, car j’écoute à peu près tout ce qui sort, même sans voir les films. Christopher Young est un compositeur remarquable, j’ai notamment un faible pour Bless the Child. Le disque de Jennifer 8 est très beau, et après cette interview je prendrai le temps de me plonger dans le film lui-même !

Concernant l’utilisation du violoncelle dans mes propres œuvres, le point culminant reste sans aucun doute Les Rivières Pourpres. Mais je pense que nous aurons l’occasion d’en parler plus en détail un peu plus loin. À côté de cela, j’ai également quelques passages de violoncelle que j’affectionne, par exemple dans Derrière les murs ou dans Sauvages au cœur des zoos humains. Dans ces cas-là, je l’emploie généralement pour son caractère très expressif. Sur Les Rivières Pourpres, en revanche, je l’ai véritablement exploré sous toutes ses facettes, en le « retournant dans tous les sens ».

P.D. : L’un des sons les plus originaux que j’ai entendus en musique de film est celui de Nighthawks, avec la bande-originale très personnelle de Keith Emerson. Dans le morceau Tramway, il utilise des sons de violoncelle ou de contrebasse déformés, appuyés et mélangés à des effets synthétiques, créant une texture dense et unique, purement atmosphérique.

Dans le très beau générique que vous avez composé pour l’adaptation télévisée des Rivières Pourpres, j’ai perçu une utilisation similaire du violoncelle, générant une texture particulière et inhabituelle. Pouvez-vous nous en dire davantage sur ce mélange ?

Envisagez-vous de poursuivre cette approche consistant à manipuler les timbres d’instruments traditionnels pour surprendre l’auditeur et explorer de nouvelles textures sonores, lorsqu’une telle liberté créative est possible ?

D.R.: Je ne connais ni ce film ni ce compositeur, merci pour la référence, j’aime beaucoup découvrir de nouvelles choses, et je vais m’y pencher avec plaisir.

En ce qui concerne Les Rivières Pourpres, j’avais précisément envie que le son du violoncelle soit singulier. Il fallait qu’il soit un peu « sale », écrasé, rugueux, afin de coller à l’atmosphère sombre de la série. S’il avait été joué de manière lyrique, cela n’aurait pas correspondu à ce que je recherchais. J’ai donc choisi une approche où le violoncelle n’était pas seulement considéré comme un instrument, mais véritablement comme un matériau sonore. Il m’est arrivé, par exemple, de taper sur l’instrument pour produire certains sons, d’utiliser l’archet de manière détournée, ou même de frotter les cordes avec une règle en Lego. C’est une démarche qui prolonge mes expérimentations en électroacoustique. Ma pièce de fin d’année s’intitulait d’ailleurs Le violoncelle qui ne voulait pas mourir, et elle posait déjà les bases de cette recherche : partir d’un instrument à l’identité sonore très forte, puis l’amener vers des territoires inexplorés, jusqu’à le déformer pour dépasser son statut d’instrument et le concevoir comme une véritable matière sonore.

C’est un terrain d’exploration qui me passionne. En musique classique, beaucoup de choses ont déjà été écrites et poussées très loin, mais les instruments restent ce qu’ils sont, avec des limites d’expérimentation. La musique enregistrée, en revanche, et la musique de film en particulier ouvre des perspectives infinies : on peut déformer, pitcher, inverser, découper les sons, et ainsi créer des territoires inédits. C’est un aspect de mon travail qui m’enthousiasme énormément.

J’ai une admiration sans bornes pour John Williams, mais je ne me sens pas d’écrire dans une veine purement symphonique comme lui. Ce qui m’amuse davantage, c’est de travailler avec des ensembles plus restreints, où l’on peut identifier chaque soliste, ou bien de mêler instruments ethniques et orchestre classique. Mais je ne les utilise pas dans une logique d’évocation géographique. Ce qui m’intéresse, c’est leur timbre singulier, leur potentiel expressif. J’aime aussi explorer les points de rencontre entre l’acoustique et l’expérimental, ou encore inventer des percussions à partir de sons organiques. Bref, ce qui me stimule, c’est cette quête constante de textures atypiques, la volonté de créer des sonorités que je n’ai pas encore entendues ailleurs.

Dans cette démarche, Thomas Newman a été pour moi une influence considérable. Son inventivité dans la recherche de timbres et de combinaisons instrumentales reste une source d’inspiration précieuse.

P.D.: J’apprécie énormément la clarté avec laquelle vos instruments se déploient, chacun identifiable par son timbre et son interprétation. Considérez-vous cela comme une signature musicale, ou plutôt comme un aspect parmi d’autres de votre approche ?

D.R.: C’est quelque chose que j’ai développé progressivement, presque malgré moi. Je me souviens qu’un journaliste espagnol, Conrado Xalabarder, avait qualifié mon travail pour Before Snowfall de « grand orchestre de chambre ». J’ai trouvé cette expression particulièrement juste. Ce type d’orchestration, qui fait désormais partie de ce que l’on pourrait appeler ma signature sonore, est né de plusieurs facteurs.

D’abord, il y a eu une réalité très concrète : je n’ai que rarement disposé d’un budget suffisant pour enregistrer un orchestre symphonique complet. J’ai donc dû trouver des compromis, en mêlant par exemple de vraies cordes enregistrées à un petit ensemble instrumental, complétés par des éléments synthétiques. Le fait de réduire le pupitre de cordes confère immédiatement une couleur plus proche de la musique de chambre que de la grande symphonie. C’est donc en partie un choix lié aux contraintes budgétaires.

Mais il y a aussi une dimension esthétique. J’ai une admiration absolue pour Ravel, dont l’orchestration est, selon moi, un modèle de perfection : chaque note y trouve naturellement sa place, chaque timbre se détache avec une clarté absolue. On entend tout. Cette précision, cette transparence m’ont profondément marqué. Chez Steve Reich, je retrouve une démarche similaire : ses pièces s’appuient sur des motifs répétitifs qui permettent aux timbres et aux jeux rythmiques de se révéler.

Ainsi, lorsque je choisis un instrument comme un célesta, un cor anglais ou encore une clarinette, j’ai envie que l’on entende précisément ce timbre-là. Je ne cherche pas à doubler systématiquement les phrases pour produire un effet de masse, comme le font certains compositeurs tels que Hans Zimmer. Au contraire, je préfère confier un thème à un instrument spécifique, sans le renforcer inutilement. C’est ce qui confère à mon écriture cette sonorité d’«orchestre de chambre élargi », où chaque instrument conserve sa personnalité. Avec le temps, je me suis rendu compte que je me sentais particulièrement à l’aise dans cette esthétique, qui est devenue peu à peu une composante de mon style.

Je crois que c’est avec Before Snowfall que j’ai véritablement trouvé l’équilibre sonore que je recherchais, et que je n’ai cessé d’approfondir depuis. Bien entendu, si un jour l’occasion m’était donnée d’écrire pour un vaste orchestre symphonique avec chœur, je le ferais avec plaisir. Mais je reste attaché à des ensembles plus restreints. J’ai d’ailleurs conçu deux ciné-concerts dans des formats de dix à quinze musiciens, tous solistes. Ce choix me semble non seulement fidèle à ma manière d’écrire, mais il possède aussi une vertu pédagogique : lorsque des enfants assistent au concert, ils peuvent identifier immédiatement l’instrument qu’ils entendent (une clarinette, un hautbois…) sans qu’il soit fondu dans un pupitre.

En définitive, je suis profondément attaché à la singularité des timbres. Chaque instrument est unique, et mon plaisir de compositeur est de les mettre en valeur comme des voix solistes.

P.D.: Je trouve que vos idées musicales sont très perceptibles : votre musique est riche, nuancée, inventive, mais jamais gratuite. Même dans les passages plus expérimentaux, on a le sentiment que chaque choix, chaque accord, chaque écriture, chaque modulation répond à une intention précise. Rien ne semble laissé au hasard et tout semble aller dans une direction claire. Cette cohérence et cette lisibilité dans votre écriture musicale sont-elles quelque chose que vous cherchez à instaurer consciemment ?

La compréhension de votre musique par le public est-elle un aspect auquel vous accordez une attention particulière ?

D.R.: Merci pour ce compliment. Je suis heureux que vous ayez perçu cela, car c’est effectivement une obsession dans mon travail : je veux que tout ait un sens, que rien ne soit gratuit. Pour moi, si l’on met de la musique sur une scène, c’est qu’elle doit apporter quelque chose, sinon, il vaut mieux ne pas en mettre. Dès lors que j’en décide autrement, je me demande toujours : pourquoi ici ? qu’est-ce qu’elle raconte ? qu’apporte-t-elle réellement ? Chaque choix, qu’il s’agisse d’un instrument, d’une harmonie ou d’un point de synchronisation, tout doit être justifié. Même si cette justification n’existe que dans ma tête, elle me sert de guide pour avancer.

Cela vient sans doute de mon parcours de réalisateur : je considère qu’aucun élément d’un film ne doit être laissé au hasard. Pour moi, une musique de film pleinement réussie est celle qui, d’un côté, existe en tant qu’œuvre autonome que l’on peut écouter séparément, mais qui, projetée sur les images, prend tout son sens parce qu’elle semble en totale symbiose avec le film, que ce soit par la synchronisation ou par les intentions.

C’est pourquoi je m’interroge sans cesse : pourquoi placer de la musique à tel endroit ? Pourquoi choisir tel instrument plutôt qu’un autre, et qu’évoque-t-il ? Pourquoi synchroniser précisément ici et non ailleurs ? Cette rigueur peut sembler obsessionnelle, mais c’est ce qui rend ce métier passionnant. Elle m’oblige à m’immerger profondément dans le film, dans son récit, dans ses émotions, afin que la musique ne soit pas un simple surlignage, mais qu’elle devienne un véritable personnage, capable de nous toucher autant dans le viscéral que dans le cérébral.

Ce que j’espère, c’est qu’au fil des années, lorsqu’on revoit le film, cette musique garde toujours sa pertinence et son intérêt, qu’elle continue à dialoguer avec l’image avec la même intensité qu’à sa sortie. C’est la raison pour laquelle j’ai été infiniment honoré qu’une jeune musicologue, Manon Léger, consacre trois années de recherche à mon travail sur Les Rivières Pourpres. Cela prouve qu’il y a matière à analyser, et c’est sans doute le plus beau compliment que l’on puisse me faire.

P.D.: Comment définiriez-vous votre style ou signature musicale ? Avez-vous déjà reçu des retours ou des impressions à ce sujet ?

D.R. : C’est très difficile pour moi de définir mon style, ou même de dire si j’en ai un. Je ne sais pas vraiment comment moi-même je pourrais le qualifier. En revanche, à force de travailler, de plus en plus de personnes me disent : « ça, c’est du Reyes tout craché ! » Et souvent, ce qui permet de reconnaître mon travail, ce sont certaines habitudes : la façon dont j’utilise les pizzicati, certaines cellules rythmiques, certains assemblages d’instruments, certains schémas harmoniques… Ce n’est pas quelque chose que je fais consciemment, mais certaines choses sortent plus naturellement. Et c’est sans doute ce qui construit un style au fil du temps.

Si l’on prend l’exemple d’Alexandre Desplat : lorsqu’il composait au début pour Karl Zéro ou pour les premiers films de Jacques Audiard, sa musique n’était pas immédiatement identifiable. Aujourd’hui, en deux secondes, on reconnaît sa patte. Cela s’est construit avec les années. Je pense que c’est pareil pour tout compositeur.

Pour ma part, une partie de ma signature se retrouve dans ce que nous avons déjà évoqué : l’utilisation d’un certain type d’orchestration, ma façon de traiter la matière sonore, certaines manières d’agencer les cellules rythmiques… Mais je suis encore loin d’avoir exploré tout ce qui pourrait, à terme, rendre ma musique immédiatement reconnaissable. Il faudra donc que je vive longtemps pour continuer à explorer au maximum !

P.D. : Le projet de composer un concerto pour violoncelle figure-t-il parmi vos ambitions futures ?

D.R.: Pour être honnête, oui, j’ai écrit un concerto en 2005. Mais le brouillon dort encore dans des cartons, l’orchestration n’est pas parfaite, certains développements ne sont pas totalement aboutis… Je me suis toujours promis de le reprendre, mais je n’ai jamais vraiment trouvé le courage de le faire jusqu’à présent.

Je suis convaincu qu’un jour je m’y remettrai. Je garderai uniquement la ligne de violoncelle et réécrirai tout le reste correctement, car le brouillon original a été entièrement pensé au papier-crayon, avec beaucoup de soin. J’aimerais vraiment que ce concerto voie le jour, mais dans son état actuel, je crains que les compositeurs classiques ne me rient au nez ! Avec le recul et les années d’expérience, je pourrai l’améliorer et lui donner sa forme définitive.

Et si ce n’est pas moi, qui sait… peut-être que quelqu’un le découvrira et le fera connaître à titre posthume !

P.D. : La révolution des sons en musique de film est en grande partie attribuée à des compositeurs comme Jerry Goldsmith et James Horner à la fin des années 90. Christopher Young, et surtout Thomas Newman, ont excellé dans cet art. Ils ont introduit des sonorités synthétiques plus aériennes, des effets sonores subtils, tout en préservant une écriture symphonique ample et lyrique.

Une œuvre comme Legend de Goldsmith en 1984 illustre parfaitement la combinaison de l’ampleur symphonique et des sonorités synthétiques, caractéristique des débuts du synthétiseur dans la musique de film. James Horner, qui est de l’école Goldsmith, était un jeune compositeur talentueux, maîtrisant avec brio la synthétique musicale et la création de compositions complexes, comme en témoigne la B.O. de Krull.

À l’époque, ce mélange de sons était perçu comme une innovation exceptionnelle, et celui qui maîtrisait cette approche était considéré comme un génie.

De nos jours, les compositeurs de musique de film intègrent plus facilement des sons synthétiques dans leurs créations, et utilisent l’électronique pour transformer des sons et des bruits pour les réintégrer harmonieusement à la musique. Cela permet de réaliser des trouvailles musicales très complexes, en mélangeant des instruments réels retravaillés et des sons générés par ordinateur, créant ainsi des textures inédites et des effets sonores impossibles à obtenir avec un orchestre traditionnel. Ce qui semblait extrêmement complexe à l’époque est désormais devenu bien plus accessible grâce aux avancées des logiciels de composition.

Je compare ceci à l’animation 3D de Pixar : au début, les spectateurs étaient émerveillés par la perfection de cette technologie, mais aujourd’hui, elle est devenue tellement courante qu’on n’y prête plus attention : tous ces films profitent de ces technologies. On regarde le film pour son histoire…

Cependant, ce principe ne s’applique pas à vous, compte tenu de la qualité et du caractère personnalisé de vos créations cinématographiques, mais j’aimerais connaître votre avis à ce sujet.

Il y a aujourd'hui de nombreux jeunes compositeurs de musique de film composant des œuvres assez similaires. Le nouveau « sound » du cinéma semble se diffuser de façon homogène, sans doute en raison de l’usage des techniques de composition assistée par ordinateur, où beaucoup appliquent des procédés créatifs et techniques semblables.

Pensez-vous qu'avec le temps, cette manière de créer deviendra si courante qu’on ne la considérera plus comme une approche ingénieuse, mais comme une norme ?

Et dans ce cas, croyez-vous qu'un compositeur, même avec des outils similaires et un sens créatif comparable, pourra encore se démarquer et offrir quelque chose d'unique ?

D.R.: Sur le plan historique, j’aimerais apporter quelques observations, car je me suis longtemps interrogé sur l’utilisation du synthétiseur dans la musique de film. Comme beaucoup de jeunes compositeurs, j’ai commencé avec un synthé, en essayant de recréer un orchestre. Avec le recul, c’était la pire des approches : vouloir imiter un orchestre avec des sons artificiels donnait un résultat rapidement « cheap », sans profondeur. Et puis, rien n’est plus frustrant que de ne pas entendre sa musique jouée par de véritables musiciens.

Très vite, j’ai donc abandonné l’idée du « faux orchestre » pour envisager le synthé comme ce qu’il est réellement : un instrument à part entière, générateur de sons de synthèse. En le détachant de sa fonction d’ersatz, il devient une véritable matière sonore, ouvrant des champs d’expérimentation infiniment stimulants. Par exemple, un pizzicato de contrebasse utilisé normalement sera toujours décevant, car il manquera les subtilités d’un vrai contrebassiste : groove, phrasé, imperfections. Mais si l’on transpose ce même son dans l’aigu, il se transforme en une cellule rythmique sèche et percussive, impossible à obtenir avec un instrument réel. Le son échantillonné cesse alors d’être un substitut : il devient une entité sonore unique, liée à une banque de sons précise, impossible à reproduire autrement. C’est sans doute grâce à l’électroacoustique que j’ai appris à m’affranchir de l’instrument et à considérer le son pour lui-même.

Un compositeur qui m’a beaucoup marqué dans cette approche est Jerry Goldsmith, notamment avec Gremlins. Au départ, je trouvais les sonorités synthétiques un peu « laides ». Mais j’ai compris qu’elles étaient volontairement utilisées comme des sons artificiels, inorganiques, étranges et donc en parfaite adéquation avec les créatures. Ce n’était plus une imitation de l’orchestre, mais l’affirmation d’un instrument singulier, assumé pour ce qu’il est.

Il y a aussi Éric Serra, dont la maîtrise des synthés m’a profondément impressionné. Le Grand Bleu reste d’une puissance évocatrice intacte aujourd’hui, et son mélange subtil entre orchestre et synthèse atteint une forme de perfection dans Léon. Sans parler du Cinquième Élément, qui fut pour moi un véritable déclencheur.

Avec le temps, les synthétiseurs ont gagné en raffinement, et les combinaisons sonores sont devenues plus subtiles.

Pour moi, le maître incontesté de cet art reste Thomas Newman : ses textures uniques, immédiatement reconnaissables, apportent une émotion singulière, toujours en parfaite résonance avec les images. Chaque bande originale surprend par ses innovations sonores, qui éveillent sans cesse mon oreille.

En somme, le synthétiseur est devenu, comme tout outil, un médium dont certains ont appris à maîtriser le potentiel, et d’autres moins. Je pense que l’intelligence artificielle suivra le même chemin. L’IA ne remplacera pas les créateurs, mais elle obligera chacun à interroger sa véritable valeur ajoutée. Pour ma part, je n’ai pas peur d’être remplacé : ce qui fait la richesse de notre métier, c’est la vision singulière que l’on apporte à un film, la capacité à proposer des lectures originales, des associations sonores inédites, le dialogue avec un réalisateur. C’est aussi et surtout l’importance du rapport humain, et la beauté irremplaçable d’entendre des musiciens interpréter une partition en direct. Voilà nos forces. Et c’est là, je crois, que se fera la différence.

P.D.: Pour aller plus loin, il me semble que certains créateurs commencent déjà à utiliser l'intelligence artificielle dans la composition musicale, notamment pour mettre au point de nouvelles structures sonores et créer des effets. L'IA pourrait certainement évoluer de manière à accomplir cela de façon très naturelle. Peut être même qu’à l’avenir il sera possible de proposer une idée musicale à l'IA et de lui demander d'enrichir cette idée avec des options spécifiques, voire de la développer de manière autonome.

En tant que compositeur de talent apportant une richesse humaine profonde à votre musique, avez-vous des inquiétudes concernant l'avenir de la musique au cinéma, notamment face aux avancées des nouvelles technologies ?

Pensez-vous que ces évolutions pourraient encore réduire la place de la musique dans un film et le rôle du compositeur ?

D.R.: Je pense que l’IA va effectivement faire disparaître certains types de compositions, ainsi que les compositeurs qui y étaient associés. Prenons un exemple : les émissions de cuisine ou les magazines de mode. On y utilise des musiques de fond, brèves et interchangeables, choisies pour colorer une ambiance sans réelle importance artistique. Dans ce contexte, les producteurs n’auront plus besoin de faire appel à un compositeur : ils constitueront des banques sonores prêtes à l’emploi, avec des musiques « rigolotes », « dramatiques », « suspense », etc. Peu importe la qualité, puisque ces musiques ne durent jamais longtemps et ne sont pas vraiment écoutées. Ils auront alors le sentiment de gagner du temps et de l’argent en procédant ainsi. En un sens, l’IA prendra la place des librairies musicales déjà existantes.

Mais c’est précisément ce qui souligne, à mes yeux, l’importance du rôle du compositeur. Si l’on fait appel à un musicien plutôt qu’à une machine, c’est pour tout ce qu’aucun algorithme ne peut offrir : une vision singulière du film, une capacité d’invention qui s’écarte des formats établis, un dialogue humain avec le réalisateur, une lecture sensible et originale des images. Et bien sûr, la beauté du travail avec de vrais musiciens, de cette interprétation vivante que rien ne peut simuler.

Il ne s’agit donc pas d’avoir peur de la technologie : elle continuera d’évoluer, qu’on le veuille ou non. Mieux vaut l’observer, s’y intéresser, comprendre comment elle peut enrichir nos outils, tout en réaffirmant ce qui constitue la force irremplaçable de notre métier : la créativité, l’imprévu et le rapport humain.

P.D.: Vous avez une formation solide en musique et en composition, et cela se ressent dans votre travail, mais vous savez aussi bien que moi que la musique de film peine encore à trouver pleinement ses valeurs et son existence, surtout en France. Je suis certain que si vous aviez œuvré dans les années 2000, vous auriez été submergé par le travail, car la musique de film avait alors une place plus prépondérante. Dans l’industrie cinématographique actuelle, la recherche d’économie conduit trop souvent à considérer la musique comme une composante secondaire. On le constate aisément : la majorité des compositions se font désormais sur ordinateur, faute de moyens pour engager un véritable orchestre.

Même avec un savoir-faire créatif aussi raffiné et une approche musicale aussi unique et spéciale que la vôtre, à votre avis, les producteurs et réalisateurs, soumis à des budgets compressés, sauront-ils encore reconnaître le toucher humain d’un compositeur par rapport à un sound designer recourant à une IA pour créer une partie de sa musique moins chère ?

D.R. : Je ne crois pas que la question essentielle soit de distinguer l’IA de l’humain. L’enjeu est plutôt de savoir ce que l’on souhaite transmettre. Il y a toujours eu des compositeurs travaillant avec l’électronique : si l’on écoute Vangelis ou Éric Serra derrière leurs synthétiseurs, on perçoit immédiatement la présence d’un créateur, d’une sensibilité. Autrement dit, la difficulté ne vient pas de la technologie elle-même, mais de la relation que l’on établit avec un compositeur : le dialogue, l’échange d’idées, la construction d’une vision commune. C’est ce lien humain que rien ne pourra remplacer, et j’ose espérer que cette dimension sensible continuera d’être reconnue. Quant aux réductions budgétaires, elles sont bien réelles et de plus en plus marquées, mais ce constat dépasse largement le domaine de la musique…

P.D. : Les jeunes metteurs en scène ou producteurs sont-ils encore réellement intéressés par une musique de film de qualité, ou la considèrent-ils désormais comme un élément accessoire et trop coûteux dans la production ? Dressez-nous les nouveaux profils de ces personnages : ont-ils une réelle culture musicale pour argumenter une demande ou leur approche reste-t-elle limitée, influencée par des contraintes budgétaires et des priorités créatives différentes ?

D.R. : Je suis plutôt optimiste quant à la nouvelle génération. Lorsque j’ai fait mes études de cinéma, la musique de film était souvent perçue comme une émotion « artificielle » à bannir. Il faut dire que les frères Dardenne venaient d’obtenir la Palme d’or pour Rosetta, et qu’un certain courant critique considérait alors qu’un « grand film » devait se passer de musique. Pour quelqu’un qui rêvait de devenir compositeur de musique de film, le contexte n’était pas forcément encourageant.

Aujourd’hui, les jeunes réalisateurs que je rencontre, souvent à leur premier ou deuxième long-métrage, ont grandi avec Steven Spielberg et John Williams, avec Robert Zemeckis et Alan Silvestri. Ils ont été nourris dès l’enfance de films qui accordaient une véritable place à la musique, souvent symphonique. Ces références font partie de leur ADN cinéphile, et je les trouve, de ce fait, beaucoup plus attentifs à la dimension musicale que leurs aînés. J’espère que cette tendance se confirmera dans les années à venir.

Cela dit, la question du mixage reste un enjeu majeur. En France, on privilégie traditionnellement le réalisme sonore : il faut absolument entendre le moindre bruit, jusqu’au pigeon qui s’envole trois rues plus loin. La musique est souvent reléguée à l’arrière-plan, là où, aux États-Unis, on n’hésite pas à la mettre en avant, quitte à effacer certains sons. Cette différence tient à une culture : la France, pays davantage littéraire que musical, considère encore trop souvent la musique comme un simple arrière-plan plutôt que comme un véritable personnage du film. Et sur ce point, il reste beaucoup à faire évoluer.

P.D.: Dans une interview en ligne pour l’émission « La Maison du Film », vous évoquez l'importance du dialogue avec le metteur en scène et la recherche d’une « sémantique pseudo sonore » lorsqu'il s'agit de comprendre ce qu'il faut faire tout en répondant aux exigences de ce dernier. La production interfère-t-elle encore autant dans le choix et les orientations musicales ou est-ce que tout se joue ensuite entre vous et le metteur en scène ?

D.R.: En France, la collaboration se construit le plus souvent directement avec le réalisateur. C’est une différence notable avec les États-Unis, où le compositeur est parfois considéré comme un technicien et où les producteurs exercent généralement une influence déterminante sur les projets. Tout dépend bien sûr de la nature du projet : un film de cinéma, souvent pensé et porté par un réalisateur-auteur, ne fonctionne pas de la même manière qu’une série télévisée, davantage supervisée par des producteurs et des showrunners.

Dans la plupart des cas, mon interlocuteur principal reste le réalisateur. D’autres voix interviennent régulièrement, en particulier celles des producteurs, ce qui est légitime puisqu’ils financent le projet. Mais pour que le travail soit fluide, il est préférable de centraliser les retours sur une seule personne, souvent le réalisateur, qui devient alors le porte-parole de l’équipe.

J’ai connu des situations plus complexes, comme sur Enquêtes extraordinaires, où plus de dix personnes différentes faisaient part de leurs avis. Cela peut vite devenir difficile à gérer. À l’inverse, lorsque le réalisateur prend pleinement son rôle de médiateur, la collaboration est beaucoup plus efficace. Car au fond, c’est lui qui porte le film à bout de bras, qui en a la vision, et qui en est souvent aussi le scénariste. Pour nous, compositeurs, il s’agit alors de l’accompagner, de l’aider à donner vie à son œuvre, en lui donnant une dimension musicale qui s’accorde à sa vision.

P.D.: Il apparaît que, au cours de votre formation, vous avez étudié à la GRM de Pierre Schaeffer, une référence avec « Le Club d’essai ». Qu'avez-vous appris au sein de ce groupe et en quoi cette expérience a-t-elle influencé votre approche de la composition sonore ?

A l’image de ce que faisait François de Roubaix ou de l’approche de Morricone, avec son groupe expérimental « Les Nouvelles Consonances » dans les années 70, travaillez-vous sur des expérimentations sonores pour créer un catalogue d’effets ? Le bruitage et les effets d’instruments occupent-ils une place particulière dans votre processus créatif ?

D.R.: Après avoir obtenu mon diplôme de composition de musique de films à l’École normale Alfred Cortot (à l’unanimité avec les félicitations du jury), j’ai choisi de suivre une année d’électroacoustique. J’avais envie de faire l’expérience inverse de ma formation : apprendre à créer de la musique sans instruments, en traitant chaque son comme une véritable matière sonore que l’on déforme, transforme, sculpte, pour voir comment elle peut générer une atmosphère ou même un discours musical. Issu d’un parcours très classique et traditionnel, je voyais dans cette démarche une manière d’élargir ma palette en explorant un langage radicalement opposé à celui que j’avais appris jusque-là.

L’impulsion m’est venue en découvrant Dancer in the Dark, où la musique de Björk m’a profondément marqué : elle fait naître ses chansons à partir de sons réalistes, qui peu à peu se transforment en rythmiques et deviennent la base de la composition. Cette approche m’a fasciné, et je me suis dit : “Je sais écrire la partie symphonique, mais comment parvenir à créer cette dimension électronique ?” À l’époque (nous étions en 2004), les classes de musique électronique n’étaient pas encore développées comme aujourd’hui, et l’électroacoustique était ce qui se rapprochait le plus de ce que je cherchais.

Ce fut une expérience passionnante : les compositeurs d’électroacoustique évoluaient dans un univers très éloigné du mien, ce qui donnait parfois des échanges presque lunaires, mais toujours stimulants. J’ai eu la chance de travailler avec des professeurs passionnants, comme Régis Renouard-Larivière et Christian Éloy, et ma pièce de fin d’année a même été diffusée sur Radio France. Même si je n’ai pas poursuivi dans cette radicalité, tout ce qui touche aujourd’hui à la manipulation sonore dans mon travail découle directement de cette expérience formatrice.

Autant il m’arrive encore d’écrire des pièces purement classiques en dehors de mes travaux pour l’image, autant je ne compose jamais de musique électroacoustique “autonome”. En revanche, je conserve toutes mes expérimentations, car elles alimentent une vaste banque de sons personnels dans laquelle je puise régulièrement. Ces textures, façonnées par moi, participent à créer une couleur sonore propre, qui contribue sans doute à ce que l’on appelle mon « style ». Chaque fois que j’explore cette voie, c’est en réponse directe au film : ce sont les images elles-mêmes : le bruit du gravier, le passage d’un train, le craquement du bois qui m’inspirent ces manipulations sonores.

Mon oreille, toutefois, reste toujours en éveil. Si j’entends dans mon quotidien un son intéressant, je sors immédiatement mon téléphone pour l’enregistrer, en prévision d’une utilisation future. Cette habitude est un héritage direct de mes années d’électroacoustique : elles m’ont appris à écouter le monde différemment, à percevoir dans les sons du réel une matière musicale potentielle. Et comme j’ai l’oreille absolue, je reconnais instantanément la hauteur d’un bruit entendu. Très souvent, cette simple reconnaissance me donne envie de le travailler, et il finit par devenir un matériau intégré dans mes compositions pour l’image.

P.D.: Si on vous demande de créer une musique plus viscérale ou cérébrale, par réflexe, est-ce que vous vous tourneriez vers des créations de bruitistes (comme Luc Ferrari par exemple), ou vers des œuvres dissonantes et des compositions expérimentales de compositeurs avant-gardistes comme Penderecki, Tristan Murail ou Steve Reich ?

Ou bien adoptez-vous d’autres stratégies créatives, vous poussant à chercher autrement et à vous tenir parfois à l’écart de l’influence de ces références ?

Comment cette démarche s’organise-t-elle dans votre processus de composition, et dans quelle mesure la recherche de nouvelles formes d’expression musicale vous pousse-t-elle à explorer des territoires qui échappent à des influences préexistantes ?

D.R.: De manière générale, je ne m’interdis rien. Au début, j’avais la crainte de plagier malgré moi, tant je suis nourri de musiques diverses, comme tout compositeur finalement. Mais après tout, il n’existe que douze notes… J’ai donc choisi de faire confiance à mon instinct et à ma mémoire musicale : si quelque chose sonne trop évident ou trop proche d’une œuvre existante, je le sens immédiatement. Pour le reste, je me laisse guider par le feeling.

Steve Reich a eu une importance déterminante dans mon écriture, au même titre que Ravel. Mon goût pour les jeux de rythmes, de timbres, pour ces boucles qui n’en sont jamais vraiment, vient clairement de lui. Mais je crois avoir intégré cette influence comme d’autres, qu’elles soient proches ou éloignées, de sorte que ce que je compose aujourd’hui est le fruit de cette digestion.

Cela dit, j’ai toujours le désir que l’acoustique reste au cœur de mon travail. Je n’irai pas spontanément vers une esthétique bruitiste : j’aime trop la mélodie, l’harmonie et l’orchestration. Ainsi, pour Derrière les murs, j’ai préféré une démarche proche de Ligeti, en explorant la manière dont il décompose l’orchestre. Par exemple en divisant les cordes en une quarantaine de voix séparées par des demi-tons, plutôt qu’un traitement électroacoustique.

P.D.: Vous n’avez pas encore expérimenté un score entièrement au synthétiseur, comme le faisaient Maurice Jarre ou Jerry Goldsmith. Si cette possibilité se présentait, seriez-vous intéressé par cet exercice ?

D.R.: Quand je travaille sur certains documentaires télévisés sans budget pour l’enregistrement, je compose alors entièrement avec des synthétiseurs. Simplement, je ne les emploie pas avec les sonorités typiques des années 80, comme pouvaient le faire Goldsmith ou Jarre. Cela dit, je ne suis jamais vraiment comblé lorsque je dois écrire une bande originale uniquement en synthèse. J’aime trop les instruments réels, et l’absence totale de leur présence dans une musique de film me semble toujours un peu dommage.

P.D.: Parmi les genres cinématographiques que vous n’avez pas encore expérimentés, lequel vous attire le plus en tant que compositeur ?

D.R.: J’aime à peu près tous les genres, car ce qui me passionne dans ce métier, c’est de pouvoir passer d’un univers à l’autre. Mon rêve reste cependant de composer pour un long-métrage d’animation, car c’est là que je me sens le plus en adéquation. Il y a aussi des genres que je n’ai pas encore explorés comme la science-fiction ou encore la comédie musicale. Mais plus qu’un style en particulier, ce qui m’anime, c’est chaque nouveau projet, car il représente une aventure, une rencontre, une histoire à raconter.

Je n’ai pas encore trouvé ce « binôme de toujours » qu’ont pu former Serra avec Besson ou Williams avec Spielberg, mais c’est quelque chose que j’aimerais beaucoup. Un réalisateur qui me fasse confiance film après film, avec qui l’on puisse s’encourager mutuellement à aller plus loin, à expérimenter, à se surprendre. Sur la durée, une telle collaboration permet d’oser davantage : le réalisateur apprend à donner plus de place à la musique, tandis que le compositeur prend confiance et explore des voies nouvelles. Après tout, aucun réalisateur ne veut faire dix fois le même film et c’est la même chose pour nous les compositeurs. On peut changer d’univers sans changer de partenaire. C’est dans cette confiance réciproque que naissent, je crois, les plus belles bandes originales.

P.D.: Imaginez que l’on vous propose de composer le score de Tron "Ares" chez Disney, aborderiez-vous le projet en respectant votre style personnel tout en l’adaptant au film, ou tenteriez-vous de sortir de vos habitudes pour explorer un univers musical inédit ?

D.R.: J’attends avec impatience la sortie de Tron : Ares, tant l’univers de Tron m’a toujours fasciné. Si un jour l’on me sollicitait pour un tel projet, ma première interrogation porterait sur la raison de ce choix : s’agirait-il de retrouver certaines couleurs propres à mon écriture, perçues dans mes travaux antérieurs, à l’image d’Éric Serra lorsqu’il fut appelé pour GoldenEye, ou bien ma présence résulterait-elle d’un autre contexte, par exemple une coproduction, impliquant alors une nécessaire adaptation à l’univers déjà en place ? Si toutefois l’on me confiait ce projet, j’y verrais nécessairement l’écho de quelque chose qui, dans ma musique, les a interpellés. Mon premier travail consisterait alors à identifier cet élément singulier afin de le préserver, tout en relevant un défi passionnant : celui de s’inscrire dans un univers déjà constitué, tout en y apposant ma propre signature. C’est d’ailleurs la même question qui s’est imposée aux compositeurs appelés à succéder à John Williams dans la saga Harry Potter : comment concilier respect de l’héritage et affirmation d’une voix nouvelle ? Un exercice intimidant, mais profondément stimulant.

Dans le cas de Tron, il serait évident de convoquer des sonorités électroniques, métalliques, froides, tant l’univers visuel impose de lui-même ce climat : les motos filant à toute vitesse, les traits lumineux, l’esthétique sombre et numérique, presque vidéoludique, appellent naturellement une telle palette. L’empreinte laissée par Daft Punk dans Tron: Legacy est telle qu’il serait nécessaire de s’y référer, sans pour autant en reproduire les motifs, mais plutôt en en prolongeant l’esprit. Je chercherais ainsi à explorer les textures synthétiques, tout en les enrichissant d’une dimension plus organique, pourquoi pas, par exemple, en y superposant la profondeur expressive d’un violoncelle.

P.D.: Lors d’un jour de répit, si vous pouviez vous plonger dans trois œuvres classiques de votre choix, lesquelles choisiriez‑vous et pourquoi ?

D.R.: Cela dépend de l’état d’esprit dans lequel je me trouve. Si j’ai envie de me laisser surprendre, je préfère choisir trois disques au hasard dans ma discothèque et les écouter sans a priori, simplement pour le plaisir de la découverte. Peut-être qu’un choc esthétique se produira, peut-être pas, mais dans tous les cas, j’aurai nourri ma curiosité, et j’aime profondément ce moment où l’on se confronte à l’inconnu.

En revanche, si le désir est plutôt de retrouver des œuvres qui m’accompagnent depuis longtemps, un peu comme on retrouve un ami fidèle, alors je me tourne vers trois pièces incontournables pour moi : Daphnis et Chloé de Ravel, Les Planètes de Holst qui me semble être une véritable « Bible » pour tout compositeur de musique de film, tant tout y est déjà contenu, et une œuvre de Steve Reich. J’aurais sans doute choisi Music for Large Ensemble, qui me paraît l’une de ses plus réussies, comme une version plus ramassée mais tout aussi puissante que Music for 18 Musicians.

Et, bien sûr, je ne me contenterais pas de l’écoute : je prendrais également les partitions, car j’aime énormément les lire pour le plaisir, comme une autre façon de redécouvrir la musique.

P.D.: Imaginez un long séjour de six mois dans l’espace : vous ne pouvez emporter que trois CD de musique de films. Quelles œuvres sélectionneriez‑vous et pourquoi ?

D.R.: Puisqu’il s’agit d’un voyage dans l’espace, j’avoue que j’aimerais autant emporter trois coffrets, comme ceux que l’on trouve parfois pour le cinéma : l’intégrale John Williams ou encore l’intégrale Michel Legrand… Ou mieux encore : le coffret Best of de Vladimir Cosma, avec cent CD, de quoi tenir tout le trajet !

Blague à part, si je devais vraiment me limiter, je sais que je ne me lasse jamais d’écouter Lemony Snicket de Thomas Newman, Léon d’Éric Serra, et A.I. Intelligence artificielle de John Williams. Trois univers très différents mais qui, chacun à leur manière, me touchent profondément.

Cela dit, trois disques, c’est tout de même bien court… Au fond, je n’arriverais pas à me limiter : je prendrais mon iPod, débordant de musique, histoire de ne jamais manquer de notes.

P.D.: Quel est le compositeur de l’âge d’or d’Hollywood que vous préférez, et quelles sont ses musiques qui vous ont le plus époustouflées ?

D.R.: Forcément, John Williams, pour moi, c’est Dieu. On retrouve absolument tout chez lui : il a signé les plus grands thèmes de l’histoire du cinéma, exploré tous les genres, et sa science de l’orchestration est exceptionnelle. Mais au-delà de cette maîtrise, c’est surtout une humanité profonde que l’on ressent dans sa musique. Même dans ses œuvres les plus savantes, son écriture demeure claire, lisible, immédiatement accessible. Et il a su sans cesse se renouveler, s’adapter à chaque projet. Entre Star Wars et Mémoires d’une geisha, le contraste est saisissant. Pour moi, il reste le plus grand, et le rencontrer fut un rêve absolu. Lorsque ce moment est arrivé, j’étais littéralement sur un petit nuage, et physiquement je me sentais minuscule face à lui.

À part Williams, je suis fasciné par la science rythmique de Jerry Goldsmith, que je considère comme le deuxième grand de l’âge d’or. Sa manière de composer avec des rythmes syncopés et asymétriques, toujours parfaitement maîtrisés, lui permettait de retomber naturellement sur les points de synchronisation : c’est à mes yeux l’héritier direct de Stravinsky. J’admire également Elmer Bernstein marqué notamment par Les Dix Commandements et Les Sept Mercenaires, sans oublier les apports fondamentaux de Max Steiner, Lalo Schifrin ou Alfred Newman.

Je voudrais aussi rendre hommage aux compositeurs qui ont façonné l’univers Disney : les frères Sherman, Oliver Wallace, George Bruns, et bien sûr Alan Menken. Ce dernier, pour moi, incarne le deuxième âge d’or de Disney, et son travail m’a profondément marqué. L’album du Bossu de Notre-Dame a été une influence décisive.

Mais bon… John Williams, c’est Dieu.

P.D.: Parmi les compositeurs de musique de film, lequel vous étonne le plus par son style ou sa technique ?

D.R.: J’ai envie de citer Thomas Newman, car c’est sans doute celui dont les créations sonores me surprennent et m’intriguent le plus. Chaque fois que j’entends une de ses partitions, j’ai envie de comprendre comment il a construit ses arrangements, comment il a façonné ces textures si singulières. Je sais qu’à chaque nouveau film, il y aura quelque chose d’atypique : sa signature est immédiatement reconnaissable, mais il parvient toujours à se réinventer, à aller là où on ne l’attend pas.

Ce qui me fascine particulièrement, c’est sa manière d’envisager le rapport entre la musique et l’image : rarement il se contente d’accompagner la scène au premier degré. Au contraire, il propose une lecture décalée, souvent inattendue, qui enrichit et transforme notre perception du film.

Bref, c’est un compositeur que j’écoute les yeux fermés, quel que soit le projet. Parmi les compositeurs que je rêve d’approcher, il est sans doute le dernier qu’il me reste à rencontrer. Discuter avec lui doit être passionnant, et je suis convaincu que j’aurais énormément à apprendre de cet échange.

P.D.: Dans votre processus de composition, à quel moment abordez-vous la création du thème principal : dès la lecture du scénario, pendant le pré-montage, ou après avoir exploré l’ensemble de l’univers sonore ? Pouvez-vous appuyer votre réponse d’exemples précis ?

D.R.: En général, le thème du film est la première chose que je cherche. Je commence donc à l’écrire dès que je suis mis en contact avec le projet. Cela peut arriver dès le stade du scénario, même si c’est assez rare. Ce fut le cas, par exemple, pour Derrière les murs : le thème principal, celui que l’on entend dans le générique de fin, est né de la lecture du scénario et de la détresse de cette femme qui avait perdu sa fille.

Si je suis appelé au moment du premier montage, j’aime d’abord regarder les images pour m’en imprégner, puis m’éloigner de l’ordinateur : aller marcher, faire autre chose, laisser mon esprit vagabonder. Au bout d’un moment, une mélodie commence à tourner en boucle dans ma tête, c’est souvent celle-là que je retiens. Je fais beaucoup confiance à mon inconscient : la première idée est très souvent la bonne. Ou, du moins, elle contient quelque chose qui persistera jusqu’au bout, parce qu’elle est née d’un élan instinctif, débarrassé de toute réflexion. Ce fut le cas sur L’Odyssée de Choum : après avoir découvert une séquence en train d’être animée par le réalisateur, je suis rentré chez moi et, dans la nuit, le thème principal s’est imposé. Le lendemain, je l’ai décliné en sept versions différentes pour montrer qu’il pouvait s’adapter à toutes les situations du film.

Si je suis contacté en fin de production, c’est-à-dire une fois que le montage est bouclé et généralement déjà temp-tracké c’est-à-dire recouvert de musiques temporaires intégrées au montage final, je demande d’abord une version sans ces musiques. Cela me permet de découvrir le film de manière vierge et de créer un thème directement inspiré par les images, sans être influencé par les musiques temporaires déjà présentes. Ensuite seulement, j’analyse les musiques temporaires choisies par l’équipe, afin de comprendre ce qu’elles cherchaient à exprimer, ce qui peut indirectement nourrir mon propre travail.

Quoi qu’il en soit, je commence toujours par trouver le thème puis son harmonisation. C’est pour moi la colonne vertébrale, l’ADN du film, le socle auquel je me rattache en permanence. Et chaque fois que je sens que je m’égare dans une scène, je reviens aux fondamentaux : quel est le thème, pourquoi est-ce celui-là, et que raconte-t-il du film ?

P.D.: Considérons l’une de vos œuvres : Lettres ouvertes. On remarque une instrumentation très réduite, un petit ensemble accompagné de vos interventions électroniques ou informatiques. Était-ce un choix dicté par le budget ou une décision artistique réfléchie ?

D.R.: Comme souvent, ce sont les deux aspects qui entrent en jeu. Je savais qu’il n’y avait pas beaucoup de budget, donc je ne me disais pas que j’allais écrire pour un orchestre complet, mais plutôt pour un petit ensemble. En ayant cette contrainte en tête, je fais des choix artistiques afin que l’on ait l’impression que chaque instrument est utilisé à bon escient, non pas par manque de moyens, mais parce que c’est le choix esthétique le plus adapté au film.

Dans le cas de Lettres ouvertes, ce choix s’est avéré tout à fait pertinent. Les cordes permettent à la fois de traduire les émotions des saisonniers (entre mélancolie et détermination) et de soutenir des boucles de staccatos, symbolisant leur progression malgré les difficultés. Le son d’un petit ensemble de cordes, plutôt qu’un orchestre symphonique complet, apporte une intimité qui correspond bien au sujet car ce sont des lettres lues par les descendants. De plus, je pouvais jouer sur les textures harmoniques pour refléter la fragilité de leur situation, exprimant ainsi toute la palette émotionnelle du projet avec un ensemble limité mais suffisant.

D’ailleurs, la réalisatrice a eu des mots très justes sur cette bande originale, réussissant à traduire ce que je voulais transmettre :

"David a su extrêmement bien retransmettre par la musique le statut précaire qu'a été ce permis de séjour en Suisse. Sa course en avant pour obtenir un permis plus « stable » ou retrouver sa famille quand il/elle le pouvait. Il y a aussi une tristesse de cette époque vécue par les saisonnier.ières.s et leurs enfants qu'on sent dans la musique tout en ne les victimisant pas. Bravo David !"

Et pour la petite histoire, j’ai été très heureux de travailler sur ce film, car Katharine Dominicé et moi avions fait nos études de réalisation ensemble, nous sommes de la même promo et sommes tous les deux sortis de l’IAD en 2003. C’était vraiment chouette de se retrouver vingt ans plus tard pour mettre en musique son long-métrage !

P.D.: Aimez‑vous composer sous contrainte, qu’elle soit de temps, de budget ou de format, ou privilégiez‑vous la liberté totale ? Ces restrictions vous ont‑elles déjà incité à explorer des pistes inattendues ?

D.R.: Les contraintes font partie du métier. Quand on fait de la musique de film, on sait qu’il y a des cadres à respecter : des délais pour la remise, le fait que notre musique sera mixée avec d’autres pistes sonores, etc. Surtout, on travaille pour un film, donc pour un réalisateur, des producteurs, des monteurs… On fait partie de l’univers du film, on ne compose pas de la musique pure en toute liberté. Mais si j’ai choisi ce métier, c’est justement pour ça : le réalisateur m’invite dans son univers, je lui apporte le mien, et ensemble nous créons un nouvel univers commun.

Grâce à son film, je peux explorer des choses que je n’aurais jamais faites autrement : la musique atonale avec Derrière les murs, la musique ethnique avec Min Ye ou Before Snowfall, etc. J’aime ces contraintes, d’autant plus que je travaille bien sous pression. Mon cerveau se met à chercher dans tous les sens quand il sait qu’il doit produire rapidement, et j’ai appris à utiliser ces contraintes comme de véritables atouts, voire comme de puissants boosters d’inspiration.

P.D.: Ce que j’apprécie particulièrement dans votre musique, c’est qu’elle échappe au besoin de la rattacher à un grand nom du domaine. Cela frappe d’autant plus aujourd’hui, dans un contexte saturé de références et de codes déjà très présents dans notre imaginaire sonore. Chez vous, on perçoit une attention claire à cette singularité, une volonté de préserver une signature propre. Après tout, quel intérêt y aurait-il à reproduire ce qui a déjà été entendu mille fois ?

Ce souci de singularité est d’autant plus remarquable qu’aujourd’hui, de nombreux jeunes compositeurs (souvent sous contrainte ou par influence) composent des musiques très marquées, parfois mimétiques. Bien sûr, dans le cadre d’un film, le compositeur ne dispose pas toujours d’une totale liberté : il doit composer en tenant compte des désirs du réalisateur ou de la réalisatrice, qui reste la voix dominante du projet.

Même chez certains compositeurs de renom, l’on peut parfois percevoir des œuvres où les influences se mêlent de façon trop manifeste : un peu de Williams, un peu de Poledouris, de Goldsmith ou de Philip Glass, au point que leur voix personnelle s’en trouve estompée. Il faut également reconnaître qu’il est parfois tentant, ou même plus facile, de s’appuyer sur un univers sonore déjà codé, surtout dans certains genres très balisés. Nous pouvons penser à Elmer Bernstein devenu référence incontournable, pour le western.

C’est précisément ce qui rend votre travail, par exemple sur L’Odyssée de Choum , d’autant plus remarquable : vous avez évité le piège d’une musique stéréotypée ou d’un simple « à la manière de ». L’absence de référence permet justement de se concentrer pleinement sur l’écriture elle-même, sur ce qu’elle raconte, dans sa propre logique.

Chez vous, une personnalité très affirmée se manifeste à travers vos choix, la clarté de vos orchestrations et la sensibilité que vous accordez à certains instruments, en particulier le violoncelle mentionné précédemment.

À l’exception de la manière dont vous élaborez certains modules rythmiques, qui peuvent rappeler Thomas Newman, aucune comparaison directe ne me vient à l’esprit en vous écoutant. Hormis lorsque vous en proposez vous-même, par clin d’œil, comme avec Zorro de James Horner, que vous avez déjà évoqué.

Est-ce que vous êtes d’accord avec cette lecture ?

D.R.: Tout d’abord, merci, c’est vraiment très gentil. Étant donné que j’écoute beaucoup de musique de films, j’ai toujours un peu peur qu’on repère des influences involontaires ou des ressemblances qui pourraient passer pour du plagiat. Il m’est toutefois arrivé consciemment de faire des clins d’œil, ou même de proposer une musique temporaire à un réalisateur. Par exemple, pour Facteur chance, j’avais parlé de Zorro, et j’avais également proposé Mr et Mrs Smith de John Powell au réalisateur, parce que je trouvais que cette musique collait parfaitement au scénario. Comme lui aimait également beaucoup Powell, on est partis sur cette idée, et ma musique est donc un clin d’œil délibéré. D’autant plus que c’était mon premier téléfilm, donc j’avais encore moins d’expérience qu’aujourd’hui.

Pour L’Odyssée de Choum, je savais quelles musiques temporaires Claire Paoletti et Julien Bisaro avaient utilisées. Mais j’ai trouvé le thème indépendamment de tout cela, comme je l’expliquais, après avoir vu une séquence dans leur bureau pendant qu’elle était en train d’être animée. Le fait de trouver le thème détaché de toute musique préexistante m’a probablement aidé sur ce film, car il est devenu mon socle : je pouvais me raccrocher à lui en toute circonstance. Quand ils m’envoyaient une scène avec de la musique temporaire, je pouvais facilement l’enlever et repartir de mon propre ressenti. Comme j’ai été impliqué dans le film dès son élaboration, ils ont vite pu abandonner les musiques temporaires pour utiliser mes propres maquettes, et ça a permis de créer une musique avec sa singularité, même si certains m’ont parlé du thème de Zelda, ce qui est drôle car je n’avais encore jamais joué à un Zelda à l’époque.

Et pour Thomas Newman… Comme je l’ai dit, c’est un modèle pour moi. Parfois, j’essaie de creuser certaines manières d’arranger la musique comme lui, de faire sonner les textures avec un style particulier de réverbération ou de delay, parce que sa sonorité résonne profondément en moi.

Si vous estimez que j’ai suffisamment de personnalité pour ne pas être simplement rattaché à un autre nom, ça me touche beaucoup. J’espère que l’on pourra dire : « Ça, c’est du Reyes » et non « du sous-Newman » . Qu’est-ce qui fera que l’on reconnaîtra ma signature ? Honnêtement, je n’en sais rien : ce sont surtout ceux qui m’écoutent qui pourront le dire… ou ceux qui prennent le temps d’analyser, comme ma compagne musicologue.

P.D.: Cependant, pour poursuivre notre réflexion et poser quelques repères, j’aurais plutôt envie de vous situer non pas en termes de style, mais d’un point de vue générationnel. Dans la façon assez organique dont vous faites entrer la musique dans le film et notamment avec cette attention au récit, au rythme, à l’espace ; j’aurais presque envie de vous désigner comme le « fils spirituel » de Bruno Coulais, mais avec votre propre personnalité bien affirmée.

Ce n’est pas une question d’influence directe ou de ressemblance stylistique, mais plutôt une proximité dans la manière de penser la musique au service de l’image et de la narration, tout en gardant une vraie poésie sonore. Est-ce que vous acceptez cette lecture ?

D.R.: Encore une fois, merci. J’ai énormément d’admiration pour le travail de Bruno, et je l’apprécie aussi beaucoup en tant qu’être humain. D’ailleurs, je lui ai demandé d’être le parrain de la deuxième édition du No Limit Festival qui se déroulera en mars 2026, que j’ai monté à Strasbourg… C’est une manière de lui rendre hommage et de saluer l’influence qu’il a eue dans mon parcours.

Il y a d’ailleurs quelques coïncidences amusantes dans nos parcours : nous avons tous les deux travaillé sur un film de Souleymane Cissé ainsi que sur Les Rivières Pourpres, lui sur le film et moi sur la série…

J’ai également une anecdote qui m’a beaucoup marqué : Bruno a été le premier compositeur à m’inviter à une session d’enregistrement. Il travaillait sur La Planète Blanche, et j’ai pu assister à une journée d’enregistrement grâce à Laurent Petitgirard, qui était le chef d’orchestre. J’ai pu observer Bruno travailler avec l’orchestre, avec les voix, et voir comment il orchestrait les percussions organiques, notamment les rythmes à base de cailloux… À la fin, très intimidé, je lui ai donné mon disque Microcosmos pour qu’il me le dédicace. Il avait écrit : « À un futur collègue, amitiés ». Et ça m’a profondément marqué : si lui pense que je peux devenir son collègue… alors je peux vraiment y arriver.

C’est aussi ce qui caractérise Bruno : sa gentillesse. D’un point de vue musical, nous partageons une approche similaire de la musique de film : elle n’est pas là pour répéter ce qui est montré à l’écran, mais pour apporter une autre lecture, remplir le rôle d’un troisième personnage, inventer des instrumentations qui offrent au spectateur un voyage unique et inattendu. Microcosmos fait partie des premières partitions qui m’ont profondément impressionné quand j’étais jeune, notamment la séquence des abeilles où Bruno brise la frontière entre musique et son, avec des violons qui évoquent les battements d’ailes en écho à la création sonore de Laurent Quaglio…

Pour autant, j’ai travaillé à digérer son influence pour trouver ma propre singularité, et je pense que lorsque l’on entend mon travail sur la série Les Rivières Pourpres, on ne pense pas à la musique du film de Bruno.

P.D.: Nous avons évoqué votre singularité et vos filiations possibles, mais un score de votre parcours m’a particulièrement marqué et figure parmi mes préférés : Derrière les Murs. Il s’agit d’une musique que j’apprécie énormément, mais que je qualifierais volontiers de plus « américanisée ». Dès le générique d’ouverture, j’ai ressenti une atmosphère qui m’a évoqué des œuvres comme Alien ou Outland ; ce thème sombre, presque métallique, avec une « nappe ferreuse » de cordes très tendue, presque spectrale.

Il y a dans ce score quelque chose de profondément cinématographique, au sens hollywoodien du terme, mais aussi une maîtrise totale d’une tension contenue et mystérieuse qui m’a véritablement fasciné. Par ailleurs, il y a ce superbe love theme ainsi que celui de Valentine, qui m’ont rappelé d’autres univers musicaux que j’admire beaucoup, comme ceux de Christopher Young ou Jacob Groth dans Millénium. C’est intéressant, car même si l’on peut rattacher certaines sonorités à des références connues, ce n’est pas quelque chose que l’on contrôle vraiment : ce sont nos références émotionnelles qui agissent ainsi. Cette culture musicale et sonore reste profondément ancrée en nous, nous reliant toujours à ce que nous entendons au plus intime de nous-même.

Avec tout le bagage historique de la musique de film, du Golden Age au Silver Age, en passant par la Nouvelle Vague, jusqu’à ce que certains qualifient aujourd’hui de « Bronze Age » ou « ère de la création connectée ». Comment naviguez-vous entre l’héritage d’une musique de film très codifiée, avec ses grands classiques et ses références incontournables, et la nécessité de vous renouveler dans un contexte où la technologie et les moyens de production ont radicalement transformé l’approche sonore. Dans un univers musical aussi riche et dense, comment parvenez‑vous à préserver l’originalité de votre écriture tout en évitant que l’inspiration ne soit influencée par des références inconscientes à des œuvres déjà entendues ?

D.R.: En fait, j’essaie parfois de naviguer en sortant un peu des sentiers battus… Mais surtout, j’essaie d’avancer sans me laisser influencer par tout ce qui a été fait avant. La musique existe déjà, elle nous imprègne, et chacun a ses propres références, donc chacun raccroche ce qu’il fait à ce qu’il aime ou à ce qui l’a forgé. Mais vos références ne sont pas forcément les miennes… et c’est aussi là que réside la beauté de la musique : c’est un voyage très personnel.

Je suis un énorme consommateur de musique de film, j’en écoute tous les jours, et depuis ma plus tendre enfance je collectionne disques et partitions, je vais voir beaucoup de films pour observer ce qui se fait… J’adore ça. Mais lorsque je compose, j’essaie de ne pas me laisser écraser par le poids des références : ni celles qui m’ont précédé, ni celles de mes confrères et consœurs, pourtant très talentueux.ses, dont j’apprécie le travail. Mon objectif est simplement de tracer mon propre chemin, en revenant toujours à l’essentiel : le film, rien que le film. On me propose une histoire, et je cherche comment la traduire avec mon propre langage : c’est ma seule direction, mon guide fondamental.

C’est aussi le message que je transmettais à mes élèves lorsque je donnais des cours de musique de film : toujours repartir de l’image, de l’histoire, de ce qu’il faut traduire. Certains collègues demandaient à leurs élèves de recopier quasiment à l’identique des pages de James Newton Howard. Personnellement, je ne vois pas l’intérêt : comment un compositeur peut-il forger sa propre identité si, dès ses études, on lui demande de recopier le travail d’un autre ? Dans mes cours, je donnais une séquence vierge, je laissais les élèves libres de composer après un brief sur les intentions de la séquence. Une fois la première maquette rendue, nous débattions, analysions, discutions : qu’est-ce qu’ils avaient exprimé, pourquoi ça marchait ou pas, comment améliorer… Mais tout devait partir de leur version initiale, pas d’une référence.

Je transpose exactement ce principe à mon propre travail : je puise au fond de moi ce que le film fait ressortir comme sentiment. Pour cela, je cherche à me mettre dans l’état d’esprit de la séquence (si elle est dramatique, je me mets dans un état malheureux) et à traduire cela en musique de la manière la plus juste possible, afin que le public ressente ce que j’ai moi-même éprouvé.

Par exemple dans Derrière les murs , les références dont nous avons discuté étaient celles de Ligeti, notamment telles que Kubrick les avait utilisées dans 2001 : L’Odyssée de l’espace ou Shining. J’ai acheté la partition Atmosphères pour décortiquer son orchestration. Pour des films comme Alien ou Outland, je n’avais pas les partitions à l’esprit à ce moment-là, mais j’ai récemment revu Alien et je me suis replongé dans sa musique, absolument incroyable. Alors qu’on parlait des synthés pour Gremlins, ici, toutes les sonorités évoquant l’espace ou la créature étaient créées à partir d’instruments organiques insolites :

L’atout majeur de la partition d'Alien réside avant tout dans l'illustration sonore que nous propose le compositeur à l'écran, une illustration qui passe par une utilisation d'instruments rares et divers révélant un véritable travail de musicologue de la part du compositeur.

Parmi cette liste d'instruments exotiques atypiques pour un film hollywoodien de la fin des années 1970 se trouvent le serpent , un cor à six trous doté d'un système de clés et d'une embouchure en ivoire ou en corne, très utilisé dans la musique religieuse de la fin du 16e et du début du 17e , deux conques - une indienne et l'autre polynésienne - utilisées pour obtenir des sons particuliers, une chalemie (instrument à vent à anche double de la famille des hautbois, très répandu au Moyen-Âge et à la Renaissance ), un didgeridoo (instrument à vent utilisé par les aborigènes du nord de l' Australie , fabriqué à partir d'une branche d' eucalyptus creusée naturellement dans toute sa longueur par des termites , et que Goldsmith traite ici électroniquement pour obtenir un son étrange plutôt baveux et visqueux, totalement indissociable de l'alien dans le film, sans oublier les effets d'échoplex que le compositeur avait déjà expérimenté en 1968 sur La Planète des singes et en 1970 sur Patton avec ses fameux échos de trompette . [1]

Je trouve ce travail tout simplement extraordinaire.

Concernant le thème de Valentine dans Derrière les murs, c’est un film où j’ai été contacté dès le scénario. Le thème s’est dégagé très rapidement : il évoquait Valentine dans le film, mais à la fin, on se rend compte qu’il fait aussi référence à la fille disparue de Suzanne. C’était un fil rouge dès le générique, en filigrane, sur les images de la voiture arrivant à la maison, créant une ambiguïté qui permettait à l’horreur de s’installer progressivement. Les producteurs, cependant, ont estimé que cela ne faisait pas assez peur et ont demandé un début plus explicite, dans l’esprit de Shining, pour signaler immédiatement que le film serait un thriller d’angoisse. C’est la même logique qu’avec Goldsmith sur Alien : sa première version était plutôt romantique pour évoquer la beauté de l’espace, mais Ridley Scott voulait que la musique installe l’angoisse directement.

P.D.: Comment percevez-vous aujourd’hui la partition du film Derrière les Murs dans votre parcours ?

S’agit-il d’une exception stylistique, ou d’une facette de vous-même que vous souhaiteriez

continuer à explorer ?

D.R.: Je l’ai justement revu récemment et je trouve que le film a plutôt bien vieilli. Ce qui m’étonne, c’est que cette partition continue d’être évoquée par beaucoup, alors que le film n’a pas rencontré le succès escompté en France, alors qu’en Chine et en Russie, il a fait un véritable carton et s’est hissé dans le top 5.

Ce que j’aime dans cette partition, c’est avant tout le beau thème lyrique, avec ses violons comme je les aime, que j’ai pu vraiment développer dans le générique de fin. Mais il y a aussi, dans toute la première partie, le défi immense d’écrire de la musique atonale, un exercice que je n’avais jamais abordé jusque-là et qui m’a poussé à explorer des directions totalement nouvelles. Avec le recul, je suis content de voir que je m’en suis plutôt bien sorti.

L’orchestre de Macédoine, qui avait enregistré la partition, m’avait d’ailleurs détesté à certains moments car jouer une musique aussi tendue, lente, avec de longs morceaux et de nombreuses harmoniques demandait une concentration énorme. Mais cette tension ressentie par les musiciens a servi la musique : elle a nourri l’atmosphère que je cherchais à créer. Et c’est drôle, parce qu’ils m’en parlent encore aujourd’hui, alors que cela fait déjà quinze ans !

Bref, tout cela pour dire que c’est un film que j’aime toujours beaucoup. Même si la fin est un peu plus faible, je le trouve globalement très réussi : les décors et les costumes sont convaincants, Laetitia Casta joue très bien, et la musique a une belle place et plutôt bien mixée. Je peux donc dormir tranquille en pensant à ce travail.

P.D.: Êtes-vous plus attiré par l’opportunité d’écrire un score comme Lettres ouvertes, avec cette approche intimiste, épurée et personnelle, ou bien un projet comme Derrière les Murs, où vous explorez des atmosphères plus tendues, plus spectrales, peut-être même plus « hollywoodiennes » dans leur approche ?

Préférez-vous ces moments où vous pouvez explorer votre propre voix, ou bien appréciez-vous aussi la liberté que peut offrir une œuvre un peu plus « conventionnelle » sur le plan sonore ? Comme celle du Renard et L’enfant…

D.R.: Le point commun entre ces deux films, c’est l’usage de l’orchestre à cordes… mais exploité de façon très différente. Dans Lettres ouvertes, l’orchestre est plus réduit et enregistré de très près, ce qui donne un son plus intimiste, plus proche. Dans Derrière les murs, au contraire, l’orchestre est plus large et enregistré dans un grand studio, ce qui permettait d’obtenir un rendu plus ample, plus « hollywoodien », créant une atmosphère enveloppante, oppressante, tendue.

En prenant ces deux exemples, on voit bien que vous aimez ma manière de travailler les cordes !

Cela dit, un film comme Le Renard et l’enfant me manque. J’adore écrire pour des films destinés aux enfants ou au grand public, avec de beaux orchestres, c’est aussi pour ça que les films d’animation me passionnent. Même si j’aime écrire pour orchestre, je cherche toujours à mettre en valeur des solistes et à intégrer des instruments qui n’appartiennent pas forcément à l’orchestre classique traditionnel. Plus j’ai de timbres différents à ma disposition, plus je suis heureux. Je suis un philatéliste de la musique !

M.L.: Une fois la dernière note écrite, vient le moment d’enregistrer la musique, que ce soit pour accompagner le film ou pour créer des versions autonomes destinées à être diffusées sur CD ou sur des plateformes de streaming telles que Spotify, Deezer ou Apple Music. Lorsque les conditions sont réunies, comme ce fut le cas pour L’Odyssée de Choum ou Le Renard et l’Enfant, la production met à votre disposition un ensemble d’instrumentistes. Dans ce contexte, dirigez-vous vous-même l’orchestre, ou préférez-vous confier cette responsabilité à un chef d’orchestre professionnel ?

D.R.: Le véritable Graal, pour un compositeur, reste de pouvoir enregistrer sa musique avec de véritables instrumentistes. Et, dans ce cas, le Graal ultime consiste à diriger soi-même sa propre partition, à l’image de ce que l’on voit dans les making-of de John Williams ou d’Alexandre Desplat. Malheureusement, dans la réalité, cela n’est pas toujours possible.

Pour ma part, j’aimerais pouvoir diriger systématiquement mes musiques. D’une part parce que la communication avec les musiciens en serait plus directe (je sais ce que j’ai écrit et je peux donc rectifier immédiatement), et d’autre part parce que diriger est un véritable plaisir. Depuis l’enfance, j’ai nourri ce rêve : je m’amusais à mettre des disques dans ma chambre, une partition sur un pupitre, et je dirigeais dans le vide comme si j’étais déjà devant un orchestre.

Dans la pratique, il arrive que, pour des raisons de production, les enregistrements aient lieu à l’étranger, en Bulgarie ou en Macédoine par exemple. Dans ces cas, c’est un chef d’orchestre local qui assure la direction, tandis que nous suivons la séance depuis la régie, en donnant nos indications en anglais. Lorsque je travaille avec les excellents musiciens de Strasbourg, ils sont généralement accompagnés de leur chef attitré. Je me trouve alors à nouveau en régie, rectifiant après chaque prise. Cette collaboration fonctionne très bien, mais je dois avouer une légère frustration : j’aimerais être plus souvent au pupitre, avec mon assistante en régie pour m’indiquer ce qu’il convient de reprendre.

J’ai cependant eu l’occasion de diriger à plusieurs reprises : deux fois mes propres musiques lors d’enregistrements en Belgique avec un orchestre « téléphone » pour L’Odyssée de Choum et Une chanson pour ma mère. Ainsi qu’une fois pour une amie et collègue, Selma Mutal, qui m’avait confié la direction de ses musiciens à Barcelone pour son premier film, Madeinusa (2005).

J’espère à l’avenir pouvoir manier de plus en plus souvent la baguette et, pourquoi pas, diriger également mes propres concerts. Car pour moi, c’est la récompense suprême après tout ce travail : entendre ses notes prendre vie sous sa propre direction est une expérience absolument unique.

[1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(bande_originale)

Propos recueillis par Pascal Dupont - Cinescores Center - Photo ci-dessous - Sophie Chamoux - DR - Photo haut - Collection David Reyes

From whisper to great orchestral breath

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 13:54:45 GMT

Between intimacy and orchestral grandeur, let us portray a composer illuminated by all images... David Reyes !

Interview based on questions by Pascal Dupont French version - link
With responses from David Reyes
Transcription and adaptation by Manon Léger

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On the occasion of the centenary of Georges Delerue’s birth (1925), the No Limit Festival decided to pay a vibrant tribute to the French composer. During this exceptional event, an honorary certificate was awarded to his daughter, Emmanuelle, thus celebrating the musical legacy of an artist whose works have profoundly marked French and international cinema.

It was while preparing for Delerue’s centenary that I had the chance to discover this composer of rare talent, for whom the cello and other instruments hold no secrets. Passionate, creative, and always in search of new musical explorations, David Reyes surprises with the richness and depth of his sonic universe. Already recognized for his accomplishments, he retains the creative energy that allows him to share, with enthusiasm, the processes and passion that drive his music. A true bridge between sound and image, he knows how to reveal the depth of a story, highlight what images alone cannot convey, all while respecting the filmmaker’s universe.

For Cinescores Center , and following the centenary celebrations of Georges Delerue, I invited him to extend this adventure by delving deeper into Delerue’s work and helping to make it known beyond European borders. He generously agreed to this interview, to which he devoted a great deal of time. This exchange allows us to understand his perspective, his method, and his unique way of inhabiting both sound and image. In a world saturated with sounds and references, David Reyes reminds us that true film music remains human, instinctive, and irreplaceable.

All that remains now is to read, listen, and feel, while admiring the uniqueness and emotional power that animate his music.

Pascal Dupont: To begin this interview, I would like to draw a parallel with Bill Conti’s journey. During his studies at LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, some suggested he learn the bassoon instead of the piano, believing that the instrument offered broader opportunities than a field considered saturated.

You are trained as a cellist. Was your path with this instrument similar, or did you choose it for other reasons? Could you explain how you discovered the cello ?

Was it a spontaneous choice, a passion at first sight, or a strategic decision to stand out in a given musical environment ?

David Reyes: The association with Bill Conti is amusing, because I actually know relatively little of his work — except that he scored the American version of The Big Blue, which makes me smile, as I am a great admirer of Éric Serra’s original version.

Regarding my own path, the cello was truly an asset. Thanks to it, at the age of 11, I joined the Conservatory Orchestra in Verviers. The repertoire we explored nurtured my desire to continue in music. The conductor at the time, Alain Janclaes — who was also beginning his tenure with the orchestra — carried a bag of scores ranging from Stravinsky and Mozart to John Williams’ Hook and even a Duke Ellington medley. This openness allowed me to discover worlds beyond the strict classical framework, particularly the Hook score, which left a deep impression on me. Every Saturday, I looked forward to returning to the orchestra to explore new works.

This experience, combined with my cello practice, profoundly influenced my writing for strings, which remain today my favorite family of instruments.

I also chose the cello to break from family tradition: my mother is a piano teacher, my sister a pianist, and one of my stepfathers was as well. I wanted an instrument that gave me my own space. My mother often says I chose it because I wanted to play an instrument while seated — which is also true of the piano, except perhaps Michel Berger aside, but let’s move on.

I have absolutely no regrets. The cello repertoire is magnificent. Yet, I did not initially envision becoming a performing musician or pursuing a career in music… until I discovered my passion for composition. As a devoted cinephile, I quickly realized that combining the two would be the ideal profession. This passion emerged during adolescence, unlike my sister, a piano prodigy who started at three. Early talent often leaves little room for choice; in my case, music was a conscious decision, not a predetermined destiny.

DP: The cello is renowned for its expressiveness and the richness of its timbre, both warm and deep, capable of combining power and softness in shades from dark to bright. It is sometimes perceived as the instrument that best embodies the feeling of solitude.

For you, is it primarily an instrument of nuance or a vehicle for specific narrative?

Can a cello truly “speak” ?

DR: I completely understand this metaphor, especially as the cello is often said to be the closest instrument to the human voice — which is true, both in range and timbre. It is highly expressive, with a deep sound, rich vibrato, and an extensive palette from low to high registers. I prefer it, for instance, to the violin, which I sometimes find too bright or even slightly shrill. I have also rediscovered the viola, whose timbre I greatly appreciate — similar to the cello — and I feel it is underutilized.

The cello offers immense possibilities. It is particularly effective for naturally expressive melodic lines. That said, many instruments possess their own expressive power linked to their unique timbre. I am, for example, very sensitive to the English horn, bassoon, horn, celesta, and ethnic instruments. Playing a single note on the duduk can instantly create atmosphere because of its emotional weight. Its distinction from what is usually heard in a classical orchestra gives it remarkable expressive power.

This is why, in my compositions, I enjoy combining ethnic instruments with classical orchestras — not for geographic connotations, but for their singular sonic color, which immediately captures attention. This is one of the joys of film music: you can experiment with all sorts of instrumental combinations, provided the emotion aligns with what the image conveys. Returning to the cello, I do not associate it with a single emotion. It can be lyrical, playful, or melancholic. But this versatility applies to many instruments: it depends on how they are showcased, which is precisely what makes exploring them so fascinating.

DP: Does learning the cello provide a specific advantage in understanding the symphony and the orchestra, compared to instruments like drums or guitar ?

Has it notably influenced your compositional approach ?

Not everyone becomes a composer like you, but I am curious whether your initial cello practice sparked your creativity or if writing music always seemed almost self-evident.

DR: I partially addressed this earlier. Playing an orchestral instrument was an asset because it allowed me to understand orchestration from the inside. The true privilege, however, was being part of the orchestra: rehearsals offered the chance to dissect orchestrations live.

I must admit, I am quite poor at writing rock music… If I had been a drummer, I would likely be more comfortable in that domain. Everyone has their strengths.

As for composing itself, I was not initially inclined toward it. Music ran in my family, and I wanted to take another path. I considered journalism, pharmacy… or even Louis de Funès! I thought of becoming a filmmaker, as I was far more passionate about cinema than music. Composing seemed out of reach. To write film music, I would have needed to live in Hollywood, not Verviers! My initial idea was to make my own films to score them. Eventually, composition became my career almost despite myself.

In hindsight, learning piano would have helped a lot. My mother tried to teach me, but I refused categorically! The creative spark came not from the cello but from cinema. Cinema made me dream, and music allowed me to enter that world.

DP: You later specialized in composing film scores.

Which early film soundtracks truly caught your attention ?

DR: Film music undeniably sparked my desire to compose, far more than classical music, though my first aesthetic shocks were linked to it. For example, Richard Strauss’ Alpine Symphony was my very first CD, and Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé remains a model of orchestral perfection for me. Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians also had a profound impact, shaping my later writing.

Film music, however, had an additional dimension: it heightened the emotion of images while delivering lyricism, melodic richness, and heightened expressiveness that moved me from childhood. Foundational discoveries include John Williams’ E.T., Henry Mancini’s Basil, Detective, and Alan Silvestri’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit. These scores imprinted themselves indelibly on me.

The first film I ever saw was Dumbo. Oliver Wallace’s music left an unforgettable mark. Revisiting it recently confirmed the extraordinary mastery: a score that stands on its own yet aligns perfectly with the imagery, never succumbing to caricatured mickeymousing. The scene where Dumbo’s mother rocks him behind bars remains one of the most poignant in cinema.

Over the years, other works have continued to shape my thoughts on music and image: Bruno Coulais’ Microcosmos, Éric Serra’s The Fifth Element, Thomas Newman’s American Beauty, and John Powell’s Jason Bourne trilogy. Each discovery demonstrates the rigor and inventiveness of this singular language, inspiring me to strive for the same level.

DP: Jennifer 8, with Christopher Young’s score, features cello passages intertwined with the story, as the protagonist, played by Uma Thurman, plays the instrument herself. Which moments in your work have given the cello a similarly pivotal narrative or emotional role ?

DR: I haven’t seen Jennifer 8, but I know Christopher Young’s discography. I must have close to 5,000 soundtracks in CDs and digital formats, because I listen to almost everything, even unseen films. Young is remarkable; I particularly love Bless the Child. Jennifer 8 is a beautiful album, and I will dive into the film after this interview.

In my works, the cello peaks in Les Rivières Pourpres. Other passages I cherish appear in Derrière les murs or Sauvages, usually for expressive character. In Les Rivières Pourpres, however, I explored the instrument in all its facets, “turning it inside out.”

DP: One of the most original sounds I’ve heard in film music is Keith Emerson’s Nighthawks, where cello and double bass are manipulated with synthetic effects, creating a dense, atmospheric texture. Your Les Rivières Pourpres TV adaptation has a similar innovative use of cello. Could you elaborate on this blend ? Do you plan to continue manipulating traditional instruments to explore new textures when creative freedom allows ?

DR: I don’t know that film or composer, thank you for the reference — I’ll look into it.

For Les Rivières Pourpres, I wanted the cello sound to be singular: a little “dirty,” crushed, rough, matching the series’ dark atmosphere. Lyric playing wouldn’t have worked. I treated the cello not just as an instrument but as a sonic material: striking it for sounds, using the bow unconventionally, or even rubbing the strings with a Lego ruler. This extends my electroacoustic experiments. My final-year piece, The Cello That Didn’t Want to Die, already explored this: taking an instrument with a strong identity and deforming it into new sonic territory.

This exploration fascinates me. Classical music pushes boundaries, but instruments remain fixed. Recorded music, especially film music, opens endless possibilities: deforming, pitching, reversing, cutting sounds to create new worlds. Thomas Newman’s inventiveness in textures and instrumental combinations has been a major influence.

DR : I don’t know that film or composer, thank you for the reference. I love discovering new things, and I’ll gladly look into it.

Regarding Les Rivières Pourpres, I specifically wanted the cello sound to be unique. It needed to be somewhat “dirty,” crushed, rough, to match the series’ dark atmosphere. A lyrical approach simply wouldn’t have fit what I was looking for. I chose to treat the cello not merely as an instrument, but as a genuine sound material. For example, I sometimes struck the instrument to produce certain sounds, used the bow unconventionally, or even rubbed the strings with a Lego ruler. This extends my explorations in electroacoustic music.

My final-year piece, The Cello That Didn’t Want to Die, already laid the groundwork for this research: starting with an instrument with a strong sonic identity, then leading it into uncharted territory, ultimately deforming it to transcend its status as an instrument and conceive it as pure sound material.

This is a terrain of exploration that fascinates me. In classical music, much has already been written and pushed to extremes, yet instruments retain inherent limits. Recorded music, and particularly film music, opens infinite possibilities: you can deform, pitch-shift, reverse, or slice sounds, creating entirely new sonic worlds. This aspect of my work excites me greatly.

I have boundless admiration for John Williams, but I don’t feel inclined to write in a purely symphonic vein like him. What excites me more is working with smaller ensembles, where each soloist is identifiable, or blending ethnic instruments with a classical orchestra. I don’t use them to evoke geography; I’m interested in their singular timbre and expressive potential. I also enjoy exploring the meeting points of acoustic and experimental sounds, or inventing percussion from organic noises. In short, what stimulates me is this constant search for atypical textures, the desire to create sounds I haven’t yet heard elsewhere.

In this pursuit, Thomas Newman has been an enormous influence. His inventiveness in timbral exploration and instrumental combinations remains a precious source of inspiration.

DP: I greatly appreciate the clarity with which your instruments unfold, each identifiable by its timbre and interpretation. Do you consider this a musical signature, or rather one aspect among others of your

approach ?

DR: It’s something I developed gradually, almost unintentionally. I remember a Spanish journalist, Conrado Xalabarder, describing my work on Before Snowfall as a “grand chamber orchestra.” I found that description particularly accurate.

This type of orchestration, which is now part of what one could call my sonic signature, arose from several factors.

First, there was a very concrete reality: I rarely had the budget to record a full symphonic orchestra. I had to find compromises, mixing live strings with a small instrumental ensemble, complemented by synthetic elements. Reducing the string section immediately gives a color closer to chamber music than to a large symphony. So it was partly a budget-driven choice.

But there’s also an aesthetic dimension. I have absolute admiration for Ravel, whose orchestration I consider a model of perfection: every note naturally finds its place, each timbre stands out with absolute clarity. You hear everything. This precision, this transparency, deeply marked me. I find a similar approach in Steve Reich: his pieces rely on repetitive motifs that allow timbres and rhythmic interplay to emerge.

Thus, when I choose an instrument like a celesta, English horn, or clarinet, I want that timbre to be heard precisely. I don’t systematically double phrases to create a mass effect, as some composers like Hans Zimmer do. Instead, I prefer to assign a theme to a specific instrument without reinforcing it unnecessarily. This gives my writing the sound of an “expanded chamber orchestra,” where each instrument retains its personality.

Over time, I realized I was particularly comfortable in this aesthetic, which gradually became part of my style. I believe that with Before Snowfall, I truly found the sonic balance I was seeking, which I’ve continued to refine since. Of course, if I ever had the opportunity to write for a large symphonic orchestra with choir, I would gladly do so. But I remain attached to smaller ensembles. I’ve even designed two cinema concerts in formats of ten to fifteen musicians, all soloists. This choice seems faithful to my writing style, and also pedagogically valuable: when children attend the concert, they can immediately identify the instrument they hear (clarinet, oboe, etc.) without it blending into a section.

Ultimately, I am deeply attached to the uniqueness of timbres. Each instrument is unique, and my joy as a composer is to highlight them as solo voices.

DP: I find your musical ideas very perceptible: your music is rich, nuanced, inventive, yet never gratuitous.

Even in more experimental passages, one feels that every choice, every chord, every orchestration, every modulation responds to a precise intention. Nothing seems left to chance, and everything appears to move in a clear direction. Is this coherence and legibility something you consciously strive for? Does ensuring that the audience understands your music matter to you ?

DR: Thank you for the compliment. I’m glad you noticed, because it’s indeed an obsession in my work: I want everything to have meaning, nothing to be gratuitous. To me, if music is placed on a scene, it must contribute something; otherwise, it’s better not to include it. Whenever I decide otherwise, I always ask myself: why here? What does it convey? What does it truly add? Every choice—instrument, harmony, synchronization—must be justified. Even if that justification exists only in my head, it serves as a guide.

This likely comes from my filmmaking background: I believe no element in a film should be left to chance. A fully successful film score, for me, is one that exists as an autonomous work yet, projected on images, makes complete sense because it is in total symbiosis with the film—through timing and intent.

I constantly ask: why place music here? Why choose this instrument? What does it evoke? Why synchronize precisely here and not elsewhere? This rigor may seem obsessive, but it makes this work fascinating. It forces me to immerse myself deeply in the film, its narrative, its emotions, so that the music is not mere highlighting but a true character, able to impact both viscerally and intellectually.

What I hope is that, over the years, when revisiting the film, this music remains relevant, continuing to dialogue with the image as intensely as at release. That’s why I was deeply honored when a young musicologist, Manon Léger, devoted three years of research to my work on Les Rivières Pourpres. It proves that there is substance to analyze, and that is perhaps the greatest compliment one can give me.

DR: I think AI will indeed make certain types of compositions—and the composers associated with them—disappear. Take, for example, cooking shows or fashion magazines. They often use background music: short, interchangeable pieces selected to color an atmosphere without real artistic significance. In that context, producers will no longer need a composer; they will rely on ready-made sound libraries, with “fun,” “dramatic,” or “suspenseful” music. The quality doesn’t matter much, because these tracks are brief and rarely listened to attentively. From their perspective, it saves time and money. In a sense, AI will replace the existing music libraries.

But this precisely underscores, in my view, the importance of the composer’s role. Hiring a musician rather than a machine is about everything an algorithm cannot provide: a unique vision for the film, inventive choices that step outside established formats, a human dialogue with the director, and a sensitive, original reading of the images. And, of course, the beauty of working with real musicians—the living interpretation that nothing can replicate.

So it’s not a matter of fearing technology; it will continue to evolve, whether we like it or not. It’s better to observe it, understand it, see how it can enrich our tools, while reaffirming what is irreplaceable in our profession: creativity, unpredictability, and the human connection.

DP: You have a solid training in music and composition, which is evident in your work. Yet, as you know as well as I do, film music still struggles to claim its full value and existence, especially in France. I’m certain that had you worked in the 2000s, you would have been overwhelmed with opportunities, because film music then had a more prominent role. In today’s industry, the pursuit of cost savings too often relegates music to a secondary component. We can see it clearly: most compositions are now done on computers, due to a lack of budget for a real orchestra.

Even with your refined creativity and unique musical approach, do you think producers and directors—facing tight budgets, will still recognize the human touch of a composer as opposed to a sound designer using AI to produce a cheaper portion of the score ?

D.R.: I don’t believe the key question is distinguishing AI from humans. The real issue is what you want to convey. There have always been composers working with electronics: listening to Vangelis or Éric Serra on their synthesizers, you immediately perceive the presence of a creator, a sensibility. In other words, the challenge isn’t the technology itself, but the relationship you establish with the composer—the dialogue, the exchange of ideas, the building of a shared vision. That human connection cannot be replaced, and I hope it will continue to be valued. As for budget cuts, they are very real and increasingly severe, but this issue goes far beyond music.

DP: Are young directors or producers still genuinely interested in high-quality film music, or do they now see it as an accessory, too costly to justify ?

Can you outline their profiles: do they have real musical culture to argue for their choices, or is their approach limited, shaped by budget constraints and differing creative priorities ?

DR: I’m rather optimistic about the new generation. When I studied cinema, film music was often seen as “artificial emotion” to be avoided. The Dardenne brothers had just won the Palme d’Or for Rosetta, and a certain critical current believed that a “great film” should be music-free. For someone dreaming of composing for film, that wasn’t very encouraging.

Today, the young directors I meet—often on their first or second feature—grew up with Steven Spielberg and John Williams, with Robert Zemeckis and Alan Silvestri. They were nurtured from childhood by films that gave music a real place, often symphonic. These references are part of their cinephile DNA, making them much more attentive to music than their predecessors. I hope this trend continues.

That said, mixing remains a major challenge. In France, realism is traditionally prioritized: every sound must be heard, even a pigeon three streets away. Music is often relegated to the background, whereas in the U.S., it is highlighted, sometimes at the expense of other sounds. This difference reflects cultural priorities: France, more literary than musical, still often treats music as mere accompaniment rather than as a true character of the film. Much remains to evolve on this front.

D P: In an online interview for La Maison du Film, you mentioned the importance of dialogue with the director and the search for a “pseudo-sonic semantics” to understand what needs to be done while responding to their requirements. Do producers still interfere in musical choices, or is it now mostly between you and the director ?

DR: In France, collaboration is usually built directly with the director. This is a notable difference from the U.S., where composers are sometimes treated as technicians, and producers often have decisive influence. It depends on the project: a cinema film, typically conceived and led by an auteur director, functions differently from a TV series, more closely supervised by producers and showrunners.

Most often, my primary contact is the director. Other voices, especially producers, intervene legitimately since they fund the project. But for smooth workflow, it’s best to centralize feedback with one person, usually the director, who becomes the spokesperson for the team.

I’ve faced more complex situations—for example, on Enquêtes extraordinaires, where over ten people provided input. That can quickly become hard to manage. Conversely, when the director fully embraces the role of mediator, collaboration is much more effective. After all, they carry the film, have the vision, and are often also the screenwriter. As composers, our role is to accompany them, helping bring their work to life with a musical dimension aligned with their vision.

DP: During your training, you studied at Pierre Schaeffer’s GRM, a reference linked to Le Club d’Essai. What did you learn there, and how did it influence your approach to sound composition ? Like François de Roubaix or Morricone’s experimental group "Les Nouvelles Consonances" in the 70s, do you work on sound experiments to create a catalog of effects ?

Do sound effects and instrumental manipulations play a particular role in your creative process ?

DR : After graduating with a film music degree from the École Normale Alfred Cortot (unanimous honors), I pursued a year in electroacoustics. I wanted to experience the inverse of my classical training: to create music without instruments, treating every sound as a material to deform, transform, and sculpt, exploring how it could generate atmosphere or musical discourse. Coming from a very traditional background, I saw this as a way to expand my palette into a radically different language.

The impulse came after discovering Dancer in the Dark, where Björk’s music profoundly impressed me: she creates songs from real sounds that gradually transform into rhythms and form the basis of the composition. I thought: “I can write symphonic parts, but how can I achieve this electronic dimension?” In 2004, electronic music classes were not as developed, and electroacoustics was closest to what I was seeking.

It was a fascinating experience: electroacoustic composers operated in a world very far from mine, making for almost lunar exchanges, yet always stimulating. I was fortunate to work with passionate teachers like Régis Renouard-Larivière and Christian Éloy, and my final-year piece was even broadcast on Radio France. While I did not continue in that radical style, all current sound manipulation in my work stems directly from that formative experience.

I still write purely classical pieces outside of film work, but I never compose autonomous electroacoustic music. I do preserve all my experiments, forming a personal sound library I draw from regularly. These textures, shaped by me, create a unique sonic color, contributing to what people call my “style.” Whenever I explore this path, it directly responds to the film: the images themselves—gravel, a passing train, cracking wood—spark these manipulations.

My ear is always alert. If I hear an interesting sound in daily life, I immediately record it on my phone for future use. This habit comes directly from my electroacoustics years: they taught me to listen to the world differently, perceiving musical potential in everyday sounds. With perfect pitch, I instantly recognize the pitch of a sound, which often inspires me to work it into my film compositions.

DP: If you were asked to create a more visceral or cerebral music, by reflex, would you turn to noise-based creations (like Luc Ferrari, for example), or to dissonant works and experimental compositions by avant-garde composers such as Penderecki, Tristan Murail, or Steve Reich ?
Or do you adopt other creative strategies, pushing yourself to explore differently and sometimes keeping at a distance from the influence of these references ?
How is this approach organized in your composition process, and to what extent does the search for new forms of musical expression push you to explore territories that escape preexisting influences ?

DR: Generally speaking, I don’t forbid myself anything. At first, I was afraid of unintentionally plagiarizing, since I’m nourished by so many different types of music, as any composer is, ultimately. But after all, there are only twelve notes… So I decided to trust my instinct and my musical memory: if something sounds too obvious or too close to an existing work, I sense it immediately. For everything else, I let myself be guided by feeling.
Steve Reich had a decisive influence on my writing, as much as Ravel. My taste for rhythmic and timbral games, for loops that are never quite loops, clearly comes from him. But I believe I have integrated this influence along with others, whether near or far, so that what I compose today is the fruit of this digestion.
That said, I have always wanted acoustics to remain at the heart of my work. I would not spontaneously turn to a noise-based aesthetic: I love melody, harmony, and orchestration too much. Thus, for Derrière les murs, I preferred an approach close to Ligeti, exploring how he decomposes the orchestra. For example, by dividing the strings into about forty voices separated by semitones, rather than using electroacoustic treatment.

DP: You haven’t yet experimented with a fully synthesizer-based score, like Maurice Jarre or Jerry Goldsmith did. If the opportunity arose, would you be interested in such an exercise ?

DR: When I work on some TV documentaries without a budget for recording, I do compose entirely with synthesizers. Simply, I don’t use them with the typical ’80s sounds, as Goldsmith or Jarre might have. That said, I am never truly satisfied when I have to write a soundtrack purely in synthesis. I love real instruments too much, and the total absence of their presence in a film score always feels a bit unfortunate.

DP: Among cinematic genres you haven’t yet explored, which attracts you most as a composer ?

DP: I like almost all genres because what excites me in this profession is being able to move from one universe to another. My dream, however, remains composing for an animated feature, because that’s where I feel the most in alignment. There are also genres I haven’t yet explored, like science fiction or musicals. But more than a particular style, what drives me is each new project, as it represents an adventure, a meeting, a story to tell.
I haven’t yet found the “lifelong partner” that Serra had with Besson or Williams with Spielberg, but that is something I would very much like. A director who trusts me film after film, with whom we can mutually encourage each other to go further, experiment, and surprise ourselves. Over time, such collaboration allows for greater daring: the director learns to give more space to music, while the composer gains confidence and explores new paths. After all, no director wants to make the same film ten times, and it’s the same for us composers. We can change universes without changing partners. It is in this reciprocal trust that the most beautiful scores are, I believe, born.

DP: Imagine being offered to compose the score for Tron Legacy at Disney. Would you approach the project by respecting your personal style while adapting to the film, or would you try to break from your habits to explore a new musical universe ?

DR: I am eagerly awaiting the release of Tron: Ares, as the Tron universe has always fascinated me. If I were ever approached for such a project, my first question would concern the reason for this choice: would it be to find certain colors inherent to my writing, perceived in my previous work, similar to Éric Serra when he was called for GoldenEye, or would my presence result from another context, such as a co-production, implying a necessary adaptation to the existing universe? If, however, I were entrusted with the project, I would necessarily see it as an echo of something in my music that had caught their attention. My first task would then be to identify this unique element in order to preserve it, while taking on an exciting challenge: to integrate into an already established universe while leaving my own signature. This is precisely the same question faced by composers called to succeed John Williams in the Harry Potter saga: how to reconcile respect for the legacy with asserting a new voice? An intimidating exercise, but deeply stimulating.

In the case of Tron, it would be obvious to invoke electronic, metallic, cold sounds, as the visual universe itself imposes this climate: the bikes racing at full speed, the luminous lines, the dark, almost video game-like digital aesthetic naturally call for such a palette. The imprint left by Daft Punk in Tron: Legacy is such that it would be necessary to refer to it, without reproducing the motifs, but rather by extending the spirit. I would seek to explore synthetic textures while enriching them with a more organic dimension, perhaps by overlaying the expressive depth of a cello.

DP: On a day off, if you could immerse yourself in three classical works of your choice, which would you pick and why ?

DR: It depends on my state of mind. If I want to be surprised, I prefer to pick three discs at random from my collection and listen without preconceptions, simply for the joy of discovery. Perhaps an aesthetic shock will occur, perhaps not, but in any case, I will have nourished my curiosity, and I deeply enjoy that moment of confronting the unknown.
On the other hand, if the desire is to revisit works that have accompanied me for a long time, like meeting a faithful friend, then I turn to three pieces that are essential to me: Daphnis et Chloé by Ravel, The Planets by Holst, which seems to me a true “Bible” for any film composer, as everything is already contained there, and a work by Steve Reich. I would probably choose Music for Large Ensemble, which seems to me one of his most successful, like a more compact but equally powerful version of Music for 18 Musicians.

And of course, I wouldn’t just listen: I would also study the scores, because I greatly enjoy reading them for pleasure, as another way to rediscover the music.

DP: Imagine a long six-month stay in space: you can only take three film music CDs. Which works would you choose and why ?

DR: Since it’s a trip into space, I must admit I would love to take three box sets, like those sometimes available for cinema: the complete John Williams collection or the complete Michel Legrand collection… Or even better: the Best of Vladimir Cosma box set, with a hundred CDs, enough to last the whole journey !
Joking aside, if I had to truly limit myself, I know I never tire of listening to Lemony Snicket by Thomas Newman, Léon by Éric Serra, and A.I. Artificial Intelligence by John Williams. Three very different universes, but each, in its own way, moves me profoundly.
That said, three discs are really quite short… Deep down, I wouldn’t be able to limit myself: I would take my iPod, overflowing with music, so I would never run out of notes.

DP: Which composer from Hollywood’s Golden Age do you prefer, and which of their works impressed you the most ?

DR: Inevitably, John Williams—he is God for me. You find absolutely everything in his work: he wrote the greatest themes in cinema history, explored every genre, and his orchestration skills are exceptional. But beyond this mastery, it is above all a profound humanity that you feel in his music. Even in his most complex works, his writing remains clear, readable, immediately accessible. And he has continually renewed himself, adapting to each project. Between Star Wars and Memoirs of a Geisha, the contrast is striking. For me, he remains the greatest, and meeting him was an absolute dream. When that moment arrived, I was literally on a little cloud, and physically I felt tiny in front of him.
Apart from Williams, I am fascinated by Jerry Goldsmith’s rhythmic science, whom I consider the second great composer of the Golden Age. His way of composing with syncopated and asymmetric rhythms, always perfectly controlled, allowed him to land naturally on the points of synchronization: in my eyes, he is Stravinsky’s direct heir. I also admire Elmer Bernstein, notably for The Ten Commandments and The Magnificent Seven, without forgetting the fundamental contributions of Max Steiner, Lalo Schifrin, and Alfred Newman.
I would also like to pay tribute to the composers who shaped the Disney universe: the Sherman brothers, Oliver Wallace, George Bruns, and of course Alan Menken. The latter, for me, represents the second Golden Age of Disney, and his work deeply influenced me. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame album was a decisive influence.

But well… John Williams is God.

DP: Among film composers, who surprises you the most with their style or technique ?

DR: I feel like mentioning Thomas Newman, because he is probably the one whose sound creations surprise and intrigue me the most. Every time I hear one of his scores, I want to understand how he built his arrangements, how he shaped those unique textures. I know that with each new film, there will be something atypical: his signature is immediately recognizable, yet he always manages to reinvent himself and go where one does not expect.
What fascinates me in particular is the way he considers the relationship between music and image: rarely does he simply accompany the scene at face value. On the contrary, he offers a skewed, often unexpected reading, which enriches and transforms our perception of the film.
In short, he is a composer I listen to with my eyes closed, no matter the project. Among the composers I dream of meeting, he is probably the last one I have yet to encounter. Talking with him must be fascinating, and I am convinced I would learn an enormous amount from such an exchange.

DP : In your composition process, when do you approach the creation of the main theme: as soon as you read the script, during the rough cut, or after exploring the entire sound universe? Could you illustrate your answer with specific examples ?

DR: Generally, the film’s theme is the first thing I look for. So I start writing it as soon as I’m involved with the project. This can happen as early as the script stage, though that’s fairly rare. For example, with Derrière les murs, the main theme—the one heard in the end credits—was born from reading the script and the distress of the woman who had lost her daughter.

If I am brought in during the first cut, I like to watch the images first to absorb them, then step away from the computer: go for a walk, do something else, let my mind wander. After a while, a melody starts looping in my head, and it is often this one that I retain. I trust my subconscious a lot: the first idea is very often the right one. Or at least, it contains something that will persist until the end because it arose from an instinctive impulse, free of conscious thought. This was the case for L’Odyssée de Choum: after seeing a sequence being animated by the director, I went home, and during the night the main theme imposed itself. The next day, I developed it into seven different versions to show how it could adapt to all situations in the film.

If I am contacted at the end of production, once the cut is locked and generally already temp-tracked (i.e., covered with temporary music integrated into the final edit), I first request a version without that music. This allows me to discover the film in a pristine state and create a theme directly inspired by the images, without being influenced by the temporary tracks already present. Only then do I analyze the temporary music chosen by the team, to understand what they were trying to convey, which can indirectly inform my own work.

In any case, I always start by finding the theme and then its harmonization. For me, this is the backbone, the DNA of the film, the foundation I constantly refer back to. And whenever I feel lost in a scene, I return to the fundamentals: what is the theme, why is it that one, and what does it say about the film?

DP: Considering one of your works, Lettres ouvertes. It features a very reduced instrumentation, a small ensemble accompanied by your electronic or computer interventions.

Was this a budget-driven choice or a conscious artistic decision ?

DR: As often, it was a combination of both. I knew there wasn’t much budget, so I didn’t plan to write for a full orchestra, but rather for a small ensemble. Keeping this constraint in mind, I make artistic choices so that each instrument feels purposeful—not due to lack of means, but because it’s the aesthetic choice best suited to the film.

For Lettres ouvertes, this choice proved very pertinent. The strings convey both the emotions of the seasonal workers (between melancholy and determination) and support staccato loops symbolizing their progress despite difficulties. The sound of a small string ensemble, rather than a full symphony orchestra, brings intimacy that fits the subject well, as these are letters read by the descendants. Additionally, I could play with harmonic textures to reflect the fragility of their situation, expressing the full emotional palette of the project with a limited but sufficient ensemble.

The director herself had very fitting words about the soundtrack, capturing what I wanted to convey:

"David was able to convey through music the precarious status of having a residence permit in Switzerland, the race to obtain a more ‘stable’ permit or reunite with family when possible. There’s also the sadness of that era experienced by seasonal workers and their children, felt in the music without victimizing them. Bravo, David!"

Incidentally, I was very happy to work on this film because Katharine Dominicé and I studied film together; we graduated from IAD in 2003. It was really nice to reconnect twenty years later to score her feature film!

DP : Do you enjoy composing under constraints—time, budget, format—or do you prefer total freedom ?

Have these restrictions ever pushed you to explore unexpected paths ?

DR: Constraints are part of the job. When making film music, you know there are frameworks: deadlines, the fact that your music will be mixed with other sound tracks, etc. Above all, you work for a film—for a director, producers, editors… You are part of the film’s universe; you are not composing purely freely. But if I chose this profession, it’s precisely for that: the director invites me into their universe, I bring mine, and together we create a new shared world.

Through a film, I can explore things I wouldn’t have done otherwise: atonal music with Derrière les murs, ethnic music with Min Ye or Before Snowfall, etc. I like these constraints, especially as I work well under pressure. My brain starts searching in all directions when it knows it has to produce quickly, and I’ve learned to use these constraints as real assets—or even as powerful inspiration boosters.

DP: What I particularly appreciate about your music is that it avoids the need to be linked to a big name in the field. This is striking today, in a context saturated with references and codes already deeply ingrained in our sonic imagination. With you, one perceives a clear attention to uniqueness, a desire to preserve a personal signature. After all, what would be the point of reproducing what has already been heard a thousand times ?

This concern for uniqueness is all the more remarkable today as many young composers (often constrained or influenced) create music that is highly marked, sometimes imitative. Of course, within a film context, the composer does not always have total freedom: they must compose considering the director’s desires, who remains the dominant voice.

Even among renowned composers, one can sometimes perceive works where influences blend too noticeably: a bit of Williams, a bit of Poledouris, Goldsmith, or Philip Glass, to the point that their personal voice is diluted. It’s also tempting—or easier—to lean on an already codified sonic universe, especially in very structured genres. Consider Elmer Bernstein, for example, a benchmark for the Western.

This is precisely what makes your work, for example on L’Odyssée de Choum, remarkable: you avoided the trap of stereotypical music or a simple “in the style of.” The absence of references allows a full focus on the writing itself, on what it tells, within its own logic.

With you, a strong personality emerges through your choices, the clarity of your orchestrations, and the sensitivity you give to certain instruments, especially the previously mentioned cello. Except for the way you develop certain rhythmic modules—which can remind one of Thomas Newman—no direct comparison comes to mind when listening to you. Except when you deliberately offer one as a nod, such as with James Horner’s Zorro, which you have already mentioned.

DP :Do you agree with this reading ?

DR: First of all, thank you, that’s really kind. Since I listen to a lot of film music, I’ve always been a little afraid that people might notice unintended influences or similarities that could be mistaken for plagiarism. I have, however, consciously made nods or even offered temporary music to a director. For instance, for Facteur chance, I mentioned Zorro and also proposed John Powell’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith to the director because I thought the music fit the script perfectly. As he also liked Powell, we went with that idea, and my music became a deliberate nod. Especially as it was my first TV film, I had even less experience than today.

For L’Odyssée de Choum, I knew what temporary music Claire Paoletti and Julien Bisaro had used. But I found the theme independently of all that, as I explained, after seeing a sequence in their office while it was being animated. Finding the theme detached from any pre-existing music probably helped on this film, because it became my foundation: I could always rely on it. When they sent me a scene with temporary music, I could easily remove it and go back to my own feeling. Since I was involved in the film from the beginning, they quickly abandoned the temporary music and used my sketches, which allowed a score with its own singularity—even if some people mentioned the Zelda theme, which is funny because I hadn’t played Zelda at the time.

As for Thomas Newman… as I said, he is a model for me. Sometimes I try to explore certain ways of arranging music like him, making textures resonate with a particular style of reverb or delay because his sound resonates deeply within me.

If you feel I have enough personality not to be simply tied to another name, that touches me a lot. I hope one day people will say: “That’s Reyes,” not “a Newman wannabe.” What will make my signature recognizable? Honestly, I don’t know: it’s mainly those who listen who will tell… or those who take the time to analyze, like my musicologist partner.

DP: To continue our reflection and provide some context, I would rather situate you not in terms of style, but generationally. In the quite organic way you integrate music into the film—especially with attention to story, rhythm, and space—I would almost call you the “spiritual son” of Bruno Coulais, but with your own well-defined personality.

It’s not a question of direct influence or stylistic resemblance, but rather a closeness in how music serves the image and narrative while retaining a true sonic poetry.

DP: Do you accept this reading ?

D.R.: Again, thank you. I have enormous admiration for Bruno’s work, and I also greatly appreciate him as a human being. I even asked him to be the godfather of the second edition of the No Limit Festival in March 2026, which I organized in Strasbourg… It’s a way to pay tribute and acknowledge his influence on my journey.

There are some amusing coincidences in our paths: we both worked on a Souleymane Cissé film as well as Les Rivières Pourpres—he on the movie, me on the series.

I also have a memorable anecdote: Bruno was the first composer to invite me to a recording session. He was working on La Planète Blanche, and thanks to Laurent Petitgirard, the conductor, I could observe a recording day. I saw Bruno working with the orchestra, with voices, and orchestrating organic percussion, notably rhythms based on stones… At the end, very shy, I gave him my Microcosmos album for his signature. He wrote: “To a future colleague, best wishes.” That deeply affected me: if he thinks I can become his colleague… then I can really achieve it. That’s also Bruno: his kindness. Musically, we share a similar approach to film music: it’s not there to repeat what’s on screen, but to offer another reading, acting as a third character, inventing instrumentation that gives the audience a unique and unexpected journey.

Microcosmos was one of the first scores that deeply impressed me as a young person, notably the bee sequence, where Bruno breaks the boundary between music and sound, with violins evoking wing beats echoing Laurent Quaglio’s sound design…

Yet I worked to digest his influence to find my own uniqueness, and I think when one hears my work on Les Rivières Pourpres, one does not think of Bruno’s film music.

DP: We’ve discussed your uniqueness and possible musical lineages, but one score in your career has particularly struck me and remains among my favorites: Behind the Walls (Derrière les Murs). It’s a score I greatly admire, yet I would describe it as more “Americanized.” From the opening credits, I sensed an atmosphere reminiscent of works like Alien or Outland: a dark, almost metallic theme, with a “ferrous” string layer, very tense, almost spectral.

This score has something profoundly cinematic, in the Hollywood sense, but also a complete mastery of contained, mysterious tension that truly fascinated me. Moreover, there’s the superb love theme and Valentine’s theme, which reminded me of other musical worlds I greatly admire, such as Christopher Young or Jacob Groth in Millennium. It’s interesting because even if certain sounds can be linked to familiar references, it’s not something you can fully control: it’s our emotional references that act in this way. This musical and sonic culture is deeply embedded in us, always connecting us to what we hear at the deepest level.

With the entire historical backdrop of film music—from the Golden Age to the Silver Age, through the Nouvelle Vague, up to what some now call the “Bronze Age” or “era of connected creation”—how do you navigate between the heritage of highly codified film music, with its major classics and essential references, and the need to renew yourself in a context where technology and production methods have radically transformed the sonic approach? In such a rich and dense musical universe, how do you preserve the originality of your writing while avoiding unconscious influences from works you’ve already heard ?

DR: Actually, I sometimes try to navigate off the beaten path… but above all, I try to move forward without being influenced by everything that’s been done before. Music already exists; it permeates us, and everyone has their own references, so everyone links what they do to what they love or what has shaped them. But your references are not necessarily mine… and that’s also the beauty of music: it’s a very personal journey.

I am a huge consumer of film music; I listen to it every day, and since early childhood I have collected records and scores, and I watch a lot of films to observe what is being done… I love it. But when I compose, I try not to be crushed by the weight of references: neither those that came before me, nor those of my talented colleagues, whose work I admire. My goal is simply to chart my own path, always returning to the essential: the film, nothing but the film. I am given a story, and I seek to translate it through my own language: this is my only direction, my fundamental guide.

This was also the message I conveyed to my students when I taught film music courses: always start from the image, the story, what needs to be translated. Some colleagues would have their students copy almost exactly pages from James Newton Howard. Personally, I see no point: how can a composer forge their own identity if, from the start of their studies, they are asked to copy someone else’s work? In my courses, I would give a blank sequence, letting the students freely compose after a brief on the scene’s intentions. Once the first mock-up was submitted, we would debate, analyze, discuss: what had they expressed, why did it work or not, how could it be improved… But everything had to start from their initial version, not from a reference.

I apply exactly the same principle to my own work: I draw from deep within myself what the film evokes emotionally. To do this, I try to get into the mindset of the sequence (if it’s dramatic, I put myself in a sad state) and translate it into music as accurately as possible, so the audience feels what I myself experienced.

For example, in Behind the Walls, the references we discussed were those of Ligeti, particularly as Kubrick used them in 2001: A Space Odyssey or The Shining. I purchased the Atmosphères score to dissect its orchestration. For films like Alien or Outland, I didn’t have the scores in mind at the time, but I recently rewatched Alien and immersed myself in its absolutely incredible music. Whereas we were discussing synths for Gremlins, in this score, all the sounds evoking space or the creature were created from unusual organic instruments:

The main strength of Alien’s score lies first in the sonic illustration the composer offers on screen, achieved through the use of rare and diverse instruments, revealing a true musicological work. Among these exotic instruments, atypical for a late-1970s Hollywood film, are the serpent (a six-hole horn with a key system and an ivory or horn mouthpiece, widely used in late 16th–early 17th century religious music), two conches—one Indian, one Polynesian—used to create unique sounds, a shawm (a double-reed woodwind of the oboe family, common in the Middle Ages and Renaissance), a didgeridoo (a wind instrument used by Aboriginal Australians, made from a termite-hollowed eucalyptus branch, electronically processed by Goldsmith to produce a strange, viscous, slime-like sound totally inseparable from the alien in the film), not to mention the Echoplex effects the composer had already experimented with in 1968 on Planet of the Apes and in 1970 on Patton with his famous trumpet echoes. 1

I find this work simply extraordinary.

Regarding Valentine’s theme in Behind the Walls, it was a film where I was contacted from the script stage. The theme emerged very quickly: it evoked Valentine in the film, but by the end, you realize it also references Suzanne’s missing daughter. It was a red thread from the opening credits, subtly over the images of the car arriving at the house, creating an ambiguity that allowed the horror to gradually set in. The producers, however, thought it wasn’t scary enough and requested a more explicit opening, in the spirit of The Shining, to immediately signal that the film would be a suspense thriller. It’s the same logic as Goldsmith’s work on Alien: his first version was rather romantic to evoke the beauty of space, but Ridley Scott wanted the music to instill anxiety right away.

DP: How do you perceive the score for Behind the Walls today in your career ?

Is it a stylistic exception, or a facet of yourself that you would like to continue exploring ?

DR: I actually recently rewatched it and I think the film has aged quite well. What surprises me is that this score continues to be mentioned by many, even though the film didn’t achieve the expected success in France, whereas in China and Russia it was a hit and reached the top five.

What I love about this score is primarily the beautiful lyrical theme, with the violins as I like them, which I could really develop in the closing credits. But there is also, throughout the first part, the immense challenge of writing atonal music, an exercise I had never tackled before, which pushed me to explore completely new directions. In hindsight, I’m happy to see I handled it fairly well.

The Macedonian orchestra that recorded the score actually hated me at times because playing such tense, slow music, with long passages and many harmonics, demanded enormous concentration. But that tension felt by the musicians served the music: it nourished the atmosphere I was trying to create. And it’s funny because they still talk to me about it today, even though it’s already been fifteen years!

In short, all this to say that it’s a film I still love very much. Even if the ending is slightly weaker, I find it overall very successful: the sets and costumes are convincing, Laetitia Casta acts very well, and the music has a good place and is rather well mixed. So I can sleep peacefully thinking about this work.

DP: Are you more attracted to the opportunity to write a score like Open Letters (Lettres ouvertes), with its intimate, minimal, and personal approach, or a project like Behind the Walls, where you explore more tense, spectral, perhaps even more “Hollywoodian” atmospheres ?

Do you prefer moments when you can explore your own voice, or do you also appreciate the freedom a slightly more “conventional” sonic work can offer, like The Fox and the Child ?

DR: The common point between these two films is the use of a string orchestra… but exploited very differently. In Open Letters, the orchestra is smaller and recorded very closely, giving a more intimate, closer sound. In Behind the Walls, on the other hand, the orchestra is larger and recorded in a big studio, which allowed for a more expansive, more “Hollywoodian” sound, creating an enveloping, oppressive, tense atmosphere.

Looking at these two examples, you can see that you enjoy my way of working with strings! That said, I miss a film like The Fox and the Child. I love writing for films aimed at children or general audiences, with beautiful orchestras; that’s also why animated films fascinate me. Even though I enjoy writing for orchestra, I always try to highlight soloists and integrate instruments that don’t necessarily belong to the traditional classical orchestra. The more different timbres I have at my disposal, the happier I am. I’m a philatelist of music!

ML: Once the last note is written, it’s time to record the music, whether to accompany the film or to create standalone versions for CD or streaming platforms like Spotify, Deezer, or Apple Music. When conditions allow, as with The Odyssey of Choum (L’Odyssée de Choum) or The Fox and the Child, the production provides you with a group of instrumentalists. In this context, do you conduct the orchestra yourself, or do you prefer to entrust that responsibility to a professional conductor ?

DR: The ultimate goal for a composer remains to record their music with real musicians. And, in this case, the ultimate grail is conducting your own score yourself, like you see in the making-ofs of John Williams or Alexandre Desplat. Unfortunately, in reality, that’s not always possible.

For my part, I would like to conduct my music systematically. On one hand, because communication with the musicians would be more direct (I know what I wrote and can correct immediately), and on the other, because conducting is a true pleasure. Since childhood, I’ve nurtured this dream: I used to put records on in my room, a score on a stand, and conduct into the void as if I were already in front of an orchestra.

In practice, recordings sometimes take place abroad, in Bulgaria or Macedonia, for production reasons. In these cases, a local conductor leads, while we follow the session from the control room, giving instructions in English. When I work with the excellent musicians of Strasbourg, they are usually accompanied by their designated conductor. I then find myself again in the control room, adjusting after each take. This collaboration works very well, but I must admit a slight frustration: I would like to be more often at the podium, with my assistant in the control room indicating what needs to be redone.

I’ve had the opportunity to conduct several times: twice my own music during recordings in Belgium with a “phone” orchestra for The Odyssey of Choum and A Song for My Mother. Once for a friend and colleague, Selma Mutal, who entrusted me with conducting her musicians in Barcelona for her first film, Madeinusa (2005).

I hope in the future to wield the baton more and more often, and perhaps even conduct my own concerts. For me, it is the ultimate reward after all this work: hearing your notes come to life under your own direction is an absolutely unique experience.

[1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(bande_originale)

Propos recueillis par Pascal Dupont - Cinescores Center - Photo ci-dessous - Sophie Chamoux - DR - Photo haut - Collection David Reyes

Georges Delerue

Tue, 06 May 2025 19:25:28 GMT

The Composer of all hats

American touch for an french composer

Georges Delerue, a prodigious and unparalleled composer in the world of film music, embodied a musical power of rare subtlety and unmatched emotional depth. Born in 1925 in Roubaix, he forged a body of work in which every note, every theme resonates as an exploration of the human soul. His music, imbued with poetry and romanticism, echoes universal emotions that, although individually unique, resonate deeply within each of us.

A true genius of film music, Georges Delerue traversed many musical eras, drawing upon a sonic culture of absolutely astonishing richness. His versatility, the fruit of an immense musical knowledge, allowed him to compose in a wide array of styles—symphonic music, chamber music, film scores, and even more experimental works. This spectrum of genres, which he mastered with disarming ease, attests to his ability to understand and respond to the specific demands of each style.

Delerue absorbed all the musical dimensions of his time, relying on his vast expertise to shape and reinvent music according to the emotions he wished to convey. His compositions were never formulaic. Each work was a quest, a search for the emotional truth behind the image, the hidden breath behind characters and scenes. His art was a true language of pure emotion—a language that transcended genre boundaries to reach the very heart of human feeling.

His power lay in his ability to adapt to the diverse films he scored—be it romantic dramas like Contempt, war films like Platoon, or light-hearted comedies. Each genre became, for him, a field of experimentation, a new opportunity to challenge conventions in order to evoke emotion. In doing so, he transformed every film, every scene, into a unique sonic universe, capable of enriching the image while becoming inseparable from it.

The impact of his music on listeners, even long after his passing, resides in the fascinating intimacy he creates between the work and the audience. Listening to Delerue today is like opening a door to a world where every note, every theme, still resonates with a force that time cannot diminish. His compositions possess that rare quality of intimacy, a deep connection that reminds us that, despite the years, his melodies continue to speak to our souls with crystal clarity.

To listen to Georges Delerue is to draw closer to him by approaching life from its more luminous side. His themes are like gentle guides that remind us of the beauty hidden in ordinary moments, and of how music can make the world brighter, more human. Each piece by Delerue, with its harmonic richness and melodic delicacy, becomes a mirror of our own emotions—an invitation to feel deeply and to see the world through a gentler, more nuanced lens.

He created unforgettable themes that never fade, that remain etched in our memory, transcending time and context. Better than anyone, he knew how to make music an indelible mark on our collective experience. Beyond his impressive technique and musical knowledge, what makes Georges Delerue so timeless and close to us is his ability to turn each film into an emotional journey, and each note into a vibration, an instant of eternity.

CENTENIUM DELERUE - Georges Delerue - Official

City of fear Score

Thu, 30 May 2024 21:52:26 GMT

INTRADA RECORDS

Time: 29/40 - Tracks: 15

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Polar mineur à petit budget datant de 1959 et réalisé par Irving Lerner, « City of Fear » met en scène Vince Edwards dans le rôle de Vince Ryker, un détenu qui s’est évadé de prison avec un complice en emportant avec lui un conteneur cylindrique, croyant contenir de l’héroïne.

Mais ce que Vince ignore, c’est que le conteneur contient en réalité du cobalt-60, un matériau radioactif extrêmement dangereux, capable de raser une ville entière. Ryker se réfugie alors dans une chambre d’hôtel à Los Angeles et retrouve à l’occasion sa fiancée, tandis que le détenu est traqué par la police, qui va tout faire pour retrouver Ryker et intercepter le produit radioactif avant qu’il ne soit trop tard. Le scénario du film reste donc très convenu et rappelle certains polars de l’époque (on pense par exemple à « Panic in the Streets » d’Elia Kazan en 1950, sur un scénario assez similaire), mais l’arrivée d’une intrigue en rapport avec la menace de la radioactivité est assez nouvelle pour l’époque et inspirera d’autres polars par la suite (cf. « The Satan Bug » de John Sturges en 1965).

Le film repose sur un montage sobre et un rythme assez lent, chose curieuse pour une histoire de course contre la montre et de traque policière. A vrai dire, le manque de rythme et l’allure modérée des péripéties empêchent le film de décoller vraiment : Vince Edwards se voit confier ici un rôle solide, avec un personnage principal dont la santé ne cessera de se dégrader tout au long du film, subissant la radioactivité mortelle de son conteneur qu’il croit contenir de l’héroïne. Autour de lui, quelques personnages secondaires sans grand relief et toute une armada de policiers sérieux et stressés, bien déterminés à retrouver l’évadé et à récupérer le cobalt-60. Malgré l’interprétation convaincante de Vince Edwards (connu pour son rôle dans « Murder by Contract ») et quelques décors urbains réussis – le tout servi par une atmosphère de paranoïa typique du cinéma américain en pleine guerre froide - « City of Fear » déçoit par son manque de moyen et d’ambition, et échoue finalement à susciter le moindre suspense ou la moindre tension : la faute à une mise en scène réaliste, ultra sobre mais sans grande conviction, impersonnelle et peu convaincante, un comble pour un polar de ce genre qui tente de suivre la mode des films noirs américains de l’époque, mais sans réelle passion.

Voilà donc une série-B poussiéreuse qui semble être très rapidement tombée dans l’oubli, si l’on excepte une récente réédition dans un coffret DVD consacré aux films noirs des années 50 produits par Columbia Pictures.

Le jeune Jerry Goldsmith signa avec « City of Fear » sa deuxième partition musicale pour un long-métrage hollywoodien en 1959, après le western « Black Patch » en 1957. Le jeune musicien, alors âgé de 30 ans, avait à son actif toute une série de partitions écrites pour la télévision, et plus particulièrement pour la CBS, avec laquelle il travailla pendant plusieurs années.

Si « City of Fear » fait indiscutablement partie des oeuvres de jeunesse oubliées du maestro, cela n’en demeure pas moins une étape importante dans la jeune carrière du compositeur à la fin des années 50 : le film d’Irving Lerner lui permit de s’attaquer pour la première fois au genre du thriller/polar au cinéma, genre dans lequel il deviendra une référence incontournable pour les décennies à venir.

Pour Jerry Goldsmith, le challenge était double sur « City of Fear » : il fallait à la fois évoquer le suspense haletant du film sous la forme d’un compte à rebours, tout en évoquant la menace constante du cobalt-60, véritable anti-héros du film qui devient quasiment une sorte de personnage à part entière – tout en étant associé à Vince Edwards tout au long du récit.

Pour Goldsmith, un premier choix s’imposa : celui de l’orchestration. Habitué à travailler pour la CBS avec des formations réduites, le maestro fit appel à un orchestre sans violons ni altos, mais avec tout un pupitre de percussions assez éclectique : xylophone, piano, marimba, harpe, cloches, vibraphone, timbales, caisse claire, glockenspiel, bongos, etc. Le pupitre des cuivres reste aussi très présent et assez imposant, tout comme celui des bois. Les cordes se résument finalement aux registres les plus graves, à travers l’utilisation quasi exclusive des violoncelles et des contrebasses. Dès les premières notes de la musique (« Get Away/Main Title »), Goldsmith établit sans équivoque une sombre atmosphère de poursuite et de danger, à travers une musique agitée, tendue et mouvementée. Alors que l’on aperçoit Ryker et son complice en train de s’échapper à toute vitesse en voiture, Goldsmith introduit une figure rythmique ascendante des cuivres, sur fond de rythmes complexes évoquant tout aussi bien Stravinsky que Bartok – deux influences majeures chez le maestro américain. On notera ici l’utilisation caractéristique du xylophone et des bongos, deux instruments qui seront très présents tout au long du score de « City of Fear », tandis que le piano renforce la tension par ses ponctuations de notes graves sur fond d’harmonies menaçantes des bois et des cuivres : une mélodie se dessine alors lentement au piccolo et au glockenspiel, et qui deviendra très rapidement le thème principal du score, thème empreint d’un certain mystère, tout en annonçant la menace à venir.

C’est à partir de « Road Block » que Goldsmith introduit les sonorités associées dans le film à Ryker : on retrouve ici le jeu particulier des percussions (notes rapides de xylophone, ponctuation de piano/timbales) tandis qu’une trompette soliste fait ici son apparition, instrument rattaché dans le film à Ryker. La trompette revient dans « Motel », dans lequel les bongos créent ici un sentiment d’urgence sur fond de ponctuations de trombones et de timbales. Le morceau reflète parfaitement l’ambiance de paranoïa et de tension psychologique du film, tandis que les harmonies sombres du début sont reprises dans « The Facts », pour évoquer la menace du cobalt-60. Ce morceau permet alors à Jerry Goldsmith de développer les sonorités associées à la substance toxique dans le film (un peu comme il le fera quelques années plus tard dans le film « The Satan Bug » en 1965), par le biais de ponctuations de trompettes en sourdine, de percussion métallique et d’un raclement de guiro, évoquant judicieusement le contenant métallique du cobalt-60, que transporte Ryker tout au long du film (croyant à tort qu’il contient de la drogue). « Montage #1 » est quand à lui un premier morceau-clé de la partition de « City of Fear », car le morceau introduit les sonorités associées aux policiers qui traquent le fugitif tout au long du film. Goldsmith met ici l’accent sur un ostinato quasi guerrier de timbales agressives sur fond de cuivres en sourdine, de bois aigus et de caisse claire quasi martial : le morceau possède d’ailleurs un côté militaire assez impressionnant, évoquant les forces policières et l’urgence de la situation : stopper le fugitif à tout prix. Le réalisateur offre même une séquence de montage illustrant les préparatifs de la police pour le début de la course poursuite dans toute la ville, ce qui permet au maestro de s’exprimer pleinement en musique avec « Montage #1 ».

Plus particulier, « Tennis Shoes » introduit du jazz traditionnel pour le côté « polar » du film (à noter que le pianiste du score n’est autre que le jeune John Williams !). Le morceau est associé dans le film au personnage de Pete Hallon (Sherwood Price), le gangster complice de Ryker que ce dernier finira par assassiner à la suite de plusieurs maladresses. Le motif jazzy d’Hallon revient ensuite dans « The Shoes » et « Montage #2 », qui reprend le même sentiment d’urgence que la première séquence de montage policier, avec le retour ici du motif descendant rapide de 7 notes qui introduisait le film au tout début de « Get Away/Main Title ».

La mélodie principale de piccolo sur fond d’harmonies sombres de bois reviennent enfin dans « You Can’t Stay », rappelant encore une fois la menace du cobalt-60, avec une opposition étonnante ici entre le registre très aigu de la mélodie et l’extrême grave des harmonies, un élément qui renforce davantage la tension dans la musique du film. Le morceau développe ensuite le thème principal pour les dernières secondes du morceau, reprenant une bonne partie du « Main Title ».

La tension monte ensuite d’un cran dans le sombre et agité « Taxicab », reprenant les ponctuations métalliques et agressives associées au cobalt-60 (avec son effet particulier du raclement de guiro cubain), tout comme le sombre « Waiting » ou l’oppressant « Search » et son écriture torturée de cordes évoquant la dégradation physique et mentale de Ryker, contaminé par le cobalt-60. « Search » permet au compositeur de mélanger les sonorités métalliques de la substance toxique, la trompette « polar » de Ryker et les harmonies sombres et torturées du « Main Title », aboutissant aux rythmes de bongos/xylophone syncopés complexes de « Track Down » et au climax brutal de « End of the Road » avec sa série de notes staccatos complexes de trompettes et contrebasses. La tension orchestrale de « End of the Road » aboutit finalement à la coda agressive de « Finale », dans lequel Goldsmith résume ses principales idées sonores/thématiques/instrumentales de sa partition en moins de 2 minutes pour la conclusion du film – on retrouve ainsi le motif descendant du « Main Title », le thème principal, le motif métallique et le raclement de guiro du cobalt-60 – un final somme toute assez sombre et élégiaque, typique de Goldsmith.

Vous l’aurez certainement compris, « City of Fear » possède déjà les principaux atouts du style Jerry Goldsmith, bien plus reconnaissable ici que dans son premier essai de 1957, « Black Patch ».

La musique de « City of Fear » reste d'ailleurs le meilleur élément du long-métrage un peu pauvre d'Irving Lerner : aux images sèches et peu inspirantes du film, Goldsmith répond par une musique sombre, complexe, virile, nerveuse et oppressante. Le musicien met en avant tout au long du film d’Irving Lerner une instrumentation personnelle, mélangeant les influences du XXe siècle (Stravinsky, Bartok, etc.) avec une inventivité et une modernité déconcertante - on est déjà en plein dans le style suspense du Goldsmith des années 60/70. Goldsmith fit partie à cette époque d’une nouvelle génération de musiciens qui apportèrent un point de vue différent et rafraîchissant à la musique de film hollywoodienne (Bernard Herrmann ayant déjà ouvert la voie à cette nouvelle conception) : là où un Steiner ou un Newman aurait proposé une musique purement jazzy ou même inspirée du Romantisme allemand, Goldsmith ira davantage vers la musique extra européenne tout en bousculant l’orchestre hollywoodien traditionnel et en s’affranchissant des figures rythmiques classiques, mélodiques et harmoniques du Golden Age hollywoodien.

Sans être un chef-d’oeuvre dans son genre, « City of Fear » reste malgré tout un premier score majeur dans les musiques de jeunesse de Jerry Goldsmith : cette partition, pas si anecdotique qu’elle en a l’air au premier abord, servira de pont vers de futures partitions telles que « The Prize » et surtout « The Satan Bug ». « City of Fear » permit ainsi à Goldsmith de concrétiser ses idées qu’il développa tout au long de ses années à la CBS, et les amplifia sur le film d’Iriving Lerner à l’échelle cinématographique, annonçant déjà certaines de ses futures grandes musiques d’action/suspense pour les décennies à venir – les recettes du style Goldsmith sont déjà là : rythmes syncopés complexes, orchestrations inventives, développements thématiques riches, travail passionné sur la relation image/musique, etc.

Voilà donc une musique rare et un peu oubliée du maestro californien, à redécouvrir rapidement grâce à l’excellente édition CD publiée par Intrada, qui contient l’intégralité des 29 minutes écrites par Goldsmith pour « City of Fear », le tout servi par un son tout à fait honorable pour un enregistrement de 1959 !

Black Patch Score

Fri, 24 May 2024 14:09:44 GMT

Essential scores - Jerry Goldsmith

INTRADA RECORDS - INT 7168

Time: 51:46 - Tracks: 31

World premiere recordings of two elusive

Jerry Goldsmith scores ! INTRADA RECORDS

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Le réalisateur, Allen H. Miner de ‘Black Patch’ (L’homme au bandeau noir), apparaît à une époque où le genre du western connaît son apogée à Hollywood à la fin des années 50.

Il n’en est d’ailleurs pas à son premier coup d’essai puisqu’il réalisa deux autres westerns avant ‘ Black Patch’ , ‘Ride Back’ (1957) et ‘Ghost Town’ (1956). A l’inverse de la plupart des autres westerns américains de cette époque, ‘Black Patch’ ne se concentre pas sur l’héroïsme, les fusillades et les chevauchées endiablées mais sur une intrigue plus intimiste et dramatique dans laquelle le décor du Far-West parait finalement assez superflu (le film pourrait tout autant se passer dans une époque moderne). Le shérif Clay Morgan (George Montgomery) fait régner la loi d’une main de fer sur la petite ville de Santa Rita.

Un jour, il retrouve Hank Danner (Leo Gordon), un ancien ami venu s’installer en ville avec sa femme Helen (Diane Brewster). Helen fut autrefois l’amante de Morgan, mais elle décida de le quitter pour épouser Hank. Un jour, un shérif de la ville voisine et son acolyte viennent voir Morgan pour lui demander de les aider à rechercher un bandit qui a cambriolé leur banque. Il se trouve que la description correspond parfaitement avec Hank. Morgan est alors contraint d’arrêter son ami et de le mettre en prison, en attendant qu’il se décide à révéler l’endroit où il a caché l’argent.

Pendant ce temps, sa femme retrouve Morgan et tente de recoller les bouts avec lui, mais en vain. Elle est mariée et ne peut désormais plus vivre avec Morgan, pour qui elle ressent toujours quelques sentiments malgré tout. Un jour, Hank réussit à s’échapper grâce à un complice et se fait abattre dans la rue. Morgan arrive trop tard, rapidement entouré des habitants de Santa Rita, qui sont désormais tous convaincu que le shérif a abattu froidement Hank dans son dos.Les commérages ne cessent d’augmenter et d’entacher la réputation du shérif, surnommé ‘bandeau noir’ à cause du bandeau qu’il porte à son oeil gauche. Il finit même par s’attirer l’hostilité du jeune Carl (Tom Pittman), amoureux fou d’Helen et qui, convaincu lui aussi de la culpabilité de Morgan, jure de défier le shérif en duel pour lui régler son compte. Afin de prouver son innocence, le shérif va devoir découvrir qui a trafiqué l’arme de Hank (qui tenta en vain de tirer sur Morgan) et qui cherchait à mettre la main sur son argent.

L’originalité de ce western modeste tient donc dans le fait que l’intrigue se concentre autour d’une romance et d’un shérif qui doit prouver son innocence. Le réalisateur nous montre ainsi habilement les commérages qui ne cessent de prendre des proportions gigantesques à Santa Rita, tandis que le shérif se retrouve seul contre tous, traité injustement d’assassin et de bandit, obligé de mener lui même sa propre enquête. Allen H. Miner soigne sa mise en scène (très classique) et le rythme de l’histoire reposant autour d’une poignée de protagonistes entourés de personnages secondaires totalement sans intérêt (comme Pedoline, le gros mexicain qui passe la majeure partie du film dans le bureau du shérif pour échapper à sa femme).

Pour Jerry Goldsmith , ‘Black Patch’ représente sa toute première participation à un film hollywoodien. En 1957, le compositeur est à peine âgé de 28 ans alors qu’il travaille pour la radio et la télévision en écrivant de la musique pour des émissions de la CBS. Sa participation au western d’Allen H. Miner n’est pas le tournant décisif que sera ‘Lonely are The Brave’ en 1962, au moment où Goldsmith fera la connaissance d’Alfred Newman – à la tête du département musique de la 20th Century Fox - qui l’aidera à se lancer dans le métier. Néanmoins, sa musique pour ‘Black Patch’ possède un charme indéniable qui nous prouve à quel point le compositeur avait déjà un certain talent, même à ses débuts - certaines informations circulent sur Internet concernant une hypothétique participation non crédité de Jerry Goldsmith à la musique du film ‘Don’t Bother To Knock’ en 1952, information non confirmée et difficile à vérifier (Goldsmith est alors âgé de 23 ans!).

Entièrement écrite pour orchestre symphonique, la musique de ‘Black Patch’ délaisse toute l’attirail western habituel. Ici, pas d’harmonica, de guimbarde ou de banjo! Goldsmith a choisi pour sa toute première partition pour un long-métrage d’écrire une musique orchestrale basée sur un thème principal fort, un thème plutôt mélancolique évoquant la solitude du shérif Clay Morgan, souvent développé par les cordes et les vents. Après une brève introduction du premier motif de 4 notes associé à Hank, avec cordes, vents, cors et piano (on trouve déjà ici une écriture plus rythmique du piano qui annonce par moment ‘Planet of The Apes’), sa musique dévie rapidement vers un style plus intimiste et mélancolique, tout à l’image du film. Le thème principal se met rapidement en place comme un véritable leitmotiv du shérif, et qui évoquera aussi ses sentiments pour Helen. A la fois intime et sombre, la musique évoque les sentiments des personnages principaux avec de bonnes orchestrations et un souci de développement flagrant du thème – une des caractéristiques fondamental du style de Goldsmith, qui rejoint par sa volonté constante du développement les préoccupations de Beethoven au 18ème siècle.

La musique évoque ainsi les sentiments profonds et les émotions des personnages, d’où un côté parfois introspectif et psychologique de la musique, assez étonnant pour une musique de western. Goldsmith se paie même le luxe de nous offrir un superbe mais très bref morceau d’action pour la scène de la bagarre entre Morgan et Hank, où cordes, cuivres et percussions s’en donnent à coeur joie, même si on est loin encore loin ici de la qualité des futures partitions d’action du compositeur.

Goldsmith prend le film très au sérieux et apporte une certaine émotion à celui-ci, que ce soit lors des moments intimes au début du film (avec un jeu très doux des cordes) ou lors de la scène où le shérif cache l’argent volé par Hank avec une variation du thème principal aux cordes et un motif d’accompagnement de quatre mystérieuses notes de vibraphone, qui crée un climat intrigant assez sombre pour cette scène (on sait que le shérif est dans les ennuis jusqu’au coup – la musique tente d’imposer un certain climat d’incertitude, d’inquiétude).

Goldsmith continue de développer le thème du shérif ainsi que le motif de Hank qui intervient dans les moments plus sombres du film (à noter l’utilisation d’un motif de sept notes de cors, souvent utilisés lui aussi dans des moments plus dramatiques), jusqu’à un final orchestral plus paisible où le thème du shérif revient une dernière fois de manière plus apaisé.

Intrusion logique dans « le grand cinéma » pour Jerrald Goldsmith, jeune créateur osé pour l’époque et innovateur déjà dans l’approche du genre. « Black Patch » est à ne point douter un premier essai concluant de la part d’un compositeur émergeant qui parallèlement apporte aussi une petite révolution musicale à la radio et la télévision. Bien que tombée dans l’oubli pendant quelques années, cette petite première partition orchestrale de Jerry Goldsmith a fait l’objet dernièrement d’une reconstruction et d’un nouvel enregistrement de très haute qualité dirigé par l'excellent et renommé William Stromberg, pour l’éditeur INTRADA RECORDS. (Avec le Royal Scottish national Orchestra).

Un projet « Renaissance » très attendu de deux scores inédits de Goldsmith qui ont vu le jour grâce à une campagne de financement Kikstarter. Combiné avec l’enregistrement d’un autre score TV, inédit aussi de Goldsmith, « The Man ».

Un régal !

Quentin Billard©

Charles Gerhardt & Classic Film Scores

Fri, 10 May 2024 09:20:52 GMT

Charles Allan Gerhardt

English version adapted by Doug Raynes - FRENCH VERSION AND COLLECTION

had a reputation as a great conductor, record producer and musical arranger. His major work at RCA on the Classic Film Scores series earned him recognition from film music devotees of Hollywood’s Golden Age, as well as other renowned conductors of his day. Born on February 6, 1927 in Detroit, Michigan, Charles Gerhardt developed a passion for music and percussion instruments from an early age. At the age of five, he took piano lessons, and by the age of nine, had established a solid reputation as an orchestrator and composer. He spent his early school years in Little Rock, Arkansas, then after 10 years, having completed his schooling, moved with his family to Illinois for his military duties, he served in the U.S. Navy during World War II as a chaplain's aide in the Aleutian Islands, then became an active member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

He went on to study at the University of Illinois, at the College of William and Mary, and later at the University of Southern California. Throughout his time at school Gerhardt was attracted not only to music, but also to the sciences. Passionate about the art of recording, he joined Westminster Records for five years, until the company ceased operations, and then joined Bell Sound. One day, he received a phone call from George Marek to meet with the heads of Reader's Digest, to discuss producing recordings for their mail-order record business; a contact that was to secure his musical future and a rich career spanning more than 30 years. Gerhardt's first job for Reader's Digest was to produce a record; “A Festival of Light Classical Music”; a 12 LP box set that he produced in full.

One of Gerhardt's finest projects was the production of another 12 LP box set, “Les Trésores de la Grande Musique (Treasury of Great Music)”, featuring the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by some of the leading figures of the day: Charles Munch to Bizet and Tchaikovsky, Rudolf Kempe to Strauss and Respighi, Josef Krips to Mozart and Haydn, Antal Dorati to Strauss and Berlioz, Brahms 4th Symphony by Fritz Reiner and Sibelius’ 2nd Symphony by Sir John Barbirolli. In the 1950s he conducted works by Vladimir Horowitz, Wanda Landowska, Kirsten Flagstad and William Kapeli. In the early 1960s, Gerhardt lived in England, where he made most of his recordings, but kept a foothold in the United States, mainly in New York.

Often, when he went to the United States after a period of recording sessions, he would stop off in Baltimore and spend some time listening to cassettes of his new recordings. Gerhardt loved percussion instruments, especially tam-tams. One of his favorite recordings was the Columbia mono disc of Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy, with Dimitri Mitropoulos and the New York Philharmonic. He had great admiration and respect for the many conductors he worked with, starting with Arturo Toscanini, with whom he worked for several years before the Maestro's death. It was Toscanini who suggested that Gerhardt become a conductor, which he did!

His career as an orchestra director began when he had to replace a conductor who failed to show up for rehearsals. It was a position he would later occupy for various recording sessions and occasional concerts. His classical recordings include works by Richard Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Ravel, Debussy, Walton and Howard Hanson. Hired by RCA Records, he transferred 78 rpm recordings of Enrico Caruso and other artists to 33 rpm. He took part in recordings by soprano singer Kirsten Flagstad and pianist Vladimir Horowitz. He worked with renowned conductors such as Fritz Reiner, Leopold Stokowski and Charles Munch, from whom he learned the tricks of the trade.

Still at RCA, he assisted Arturo Toscanini, with whom he perfected his conducting skills. Then, in 1960, he produced recordings for RCA and Reader’s Digest in London, and joined forces with sound engineer Kenneth Wilkinson of Decca Records (RCA's European subsidiary), The two men got on very well and shared a passion for recording and sound quality, making an incredible number of recordings over a 30-year period. Also in 1960, RCA and Reader's Digest entrusted him with the production of a 12-disc LP box set entitled “ Lumière du Classique (A Festival of Light Classical Music) ”, sold exclusively by mail order.

With a budget of $250,000, Gerhardt assumed total control of the project: repertoire, choice of orchestras and production. He recorded in London, Vienna and Paris, and hired such top names as Sir Adrian Boult, Massimo Freccia, Sir Alexander Gibson and René Leibowitz. The success of this project, in terms of both musical quality and sound, earned him recognition from his employers. Other projects of similar scope followed…

A boxed set of Beethoven's symphonic works with René Leibowitz and The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. A boxed set of Rachmaninoff's works for piano and orchestra with Earl Wild, Jascha Horenstein and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the above mentioned 12 LP disc set “Trésor de la Grande Musique (Treasury of Great Music)” with the Royal Philharmonic conducted by some of the greatest directors of the time: Fritz Reiner, Charles Munch, Rudolf Kempe, Sir John Barbirolli, Sir Malcolm Sargent, Antal Dorati and Jascha Horenstein, with whom Gerhardt had sympathized. In January 1964 in London, Gerhardt joined forces with Sidney Sax, instrumentalist and conductor, to form a freelance orchestra. This successful group went on to join the National Philharmonic Orchestra of London, an impressive line-up that would later become Jerry Goldsmith's orchestra of choice.

With Peter Munves, head of RCA's classical division, he conceived the idea of recording an album devoted exclusively to the film music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, one of his favorite composers. Enthusiastic about the project, Munves gave Gerhardt carte blanche, and was offered a helping hand by George Korngold, producer and son of the famous Viennese composer, who owned all the copies of his father's scores.

The Adventure Began :

The Sea Hawk: Classic Film Scores of Erich Wolfgang Korngold. For this first disc, Gerhardt selected 10 scores by Korngold, which he recorded in the Kingsway Hall Studio in London, renowned for its excellent acoustics. The disc thus benefits from optimal recording conditions, favoring at the same time the performances of the National Philharmonic (and its leader, Sidney Sax), a formidable orchestra made up of London's finest musicians and freelance soloists.

Each album was recorded in the same studio, with Kenneth Wilkinson as sound engineer and George Korngold as consultant/producer. As soon as it was released, the album's success received strong acclaim in classical music circles and received a feature in Billboard No. 37, a first in this category in December 1972. It took no less than a year to sell the first 10,000 copies in all the specialist record suppliers and the album went on to sell over 38,000 copies, making it the fifth best-selling album in the “classical” category in 1973. On the strength of this success, Peter Munves and RCA entrusted Charles Gerhardt with the production of further discs devoted to other world-renowned composers of Hollywood music. The program includes several albums dedicated to Max Steiner and Erich Wolfgang Korngold plus one each to Miklos Rozsa, Franz Waxman, Dimitri Tiomkin and Bernard Herrmann, followed by 3 volumes associated with specific film stars such as Bette Davis, Errol Flynn and Humphrey Bogart. Then, a disc devoted to Alfred Newman, a composer who was a pillar of the famous Hollywood sound, who Gerhardt admired and had met:

“Newman was a charming man, full of good humor. He was friendly, fun and always had a joke. With his eternal black cigar in hand, he was a composer by trade, down-to-earth, discussed little about himself but was a first-rate advisor in my life. “

Gerhardt would consult certain composers in advance about how to recreate suites from their works, or when this wasn't possible, he would rearrange the suites himself and submit them to the composers for approval. "Some critics complained that my suites were too short, but my aim in the case of each album was to present a well-split 'portrait' of the composer, highlighting his many creative facets". Although Korngold, Newman and Steiner were no longer around to lend their support, Gerhardt was lucky enough to still work with Herrmann, Rózsa and Tiomkin as consultants who turned up at the recording studio to lend a hand.

Gerhardt also had the idea of creating albums focusing on a single film star. Three specific volumes were devoted to music from the films of Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn and Bette Davis. Although these albums suffer from too great a diversity of genres, they still offer the chance to hear and discover rare and previously unpublished compositions. The best conceived album was arguably the one devoted to Bette Davis. Conscious of the important role played by music in her films, the legendary actress took part in the conception of the album, knowing that it favored scores by Max Steiner designed for Warner Bros.

The Collection Begins !

Gerhardt's passion for certain composers knows no bounds, but he soon envisages a disc devoted to Miklos Rozsa, including suites for “Spellbound” and “The Red House”, one of his favorite scores, which he will exhume to create one of the longest suites in the series. At the same time, he received various fan wish lists and films to watch, such as “The Four Feathers”, which he had never seen and which gave him the opportunity to discover a splendid score by Miklos Rozsa that he had never heard before. He was disappointed, however, not to be able to conceive a longer “Spellbound” sequel for rights reasons. Despite RCA's full approval, Gerhardt realized that it was not easy to record film music in its original form, as few were ever edited, played and made available for rental. For The Sea Hawks album, things were simpler, as Georges Korngold had copies of his father's scores, and Warner Bros had also archived material in good condition.

From the outset, Gerhardt encountered other major problems in the search for and discovery of scores hidden away in other studios, often with the unpleasant surprise of discovering missing or incomplete conductors, or others heavily modified by orchestrators during recording sessions, or the surprise of discovering, in certain cases, instrumentation information noted in shorthand on the edges of the conductor score. For the disc dedicated to Max Steiner, for example, the conductor score for “King Kong” had disappeared from the RKO archives, having been shipped in 1950 to poorly maintained warehouses in Los Angeles where it had become totally degraded and illegible. With the help of Georges Korngold, Gerhardt was able to reconstruct a substantial suite from the piano models left by Steiner at the time. This experience was repeated when the conductor score for Dimitri Tiomkin's “The Thing” was discovered in the same warehouse, in an advanced state of disintegration. Fortunately for Gerhardt, Tiomkin, who was still alive, had been able to provide precise piano maquettes with orchestration information in shorthand, revealing a complex and highly innovative style of writing. Tiomkin always composed at the piano, inscribing very specific information and signs on the edges of the scores in pencil, an ingenious system of his own invention that was difficult to decipher.

“Revisiting the score of ‘The Thing from Another World’ was a complex task, involving experimental passages and an unorthodox orchestra. You can understand that I had a huge job on my hands. When I approached the recording sessions, it was not without some trepidation. However, the composer present made no criticism or comment on my work, and was delighted. He was delighted.”

For “Gone With The Wind”, Steiner was against the idea of remaking a complete soundtrack, as he felt that too many passages were repeated. It was an opportunity for him to revisit his own score, integrating his favorite melodies. This synthesis gave him the opportunity to revitalize his music by eliminating the least interesting parts of the score.

Conceived as long suites or isolated themes, the discs reflect the essence of the composers' work. The “Classic Film Scores” series by Franz Waxman, Bernard Herrmann and Miklos Rozsa etc will become a big hit with collectors. For Gerhardt, this will be an opportunity to unearth forgotten or rare scores such as Herrmann's “The White Witch” and “On a Dangerous Ground”, Hugo Friedhofer's “The Sun Also Rises” and early recordings for Waxman's “Prince Valliant” and Rozsa's “The Red House”, all with new, impeccable acoustics. For “Elisabeth and Essex”, Erich Korngold had already prepared a suite in the form of an Overture, which was given its world premiere in a theater. The suite for “The Adventures of Robin Hood” also pre-existed. Franz Waxman created his own suite for “A Place in the Sun”, which was also performed in concert. Dimitri Tiomkin, Miklos Rozsa and Bernard Herrmann acted as consultants and contributed arrangements to their scores.

For the continuation of “White Witch Doctor”, Bernard Herrman added percussion to link the different musical tableaux. He did the same for the different parts of “Citizen Kane”. Miklos Rozsa saw an opportunity to add a male choir to the suite from “The Jungle Book”, based on an idea by Charles Gerhardt. For the record dedicated to Errol Flynn, Gerhardt re-orchestrated the theme “The Lights of Paris” from Hugo Friedhofer's “The Sun also Rises”, as the original was no longer available.

“I wanted to go back to that time and systematically explore the very substance of the great film scores of the late 30s and 40s, sending them back directly to their images as dramatic entities. The desire to rediscover tunes we know and to take into account the contexts in which they were originally used. I decided to recreate these scores with their original orchestrations, and this could only be done by returning to the ultimate sources, as the composers had originally conceived them.”

Keen to open up the collection to other genres, such as science fiction, Gerhardt dedicated two further albums to the series in 1992. The first featured contemporary sequels to “Star Wars” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, promoting the work of John Williams, a leading composer of new film music. Then another called “The Spectacular World of Classic Film Scores”, presenting a disappointing compilation of scores that had already been recorded, except for the creation of a sequel to Dimitri Tiomkin's “The Thing From Another World” and Daniele Amfitheatrof's rarely heard theme “Dance of the Seven Voiles” from Salome. In 1978, the collection was published in Spain by RCA Cinema Treasures. In the USA and Europe, the Classic Film Scores LP series was reissued in the early 80s with a black art deco cover and colored star index.

All Volumes in the First Series Were Reissued :

By the end of the '80s, the series was running out of steam, and Charles Gerhardt planned to relaunch his collection with albums dedicated to famous American actresses, a new volume for Max Steiner and the Western, a volume reconstructing the score of Waxman's “The Bride of Frankenstein”, followed by volumes devoted to Alex North, Hugo Friedhofer, Victor Young and Elmer Bernstein...

But RCA would not support Gerhardt in these projects, preferring to release the collection on CD for the first time. In early 1990, RCA asked Gerhardt to supervise and co-produce the collection, which he saw as an opportunity to revisit some of the volumes, inserting tracks that had not appeared on the LPs or extending certain suites. The volume devoted to Franz Waxman, “Sunset Boulevard”, was the first to be released. The CD did not benefit from any particular promotion, but sold very well, as did the other CDs that followed... A collection marked by a new design in silver pantone.

The CDs series was reissued in 2010, still under the RCA Red Seal label, but distributed by Sony Music Entertainment. RCA Victor's Classic Films Scores series represents a unique collection in the history of film music recordings. 14 recordings of rare quality, produced by Georges Korngold and Charles Gerhardt to become one of the revelations of the reissue phenomenon.

Other Concepts...

Later, Gerhardt spent most of his time in London, continuing to make recordings. After retiring from RCA in 1986, he returned to independent work for Readers Digest and other record labels, a position he held in production and musical supervision until 1997.

Since 1991 he had lived in Redding, California. In later years, he did not appear professionally, refusing all public invitations because of his desire to remain discreet. In his entourage he was close to three cousins, Lenore L Engel and Elizabeth Anne Schuetze, both living in San Antonio, and cousin Steven W Gerhardt of St. Pete Beach, Florida. In late November 1998 Charles Gerhardt was diagnosed with brain cancer and died of complications following surgery on February 22, 1999. He was 72 years old.

Thus ends this tribute to Charles Gerhardt and the most famous collection of film music records: The Classic Film Scores series.

Exodus

Wed, 24 Jan 2024 11:04:25 GMT

Label: Tadlow Music
Catalogue No: TADLOW007

Release Date: 9-Sep-2009

Total Duration: 2 CDs 61:49 / 70:58

UPN: 6-2657-06014-5-6

Following on from Tadlow’s epic recording of EL CID, the same team – Nic Raine conducting and James Fitzpatrick producing – have turned their attention to a completely different type of epic film for the definitive recording of Ernest Gold’s Academy Award winning score for Otto Preminger’s EXODUS (1960). The score is something of a revelation because aside from the main theme, the music has received little attention through recordings. Additionally the sound quality of the original soundtrack LP was disappointing and much music was deleted or cut from the film.

The “Prelude” introduces Gold’s main theme. The theme – one of the most well known and oft recorded pieces of music, albeit often in sentimentalised or easy listening versions, is heard here in its sturdy and noble sounding film version. Despite the familiarity of the EXODUS theme, it is not overly used within the score and, when it is used, its familiarity is lessoned by going through many different variations. There are affecting arrangements in “Ari” and “Akiva’s Hideout” but it is in the cue “The Valley of Jezreel” where it receives a more extensive treatment. An extremely melodic theme is that which is used to represent Karen, heard first in “The Tent” on solo accordion, before taken up by the full orchestra. The theme is also used most effectively and gently in “Karen’s Father”. In contrast, action scenes are handled with full blown orchestral fury as in “The Bombs”. The two disc set includes the very fine “Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra” and “Concert Overture” arranged from the score as well as Gold’s ”Exit Music” from IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD and selections from films addressing a similar theme to that of EXODUS; SHIP OF FOOLS, JUDITH, QB VII, SCHINDLER’S LIST and CAST A GIANT SHADOW; making this an extremely good value package indeed.

This recording proves EXODUS to be a masterful score of considerable variation. There is even some cocktail music in “Kitty” to provide a spot of light alternative! The score is suffused with music of great vitality and feeling and the sound quality is exemplary. The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra play supremely well with total confidence. It’s also good to have the Intermission and Exit music, both of which, incidentally, are missing from the current DVD. As an added bonus the disc set also includes two videos taken at the recording sessions. The 24 page booklet has introductory notes by Marni Nixon who was married to Gold and her reminiscences of the recording sessions are fascinating. The bulk of the booklet is by musicologist Frank DeWald whose track by track analysis is excellent. These are the sort of notes which, when read whilst listening to the CD, add so much to an understanding and appreciation of the music.

On the Beach

Wed, 24 Jan 2024 10:58:40 GMT

Label: Film Score Monthly
Catalogue No: FSM Vol.5 No.7

Release Date: Jun-2002

Total Duration: 69:58

UPN: 0638558013625
Also contains music from: The Secret Of Santa Vittoria

Though the 1950s spawned a variety of (often ridiculous) Hollywood mutations, the first film to deal seriously with nuclear issues was Stanley Kramer’s ON THE BEACH in 1959, the restrained screenplay of which documents the last days of a varied group of survivors who await the end as fallout from the ultimate nuclear conflict slowly but inevitably drifts towards the southern hemisphere. With the death of French composer Georges Antheil, Kramer’s initial musical choice, the job of scoring this major film went to Ernest Gold, a Vienna-born musician who had been labouring in Hollywood since the 1940s. BEACH launched Gold into the upper echelon of late studio-era Hollywood composers, and he achieved even greater success with EXODUS (1960). But Gold’s BEACH break came with a condition: that “Waltzing Matilda,” a kind of unofficial Australian national anthem, be integrated into the score. Though initially resistant, Gold ultimately transformed the upbeat (yet also somehow poignant) tune into a versatile motif and ultimately a wrenching elegy for mankind. Put through every kind of musical variation, “Matilda” appears throughout the score, and is a fascinating study in inventive thematic/contrapuntal development.

However, Gold produced original themes as well. What was known as the official “Theme from ON THE BEACH” is actually the “Peter and Mary” theme. There’s also a bittersweet melody associated with Moria/Ava Gardner, and a brief Copland-esque motif for Dwight/Gregory Peck, both of these beautifully melded with “Matilda” in the haunting “Australian Summer Night” melody. The most innovative cues (“Desolate City,” “Mysterious Signal”) have nothing to do with any previous thematic material, but underscore the American submarine’s futile voyage to investigate a mysterious Morse code signal. Unlike the recent Showtime re-make, Kramer’s ON THE BEACH eschews any sensationalized depiction of nuclear aftermath, the devastation instead evoked by Gold’s brilliantly sci-fi-esque fusions of archaic open 5ths, atonalism, and touching lyricism. This welcome new FSM CD of one of the best scores of the late studio era is a duplication of the original Roulette LP from original three-track stereo tapes, and is coupled with THE SECRET OF SANTA VITTORIA, from a United Artists LP. The latter features one extra theme.

Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.21 / No.84 / 2002

Ernest Gold on Wallenberg: A Hero’s Story

Wed, 24 Jan 2024 10:50:22 GMT

An Interview with Ernest Gold by Randall D. Larson 

Originally published in CinemaScore #13/14, 1985 

Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor and publisher, Randall D. Larson

Ernest Gold, who we had the pleasure of interviewing at length in our 10th issue, recently composed an excellent score for the television mini-series, WALLENBERG: A HERO’S STORY, which was broadcast over two evenings in April, 1985. Gold, who has said he prefers to score films dealing with personalities and emotions rather than action and sheer spectacle, was an appropriate choice and his music lent an important emotional undercurrent that tied the characters and their experiences in WALLENBERG together. Interviewed in June, 1985, Gold expressed his pleasure in working on WALLENBERG and described in detail his approach to scoring the picture.

How did you become involved with this mini-series?

 I saw an announcement in the trade paper about Dick Berg, for whom I had done a movie of the week many years ago, FOOTSTEPS (1972), who was producing a mini-series called WALLENBERG, with a brief description of what the story was about. I also noticed that my former neighbor and friend, Lamont Johnson, was directing the picture. I got very excited, and I wrote a note to Dick Berg telling him I was very interested in doing the score, and then I promptly forgot all about it. A few weeks later I received a telephone call from Dick Berg asking me to come in to discuss with him the possibility of my doing the score, and we agreed that I would do it. That’s how I became involved with it. I felt that the subject matter, of course, was one that I would be able to do very easily because I had, after all, lived in Austria when Hitler marched in, so I had first hand experience with Nazi’s and the period.

Noting your previous distaste for working in television, how did you find your experiences working on WALLENBERG? 

I find that television is changing somewhat. I’m not interested in doing a series, but I find certain movies made for television and certainly miniseries extremely interesting to do, and I don’t have any prejudices against these at all. I would certainly rather work on something like that than trying to do one of those teenage pictures which require hard rock, which is not my kettle of fish at all. The experience on WALLENBERG, specifically, was without any question one of my happiest and most satisfying experiences I’ve ever had in all my years in the film and television business. I felt that I was treated with respect, my opinions were taken seriously, what I did do was greatly appreciated by everybody. When I say “appreciated”, I don’t mean a pat on the back, but people really listening to what I was doing and singling out this or that thing I had done for a laudatory comment. So it was a completely satisfying and happy and marvelous experience, but then again Dick Berg is a marvelous man to work with and so is Lamont Johnson, and all I can say is I hope we work together again real soon.

How long were you given to score the film, and how large of an orchestra was used?

 I was given eight weeks to score the film, from the time I got my first timings and a video tape of the picture, until the scoring date. As it turned out, it only took me six weeks, and the last two weeks I rested and was free. But I had plenty of time to do it. The size of the orchestra was thirty-nine men, which I certainly could make do; I would have preferred a few more strings. If I would have had perhaps ten more men it would have been a little easier to do in some respects, but thirty-nine men was certainly adequate. We also used a chorus of sixteen voices.

How would you describe your approach to scoring WALLENBERG? Were there any specific elements within the film that either you or the director wanted to emphasize, musically? 

The director told me, primarily, that he didn’t want the obvious kind of approach to Nazis, with the overemphasis on the military with marching rhythms and drums, none of that kind of Hollywood Nazi stuff, like “ve haf meens to mayke you talk” and all that. He wanted Eichmann to come off as a human being, sly and ruthless, with a devastating charm and a devastating anger, and that gave me kind of a clue as to how he saw the whole film. I saw it really as a relationship of personalities rather than stereotypes.

As far as my own approach to the scoring was concerned, I felt, taking my cue from what Lamont Johnson had said, that the best approach would be a psychological approach. I tried not so much to play the physical events, but to play the psychology of the people and how that was influenced by the events. In other words, if something horrible happened, I played the insecurity and the uncertainty of what was going to happen to them, rather than the horror that you saw on the screen already; with, of course, a few necessary exceptions. But, by and large, I tried to make real to the audience, through the score, the feelings and psychological stresses (as well as the good feelings, for instance, between the Baroness and Wallenberg) from a psychological viewpoint.

How did you deal, thematically, with the diverse elements of the film and its characters? 

The way I see it is like this: when you have a broad canvas, such as a mini-series gives you, I feel a good way to approach, and this was certainly the case in WALLENBERG, would be like a playwright. You have your starring parts, you have your supporting parts, you have your bit parts. So there were starring themes, supporting themes and thematic material that would be the equivalent of a bit part, that showed up once, twice, maybe three times in the picture and was gone.

The central character, of course, was Wallenberg. For Wallenberg, I used two themes, one was his characteristic of being a Swede, of being a European as opposed to, for instance, the two-fistedness of a John Wayne, which made him a somewhat more gentle and more sensitive kind of hero. That’s why, for Wallenberg, I used 3/4 time, both for his own theme and also for the Sweden theme, so it wouldn’t be martial. It wouldn’t be strutting in any sense, which he was not. And then I used his emotional side, that become the love theme with the Baroness, but it was also used when he says farewell to his mother in Sweden. So I have two themes that were closely related for Wallenberg, both as I say, in triple time; the theme for the Swedish hero on one side, and then the private man and, in a psychological sense, his feminine side, his feeling side, his nurturing side, which came out in his relationship with his mother and, of course, mostly with the Baroness.

For the Nazi’s, I wanted to get away, as I mentioned, from the martial, so I put a theme for them in 5/4 time, and I discovered, quite by accident, that the theme itself was also a five-bar theme, which makes it uncanny. You can’t march to it, it’s like you have an extra leg, and that makes it difficult to cope with, which is just what I wanted for the Nazi’s. It’s an unbalancing, unnatural meter, because, after all, our bodies have two arms, two legs, two eyes, two ears, everything that the body is, is in twos; we march, one-two, one-two, so suddenly having one-two one-three, one-two one-three to make up the five meters, in a philosophical sense, sounds contrary to nature, and of course that was the Nazi’s big specialty, running contrary to nature.

I had a theme for the little boy, which was sort of Russian-Jewish-Lithuanian in character, and it became symbolic of the whole Jewish faith. It is introduced in little bits; the first time we hear the theme in its completion is when he is dead, it plays once through and then we’re done with it. Those were the main ingredients, although there were many more themes; there was a theme for the young couple which was a very subordinate theme, mostly because there was no room to use it any more than that; it was a theme of simplicity and a certain naiveté and warmth among all that rubble. There were a total of six major themes, but when I say “major” I mean that they had different ranks but they were themes, as opposed to connecting material that may have been invented as I went along, used once or twice, and then were never heard again.

How closely did you work with the director and producer in scoring the film? What kind of input did they have? 

I’m always a little cautious when the word “input” is used, because it’s a loaded word for me. “Input” implies that unless you put something in the composer from the outside, nothing will come out; at least that is the way I experience it. I don’t like input. I like to see the picture, I like to discuss the director’s ideas on the picture, not his musical ideas, and then I like to put on my thinking cap and just live with the picture and let my creative ideas flow, stimulated by the picture itself. That’s the only input that, to me, is really worth much, not what people say but what the picture does to me. The one specific input that came from Dick Berg, first over the objections from Lamont Johnson and I, though later on we saw what he meant, was the use of voices as an unspoken outcry of the suppressed and oppressed people. That idea was definitely a bit of input from Dick Berg, but he was not specific of what he wanted done with them, he just felt that voices would add something, and from then on it was my decision on how I used them. I used the voices in the most simple way, mostly one sustained note, like a hum that was in the air. It was as if the pain and the suffering of these people lay over the land like a miasma, and that one note, that keeps going and sometimes splits into dissonance and then comes together again, is like the layer of smoke from the crematoriums.

How did the film’s period and locale affect your scoring? 

It didn’t cause any restrictions, because the period is not that far away that I couldn’t use almost the entire gamut of musical invention. There’s very little that has been invented in music that is really new since the 40’s, except the use of synthesizers. (I did use a synthesizer player with a whole bank of synthesizers, but not in order to be electronic, which I thought would be quite wrong for the period, but rather to give me colors which were not available by acoustical instruments. The synthesist and I spent three full days together, I made a list of fifty colors that I simply invented sitting at my desk while putting together ideas, and then we worked together to realize those colors. As it turned out, of the fifty, only about fifteen were really practicable, and of the fifteen I actually used perhaps only ten; there was no chance to use the others. But I came up with all kinds of unusual things, for example, a piccolo-oboe that would be an oboe sound in the piccolo register, a color which I call “corpse”, which is a color like something that is decaying, and you cannot do this with anything but a synthesizer! So I used these colors in conjunction with the acoustical orchestra as part of my pallet of colors.)

In any case, I did score for locale and period a great deal. For instance, the chardash when they are in the restaurant in Budapest, is certainly 30’s and 40’s Hungary; the restaurant music in the cafe in Sweden is certainly the sort of thing you would have heard there; the Wallenberg themes, both of them, have definite Scandinavian harmonic turns in them; the theme for the little boy has definite East European or even Russian melodic and harmonic turns in it; and the Nazi’s theme is quite Germanic, though the harmonic procedures are perhaps more World War II than specifically Germanic.

Were you involved with the few period songs that we used as source music? 

Yes, I was. I helped pick them, as far as those that weren’t already selected or recorded at the time; for instance, Stormy Weather was recorded on location, and the film was made before I’d been engaged, so I’d had nothing to do with that, and Fools Rush In occurred in the dialog so that was de rigueur, as they say in France. But I picked the other songs, and then I wrote a great deal myself, for instance the big waltz number at the reception, and the long fox trot in the club after Stormy Weather, which I wrote for the picture. I certainly recorded all of it except for Stormy Weather, which already existed, and the Hungarian gypsy music in the early parts of the picture, which had been recorded on location when the picture was shot. Incidentally, the whole picture was shot in and around Zagreb, Yugoslavia, except for the opening in the Grove of Remembrance, which was actually shot in Israel.

Any other comments on your experience scoring WALLENBERG? 

I would say that the most important thing was that, again, I had the great luxury that I had on EXODUS, that is I was engaged early. Dick Berg and I came to a definite understanding that I would do the picture early in November [1984], but I did not get any timings or a video cassette until right after Christmas, so I had better than six weeks to sketch musical ideas, to think about the exact combination of the orchestra, to try various things and see how they worked out. For instance I used the basset horn, which is very rarely used nowadays, an instrument that had a great vogue in Mozart’s day, which is halfway between the clarinet and the bass clarinet; I felt the bass clarinet was too glibly colorful and the clarinet was not necessarily the right register. I wanted something that had a melancholy alto sound, and of course the basset horn is perfect for that.

But these things are all very time consuming things, in addition to the simple act of just composing; for instance, I spent almost a week and a half on the Wallenberg theme. If you only have a day or two to get everything together, you cannot spend the thought and the time to keep working on little spots here and there until it’s perfect; so that was a very important thing, the fact that I was not rushed during the composition. I had the luxury of not having to work after dinner every day, I had the luxury of knocking off if I was very tired in the afternoon and letting it go until the next day. Not that I didn’t work hard, it was somewhat over an hour of music that I had to write, but I could work like an artist not like a scared rabbit!

That is the most important thing to me, because things that are written, as they say, under the gun, at least for me, do not produce the best kind of work. Now there are many composers, and I’ve often discussed this with my colleagues, who are procrastinators and when the moment comes that they have to sit down and do it because the deadline is coming, that gives them the necessary incentive and they buckle down and they produce good work. I don’t function that way. I’m a eager beaver and a quick starter, and I go out of the starting gate like a race horse when the bell rings and then I like to gradually taper off and end very calmly and in a relaxed manner so that I approach the recording session with a free mind and not in a state of exhaustion and green around the gills.

The kind of a working relationship that I had on Wallenberg was also very important. I was a part of the team and a creative equal rather than some musical amanuensis who is more or less told precisely what is wanted and fills it in, in a hurried fashion, records it and then boom, next job. I like to take pains. I’m a very severe critic of my own work, and I like to have the luxury of re-writing something two or three times if necessary until it is right and does for the picture what it should. I’m so pleased that you’re going to do this piece about the score, because I’ve had marvelous reports from all over the country, from other publications as well as a measure of fan mail from people about the score.

A Conversation with Ernest Gold

Wed, 24 Jan 2024 10:33:31 GMT

A Conversation with Ernest Gold by Randall D. Larson
Originally published in CinemaScore #10, 1982
Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor and publisher Randall D. Larson

Ernest Gold was born in Vienna, Austria, on July 13, 1921. He began to study music at the age of six and went on to study at the State Academy of Music. When Hitler invaded Austria in 1938, Gold left for the United States, where he worked first as a piano accompanist and later as a songwriter of popular tunes in New York. Eventually he arrived in Hollywood, where he was quickly put to work as a composer for Columbia Pictures in 1945. Gold endured the assembly-line production of numerous B-movies until achieving acclaim with his score for Stanley Kramer’s ON THE BEACH in 1959. The following year, Gold earned world-wide fame as the composer for Otto Preminger’s EXODUS, for which he won the Academy Award for best score, in addition to two Grammy Awards, for best soundtrack album and best song. In addition to composing for the screen, Gold has also served as the musical director for the Santa Barbara Symphony, conducted his own concert music, such as the acclaimed ‘Symphony for Five Instruments’ (1952; recorded in 1973 on Crystal Records S-862), and has contributed to the pages of ‘Opera News’ and ‘Musical Journal’. Gold has also travelled numerous times around the world to conduct his new works.

The following interview was recorded during December 1981 and January 1982. Mr. Gold speaks with a marvelous Austrian accent and, while accustomed to a modern musical orientation, has never lost track of his Viennese musical heritage. I am particularly grateful to Ernest Gold for taking the time to discuss his career at such length. [Addendum: Ernest Gold died on March 17, 1999 at the age of 77].

How did you acquire your interest in music? 

My interest in music is something that was really there almost from my birth. I came from a very musical family. My paternal grandfather was a graduate of the Conservatory in Vienna, an excellent pianist (though he was a civil servant for a living). But he was an excellent pianist and a composer of some very, very good light Viennese type music, marches and waltzes and things like that. I was the first professional, incidentally, in my family, so all the people that I will now discuss, that came before me, were highly accomplished and schooled amateurs such as you find very little these days anymore, where amateurism merely means “not schooled”. These people were all highly educated and schooled, and the reason they didn’t become professional was primarily because they had to make a living and didn’t want to take a chance on the uncertain future of a professional musician.

Now, as I said, my paternal grandfather was an extremely well educated pianist, composer of light music. My father was an accomplished violinist; by the time he was twelve years old he already played the Tchaikovsky violin concerto, and also an excellent composer and pupil of Richard Heuberger, whose operetta, ‘The Opera Ball’, of course, is to this day a very favorite piece. He, again, was also doctor of law, and was an executive rather than a professional musician, though as I say he was highly accomplished. In fact, I received my very, very rudimentary training in music theory when I was young from him. My maternal grandfather was not only the President of the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna (Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien), an organization that had originally been started by Brahms, but he was, again, a fabulous pianist who, in fact, played publicly once a year, within the scope of the concerts given by that Society. He was a composition pupil of Anton Bruckner, and composed all his life. He was more of a serious musician than my paternal grandfather, and a very interesting man. Incidentally, he also had a Ph.D in chemistry, and he made his living as an industrialist; and after he retired he studied medicine, and became an MD just out of Interest, so he had three doctorates – music, chemistry and medicine. My mother was a trained singer; again, she did not practice it but she had taken vocal lessons and also played the piano, although not exceptionally well. So, you see, music was really all around me as a kid, and very naturally, from that background, I decided that I was to become an aviator! (Laughs). My musical interest really only began at the age of twelve, but from then on it really went wild, though I did write a couple of melodies – I shouldn’t say write; I started putting them together on the piano when I was five, and my dad wrote them down for me.

You started appreciating music in motion pictures at an early age, didn’t you? 

I was split about fifty-fifty between going to the movies instead of doing my homework, particularly musicals (and even then I was already quite conversant with the names of people like Max Steiner and so forth), and going to the opera. Between operas and motion pictures my interest in the dramatic application of music was very early. I was totally enchanted by American popular music, and I went to see all the old, great Fred Astaire musicals, the Warner Bros. musicals; and I didn’t just see them once, but I saw them innumerable times, until I could play all the songs, almost with the arrangements that they had, by ear on the piano. That, to me, was the most exciting form of cinematic music.

Also, the scores that the German pictures had were very negligible, usually an extremely small group and very sporadic, but American pictures were scored, of course, in a much richer and a much more impressive way, and that was a big thing for me and I listened to the scores quite consciously.

It has been said that your interest in writing music for films yourself didn’t flourish until critics dubbed your 1943 Piano Concerto as “sounding like movie music”. 

Correction – that Piano Concerto was performed in 1945, in January, and I arrived in Hollywood very soon thereafter, in late June or early July. Anyhow, this is not correct. My interest in writing film music actually was quite early. I was a popular songwriter then and I paid for my studies in New York from the money I made from writing songs. I had a few quite successful ones, and had hoped, somehow, that Hollywood would send for me, in a rather naive way of figuring if you had some hit songs they would immediately send for you and roll out the red carpet. And when I realized that this wasn’t going to happen, I simply took matters in hand. At that time, I had given up the song writing business because I was bored by having everybody tell me how a song should be written – people who may have had practical commercial knowledge but had no sense of music, really. I had kind of outgrown the form as a primary form of musical composition, and so I simply packed up and came out here to try my luck.

The Piano Concerto incident was of course the trigger that actually got me off my butt and out here, but the idea of doing this was quite a long time in coming. I was a professional songwriter roughly from when I arrived in the USA – I came late in ‘38, had my first published number by late ’39, and went through about 1943. Then I stopped – meanwhile I had studied a lot of theory, I studied conducting, and I rediscovered my European roots, too. After I came to the United States all I wanted was popular music; of course, I was a teenager then. But I gradually recaptured my interest in serious music, and with that my interest in writing popular music diminished, and I made a living by teaching music classes in some private schools, and giving some private composition lessons to people, but that was not very exciting, although I did a lot of writing. Then the whole thing came to a head after that incident with my Piano Concerto.

What sort of assignments did you first receive in Hollywood? 

Small ones, naturally. I was very lucky, in that I received my first assignment within two weeks of coming out here, which was partially due to the fact that a lot of pictures were being made, and many of the fellows were in the Service, and composers were really needed. And I was a new face from New York, which carried a certain prestige, had a piano concerto played there which pleased the people here who said it was “like movie music”. Of course, that meant something very good here, whereas in New York it was the kiss of death! As a consequence, it was very quickly that I latched onto something. I didn’t do very many pictures, there were long pauses in between, and they were, of course, very small pictures, but it was very exciting to me because suddenly I was assured of performances, I was paid, much more than I had ever earned giving lessons, and it was altogether a rather intoxicating time, I signed with MCA for representation, and gradually just got going. But I did nothing but small pictures for almost thirteen years before things began to change.

What was your impression of working on assembly-line B-movies in the 40s and 50s? 

There was no impression. A picture was a picture, to me. I used to say that any picture I do, for me, is an A picture. I lavished exactly the same care, I felt exactly the same excitement, and I did everything exactly with the same enthusiasm for the medium in those days that I had later on when I did bigger pictures. It was exciting, it was the Movies, it was composing, it was conducting the score; I’d always felt a picture is a picture is a picture – some are good, some are not good; if it’s too bad, I won’t do it. I just did every picture the best I knew how, trying to do justice to its particular story line, locale and time.

How did you meet the challenge of supplying good music for the films that did not always seem that concerned with aesthetics as with getting it done on time? 

Well, this is a problem that of course has been always a problem in Hollywood; the producer wants something that he feels works for the picture and he wants it on time, although the pressure was not that great in the earlier days. The way it used to work was that you started the score and when you had it pretty well underway, you then set the recording date; now, when my agent calls me the first thing he tells me is the recording date, and then we start talking about everything else, which is not very good. But, it was always a hassle, and I’ve always felt that there is only one person that I really have to please in all of this, and that is me. If the producer is pleased as well, so much the better. I was fortunate that frequently what pleased me pleased the producer or pleased the audience, but you cannot do anything that makes any sense artistically (and that to me has always been the most important thing) by pleasing other people at the expense of yourself. Pleasing other people when you yourself are pleased is great.

So I’ve always written the best music I know how, sometimes working awfully hard and knocking myself out when I could have, with a little less effort, turned something quite decent in, probably, but I wouldn’t have been very happy with it, since my self esteem is very much tied in with what I think of myself as a composer. But it does mean working long hours because usually we haven’t got the luxury to rewrite a piece of music four, five or six times until you feel it is right, or spending as I did once, in fact, literally six hours on two notes! I was never one to feel that time was any consideration. I just worked until I was exhausted and started the next day at four in the morning, if necessary. But there wasn’t ever a cue I turned in that I wasn’t entirely happy with and where I couldn’t say that this is as good a piece of music as I am capable of. Whether it is good in an absolute sense is of course not for me to say, but I have always felt that unless I can satisfy my own demands – and they are pretty high; I expect a great deal of myself – in the sense that at least want to live up to my potential, whatever that may be. So the challenge has simply been trying to make sure that I have enough time. There have been quite a few pictures I’ve turned down because there wasn’t enough time for me to do the type of job that I felt I wanted to do, and I had to give up a lot of money in the process, but time is the one item that was not negotiable. If I can’t do it right, I don’t want to do it.

What sort of musical approach did you take in scoring these B pictures?

 I approached them in exactly the same way as any other picture. If the story in a B picture was a cheap kind of a story, then the picture needed a, quote-unquote, “cheap” score”, because, no matter what the story, the score has to support it. If the picture was silly, then it needed that kind of a score; but there’s no special approach. You take each picture and you try to do justice to what it is.

The only differences are the budgets. If there was a very small budget for the orchestra, I could not have used a large one. I had to use a lot of imagination to get the expression and the effects I wanted from the small group. But it could have been a double A picture with a small music budget, or for artistic reasons I might have decided to use a small orchestral combination, and then the problem would have been the same. So there is really no inherent difference.

What sort of influence did other film composers exert upon your work? 

That is an extremely difficult thing to answer, because you absorb things all the time, naturally, in everything. I’m not always aware of what influence a given composer has, but I would say that I was influenced by the things that excited me, scores of Franz Waxman, some of the work of Bernard Herrmann. In my very young days I was very taken by Max Steiner, whose influence on me, however, by the time I got to score had diminished a good deal, except in TOO MUCH, TOO SOON, where I deliberately wrote the type of score that had a little Steinerish feeling to it, simply because of the type of story it was. It was about the old Hollywood of which Steiner was of course such an important part, and so, again, because of the picture what I did turned out to be somewhat Max Steinerish, although I must say in no sense did I consciously think of Max at the time.

You studied with George Antheil, didn’t you? 

I began studying with him about 1947. I studied for about two years. I met him while I was under contract at Republic Pictures, and he did a picture there and they needed somebody to orchestrate a few cues for him, because the time was running out. The people who were actually doing the orchestrating had their hands full, and I was called in, and he was very impressed with my work. So one day I just called him up and said, “Look, I’m a composer of serious music as well, I’d like to show you what I have.” And I went to his house, he listened to my work and said to me in his inimitable way, “Ernest, you’re full of talent, but you don’t know form…” I can’t remember what he said but he used several four letter words right there! And so I studied with him and we worked on some counterpoint, mostly the large symphonic forms, he was great at that. I orchestrated many of his pictures after that, and I also conducted some of his scores, and we were friends until he died in 1958.

I’ve heard that it was his recommendation that got you the assignment to score Stanley Kramer’s ON THE BEACH? 

Not so. George was in New York doing a television show when Stanley did a picture called THE DEFIANT ONES that needed about five minutes of rock & roll 1950’s style. George couldn’t do that type of work at all, and besides he was busy with the television show. I had talked to Stanley on a number of occasions, and written him some letters too (of course he knew me from working as George’s orchestrator and he was impressed with my work that way), and I always felt myself in a strange position, so I used to say to Stanley or write to him, that while I’m in no way wishing to compete with Antheil, if there was anything that came up that he didn’t want Antheil to do for whatever reason, I would really give my eye teeth to do a picture for him, because Kramer then was the number one producer in Hollywood. So when George was not available I did THE DEFIANT ONES, and Stanley was very impressed with what I did, even though it was so little. The next big picture was ON THE BEACH, which George was supposed to do, and he died of a heart attack before the picture was ready for music. By that time Stanley was ready to give it to me, and that’s how our association started. George did say to Stanley that I was his most talented pupil, but he never directly recommended me for pictures to Kramer because obviously be himself wanted to do them.

You almost turned down ON THE BEACH because Kramer wanted ‘Waltzing Mathilda’ used throughout the score. How did you meet this challenge and utilize the song in an effective way?

 This is true. When Kramer told me he wanted ‘Waltzing Mathilda’ all over the place, I thought: “My God!” I mean, here I have the chance to finally do a big picture after all these years and I’m stuck with a piece of music that I personally detest! And then I said, no, I’m going to make it a challenge, and I’m going to call upon all my skills as a composer by variation, reharmonization, development, every musical device that I was aware of, to use that as a bit of thematic material and confine it essentially to say: “Australia”. I did write a theme, which was a love theme, and I did write themes for various other characters, so that in a sense I demoted ‘Waltzing Mathilda’ to creating local color, but it was right for the picture. It would have been wrong to use it for everything. And that’s how I worked it; in the end I was rather pleased with it because I did really pull things out of that theme that I didn’t know were there, potentially, so it was a great bit of discipline for me, and it worked out to everybody’s satisfaction.

How closely did Stanley Kramer work with you on subsequent films? 

No closer than on anything else. Stanley is not essentially a music person. He has little ear for music but he has a great film sense, and we developed a marvelous modus operandi. Stanley turned the picture over to me, spotted the picture, then the secretary typed out the complete spotting notes and I’d go into Stanley’s office and we’d discuss it. Usually there was nearly total agreement as to where the music should go; I would say that, out of a 45-minute score, if there was some difference of opinion about maybe ten or twenty seconds, that was a lot. Sometimes I felt a certain scene didn’t need music and Stanley felt there ought to be music; of course I would write it because we could always dump it in the dubbing if it proved that I was right and Stanley was wrong. On the other hand, it was good to have in case I was wrong and Stanley was right. But the disagreements were very, very minor.

When we recorded, Stanley would come in and listen to one or two cues, and then go to his office, leaving it to me to finish the recording on my own. I had, virtually, one hundred per cent control over all musical matters because Stanley was one of the people who really know how to delegate responsibility, trusted the people that he worked with. There wasn’t any of this trying to control every phase; he was the opposite of the now-current auteur theory. So it was very easy to work with him and very pleasant, because I was my own master.

IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD is an especially fun score to listen to. What was your approach at providing music for this zany madcap comedy? 

There were two considerations very important to me. One was that, very obviously, a picture of three and a half hours length done in Cinerama and six-track stereo sound couldn’t be properly supported by a small group such as, say, a television comedy would require. So I decided I needed a large orchestra, and I went to Stanley and said I wanted to engage the entire Los Angeles Philharmonic, a hundred and six men, which he actually did, and we recorded the score with the Philharmonic. The soundtrack album, however, had to be done over because there was a conflict of recording commitments between United Artists (who were responsible for the soundtrack album) and the contract that the Philharmonic had (which was with London Records). So we couldn’t use the actual soundtrack but had to do it over again.

I used a somewhat reduced orchestra for that, but it wasn’t greatly reduced. I would say we probably boiled it down to sixty-five – we didn’t need such large string sections, of course, for a record album as we would filling a whole theatre with six-track stereo sound.

The other thing that the music had to do was to provide a measure of continuity. The picture, as you will remember, cut back and forth between the various groups of people, all of them in a mad rush to get to that money that was supposed to be buried near San Diego, and that made the picture choppy. So I decided to write long melodic lines that would kind of be the gluing factor, and to play the different scenes in different ways by the way I treated the melody and by the accompaniments – so that the accompaniment and figurations usually took due note of the different scenes that they were accompanying. But the melody was the unifying factor, as indeed, in a large sense, the theme of the hunt for that money was common to all the various parties involved in that mad car chase. So, again, in a sense, the musical technique mirrored the actual dramatic situation in the picture.

It was a back-breaking job! I’ve never in my life been so tired as I was in that; it took some nine-hundred pages of orchestra score, roughly the same number of notes as was required to write Das Rheingold, and now I know what Wagner must have gone through with his music dramas! Six months of very, very hard work and all I could do was to dream of the day I would lie on the beach somewhere and just soak up the sun and not have to push a pencil and not have to formulate yet another musical idea. It was exhausting but it was great when it was finished. It was a very satisfactory job for me and I got a lot of gratification out of doing it.

Did you collaborate at all with Mack David, who wrote the lyrics for the title song? How did the need for lyrics affect your composing of the title theme? 

Well, there was nothing to it. I wrote the music without any lyrics, and we decided after I had written the tune to give it to Mack David to provide lyrics. I didn’t even know who was going to write the lyrics at the time I wrote the tune. I knew it was going to be a song, and having spent a fair amount of my early life as a songwriter, I knew how to write a song. So I wrote a song melody, which I thought was right for the picture, would work instrumentally, and would also be capable of being sung. We handed him the music, he wrote the lyrics. It was not a collaboration in the sense of working together, it was simply a question of my writing a melody first and he supplying the lyric afterward, which happens quite often. For instance, in THE SECRET OF SANTA VITTORIA, I wrote a purely instrumental number and as an afterthought we decided to have it sung in the main titles. We had an English lyric written, got it re-written in Italian, and then after the orchestra had already recorded the main title, Sergio Franchi came in and overdubbed the vocal line.

Your score for EXODUS was an especially moving composition. Otto Preminger hired you at the start of the film, instead of at the end, as most filmmakers seem to do. What sort of preparation did you accomplish during the filming?

 Tremendous preparation. For one thing, I knew nothing about Israeli music, so when I got to Israel, a man was engaged and took me around to concerts, folk music, nightclubs, rehearsal of the Inbal dancers, for Yemenite music. I studied Arabic music, I made copious notes on the instruments, the harmonic and melodic procedures, and I went to recording sessions of native music. I really steeped myself in it, and it paid off. I had a folder, at the end, and it must have been at least an inch and a half or two inches thick – I think I could have used it for a doctoral dissertation. It was a tremendous amount of work. 

I wrote thirty-three themes. Any character in the picture, any situation I could think of. I just kept writing and writing and writing, and the purpose of this was to really get inside this thing because I knew I wasn’t going to have too much time once the score was demanded for real. So by the time I got through, as I said, I had thirty-three themes, of which I actually used in the picture only six. By way of a funny postscript, the thirty-third theme, which I wrote simply because I had more time and nothing to do, turned out to be the Exodus Theme! It was an afterthought, and it partially consists of some small motives found in other themes – it’s a synthesis, in a sense, of the essence of the thematic material that I had created. I decided to make that into my main theme. Many of the other themes that I never used in the picture of course I have used since, either modified somewhat or as I had originally conceived it, in other pictures as turned out to be suitable.

I got to Israel first around Easter time, in the middle of April. I stayed there until June, then we went to Cyprus for two weeks. And then I arrived In London on the fourth of July, with this tremendous amount of material in sketch form. When I began to get the timings, I finished an hour and a half of music in slightly over four weeks. Now, I didn’t make my own orchestrations; they were made by Gerard Schurmann, a very, very fine young English composer. We’ve become great friends and he’s orchestrated a couple of more things for me, He doesn’t usually orchestrate other people’s music, he does his own pictures; but, of course, he made marvellous orchestrations, and that made my life easier. I did indicate many things, but not everything, and that saved time, It wouldn’t have been possible without this preparation, without a tremendous amount of creative thinking going on first, because I never had to stop and think “well, what am I going to do here, what kind of theme?” I had my entire material ready to go and all I really had to do was to modify it so it would fit the individual scenes.

So this kind of arrangement had very definite advantages? 

Yes. I think any producer who can hire a composer early on is much ahead of the game, because there is no substitute for a gestation period. When you run the picture once or twice and you have to start writing, you haven’t got any preparation. You haven’t got any time, you’ve got to grab the first thing that comes to mind, and that is not the way to do good work.

How closely did you work with Preminger? Did he have any preferences on how you scored the film? 

Again, as with Stanley Kramer, no. He came up to my room a number of times while I was sketching, and while I was composing the music, just to see that I was doing something. I would play him one or two themes – maybe I played him a total of three minutes of music – he was satisfied that I was not goofing off, we talked about a few other things and he left very satisfied. He did not impose any ideas on me at all. At the recording session, however, he kept me on a very short leash, and he made me change a number of things, and I learned a tremendous amount from that experience. At the time I was very unhappy, because I felt that he was kind of butchering up some of the things I had done, but in retrospect I found that his grasp of what music should do dramatically was excellent, and that by following his various dicta I really improved the dramatic support that the music gave to the picture, so I would say at the recording session he made himself felt, but not until then.

There seems to be a combination of traditional Israel and Arab musical styles as well as your own musical ideas. How were these combined during composition and orchestration? 

I used no material that was native, except for the chant of the Muezzin up in the Minaret. What I did do was to take a great deal of care in the designing of the themes to use the scales, the rhythmic bits, the form of articulation, even orchestral sounds which I had to approximate. For instance, there is a strange whining oriental instrument that I couldn’t find any place, so I used a muted violin together with a recorder to create a similar sound. There may have been one or two little songs that the kids sang that were traditional, but the score itself was entirely original.

You scored several documentaries and cartoon shorts in the early 1950s. What were the conditions under which you worked on these assignments, and what sort of musical approaches did you take?

 The conditions under which I did the cartoon shorts were vastly different from those under which I did the documentaries. The documentaries were made by friends, such as THE ARCHITECTURE OF FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT and Curtis Harrington’s two experimental pictures, THE ASSIGNATION and THE PICNIC. The cartoon shorts that I made were done for UPA and were done like any other picture. What I tried to do in the cartoons was not to use the usual wall-to-wall music approach, where the music starts at the beginning of the cartoon and keeps going, but I tried to treat it like a miniature feature. I spotted the picture, I let the music stop, I brought it back in again, I played the scenes – of course you work in a somewhat different way on a cartoon because there you have what is called bar sheets. In the case of GERALD McBOING BOING’S SYMPHONY, actually I wrote the little so called symphony – this miniature composition that should give the feeling of a classical symphony – first, and they animated to the music. So the music was recorded first for that particular piece, which from a composer’s point of view is as close to heaven as you can come!

But usually, you wrote to the picture.

Of course this was in the days before videotapes, so what I had was a very, very detailed description of the music, with exact clicks (cartoons have to be done completely to clicks because the action has to be so precise), and I’d compose the music. But I tried, as I said, not to do it the cartoon way but to try to do it like a miniature feature which I felt was in keeping with the rather unusual (for the time) character of those cartoons.

The documentaries that were done were quite different, I treated those like any other picture, except of course they were done on a shoestring. I believe one of them, the Frank Lloyd Wright thing, was actually recorded at my home. I hired a string quartet, and we did it to the stopwatch because obviously there was no question of projection or a music cutter – there was just no money. And since it was a completely non-commercial feature, I just had four good musicians, it was recorded on a decent portable tape recorder, and then transferred to film and put in the picture.

On the other hand, some of the other things that I did were done in a recording studio and were more professional. But I took care to let the music support the picture and give a feeling. For instance, the Frank Lloyd Wright thing was an architectural picture so there is, of course, nothing emotional that can be done, but still you can add some warmth to it instead of just providing noise on the soundtrack. I remember vaguely that there was a scene in which the living room was demonstrated, with a fire in the fireplace, and so I wrote a little piece that sounded like classical chamber music to go with the image of a cozy living room with a fireplace, giving a sense of people that might relax in front of a fire and turn on the hi-fi and listen to a quiet classical quartet by Haydn or Mozart, something like that. I used a little larger orchestra for that scene.

You’ve said that you dislike scoring for television. Why is this? 

Well, now you’ve got me on my favorite subject! The reason I hate television has many, many reasons. I will take them in no particular order, just as they come to mind. Of course, the first one is money. The composers, regardless of how well-known you are, or how great your credits are, they’re all paid pretty much the same, and at a rate that is perhaps one eighth to one tenth what you would get for the equivalent work in a theatrical motion picture. Having spent a lifetime perfecting my art, I really resent being paid for my efforts, experience and talent, the same that any newcomer doing his first or second television show is paid. This is all part of the machine syndrome. It’s like you’re being put in a sausage machine and chopped up and you come out on the other end as a sausage together with everybody else.

Just to give you a concrete example – and I’m not talking about myself now, but of the profession as a whole – a first-rate composer will get $10,000 to $50,000 for the composition of a motion picture score for a two-hour movie. The same composer will get $5,000 for composing a movie made for television, and he has to contribute the orchestration for that price as well. There hasn’t been an increase in prices in maybe ten years. I wish to God that there weren’t composers around who need the money and who will go it for anything just to get the work because that way we have no bargaining strength.

I’ll make a long story short. I did a picture called THE SMALL MIRACLE, and when I got through I figured that I had $345 to show for the job that tied me up for three weeks. That is less than you get right now for unemployment insurance! Once in a while a producer who really wants a composer might get him $7,500 for a movie-of-the-week, and I think $10,000 is about as much as anybody has ever paid for a movie-of-the-week, which is still only twenty to twenty five percent of what the composer would get for the same amount of work in a theatrical motion picture.

The next thing I hate about television is the rush. I did THE SMALL MIRACLE and the moment I saw it I fell in love with it. It was based on a Paul Gallico story, about St. Francis of Assisi. This was a ninety-minute movie, and they wanted me to write the score in nine days. Nine days from the moment I first saw the picture until I had to be on the recording stage! This is without any preparation, not having read the script, not having seen it before. If I had wanted to spend time thinking about what to do, or designing material, it would have taken up those nine days! Well, I said that I’d love to do the picture, but I cannot and I will not try to do it in nine days. So, lo and behold, they gave me almost fifty percent more time. That means I had thirteen days in which to write the picture! Percentage wise that’s a lot, but it’s still less than two weeks. My usual rule of thumb when I do a theatrical feature is to try to do about ten minutes of finished screen music per work week. Well, you can imagine when you have a total of thirteen days how you’re going to write the complete score! But I loved the thing so much that I said, all right, this time I’ll do it. I’m not going to sleep much for those two weeks, but this is something I’ve got to do. I had one day in which to design all my thematic material, and I was lucky. Every theme I wanted, I happened to hit it right off on the first try and it was right. Now, compare that to the eighteen days I spent on the EXODUS main theme alone, writing pages of revisions, filing, nit-picking, and trying to make it really work right. The time I spent just preparing that theme was more than I had for the whole score for this picture. I also had an orchestrator, which was the reason I ended up with $345, because I had to get help. Orchestrating takes, I would say, two thirds of the time that composing does, usually.

And, last but not least, we get back to money. There is so little money that, first of all, the orchestras are ludicrously small. Most television shows are done with somewhere between ten and twenty men. I remember I wanted to do one thing, which was an outdoorsy action thing; I wanted twenty-nine men and, lo and behold, they gave me the twenty-nine men – once. They had to take it out of the budgets of I don’t know how many other pictures, because the budgets are inflexible. They are set up through what the sponsor pays for these things; I don’t blame the producers. It’s the whole system. There is no question of recouping money at the box office; they get so much money and they have to deliver the goods for that. That’s all there is to It. It’s the whole system of commercial television that causes these conditions.

So you have a very small orchestra, and you have to work at the maximum speed. When I record a motion picture, I do perhaps two and a half minute; maybe if things go well, three minutes per recording hour. Now, a recording hour is actually only fifty minutes because you have to give the musicians ten minutes off the stand each hour. In a motion picture, I record a cue, play it back, listen to the balance, I see whether everything is just the way it should be. On a television show, you must record five minutes of music per hour; otherwise you’re busting the budget again. So you play the first one or two cues back and if that’s fairly decent you just trust the man in the booth. If he gives you the high sign that nothing radically went wrong, you go on to the next cue. There’s no time to listen to it. As a result, sometimes I’ve had very woeful experiences after the orchestra has gone home. I don’t blame the mixer, he’s never heard the music before and doesn’t know what my intentions are. So again there is a tremendous problem in doing a good job.

This all reminds me of the old joke about the young composer going to Richard Strauss and showing him a very poor score and fearing that Strauss would have something bad to say, he said “Master, you don’t know how I sweated over every note, how hard it is for me to write a page of music!” So Strauss looked up in this dry way and said, “If it’s that hard, why do it?” And that is the way I feel about television: why do it? If you have to do it, that’s one thing. If you don’t have to do it, it’s a different business than the motion picture business and I say don’t do it. It’s worse than the old B pictures. It’s a mass production machine that shreds you to pieces. You’re just a cog in a machine, and it is just not for me.

Excuse my verbose answer to the question, but this is a very emotional point for me!

Do you prefer to orchestrate your own scores? 

Yes, yes, definitely yes, a thousand times, Yes! The reasons are two. First of all, I love orchestrating. I love the physical act of sitting at my desk, the music is composed, and articulating it for the orchestra. It is a relaxing and exciting part of composing.

Secondly, I think I’m a very good orchestrator, and with very few exceptions I would say when I orchestrate a piece of music it more fully realizes the sound I want. Two exceptions were Eddie Powell, who orchestrated practically all of MAD WORLD; he was a superb orchestrator, and I would say if there was a disagreement between the way I thought it should go and the way he did it, I gave him the benefit of the doubt because his knowledge and mastery of the orchestra was singular. He really got inside the composer’s head and knew just what to do. That was one, and, as I said, Gerard Schurmann, a marvelous orchestrator and master of the medium.

The only reason that I have somebody else orchestrate is if I feel it is such a hassle in the given time that I would hurt, either myself for not being able to get enough sleep because of the hours required to write the orchestration in addition to the composition, or hurt the score which I wouldn’t do in any sense. I don’t mind getting up at four in the morning and working until eleven o’clock at night, but, especially if it is the kind of score that is slow-to-orchestrate, like a big action picture with thousands of notes and a large orchestra where everybody is doing a lot of things, I will use an orchestrator, but only in extreme cases. By and large, if I find that I have a great preference in orchestrating my own music.

You’ve said that “an artist cannot write relevant motion picture music today unless he is involved in the many other forms of music making outside the motion picture field.” How did you feel your experience outside of films has benefited your composition for the screen?

 In many ways. First of all, writing for the concert stage has given me a command of form – of large forms. Now there’s nothing like the command of large forms to score a motion picture. Because, if you can make the form in itself express what goes on, on the screen, knowing when to write a fugue, when to write a coda, when to write a development section, when to write exposition (for its dramatic meaning, not for abstract musical reasons), you of course then write music which stands up on its own, and has a much bigger impact while at the same time playing the picture. Moreover, if you’re active in many other areas, you have a much larger area of knowledge to draw from. It’s the same if, for instance, somebody is only a screenwriter. That’s one thing, but if he’s also a novelist and a dramatist and God knows what else – if he’s written for the stage and he’s written for the screen, he has a much greater arsenal of tools with which to attack the task at hand and as a consequence it will be a far more effective job.

I also feel that, not so much nowadays but in the old days it used to be that the people at Paramount were interested in what was going on at Twentieth Century Fox, and the people at Columbia were interested in MGM, and it was sort of an inbred family. It was all the same stuff, but over there, they’re doing this, and here we’re doing that; and I went past that, I went to contemporary opera, for ideas, and to symphony, to chamber music, to experimental things. Knowing what others are doing has a stimulating effect on the imagination; it gives you a vastly increased pallet of colors and ideas of articulations and ways to increase a dramatic thing. The more catholic your tastes are, the more you know about the various demands of music in areas. If you can write for the dance, for instance (which I have done, too), that gives you something. You can suddenly do a comedy scene as though it was a ballet, and that’s a much better comedy than just the squeaks and grunts usually done for television comedy. So, I would say that any experience that you have as a person, and certainly within your profession, can only increase the means at your disposal.

How do you go about transferring your initial ideas into a finished and recorded score? 

Well, I’ll have to tell you the little joke about the centipede, who wondered one day how he managed to walk and the moment he thought about it he fell over and wouldn’t move. I’m a little bit in the same position when it comes to scoring a picture. I don’t know how I do it. I guess it’s a gift, to run a scene and to have a musical impulse or reaction to it. The technique, of course, is very cut and dried. You sit in the projection room, you decide where the music goes, you get your timings – I get the picture transferred onto video tape so I can play it here at home – and then I take it scene for scene, and I look at it and ask myself what is the music supposed to do for the picture? Every picture has a basic musical problem. For instance, in some pictures the music is supposed to ride the picture like a jockey, give it pace, give it forward motion; in another picture, you want it to have a unifying effect if the picture is very scattered in the cutting, as MAD WORLD was. In another picture it may be that you have to warm it up; the picture is essentially cold and you have to give the people more feeling and more three-dimensionality so they are not just automatons acting out purely externalized action. And this is different for every picture.

When I get my timings, I watch the scene and I decide on the basic tempo for each cue. A basic pulse that is right – not too fast, not too slow. Now, sometimes of course you will deliberately write music that’s a little faster than the picture, giving the impression that the picture has more pace than it really does, or you want to slow it down if you feel the actors are rushing and they are not giving enough time to let things breathe. Then you write the sketch, with a stopwatch, and then you run the picture again and you read the music. As I read the music with the picture I hear it in my mind as it will actually appear when the music is already dubbed in, and then see what plays and what doesn’t play, and I feel, well, maybe this needs a little bit more emphasis or something more emphatic here, or maybe I should even let the music dropout for a few seconds where I had written something because it will be very effective to have silence and then bring the music back in again, and you get to know each scene intimately. I would say that for a two minute scene, I will sometimes spend three hours running it over and over again until every facial expression and every little innuendo in the voice of the actor becomes apparent to me, and I’ll make notes right on my timing sheets as to where the turning points are, where the reactions are that you cannot see, that are not obvious, so that the music can actually follow the psychological topography of each scene. Or if it’s an action scene, when I will play with the picture and when I will play against it – playing, for instance, something slow and sustained while this furious action is on the picture, which may in certain instances be a more valuable contribution.

By and large, I try to put something in the picture that was not there, rather than duplicate what was there. When it’s all done and I have the particular cue all sketched and the timings are all there and I know exactly where everything will be, and by that time I’ve got a very clear idea also of what the orchestration should be, I’ll either orchestrate it myself or turn it over to the orchestrator. Then it gets copied and I notify the music editor of what aids I need for the recording in the picture, such as streamers or click tracks or a combination – what mechanical aids are necessary in order to synchronize the music with the picture, which is of course run during the recording session.

And that is for the externals. The internals – I cannot really explain why a certain scene makes me feel that a particular form of musical utterance is right and another one is wrong. This is simply my reaction. Why does somebody like spinach and another person hates it, why do some people drink scotch and others drink ginger ale? It’s a question of taste, of association, of personal reactions to certain things. Scoring a picture is a very personal business. I mean, you’re in this thing with everything that’s ever happened to you, with all your personal experiences; with your feelings, your joys and your disappointments. I guess that’s why so few people can really do it, because unless you’re willing to commit yourself and your inner being to do the job at hand, at best it’s going to be wallpaper music.

What’s your view of the current state of film music, what with the resurgence of the symphonic score?

 I’m not too happy about the current state of film music, taken as a whole. The reason is not that the composers suddenly have no talent – the reason is that the producers and directors have become heavy handed (with some exceptions that are notable); they are ignorant, primitive. There is almost like a reverting to the approach to movie scoring that was prevalent when sound first came in – using of records and hodgepodge. You know, you write a score and then they decide to add some other things to it. In other words, the rather cavalier way in which the composer’s work is treated these days leaves much to be desired, in terms of the final result.

I think that John Williams has written some excellent scores; I think that Jerry Goldsmith writes some excellent scores. One of the scores that I consider one of the very finest of recent years in every respect – it is a model of subtlety and of just the right tone for the picture – is Dave Grusin’s score for ON GOLDEN POND. It’s beautiful; I wish I had done it! But there’s an awful lot of bad music, and I think the reason is television. Practically all television music sounds alike, it’s squeaks and groans and electronic effects. It works fine for the junk that is usually on the tube, but it’s not really an art, and motion picture scoring can be an art. But many people in the picture industry have either come from television or that has set their standard, and I think the whole profession has been dragged down to a low that was rather unknown, say, twenty or thirty years ago. And there are very, very few people that really do a great job. I think the resurgence of the symphonic score has been very, very nice; but on the other hand I also find that the composers called upon to do this don’t have the background now, having come either from rock and roll or from some very minor things. You see, I came to Hollywood in the heyday of the symphonic score and as I learned how to deal with a motion picture I had these marvelous people, the examples of Alfred Newman, Franz Waxman, Bernard Herrmann, even Victor Young (whom I didn’t like because he was too sweet for me, but in a way what he did worked). But nowadays, whom have you got? You’ve got to kind of start the world from scratch. So I think, by and large, the current state of film music is not what I would like it to be, but maybe after a while it’ll get better again as a body of work begins to make itself felt which gives people something to shoot at.

Your latest score was for TWO IN THE BUSH. What sort of approach did you take for this film?

 This film made a very, very minor effort to go towards a little more emotion than most action pictures; it’s an action comedy, about a rally taking place in Africa. So, you’ve got a lot of driving, you’ve got the jumping cars, you’ve got some comedy, but there’s also a little love interest. So what I wanted the music to do, aside from supporting the picture in its various exploits, was to warm up the characters, to give a little feeling to them so they’re not just puppets driving cars, but they’re people who are involved personally as well as just in an external venture. So, my music was essentially an attempt to lend a little warmth to a picture which otherwise would have just been a pure action picture. But, of course, you can’t put it in a scene where it wasn’t there; I mean, the love scenes such as they were perhaps came to a total of three or four minutes in the whole picture. But I spent a lot of thought and effort on those. I spent over a week designing a love theme that really would convey a feeling and be right for the characters, because I felt those little rest points from the madcap action would really be important.

What are your current activities in the film music field? 

TWO IN THE BUSH was my last assignment, and at this moment I’m kind of taking it easy. I told my agent that I really don’t want to do any more of these ridiculous action pictures with car crashes and cars jumping through the air which are so prevalent now, and I don’t like real violence either. There are a lot of pictures being made right now that are pretty mindless, they’re either the bloody horror things or they are what I call athletic pictures. I’m a very people oriented composer and I do my best work when I have relationships between people, conflicts within people, feelings to express. These are all dirty words in the picture business right now, and as a consequence there’s a glut of the other type of work being offered, and I just don’t want to do these kinds of things. And since I don’t have to do everything that comes along I’ve given my agent strictest instructions to reject these offers and wait until something comes along that really means something.

How do you musically approach a film that is concerned with characters and relationships, such as THE RUNNER STUMBLES? 

If the film deals with relationships it dealt with feelings, and feelings of course are a great domain of music. So you can write music which has emotion, which moves the audience emotionally, rather than just providing kinetic energy. This is more satisfying, and you can also get inside your characters. You don’t just play what’s on the screen; you can play what’s going on in the characters. But nothing much is going on in the characters if they just race cars and pull guns. There you play an external situation, and I find that it’s more exciting and more gratifying, and musically more effective, to have subject matter for which music is singularly well suited.

You know, it’s interesting that two recent films notable for dealing with conflicts in relationships – KRAMER VS KRAMER and ORDINARY PEOPLE – utilized no original music but classical works instead. What’s your view of this practice?

 I have a one-word answer: dim! Producers always get bright ideas when it comes to music (thus the old joke: everybody has two jobs at the studio, his own and music!), and they say “I want to do something different, how about using records, how about doing this, how about doing that?” They think they do something good for music, but actually they’re putting music back to where it was in the silent days, when indeed nothing but well-known selections were played. I think it is a dreadful practice, I think it hurts the picture. I would never in a million years, if I were a producer, have a classical score except maybe on a very, very special picture where it is really right.

But I wouldn’t use classical music as a score, I think it interferes. If you know the music, it draws more attention to itself than it should because it’s a known work. If you don’t know the music, it doesn’t support the picture because it wasn’t written for the picture. So it really shows a woeful underestimation of what a good score can do, and that comes in part from the fact that so much bad stuff is all around us. Producers and directors, like everybody else, watch television. They hear the kind of junk that television produces, musically, and they say “oh, that’s original music, I don’t want that in a picture!” I don’t blame them.

I’ll give you an example. The picture 2001 was to have had a score by Alex North. Mr. Kubrick in his infinite wisdom refused to show the picture to the composer, and instead gave him one reel and told him to go ahead and write a score without knowing what was going to happen or what the whole meaning of the picture was. Alex wrote a score, Mr. Kubrick said, “No, that’s not what I want,” and proceeded to make the worst pastiche by using records. I found, for instance, the famous scene where the module lands in the mothership, where they played the Blue Danube, to be a textbook case of bad scoring; I think it destroyed the scene. And people said, “Well, he must have meant something, that was some kind of brilliant stroke”. I thought it was pure, unadulterated nonsense – stupidity and arrogance! Somebody once said that there is such a thing as the arrogance of ignorance, and I think that is really what results in these scores from classical works.

I think the classical works are marvelous pieces of music that should be performed as concert works, and I think movie music should be performed as movie music in a movie, and I don’t think the twain should meet except in very, unusual cases, maybe one picture every twenty years would be right. I think that both KRAMER VS KRAMER and ORDINARY PEOPLE would have been more affecting with a fine score (and by fine score, I don’t mean the kind of junk you usually get) by a real composer of which there are many around. But to use Vivaldi or something like this is sheer nonsense, and I am dead against it. I think it puts movie music back, and I think it is a disservice to the director’s own picture.

An Interview with Michel Legrand

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 10:51:00 GMT

An Interview with Michel Legrand by Stéphane Lerouge and Pierre Achard
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.14 / No.56 / 1995
Text reproduced by kind permission of the publisher, Luc van de Ven

In this anniversary year commemorating the first century of cinema, it was urgent for us to pay tribute to one of our most brilliant composers for the screen: Michel Legrand. This year, he is in the spotlight with 3 films announcing his return to the big screen: Robert Altman's PRÊT-À-PORTER, LES ENFANTS DE LUMIÈRES (a film montage celebrating 100 years of French cinema) and a cartoon, SHELM; various reissues and numerous projects on the dynamic Play Time label; and last but not least, a concert of his film music in Seville last October. Michel Legrand is a highly sought-after musician, but he's not always available, so we weren't able to meet up with him. In fact, he had just answered questions from our colleagues in the SACEM journal Notes, which no doubt also explains his lack of motivation to undergo yet another interrogation!

Many thanks to Pierre Achard and Stéphane Lerouge for once again agreeing to have their work published in our journal, and for allowing me to modify it. Certain questions have been removed to lighten the content of this lengthy interview, forcing me to change the form somewhat. In addition, some questions not included in the Notes edition have been reported or expanded upon here, giving this publication an exclusive and unpublished character. - Yves Taillandier.

Did you experience any cinematic shocks during your childhood?
When I was four, my grandmother took me to the movies. I was just beginning to learn the piano and discover music. We saw a film in which Tino Rossi played the role of a composer. I was literally fascinated: he was walking through the cornfields, in the middle of summer, raising his head to the sky, from where sublime music fell to him. Cut! Then we'd see him writing three notes on parchment with a feather. Cut! He would conduct an orchestra and win a triumph. In my little head, I said to myself: "This is exactly the job I want to do! All you have to do is put your ears to the ground, write down three things on a piece of paper, stand up in front of the musicians and that's it! So that day I decided to become a composer. Later, I learned the hard way that composing music was unfortunately a lot more complicated than that!

How did you approach your film career?
It was in the early fifties... I'd just graduated from the Conservatoire. Back then, my calling card was arranger and accompanist. Not as a composer. I made my living playing piano all over the place, accompanying Henri Salvador, Maurice Chevalier and Jacqueline François. I also helped my father Raymond with his orchestrations. He'd often call me at two in the morning: "Hello, Michel? It's a disaster! I'm recording a film score tomorrow at nine o'clock, and I've still got nineteen numbers to write. Come quickly!" I put on a tracksuit to get there as fast as I could! We were really working in a hurry.

One day, in the early hours, with three-quarters of an hour to go, Raymond said to me: "To go faster, I'll write the pages on the left, you write the pages on the right! Tell me which chord you're going to end up with! I replied at random: "Half-finished!" In half an hour, surrounded by an army of copyists, we came up with the credits, which were recorded fifteen minutes later! It was madness! All this work allowed me to start working for the cinema, but without ever knowing the sequences for which the music was intended. I worked for the image without ever seeing it! With Raymond, I collaborated on a whole series of films, including MEURTRES with Fernandel and Marcel Pagnol's MANON DES SOURCES.

In 1958, you scored two feature films: Pierre Chenal's RAFLES SUR LA VILLE and Jack Pinoteau's famous TRIPORTEUR, starring Darry Cowl. Would you say that this was the start of your career as a film composer?
No, I wouldn't say that at all. In my mind, these were one-off jobs, totally incidental. LE TRIPORTEUR, for example, is a film I owe to Darry Cowl's friendship. I'd known him since the early fifties, when we were both piano accompanists. (...) For me, my career as a screen musician really began with L'AMÉRIQUE INSOLITE, François Reichenbach's famous documentary. I had already worked with him on two short films. VISAGES DE PARIS and L'AMÉRICAIN SE DÉTEND. But this was an adventure of a different dimension: François had brought back six hours of astonishingly powerful rushes from the United States. Unfortunately, he couldn't edit them. The basic material was there, but it was impossible to structure it, to give it a framework! People like Frédéric Rossif and Henri Colpi intervened, but without achieving satisfactory results. Things were difficult for me too. Sometimes I'd start writing certain themes, when François would call me up and say: "It's no use continuing, we've just changed the editing again!" We'd go round in circles, wondering if we'd ever find a way out.

How did things turn out?
Finally, François asked Chris Marker to edit the film. And then, after two years of uncertainty, the miracle happened! (...) He gave us a perspective we'd lost by wading through the rushes. His editing solutions enabled the film to take shape, to find a logic, a coherence. I quickly recorded themes, which he then edited into certain sequences, giving them even greater force. In a documentary like L'AMÉRIQUE INSOLITE, music is crucial, as there is almost no voice-over or dialogue. My score took the place of traditional commentary, sometimes taking the side of the image or playing with it with irony and distance. (...) It was 1960, at the height of the French cinema boom. Something new was happening, things were in motion. Many young directors saw the film and asked me to work with them. Thanks to L'AMÉRIQUE INSOLITE, I became one of the official composers of the Nouvelle Vague.

Is this how your collaboration with Jean-Luc Godard began? Under what conditions did it take place?
Yes, he contacted me to suggest UNE FEMME EST UNE FEMME after seeing Reichenbach's film. At the time, Jean-Luc was a revolutionary director who everyone was talking about. He'd just made A BOUT DE SOUFFLE, which had been a film event. Jean-Luc took a staggering liberty from the traditional syntax of the Seventh Art. With his keen intelligence, he was constantly breaking the rules and inventing new things. With me, he was never directive or interventionist. He would give me his ideas about the music he wanted, its spirit, its color, and then let me work freely. After that, he would place it in the film himself. After UNE FEMME EST UNE FEMME, we worked together again on VIVRE SA VIE, BANDE A PART and a sketch for LE PLUS VIEUX MÉTIER DU MONDE...

One day, shortly before my departure for the United States, Jean-Luc called me about a new film. I explained my situation. As he insisted, I finally agreed. We meet. Jean-Luc took out a small crumpled ball of paper from his pocket and carefully unfolded it. I'd like the music to be both fragmented and homogeneous. I suggested a theme and eleven variations. At the first screening, I discovered that he'd only used one variation! What's more, the opening credits on the big black-and-white screen read: "And for the last time in France, music by Michel Legrand"!

You started out as a Nouvelle Vague composer, even though you were also working with Marcel Carné, Gilles Grangier and Yves Allégret at the time... Were your working methods different?
First of all, I think what you're talking about is a bit of a fashion phenomenon. I was a young composer starting out with Reichenbach, Godard and Demy, who undoubtedly symbolized something new and different. As a result, older directors were also keen to work with me. Personally, I was delighted and proud to work with the director of QUAI DES BRUMES and ENFANTS DU PARADIS. Gilles Grangier was also a lovely man, full of humor, with a touch of Parisian titi. Thanks to him, I'm associated with a series of thrillers starring Jean Gabin...

Basically, our working methods were no different. Whether working for Grangier or Godard, I gave my all, trying to work as closely as possible to the film. The only thing that changed was the nature of the music. For Godard, I often wrote themes in the spirit of modern jazz, whereas a Grangier film like LE CAVE SE REBIFFE called for suburban waltzes. In any case, moving from one universe to another is a highly formative exercise. A film musician has to be able to adapt to all situations and all cinematographic aesthetics. He must be a man of all cultures. In this sense, the diversity of these collaborations has enriched me a great deal, opening up very eclectic musical horizons.

Your work with Jacques Demy on LOLA, LA BAIE DES ANGES, LES PARAPLUIES DE CHERBOURG and LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT seems inseparable from the French cinema of the Sixties and the New Wave...
Jacques is one of the finest professional and human encounters of my life. And yet, at the outset, we weren't meant to work together. It was chance, omnipresent in his films, that brought us together. For his first feature film, LOLA, Jacques had chosen to have Quincy Jones write the music. Quincy was delighted, and even came to Nantes for the shoot, before rushing back to the States, never to be heard from again and, above all, without having composed anything! This was rather annoying, because in one sequence, Anouk Aimée was supposed to sing a song: as the music didn't exist, Anouk recited the lyrics like a poem. Following Quincy's withdrawal, Jacques began looking for a new composer. He liked L'AMÉRIQUE INSOLITE and contacted me. I watched the film, which was shot entirely silent, for budgetary reasons. Jacques would stand next to me and speak the dialogue, taking turns playing all the characters. I found it intriguing, thinking to myself: Here are these strange people who one day do the image and the next day the sound! The film was beautiful, poetic, with a particular atmosphere due to the black-and-white cinemascope and overexposed lighting... Jacques' whole universe was already in LOLA... So we started working together. The hardest part, of course, was the song. At first sight, it seemed impossible! I had to compose it, adapting my writing to Anouk Aimée's rhythm and lip movements. For the recording, Jacqueline Danno doubled Anouk. We spent a whole afternoon just for a minute and a half of music! We weren't afraid of this kind of feat, as we were beginners full of energy and enthusiasm.

How did you come up with the concept for Les PARAPLUIES DE CHERBOURG? Was it a personal approach to opera?
No, it wasn't really about making an opera. Jacques wanted to conceive a great musical film in which singing entirely replaces the spoken word. But we wanted the film to be close to everyday life, to have a realistic dimension. So we had to avoid the operatic side and excessive lyricism. The idea was to have a singing tempo as close as possible to the spoken word, with the same expectations and precipitations as in everyday language. In the end, the film is on the borderline between spoken and sung, somewhere in between. For it to lean towards singing, we had to use direct voices that would match the text and the music, that would sing with great simplicity... I went through a lot of trial and error before arriving at the desired style. My first attempts were too deep, too symphonic. Months went by and I just couldn't find it. It all clicked with the jewelry store sequence: "We're in a difficult situation, Geneviève is great and helps me all she can...". From there, everything went very fast. It was like a spool of thread: I'd found the end, now all I had to do was pull!

In 1967, you left France for the United States. What motivated this choice?
I'd had enough of Paris and the New Wave. I'd been working with the same directors for eight years. Rightly or wrongly, I felt I'd come to the end of something. It was a phenomenon of saturation! I wanted to see new faces, get a change of oxygen. An American friend suggested I compose the music for a little comedy, BAGUE AU DOIGT, CORDE AU COU, starring Dean Martin. For me, it was the perfect opportunity to leave France. With my wife and two sons, I flew to Los Angeles, where I had rented a house. In fact, the risk was enormous: I was leaving France just after the success of Les DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT, and arriving in Hollywood with a one-off commitment, on a film that wasn't very important, for which I was barely paid. I was a bit carefree, saying to myself: "We'll see what happens! It was a kind of challenge, a gamble with myself. After BAGUE AU DOIGT, I went on to make another small film. PRETTY POLLY (THE SINGAPORE HEIRESS). Fortunately, my luck has come with Norman Jewison's THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR.

How did you react when you saw the first images of the film?
The first cut of THOMAS CROWN was a crushing blow: it was five hours long! Right away, Norman Jewison and his wonderful editor, Hal Ashby (later director), tried to reassure me: "Don't worry! We've still got two months to work on the edit! From that first screening, I understood that the crux of the plot - Thomas Crown's burglaries - took fifteen minutes. And that everything else - in other words, the love story between Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway - could last five minutes or eight hours!

I thought about it and made the following proposal to Norman and Hal: "Stop editing the film altogether and take a six-week vacation! During that time, without ever seeing another frame, I'll write an hour and a half of music. Then, if you like, we'll edit the pictures to the music together! This method of working must have seemed extravagant to them, but they accepted it, with the agreement of the producers at United Artists. So I composed the entire score for THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR based on my memories of the five-hour screening. The film had given me certain impressions that I tried to convey in the music. Instead of small timings adapted to the action, I wrote "lengths" that could become the backbone of the story. At the recording session, Norman Jewison and Hal Ashby were like madmen: they discovered the music and exclaimed, "Look, this theme will fit perfectly with the seduction sequence, this one with the first heist...".

The three of us then spent two whole months editing. It was like a giant jigsaw puzzle: we had fun building, undoing, improving and refining. Little by little, we got closer to the final solution. The shape of the film was entirely organized around the music! I didn't have to re-record anything! THE TMOMAS CROWN AFFAIR was a great success, and impressed audiences with its lively, sophisticated tone and experimental, multiple-screen mosaics. My Hollywood career was launched.

The film is also remembered for its song, "The Windmills of your Mind", which has become a veritable standard...
It has to be said that, at the time, there was a fashion for songs in American films. At the Oscars, in addition to "Best Motion Picture Score", there was another category called "Best Motion Picture Song". By including a song from their films, producers gave them an extra chance of winning an Oscar (...) When Norman Jewison and I decided to include a song in THOMAS CROWN, I spoke to my friend Quincy Jones. He introduced me to a couple of young songwriters: Alan and Marilyn Bergman, who had just written him the lyrics to a film song, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT. We became instant friends. Our first song, "The Windmills of Your Mind", sung by Rex's son Noël Harrison, won THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR an Oscar in 1968. With French lyrics by Eddy Mamay, it became "Les Moulins de Mon Cœur", one of the pillars of my repertoire.

Were you able to orchestrate your own scores?
Yes, but I had to resist! Because in the Hollywood system, all tasks are extremely compartmentalized, including the music. In general, composers write a piano part, which they then entrust to an orchestrator. As early as my first American film, I was asked: "Which orchestrator would you like to work with? " When I replied that I orchestrated myself, people looked at me as if I'd landed from another planet! For me, orchestration is an integral part of composition. There's no need to ask whose arrangements are Mozart's, Brahms' or Ravel's, because the answer is so obvious! When I orchestrate, I often make the composition evolve, I make changes, I transform. That's why I refused to adopt the American method. What's more, at the time, all films were orchestrated by the same three arrangers, which led to a terrible impression of uniformity... I was a French composer, and I had to preserve my particularity, my flavor, my identity, not fit into the Hollywood mold. Today, things have deteriorated even further: if you read the record sleeves, you'll see that there's a first orchestrator for the strings, a second for the brass, a third for the rhythm... The result is technically perfect, but soulless.

What was it like working with such Hollywood veterans as John Sturges, André de Toth and Richard Brooks?
It was great, because I found myself in front of directors who were very sure of their craft, with a great sense of image and movement. For example, John Sturges' ICE STATION ZEBRA was the first time I'd worked on a major action film, produced with enormous resources by MGM. The film's finale was apocalyptic: we witnessed the arrival of the Red Army, with submarines and parachutes raining down everywhere. Composing for this type of production was a bit of a recreation. I was jubilant, getting into the game of a cinema that, as a child, had made me dream. After Godard and Varda, I felt I was working on a different scale!

On an American production, do you discuss music with the director or the producer? Who's in charge of the film?
Every time, I had to deal with the director. Of course, the producer was never far away. But whatever happens, people like Norman Jewison, Robert Mulligan or Sydney Pollack are very good at imposing their ideas. That's who I was talking to about music. This is a positive consequence of the New Wave. When American directors saw the freedom of expression enjoyed by their French counterparts in the 1960s, they became somewhat emancipated.

Why, after two and a half years working in Hollywood, did you decide to return to France?
Edith Piaf once said to me: "If you go to the United States, don't live there. Otherwise, you'll lose your talent!" After living there for a few months, I realized she was right. You die slowly, you wither away, your personality gradually disappears. And you can't fight it! When you first arrive, you're enthusiastic and full of ideas. Then, little by little, as you come into contact with American society and its money-oriented mentality, you become like everyone else. As soon as I sensed the danger, I thought of Piaf and preferred to go home. But that didn't stop me from continuing to make American films, moving over there from time to time. The first few months of my return to France, in 1970, I was reunited with Jacques Demy for PEAU D'ANE and Jean-Paul Rappeneau for LES MARIÉS DE L'AN II...

What do you remember about working with Jean-Paul Rappeneau?
For three films, Jean-Paul and I were true accomplices. Jean-Paul's cinema is mischievous, sparkling and infinitely meticulous. That's why he makes so few films. We met on his first feature film, LA VIE DE CHÂTEAU, a true American-style comedy, and our collaboration continued with LES MARIÉS DE L'AN II and LE SAUVAGE. In LES MARIÉS, Jean-Paul Belmondo was asked to sing a hymn to the Revolution. I had him rehearse for two hours, but I couldn't get him to hit a single note. A real catastrophe! We had to give up trying to get him to sing... What amused me were the fight sequences, where I tried to transform the actors into dancers. When you watch the film again, you realize that the movement of the music follows the rhythm of the editing and the actors' movements within the frame in a choreographed way.

How did you come to write THE GO-BETWEEN’s famous Suite for Two Pianos and Chamber Orchestra for Losey?
When Losey showed me the film, I was blown away. Behind the very elegant staging, there was a serious, cruel dimension linked to the viewpoint of a child discovering the world of adults... I wanted to write a brilliant score, inspired by the Baroque, but with a completely modern orchestration. But then Losey played me a syrupy slow song, with tenor sax and strings, and said: "That's what I want! " I jumped in horror and tried to dissuade him: "No, Joe, you'll spoil it! If you ask me for this kind of music, I'm not making your movie! Let me think!" He finally agreed.

Two weeks later, I told him about my idea for a baroque soundtrack. He reluctantly agreed: "Give it a try, we'll see!" Then came the recording in London. No sooner had I begun the first bars of the theme than he started shouting: "You can stop now! This isn't right at all! This is not the mood of the film!" I stood my ground and recorded the music in its entirety. Joe was pacing back and forth in the studio, biting his fingers. At the end of the recording, I said to him: "You don't like this music. Be so kind as to put it on the film. If it doesn't fit at all, I'll start again...".

Days went by, then weeks, then months, without any news from Losey. Seven months later, I was told that THE GO-BETWEEN was going to Cannes. Without knowing whether my music had been kept, I learned one evening that it had been awarded the Palme d'Or! The next day, a telegram from Losey: "Thank you Michel. Your music helped us win this award". So he let me stew for months without reassuring me, without telling me that my music worked well with his images. This is a typical example of a collaboration with Losey where, before arriving at a happy result, we had to go through conflicts and uncertainties.

How would you define the spirit of the music in THE GO-BETWEEN?
I wanted a score with grace and, at the same time, dramatic overtones. From the outset, the four-note motif sets a mood of gravity. The film's action takes place in 1900, but the baroque color takes us back a few centuries to show that the aristocracy has not moved one iota: it still lives by the same values, the same conventions. The music, I believe, accentuates the universal dimension of the subject. In 1979, I recorded a Suite for CBS. It's a work in its own right, existing outside the film. Because film music has to be pure music. In my opinion, the criterion for quality music is this: you take away the image, and if the music holds up, it has a value of its own. If it doesn't, it's not music. Most of the time, when the image is gone, there's nothing left.

A few months after THE GO-BETWEEN, you wrote the score for SUMMER OF '42, another tale of childhood and learning...
Basically, SUMMER OF '42 is a film I shouldn't have made. The producers had chosen an American composer whose work they didn't like in the end. So they called me in urgently. I arrived in Los Angeles and saw the film on a Friday. It seduced me with its modesty and delicacy of feeling. At the end of the screening, I stayed several minutes without being able to speak... Probably because of this diffuse charm, this nostalgia for adolescence, vacations, the seaside, first loves... I was very happy to work on a film that touched me so much. Robert Mulligan, the director, said to me: "Michel, the music has to be ready next Wednesday. Because we're mixing on Thursday. You've got five days left to compose and record! " On the face of it, it was a challenge!

In fact, nothing was that simple. I went home and started writing straight away. The film had given me a tremendous emotion, and I immediately found the musical equivalent. My pen glided over the staff... In general, I like to create in a hurry. When you're in a hurry, everything comes together very quickly, you're still under the immediate effect of the film. On the other hand, when you have time, you reflect, you think, you find your first ideas too obvious, too instinctive. You try to improve them and, in the end, you distort them. In the end, you drown in your own bath! Personally, when I don't have time to look, I find! Being in danger - or having to work fast - is a very stimulating constraint for creativity. If I'd had a month to compose the music for SUMMER OF '42, it would probably have been more banal, less spontaneous.

THE HUNTER starring Steve McQueen has 2 musical scores, one by you and one by Charles Bernstein. What went wrong?
When I first saw the film, I thought it was necessary to avoid the use of jazz with, for example, bongos in the chase sequences. I really didn't want to fall into that trap. After some thought, I proposed to the director, Buzz Kulik, the idea of a baroque score with trumpets in B flat. He accepted enthusiastically! The fugues and canons worked beautifully in the chase scenes through the city streets, while adding an unusual and original color. It was so unexpected that the producer rejected the music. For him, it wasn't traditional enough and, no doubt, too European in sensibility! After lengthy legal battles, I managed to get my music retained for the film's release, but only in the United States. As for the rest of the world, Charles Bernstein was chosen to compose another score.

You had the opportunity to write the music for a James Bond film. NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN. How did you manage to distinguish yourself from John Barry's work?
The adventure of NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN began in London, where I had just finished recording with Barbra Streisand for YENTL. Once again, it was a film with a long and exciting journey, from which I was really exhausted. Then Sean Connery called me. I knew him a little bit, and we got to know each other very quickly. He said to me: "I've chosen you to write the music for my new film. Would you be willing to take part? " "Yes, but what's it about?" He replied, "A new James Bond film!" I was surprised and happy: I was going to be able to add a Bond film to my filmography! What helped me with NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN was the film's deliberate distancing, constantly verging on self-parody. I could come up with an unconventional score because the film itself was different from other James Bond films. In general, their music tends to be string-based, with somewhat troubled atmospheres. I decided to work in a different direction, composing a more rhythmic score based on percussion and brass. I also got my trumpeter friend Herb Alpert and his wife, Lani Hall, to join me on the title track, with lyrics by the Bergmans. For me, NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN was a fun and playful experience... Because life is terribly fun if you get the chance to explore very different worlds. (...)

What state of mind are you in when you first see the film?
I try to remain a child, to react like a spectator. The film speaks to me, sings to me, makes me jump or bores me to tears. In any case, it triggers feelings in me. Then, as a second step, I ask myself what the musical needs are. For me, the most important thing is never to look at it as a technician from the very first screening. At this stage, it's vital to react with emotions and not with composer's automatisms.

Did you work in this way with Robert Altman, for whom you've just composed the music for PRÊT-À-PORTER?
Yes, first I let myself be carried away by the plot, in which an incredible number of characters come together. Then I spoke to Altman, who is the least directive director I know. He said to me: "I'm not a musician, I don't know anything about musical problems!" I asked him, "But what do you want in your film?" Answer: "I want you to have fun!" He gave me the confidence to compose freely. We didn't even see him at the recording! I was reassured when I learned that he didn't give the actors any instructions either! For the opening credits of PRÊT-À-PORTER, I wrote a surprising theme with a jazz flute in the middle of a classical orchestra; it fits in well with the sophistication of fashion circles and with Altman's offbeat, gritty outlook. Besides, I've always loved orchestral formulas that are a little unusual. What the Americans call "safe" music bores me. If you want conventional, unsurprising music, don't call me! I like adventure, iconoclastic finds, like the association of a bassoon and a big-band for Paul Mazursky's film THE PICKLE. This kind of ambition has led me to take risks and to be refused scores by certain directors. You have to live dangerously!

On which films did you encounter this situation?
On LE CERCLE ROUGE. Jean-Pierre Melville let me write the music. After the recording, he said to me: "No, it doesn't fit at all. I should have been close to you, writing every bar together...". The bottom line is that Melville would have liked to have been able to compose the music for his work himself... Often, being refused a score means that you have taken a risk in the interests of the film, to give it added value. And then you're faced with an overcautious and incomprehensible audience who won't accept your approach. Too bad! I had the same experience with Richard Lester's ROBIN AND MARIAN. The film's script had bowled me over, revealing an aging, disillusioned Robin Hood, full of tenderness. It was an original, nostalgic look at a myth. When I saw the film, I was dismayed: despite the performances of Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn, the grace had disappeared. To help the film as best I could, I tried, through the music, to recapture all the emotion I'd felt when reading the script. Based on the idea of the Robin Hood/Marianne couple, I composed a double concerto for violin, cello and two string orchestras. It's one of the most beautiful scores I've ever written! Lester also loved it, to the point of declaring to me: "If I put your music on my pictures, my film no longer exists! You can't see anything, neither the action nor the characters...". I tried to convince him otherwise. We didn't understand each other. And he preferred to call in John Barry. Twenty years later, my double concerto still exists, it's still there. In fact, I'd like to rework the arrangement so that I can record it for the record and play it in concert.

How do you analyze this communication problem between composer and director?
I think some directors often expect a strictly functional, neutral score with no particular personality. But for my part, I write music that speaks, that sings, that lives. I don't know any other way. I can't see myself composing while trying to be as anonymous as possible! As a result, I've had a few minor disagreements with directors who don't appreciate overly expressive music. They feared that the themes would interfere with the image, distracting the viewer's attention! On the contrary, with ROBIN AND MARIAN, I remain convinced that the score gave the plot its original emotional force and sparkle. In short, when a film is unfinished, music can help to strengthen and improve it. Conversely, bad music can't kill something cinematically strong. I'm thinking, for example, of certain Pagnol films where you hear a kind of musical continuum that's totally inept. Whatever happens, it never destroys the poetry of the text, situations or staging.

Tell us about your experience with the music for LES ENFANTS DE LUMIÈRE, and how did you approach the subject?
LES ENFANTS DE LUMIÈRE is a very moving montage about one hundred years of French cinema. Pierre Philippe conceived it from film extracts, editing them to thematic music I had previously recorded: Le Paris des Décorateurs, Les Couples Célèbres, L'Histoire de France... In fact, the ideal solution would have been for all the great composers, living and dead, to get together and write the film's music, sharing the sheet music: "Here, Kosma, such and such an extract is for you; here, Auric, such and such a sequence suits you perfectly...".

Since this idea is obviously not feasible, it makes my job all the more difficult: I have to be all these composers at once! For example, in the theme of Paris des Décorateurs, with its cheeky, nostalgic accordion, I tried to slip in all the musical emotions that the populist waltzes of Maurice Jaubert or Georges Van Parys gave me, inseparable from the image of a mythical Paris, fabricated from scratch by the Seventh Art. That said, while I do wink at these musicians, I'm not trying to pastich them. On the contrary, if we call on a composer of today, it's to get his or her take on the past. As LES ENFANTS DE LUMIÈRE covers a century of cinema, it was necessary to write music that was timeless and out of fashion. Music that didn't belong to any specific era, that was as much from 1895 as from 2095. This contingency turned out to be extremely stimulating, giving rise to ideas I wouldn't have thought of beforehand. In any case, in art, freedom only exists through constraint. The more limited you are, the freer you are!

Today, we've only been talking about your work in images. We know that you're also a singer, songwriter and jazz musician... Do you consider these activities to be parallel careers?
No, they're not really careers. Because if I'd been a careerist, my path would have been different. For me, having a career is a political choice. I know musicians with a careerist mindset: they live the life of a politician, where every decision is carefully calculated, where there are no gratuitous or disinterested acts. Their existence is like a curve, with a starting point, an evolution and an ending point. In such cases, the career resembles a prison, reflecting the vanity of power. I, on the other hand, am motivated by life and by music in all its richness and diversity. That's why I've never stopped at a single discipline. I'm fascinated by the idea of giving a trio concert one day and a big orchestra concert the next, or recording with Stéphane Grappelli, Charles Aznavour or Jessé Norman. In any case, the main thing is to always remain a beginner. One of the most beautiful moments in life is when you're discovering and learning. When you become too skilled, your spontaneity disappears and you're no longer afraid of anything. I hope never to become what is coldly called a "great professional". Throughout my career, I've wanted to diversify my musical pleasures and remain an eternal beginner, without ever thinking in terms of a "career". As Stravinsky said: "We insomniacs are always looking for a fresh place on the pillow". For forty years now, I've been constantly searching for that famous spot!

Hugo Friedhofer - Fact Sheet

Thu, 18 Jan 2024 10:42:07 GMT

Birth

Hugo Wilhelm Friedhofer in San Francisco, California, 3 May 1901

Death

In Hollywood, California, 17 May 1981 (aged 80), following complications from an accidental fall, at St. Vincent's Hospital, Los Angeles, CA

Family Backround

Paternal grandfather Paul Wilhelm Friedhofer (1836-1909) Born Spiegelberg, Rems-Murr-Kries, Baden- Württemberg, Germany

Paternal grandmother Elizabetha B. Schrödelseckler (1840-1921) Born Mannheim, Germany Died San Francisco

Father Paul Mathias Friedhofer (1872-1927) Born California; Died Los Angeles in an automobile accident

Mother Eva Augusta Johanna König (1873-1963) Born Dresden, Germany; Died San Francisco

Wife Elizabeth H. Barrett (1896-1982) Marriage Napa March 13, 1923; Divorce c1943

Second Wife Virginia Ann Koechig (1912-1994) Marriage California July 2, 1943; Dissolution L.A. March 1973

Daughter Erica Friedhofer née Essman (1924-1955) Born Alameda; Died Los Angeles of Leukemia

Daughter Karyl M. Friedhofer née Gilland-Tonge (1929-2004) Born San Francisco; Died Cupertino

Half-Sister Louise Charlotte Friedhofer (1917-1997) Born San Francisco; Died Los Angeles

Education

Polytechnic High School San Francisco (dropped out c1917)

Mark Hopkins Institute San Francisco (attended night school art class)

Studied privately in San Francisco with Willem Dehé (cello) and Domenico Brescia (harmony, counterpoint and composition). Also mentored during 1920s by poet, playwright, and newspaper editor Roy Harrison Danforth. Attended classes later in life with Arnold Schoenberg, Ernst Toch, Nadia Boulanger, Ernest Kanitz (see below).

Career Highlights

1919-22 Plays cello in chamber recitals throughout San Francisco, e.g. Sorosis Club Hall.

c1921-28 Cellist in various theatre orchestras: Royal on Polk Street, Haight Street, Castro, and Granada theatres. Also stage band arranger under Andrea Setaro, Maurice Lawrence, and George Lipshultz.

1922-24 Cellist in San Francisco People’s Symphony Orchestra founded and conducted by Alexander Saslavsky. Venues include Bohemian Grove summer camp.

1927 Awarded Cadman Creative Club prize in Los Angeles for violin composition.

1929 Invited by George Lipschultz to join William Fox Studios in Hollywood during July. First assignment film musical Sunny Side Up.

1929-34 Produces over 200 incidental pieces of mood music and collaborates on 92 Fox film scores alongside Arthur Kay, Samuel Kaylin, ‘Rex’ Bassett, Peter Brunelli, Louis De Francesco, et. al.

1934 Released from Fox during August following merger with Twentieth Century studios. Becomes freelance composer.

1935-46 Invited by Leo Forbstein to join Warner’s music staff. Orchestrates for Erich Wolfgang Korngold (17 scores, first score Captain Blood), and for Max Steiner (63 scores total, starting with The Charge of the Light Brigade).

1935-37 Studies with Ernst Toch.

1936 Ghost-writer for Alfred Newman e.g. nocturnal chase in Beloved Enemy. Loaned out to Columbia along with Max Steiner to work on Tiomkin’s Lost Horizon score.

1938 First screen credit “Orchestral arrangements” for Korngold’s The Adventures of Robin Hood. Following a recommendation by Alfred Newman, assigned complete score for Sam Goldwyn’s production The Adventures of Marco Polo, first screen credit as composer.

1944 Pupil of Nadia Boulanger in Santa Monica.

1946 Academy Award for best score, Sam Goldwyn’s The Best Years of Our Lives.

1952-54 Takes refresher course in counterpoint with Dr. Ernest Kanitz at USC.

1953 Debut television movie The Backbone of America (NBC).

1954-56 Arguably Hugo’ most productive period due to “an upsurge in creative assurance”: Vera Cruz, White Feather, Violent Saturday, Soldier of Fortune, Seven Cities of Gold, The Rains of Ranchipur, The Revolt of Mamie Stover, The Harder They Fall, Between Heaven and Hell.

1958 Hollywood Foreign Press Golden Globe Award for “Bettering the standard of motion picture music by consistently fine scores over the past twenty-five years.” Academy Award Cues compilation: The Lights of Paris, The Young Lions, The Sun Also Rises, The Rains of Ranchipur, Boy on a Dolphin.

1960 Television series debut: scores two one hour pilots for NBC series The Blue and the Gray (retitled The Americans) and Outlaws (34 episodes before bowing out). [Marlon Brandos’ One-Eyed Jacks was planned and originally shot for TV at this time. Seven hours footage was cut to two for the film’s general release in 1961.]

1973 Wind quintet premiered during January. [Other chamber works composed include: Trio for bass clarinet, alto sax and flute; Sonata-fantasia for unaccompanied cello; and a song cycle to words by James Joyce.] Gives lessons in composition and orchestration to a “handful of pupils”.

1974 American Film Institute / Louis B. Mayer Foundation Oral History interview March 13 – April 29 by Irene Kahn Atkins (transcript 510 pages). Penultimate score A Walk in the Forest (documentary for Macmillan Lumber Company filmed in British Columbia).

1976 Final film score The Companion (aka Die Sister, Die! ) completed 30 June (film released in 1978). During August writes LP liner notes for re-issue of Paul Hindemith early chamber music by Herschel Burke Gilbert’s recording company.

Awards

1945 Nominated to Academy Award for Best Original Music Score - The Woman in the Window

1945 National Film Music Council Award - Bandit of Sherwood Forest

1946 Academy Award for Best Original Music Score - The Best Years of Our Lives

1947 Nominated to Academy Award for Best Original Music Score - The Bishop's Wife

1948 Nominated to Academy Award for Best Original Music Score - Joan of Arc

1951 Venice Film Festival Award for Ace in the Hole

1953 Nominated to Academy Award for Best Original Music Score - Above and Beyond

1956 Nominated to Academy Award for Best Original Music Score - Between Heaven and Hell

1957 Nominated to Golden Globe Special Achievement Award

1957 Nominated to Academy Award for Best Original Music Score - An Affair to Remember

1957 Nominated to Academy Award for Best Original Music Score - Boy on a Dolphin

1957 Exhibitor’s “Top Five Award” - An Affair to Remember

1958 Nominated to Academy Award for Best Original Music Score - The Young Lions

Memorial Service

Composer David Raksin delivered Friedhofer's eulogy. The memorial service was attended by, among others, Fred Steiner, Miklos Rozsa, Elmer Bernstein, Bronislau Kaper, Frank Comstock, Arthur Morton, Herbert Spencer, Leonard Rosenman, Ernest Gold, Albert Sendry, Jack Elliot and Al Woodbury.

Bibliography

1947 Frederick W. Sternfeld - Music and the Feature Films - The Musical Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 4

1954 Louis Applebaum - The Best Years of Our Lives • Film Music Notes, vol. 8, no. 3

1965 Tony Thomas - The Kind of Composer to Whom Other Composers Turn • Films in Review, vol. 16, no. 8

1975 Gene Lees - Hugo Friedhofer Scores as Dean of Movie Composers • Los Angeles Times

1985 Leslie Zador, Greg Rose - Hugo Friedhofer Interview • The Cue Sheet, vol. 2, no.3

1992 Tony Thomas - Film Score: The Art and Craft of Movie Music • Riverwood Press ISBN 1880756013

1999 William Darby, Jack DuBois - American Film Music • McFarland Publishing ISBN 0786407530

2002 Linda Danly - Hugo Friedhofer: The Best Years of His Life • Scarecrow Press ISBN 0-8108-4478-8

Hugo Friedhofer Papers

Music manuscripts for motion picture and television scores that Friedhofer orchestrated or composed during his career in Hollywood. Also includes his correspondence with family and friends, photographs, and manuscripts of his compositions for orchestra • L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.

The Subject is Film Music

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 09:22:41 GMT

David Raksin  conducting the music for LAURA

Composer, writer and host of his own KUSC program, The Subject is Film Music , in the 1970s 

Recordings courtesy of the Raksin Estate

David Raksin, the Oscar-nominated composer of LAURA, THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL and dozens of other film and television scores, was writer and host of his own KUSC program in Los Angeles, The Subject is Film Music , in the 1970s. It included tribute shows to Korngold, Steiner, Newman… who were then gone, but had live hour interviews with those Raksin could round up including Rozsa, Fielding, Friedhofer, Kaper, Mancini, Bernstein etc. Raksin would introduce the show and the guest and then they would usually go over a chronology of the composer’s work, stopping occasionally to play a music cue illustrating the work in question. The music usually came from the limited LP soundtrack examples for each or, in some cases, Charles Gerhardt’s RCA series.

A Colchester Symphony

Thu, 11 Jan 2024 10:18:47 GMT

Label: Colchester Institute
Catalogue No: CBC CD 001

Release Date: 1995

Total Duration: 66:30

UPN: 5030142000014
The Colchester Institute Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christopher Phelps

Bristol born John Scott has built an enviable reputation for himself as a composer of dramatic and evocative scores for documentaries (as well as feature films), such as the Cousteau adventures, so it is appropriate that he was commissioned to write this celebration of Britain's oldest recorded town.

The Colchester Symphony , at 66:30 minutes duration is huge and sprawling; and, it has to be said, of uneven inspiration. Bold, exciting material is let down by more ponderous elements. Try as I may, in the absence of really memorable themes, I sometimes found my attention wandering particularly in 16 minute first movement - or first tableau as the CD booklet calls it - the work is divided into five tableaux each with its own title and programme.

Tableau one entitled “Before Camulodunum” suggests the area of Colchester at the dawn of history: softly focussed and distant heraldic fanfares evoking “primordial elements drifting in the ether” and then more substantial symphonic material developing as the land forms. A sonorous celli theme is announced which is to become the motif for Colchester and from which the whole work will develop and proceed. For the first ten minutes or so we have music that represents the early dawn of civilisation and it strongly reminded me of the first movement, “Danses of des Temps primitifs” from Tournemire's Symphony No.7, “Les Danses de la Vie” dealing with very similar subject matter. The music proceeds slowly and ponderously and might have benefited from some judicious editing; but at about 10:00 the rhythms grow increasingly urgent; there are softly touched cymbal strokes as if one hears the breath of some stirring beast, saxophone wailings, percussion beats, winding woodwinds, slithering strings, and then slight syncopations and faintly exotically Arabic inflections - all adding interest and colour as the mysticism of the Druids is invoked.

Tableau two is called, “The Romans” and it is much more arresting. It is a powerful alla marcia statement - a Respighi-like sound-portrait of advancing, mighty Roman legions. Proud and confident brass fanfares call out across the sound stage and their colour is enhanced by very authentic-sounding musical phrases evoking Latin and exotic cultures. Quieter passages suggest Celtic resignation and the verdant landscapes around the town, before an impressive fugal section evokes the building of the Roman temple.

Tableau three represents the uprising and temporary victory of Boudica against Roman tyranny. The music harks back to some of the material in the opening movement to portray the less sophisticated rebel army drawn together by the fiery female warrior. As her forces gather the music swirls around like some swelling cloud of angry bees until at the hight of their rage they are released to on their prey. After the climax of the conflict the music decrescendos to mourn Boudica's many casualties.

The fourth tableaux takes us forward to the Civil War with Colchester in a state of siege with Roundheads encircling the town and forcing depravation on the Royalists within its walls. Desolate tonalities comment on the hardship of the citizens. Martial music underscores armed conflict and then there is poignancy for the deaths of the Royalists who are handed over to the Roundheads as the price of the safety of the majority.

The final movement, “Celebration”, is a portrait of modern Colchester. The music has all the sweep and pomp that goes with great civic pride. It is joyful and breezy, and both the everyday hurry and bustle of the town, and the contrasting serenity of its leafy green spaces and quieter paths are evoked. An attractive, Romantic, broad-flowing melody is introduced which builds up to an imposing and sustained climax which is rather let down by an anti-climactic and rather perfunctory ending after earlier material is briefly recapitulated.

An interesting if flawed work enthusiastically performed by the Colchester players.

King Kong Lives

Thu, 11 Jan 2024 10:06:47 GMT

Label: MCA Records
Catalogue No: 254 672-1

Release Date: 1986

Total Duration: 46:15

UPN: 0-2292-54672-1-8

The best thing about this film is that it should give its predecessor, the shamefully underrated 1976 remake, a better reputation by comparison. There are just 2 more things going for it: eye-popping (if unbelievable) special effects and John Scott’s incredibly lush score.

John Barry’s KING KONG score has become one of my very favorites over the years, easily surpassing the Max Steiner original for atmospheric romance and sheer listen-ability (I find Steiner’s a great score but a tedious album); I was first disappointed, then amused, to learn that Scott was stepping in for him. My amusement sprang from the fact that, with TROG, THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT, GREYSTOKE, YOR and – almost – CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR to his credit, Scott was already the uncrowned king of the noble-savage movie. For him, KING KONG LIVES amounts to typecasting.

And this score shows he is typecast for a reason. The proud-beast theme explodes to life in the first seconds of ‘Prelude’, as Kong makes his last stand on the World Trade Center, then calming down and becoming the ‘Main Titles’, a beautiful string version of the same theme. It is variations on the loud and soft arrangements of this theme that comprise most of the score, yet one never tires of hearing it. My favorite soft manifestation opens ‘Back to Life’, a somewhat touching moment as Kong’s artificial heart is activated and he detects the nearby presence of Lady Kong. Of course his heart is won from afar, and Scott’s music, rustling and sweetly forlorn, lends Carlo Rambaldi’s terrific ape masks that extra credibility the dumb script takes away. Soon enough ‘Kong Meets Lady Kong’.

Probably the most dazzling scene. Scott introduces a version of his icy military theme here, which is heard at its brassiest in ‘Leap into the Rapids’, trying to shout down Kong’s theme at its most gargantuan. ‘Alligator Swamp’ is a respite from all the noise, Kong’s theme on horn paced by a rolling string rhythm as the ape king scarfs amphibians. By this time the film is getting sillier and sillier, though Scott’s totally convicted scoring suspends a good degree of disbelief. ‘Honeymoon Ridge’ has the Kong theme officially doubling as a love theme; Scott’s music lends this scene of poignant romance genuine feeling, and the moment is recalled briefly in the middle of the action-packed ‘Lady Kong Gets Gassed’: borne away by helicopter-drawn nets, she roars to him, he turns, and the love theme softly resurfaces on resigned winds. At such moments a film of incredible vulgarity aspires suddenly to the poetic, and Scott’s liner notes credit director John Guillermin with this; the director wanted Scott to stress the romantic aspects of the movie in the music.

Scott believes the apotheosis of the romantic theme is ‘Kong’s Final Battle’, but while this is the theme at its proudest and most massive, I think the best of the grand arrangements is the first half of ‘Revenge on the Hunters’. which has a powerful rhythm. The score’s most reflective music comprises the second half, winds and strings brooding and distant as Kong’s human allies mope that the ape has gone homicidal.

I’d about had it with the film by this time, and in some ways the six-minute ‘Birth of Baby Kong and Death of Kong’ piece feels as if Scott had too, for he is unable to work up miracle-of-birth conviction in the same way he did for the romantic scenes earlier. ‘Return to Borneo and End Credits’ finds the composer back in form, though, with a particularly lovely burst of chords slightly recalling THE BLUE LAGOON, as the surviving members of the clan settle down in the jungle.

Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol. 6 / No. 22 / 1987

Ruby

Thu, 11 Jan 2024 09:57:54 GMT

Label: Intrada
Catalogue No: MAF 7026D

Release Date: 1992

Total Duration: 47:19

UPN: 720258702623

On the heels of Oliver Stone’s JFK comes this intriguing account, seen through the eyes of Jack Ruby, whose complete involvement in the assassination has never been clearly understood but who seemed to play a major part in it. John Scott’s score is a brilliant one, contrasting small jazz ensemble with a lovely symphonic melody which captures a contradictory innocence that belies the message of the film.

“Main Title” opens with mysterious, dark and brooding piano tinkering over low string chords, moving in and out of the ambience and later on embellished by brass and an eerie high-string wailing. It’s a striking musical depiction of corruption and conspiratorial evil. From this introduction emerges the Main Theme, first heard from solo trumpet – a solitary and stark jazz arrangement – and then in a full symphonic arrangement. The melody is grandly symphonic, almost majestic, and its sense of joy and innocence seems almost out of place in such a dark-hued film; it becomes a counterpoint to the introductory mysterious theme and the jazz renditions, which support the darker, conspiratorial tonality of the film. As it’s developed, the main theme will often be overwhelmed by these motifs and other rhythmic figures, as if Scott is showing us the innocence of Jack Ruby as it is tantalized. tempted and finally overwhelmed by the thrust of irreversible circumstances into which he has allowed himself to become immersed.

“Ruby Meets Candy” features a likeable rhythmic motif for pounding drums beneath saxophone, the musical color is intriguing and effective; the motif is later is given more melodic depth through woodwinds. “Telephone Trixie” is a catchy jazz melody, nicely arranged and played. “The Hanging” features a jazzy version of the Main Theme amidst dark suspense tonalities, while “Cuba” makes use of a brief bossa-nova-like variant on the Main Theme in the midst of the mystery theme. A new, 7-note rhythmic figure is introduced in “Never Go Back” and reprised in “Later Hank” which seems to further illustrate the idea of circumstances out of control – Scott’s use of rhythm in this score provides an effective, subliminal sense of despair even in the midst of his prettier melodies – seeing the story from hindsight, as we do, we understand how events will be played out and how irrevocable is the fate of many of the characters. Scott’s music supports this idea very well.

The score’s mix of small jazz ensemble with large symphony orchestra is also effective and allows Scott to comment on the interior motivations of the characters (mystery/jazz themes) as well as support the bigger picture (Main Theme). “Pre-Assassination” comprises a furtive suspense motif culminating with a harsh stroke of brass and cymbal which seems to finalize the events that are about to transpire as if a book were closed in heaven and the outcome of those events were already written. “Ruby Kills Oswald” continues to support this idea of irreversible “fate” with a claustrophobic miasma of thick orchestration. The Main Theme emerges briefly in its midst but is quickly overcome by the power of the rhythm… and only sounds again at the cue’s end, and there for solo trumpet over strings, sounding much like an epitaph.

With its mixture of jazz and symphonic orchestral colorations, and its brilliant contrast of melody with rhythm, innocence with evil, control with irrevocable destiny, Scott’s music for RUBY is one of the year’s best scores and has been superbly preserved on this digital recording from Intrada.

The Final Countdown

Thu, 11 Jan 2024 09:51:43 GMT

Label: JOS Records
Catalogue No: JSCD 129

Release Date: 2002

Total Duration: 53:36

UPN: 0712187088725

It’s time to dump that Tarantula bootleg recording of John Scott’s masterful and magnificent score to THE FINAL COUNTDOWN – we finally have a splendid and legitimate recording of the complete score, produced on Scott’s own label. This compelling 1980 film told the thrilling and compelling story about a modern-day nuclear aircraft carrier that, through the happenstance of a freak time-warp storm, is thrust back to 1941 on the eve of the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor. The score was Scott’s first major Hollywood assignment. Scott’s music is brassy and rich, constructed around a stalwart main theme performed mostly by the brass section. It’s thunderously heroic and full of militaristic pageantry though it never becomes clichéd or petty (a neat woodwind and string variation is heard in “The USS Nimitz on route;” the cue eventually opens up into a terrific rendition of the main theme). With 23 cues versus the original LP’s 15, the music is thrilling in its drive and power.

“Shake Up The Zeros,” “Splash Two,” and “General Quarters,” are magnificent action cues, pulsating and exhilarating, heroic and patriotic. To accompany the time warp storm, Scott provides an electronic-acoustic effect, percussive and progressive, with frantic swirlings of violins, piercing trills of woodwind, sharp pulses of brass, and frequent intonations of the main theme from woodwind or brass. A neat love theme is created for the James Farentino and Katharine Ross characters, a very pretty melody for flute and oboe, tender and poignant. First heard in the track, “Laurel and Owen,” the theme opens up nicely for strings in “On The Beach.” In the concluding track, “Mr. And Mrs. Tideman,” when we meet the couple again in the film’s ironic denouement, the love theme is given a curious edge through electronic instrumentation that refers to the fantastical nature of this union of present and past personalities.

All instant and all-time favorite score, Scott’s music from THE FINAL COUNTDOWN has waited too long to appear on digital format in its complete glory, and this CD is a very, very welcome release (now if only the film would find release on DVD!). The CD is accompanied by an 8-page booklet with a detailed recollection of the score’s creation by John Scott.

Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.21 / No.82 / 2002

An Interview with John Scott

Wed, 10 Jan 2024 13:04:45 GMT

An Interview with John Scott by Rudy Koppl 

Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.16/No.63/1997 

Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

No matter how large or small the film is, if it has music by John Scott, it becomes monumental. From a time trip on an aircraft carrier (FINAL COUNTDOWN) and the ancient days of Rome (ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA), to the jungles of Tarzan (GREYSTOKE) and Mowgli (THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK) to the Canadian wilderness (FAR FROM HOME: THE ADVENTURES OF YELLOW DOG) and the world’s oceans (numerous Cousteau documentaries and ABC’s 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA), his inspiration is endless. John Scott has penned over fifty-five film scores in his lifetime, and plenty of television documentaries and TV movies. Today he still writes, orchestrates, and conducts all of his film scores. Since last December he’s composed for 3 films, 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movie), MILL ON THE FLOSS (British TV movie), and THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK (released last summer in theaters). This interview was finished in June, just before he left for a holiday in France. When John was over there, Jacques Cousteau died and was buried there at the same time. Cousteau was instrumental in helping John develop his skills as a film composer and I know he will always be indebted to him for that. To sing John Scott’s praises is easy for me, but I think his music speaks for itself. What you are about to read are the views of an English gentleman and his take on an industry that’s turned upside down in thirty-seven years.

Do you have any idea on how many scores you’ve done? 

I’ve never counted. I was a late starter and a playing musician up till very late. I played for all the film composers including John Barry and Henry Mancini. It was in a sense much too late that I really decided to start writing for films. And everyone knew me as a player; they think you can’t do two things well. If you are a good player you can’t be a good writer. I started actually writing for films at the end of ‘65, having played on all the James Bond movies and things like that.

What instruments did you play? 

Saxophone, flute, and clarinet.

Did you have the ability to write when you were a player? 

I never put myself to the test because I was a professional musician. When I decided I was really serious about writing, I had to stop playing and spent time studying. It took about a year doing various exercises, talking music from the compositional point of view rather than the playing point of view.

What was your first film score? 

A film called A STUDY IN TERROR, about Sherlock Holmes, and I think it was 1965. An American company shot this in England with English actors.

Don’t you find it unusual today that you orchestrate as well as compose your film scores? 

No. I consider orchestration equally a part of composing. I’m very serious about my music. It’s not a business to me. I hope it never does become a business, but if it was a business and if I was doing 8 or 10 films a year possibly I would have to resort to an orchestrator. But when you look at all the serious composers throughout the history of music, I’m talking about serious composers’; tell me one that used an orchestrator? Handel, Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Mahler, Stravinsky, Bartok, who used an orchestrator? Nobody.

Isn’t the amount of work to compose and orchestrate a score overwhelming?

 It depends on the way you think about music. When I conceive music in my head I hear the full sound. Why shouldn’t I write it down as I hear it? There are certain composers that hear just part of it. They hear the melody line and then give it to an orchestrator. It’s very typical and prevalent in the business now that through the advent of computers, MIDI, and synthesizers people are composing through their fingers. Their fingers onto the keyboard, out through MIDI into a computer. This is notated by the computer and then is given over to someone else to straighten out, to make sense of, and then to orchestrate. In other words, these people are not hearing orchestration. They’re hearing at best a melody and rhythm. A mood let’s say. To me, orchestration is a part of the music. It’s one of the most important ingredients of the music.

How do you feel being one of the few who write, orchestrate, and conduct their own scores today? 

There are certain composers I know, whether they use orchestrators or not, who do it all. I’m talking about people like Bruce Broughton and John Williams. These composers do exactly what I do. I don’t think that I’m unique. Most film composers have to conduct their own music. Incidentally that does not make him into a conductor. But a composer like Bernard Herrmann completely scored all his films. Why? Because he felt the same as me, he heard it as he conceived it in his head. And the other thing is that Bernard Herrmann’s scores and sound stand out from everybody else’s. He’s very much copied. He’s an original, the copies are not originals, but he is.

Is there any orchestra you worked with that stood out among the others?

 I hear a lot of film composers criticizing orchestras and saying this orchestra is great or this orchestra is not so great. That might be true, but there isn’t that much difference because professional musicians have all earned their places in those orchestras. When it comes to film music, it is basically much easier to perform than a lot of orchestral repertoire. If they can play Stravinsky and Bartok, they can certainly play film music with their eyes closed because it doesn’t make those kinds of demands. The orchestras that I’ve worked with here (in the USA) have been wonderful. Absolutely wonderful! The orchestras I’ve worked with in England have been wonderful. They are different, but different doesn’t mean better. You compare one novel with another, they’re different. You can say this orchestra has a great string section or a great brass section, but all in all I think that I’m seldom dissatisfied with the orchestras that I work with. And having been a player I also feel much more of a rapport between the orchestra and myself. I’m in their place. I have played for stupid conductors and I know that when I stand up in front of an orchestra that I’ve never met before, everyone is waiting to see how I work. You know, they test you.

 I can also remember working with the London Symphony Orchestra and at the time André Previn was their principal conductor. The producer of the film was Steve Previn, his brother. It was a film called HENNESSY. Steve said, “I’m going to take you to meet André and he will tell you about the orchestra”. André said the orchestra will test you out and if you can make it you’ll be all right, if not – forget it. He sent the fear of God up me. I got there with the orchestra, we started and it was just wonderful! Everybody in most orchestras is really so cooperative. I also conducted in Germany the RSO Berlin Symphony Orchestra, a really fine orchestra and I don’t speak the greatest German. I can remember being scrutinized by everyone. You get up on the podium and everyone is looking at you. They are sizing you up and you have to break through that. Also I was in Seattle recently and once again a similar situation occurred. You stand up there in front of the orchestra and you break through. Then everything is great after that point.

How did you get the job to score THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK? 

Paul Talkinton, my business manager, put me in touch with the people making JUNGLE BOOK last spring. I met the director Duncan McLachlan and he said, “We’d like you to do the picture. Here’s the script, take it home and read it,” which I did but didn’t hear anymore about it. I went back to England and got on with my work, 20,000 LEAGUES and all that. Then they called and said. “We want you to do the picture, like can you do it straight away.” Of course I was doing something else. As soon as I was clear I got on a plane and came over and met them all again. That is the way I did THE JUNGLE BOOK.

Which orchestra did you use for THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK?

 It was basically The Seattle Symphony, but I don’t know whether we will use their name because it was an outside contractor that contracted the orchestra, basically drawn from The Seattle Symphony. We did four sessions with 85 players and two sessions with 67. Six sessions in all.

Can you explain the development of your themes in this film? 

There are probably three or four themes here. Let me explain my working methods. I try for an overall theme and then sub-themes for various characters or situations. In the case of THE JUNGLE BOOK here is my overall theme which is a feeling of certain aspects of India, the jungle, etc. And then there are sub-themes for Mowgli the main character, the bear Baloo, the wolves – he was brought up by the wolves of course, and in this case he befriends this little monkey called Timo, so Timo has a theme as well. In all my films it’s generally restricted to a main theme and sub-themes that come in. But they are always treated according to the dramatic situation in the film at the time. So if we’re talking about Mowgli, there’s a playful theme for him that’s heard very early on when nothing has really happened in the film. Then this thing takes on other shapes, for instance he finds himself on this train and he’s kidnapped, someone wants to catch him and take him back as a wild boy to the Barnum & Bailey Circus. When all these things go on, his theme turns into excitement, adventure at times, comedy, according to the situation. But I really wanted the theme of THE JUNGLE BOOK to have nobility and a sense of India. I really wanted to use the Sitar as featured instrument as I did in a film quite a while ago called THE LONG DUEL, which was set in India. We had so little time and financial resources. They were pleading with me to cut my orchestra down because they didn’t have the money in the budget. I stuck to it. I did it in basically six sessions, it should have been ten. We did no overtime whatsoever. But when it came to the luxury of an instrument like a Sitar, which is very specialized and you pay a specialist’s fee, and then it was out of the question. In this score there are some classical or traditional pieces fused into the music.

Could you explain what those score were? 

They were there generally for some comical music. I use a little bit of ‘Scheherazade’ in one place where the owner of the monkeys is in this big chase on top of a train. It’s absolutely ridiculous and it becomes so farcical. I decided to use this little bit of ‘Scheherazade’ that everybody knows. I thought it would add to the fun and confusion of the thing. And later on there’s a scene where this old soldier, who has made himself king of this derelict lost city, is talking to Mowgli about being his successor and there’s various things glorious like war. I use a little bit of Wagner’s ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’, which has been used in APOCALYPSE NOW. There’s a little bit of ‘Orpheus in the Underworld’ when the person who’s captured Mowgli is talking about taking him back to America and how he’s going to be a star appearing in front of all these people. Then I play the Can Can which is typical of the music played in circuses. Also ‘Rule Britannia’ because he’s an English soldier. The idea was implanted in my head and I found it fun to incorporate it into some of the chaos here.

Do you feel this might be one of your most complete scores representing many styles up to this point? 

When you write music for film you’re serving the needs of the film. I think it should be within the compass of a film composer to be familiar with various musical styles. You’re called upon for all kinds of music. One moment you’re doing thriller. The next moment you’re doing a war film, a sports film, a love film, they’re all different and require different things. They even require different kinds of orchestras, jazz, pop, hard rock, symphonic, string quartets, piano solos, everything. The knowledge of it all is very much required. It so happens I was a jazz musician, so I feel I can write for big bands, jazz groups, pop groups, and symphonic things.

What kind of orchestra did you use for 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA? 

This was recorded in England and it was the Philharmonia Orchestra. That’s quite interesting because the Philharmonia is one of the great orchestras in the world; it’s one of the orchestras that has a film history. For instance I think that most film music collectors know SCOTT OF THE ANTARCTIC, the music was written by Vaughan Williams. And this music became his Sinfonia Antarctica. The Philharmonia was the orchestra that recorded it. My largest orchestra here was 65 pieces, but this is basically a television film. I mean that’s large forces. We also recorded it in four sessions and it’s a two hour film.

How many themes did you use here? 

There was the generic theme which was really about the Nautilus, this incredible submarine. The theme has a sense of mystery; it’s all about Nemo and his underwater world. There was a theme for the love interest between Sophie and Ned Land. Then Capt. Nemo had his own theme, a little bit introspective. There was also a theme for the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, which was the ship that he went to war against. So, four themes.

Explain the deep stirring and surging string-like theme at the opening of the film? 

This is a story about a naval captain who’s condemned to roam the oceans aboard his boat, a kind of ghost ship, forever and ever and ever until he’s redeemed by the love of a woman who’s prepared to give her life for him. I saw Nemo as wandering the ocean, a type of underwater Flying Dutchman. During that theme there was a descending arpeggio with flute and percussion.

What did you identify this with? 

That was an idea that came from the feeling of the Nautilus submarine. You know, the sonar kind of rebounding. I know they didn’t have sonar in those days, but I saw it as a kind of submarine motif. You hear this thing and you think of below the waters.

Was it my imagination that I perceived bit of Strauss or 2001 – A Space Odyssey here? 

That’s part of it. Zarathustra and all the rest of it. But taking place below, not above.

Do you feel your music portrays the drama here?

 It definitely does and (on the album) will be released in sequence as it was written for the film. I think that you can follow the story through, so it must portray the drama. I’ve made one little deviation and that’s why I start with the second piece rather than the first piece. I felt that this was a better way of entertaining a listener. The first piece of music is the titles. It’s the very mysterious underwater world of the Nautilus and Capt. Nemo. Then starts the second piece which is these people aboard a cruise ship, late 19th Century or early 20th Century. So it’s a little bit of a change, but it’s saying these are people on board a cruise ship, excitement at sea and all the rest of it. Then come the titles and now we’re into the mystery of 20.000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. This fires the imagination. We don’t know what’s under the sea. When we go for a swim there could be a great big creature getting ready to bite off our legs. I’m sure you’ve had that feeling out in the ocean when you’re swimming about. So this second piece conjures up the feeling of the mystery underneath the surface of the ocean.

When you composed this were the special effects finished? 

No. You’re writing along the same time the film is being made, especially one which depends on special effects. So the only time I saw the film completed, was when it was aired on television. You’re using your mind, rather than responding to a visual image. After I finished recording the music they were still working on it. They worked out how long these periods occupied in the film, but they still had not come back from the special effects house. There was no budget for any kind of changes. You get one shot. Everyone is allowed to edit, re-edit, shoot, re-shoot, and the composer goes in and gets one shot.

How do you incorporate the synthesizer in your film scores?

 I incorporate it in my scores as a sound that is complementary to the orchestra or a sound I cannot get from the orchestra.

Who was the vocalist on the beautiful piece ‘Over Atlantis’? 

She’s a very fine singer who specializes in early music, like madrigals and motets and things like that. She came and did it as a favor for me. This was recorded live with the orchestra. However, if I had looked at the film and been inspired by what I saw, probably I would have written nothing. You have to use your imagination. You think this Nautilus is supposed to be sailing over Atlantis. I read the script all the time I’m writing. Mt. Atlantis is still pouring out lava, like it did when Atlantis was ruined. They’re now sailing over it and it’s so hot, The Nautilus dare not linger here. I could see pictures of this city, thinking how it was and how it is now. This inspired me to write this particular piece of music.

How do you consistently come up with beautiful pieces like this in your scores? 

I pray to God!

One of your more romantic pieces here is ‘A Proposal of Marriage’…

 It takes place on the deck of the Nautilus. They have just left the area of Mt. Atlantis and they’ve come up on the surface. Nemo and the girl are taking in the air. It’s a very romantic night with stars out. He is going to propose to her, but she rejects him. The picture is peaceful and romantic and in total contrast to the destroyed city of Atlantis. Nemo’s theme is a development of that Strauss-like theme, as you call it. It develops into that, but it can take on different forms. He’s an introvert, a very complicated person with many facets. So that theme also changes according to his facets. In the case of this one, it’s now highly romantic because he’s discovered the person he wants to make his wife. This is exactly the same music when we first see him on board introducing himself across the table, but now this piece of music is highly mysterious, almost to the extent of being devious. Very deep, low, and introvert. The same thing, but different ways.

When you write a film score, do you get ideas from other places than the film? 

For me, writing music for a film is a struggle. It’s a tremendous struggle. It’s tiring, when I start on a new project. Invariably I feel that I can’t write. I have to go and reassure myself by listening to something I’ve written in the past and think, “Yes I can write, but it’s not happening now.” It’s a struggle to drag every note out. It amazes me when I come to it afterwards that it sounds easy. It sounds as if it all flowed, but it doesn’t, it’s got to be dragged out. Do external circumstances influence me? No. The thing that influences me is the struggle to drag something out.

Why are you using the oboe quite a bit in 20,000 LEAGUES and THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK?

 This has been remarked before. It might be that the oboe draws attention to itself when it’s used. Whenever I find myself over-doing something, I try and stay away from it. When I did the music for FAR FROM HOME: THE ADVENTURES OF YELLOW DOG, I felt that lover-used the harp. So the next couple of scores I never used a harp in order to bring myself down. Now there are other devices that I feel I’m over-using, so I’ve got to leave them out of scores. And it could well be that now I’ve got to leave the oboe out of a couple of scores.

Do you feel your score of 20,000 LEAGUES captured the spirit of Jules Verne?

 After I finish a piece of music I can’t listen to it, I can’t be the judge, I’ve done my best. I’ve probably failed, but I’m too close to it to sit back and say that’s great or that’s not good or whatever. Now that a good couple of months have passed, I’ve actually listened to it again. And as a work I feel that it stands up very well. As far as complementing the film, as far as being a great piece of film music in film, I still can’t answer you. It satisfies me as music, there’s a difference. This is the second Jules Verne film I’ve done. The first one was in England called ROCKET TO THE MOON. It was a great thrill to write. It’s a score that I’m satisfied with to this day. I said somewhere I’d give my eye-tooth to write the score for 20,000 LEAGUES. It was thrilling to think that I had the chance to write the music for 20,000 LEAGUES. That is fulfilling for me.

What scores have you composed since 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA?

 I recorded 20,000 LEAGUES in the beginning of December ‘96. That was followed by MILL ON THE FLOSS. This is a very famous English novel written by George Elliot. She was one of the first feminists who built this around the role of a woman in her time. This is like mid-19th century, 1850 or 1860. MILL ON THE FLOSS is a two hour film made in conjunction with the BBC in England and it will come out as a feature film in certain territories. It’s a little bit like ENCHANTED APRIL, if you remember that one.

After that I did a Thomas Hardy story. He is another English novelist and we recorded that right at the beginning of the year in Slovenia. I think it is due for a summer release on the big screen. Then there was THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK. (When Jacques Cousteau died last July, we asked John whether he’d score any more films for the Cousteau Society) I am currently working on LAKE BAIKAL – BENEATH THE MIRROR, a documentary about the largest lake on the planet, in Northern Russia. They had already selected ‘library music’ and that was the way it would have been transmitted. I am glad that they are giving me the opportunity to show my appreciation and write the score. I will use a medium-sized orchestra and write it purely for the film, so it won’t be sentimental, but I will issue it on CD as a tribute and possibly include a specially written piece in the shape of a memorial.

It would be ideal for me to write one or two films a year. I’d be happy if they were good films, but I think the A-list composers are writing absolutely continuously. You know, 8, 12, 14 pictures a year.

What do you think of film scoring today?

 I think there will always be good composers coming up. The genre will carry on. Having said that, I think there are troubles. I acquired my knowledge for writing music for films through documentaries. First of all I had Jacques Cousteau, who was just wonderful, who was one of my greatest teachers. He allowed me to write, and he encouraged me to write and they provided me with orchestras to work with. That seems to have gone now. The area of documentaries which is dominated by the Discovery Channel, you hear what’s happening on those? Everything is synthesized. There’s no budget anymore for music. Also there’s fault to be laid with the producers and directors, because they are of the opinion that a synthesized score can be heard immediately. They hear how it complements the film. They can ask for changes that can be accommodated on the spot.

And that’s where music rests nowadays, in the synthesizer and in MIDI. This takes away the demand for compositional skill and orchestration skill, because even though one is using synthesizer and sampled sounds, there are not too many instrumental orchestral sounds that are convincing. What it does do is take away from the demand for a composer to gain more knowledge of scoring and orchestrating. To me orchestration is composition. When a composer is content to delegate that part to someone else, quite often of lesser skill than the composer, then things are in trouble. Documentaries gave me the chance to learn, experiment, and write. Nowadays the budgets are miserable, because people think synthesizers are serving them well. A composer didn’t have to jump in the deep end; he could try in the shallow end and develop skills. Where does one go nowadays? It’s straight in the deep end.

What direction is your record company JOS going in? 

JOS can only put out things that are not snapped up by the majors. The success of JOS depends on the support of people who buy through mail order, people that like my music, which means they are true film music buffs, and they will accept my music even though it’s not tied to some major success. I’m very proud of NORTH STAR, but the film itself went nowhere. There was another score written and it didn’t rescue the film. I save the music because no one’s going to see the film and it’s something I’m very proud of. But where will that take JOS as a company? It’s a kind of indulgence, because a lot of these things that I put out would just be locked up and no one would ever hear them.

Funny enough, we’re selling out at last of a couple of CDs. So we either have to print up again or take the risk of having a thousand CDs in our garage. I just sold the last of ‘John Scott’s Favorite Film Themes’. So that will become sought after. We ran out of CAPE HORN and PARC OCEANIQUE COUSTEAU as well. But we made a second printing of PARC OCEANIQUE.

What are your current and future plans?

 I have a couple of commissions. I’m writing a guitar concerto for Gregg Nestor, an orchestral work for the Philharmonia Orchestra, and I want to write a concerto grosso. Concerto grosso means setting four or five solo instruments against an orchestra. They all have virtuoso parts and they play together, but they are also contrasted with the orchestra. Whereas a concerto for violin and orchestra is one soloist and orchestra. I want to write a concerto grosso for five soloists and orchestra. That’s important to me. Also I will do more film scores, but I won’t talk about anything, I’m a little suspicious. If you talk about them they tend to go away.

John Scott: Savage Symphony

Wed, 10 Jan 2024 12:43:17 GMT

Photo by Bill Dow - All rights reserved © 2600
Originally published in Starlog Explorer #7, June 1995
Text reproduced by kind permission of the author David Hirsch

“Why didn’t John Scott take off?” asked Joel Goldsmith, composer of the scores for MOON 44 and THE UNTOUCHABLES TV series. “Haven’t you wondered about that? Why didn’t John Scott become a big-time film composer? That baffles me more than the no-talents getting these big movies. They’re flash-in-the-pans. There’s no longevity there.”

Scott has developed quite a following within Hollywood’s film music community that swells with both admiration of his talents and a total bewilderment at how little the town has properly used them. Scott still struggles to prove his merit, despite enjoying such successes as THE FINAL COUNTDOWN and GREYSTOKE: THE LEGEND OF TARZAN, LORD OF THE APES. He has even surprised his fellow composers by creating, as if by magic, brilliantly powerful scores for classic turkeys like KING KONG LIVES and YOR, THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE.

That struggle to rise to his full potential actually began several years earlier while growing up in England. Born on November 1, 1930, Scott notes that his interest in music came from his father, who played both the clarinet and the viola. “He was in the Bristol Police Band in the 1930s, when all the police regiments had their own bands. My father started me on the clarinet. When I was 13, I used to work six days a week in a musical instrument shop and would save up for a half-hour lesson on Saturday, but I never had time to practice! So, I joined the Army at 14 as a boy musician. I loved music and couldn’t think of any other way of getting training.” Scott actually first played the harp in the Army, eventually expanding his studies to the saxophone and flute.

Upon his discharge, Scott continued performing with various jazz and dance bands. “I really didn’t want to write at all. I wanted to be a performer and I joined the Ted Heath Band, which was very well-known in England in the 1950s. Eventually, I started doing some arrangements and compositions, which were always jazz-oriented. Some people from the EMI background music library wanted to get some modern music for tracking purposes into their catalog, so they contacted me and gave me a writing assignment.”

Studies in Terror . Scott had first been exposed to film scoring as a session musician. “I worked with John Barry on his first film, BEAT GIRL [1962], and DR. NO [1962], Barry Gray on the TV series STINGRAY [1964], as well as various other film composers,” he says. “It was amazing that I really didn’t see myself as a writer until I saw Henry Mancini at work. I did CHARADE [1963] playing flute & saxophone. I would look at his scores during the break and see how he worked with a stopwatch, matching the action on screen. I was absolutely fascinated.”

“Mancini’s music was exciting to play. I could see the film without the music, then play the music without the film, then see the two together. Suddenly, it was so dynamic. He was a great dramatic writer and I never really understood why he didn’t go right to the top of dramatic score writing. With the combination of songs like ‘Moon River’ [from BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S (1961)] and his dramatic skills, I would have thought it would have lent to going that way. I guess we don’t choose the way we go. We fall into it, or we’re led into it.”

While Mancini’s pop song hits dictated the path of his career, Scott found himself forced toward his destiny when fate left him few options. “I had an operation on my jaw due to a cyst in the jawbone. So, I had most of the lower left side of the jaw cut away. As a result, I’ve never really played a woodwind instrument since. That really turned the tide to writing full time. I was trying to do it all until then - write and play 24 hours a day!”

With writing remaining as his only way to make a living doing what he loved, Scott plunged headlong into his new career as a film composer. His first movie was A STUDY IN TERROR, a 1965 Sherlock Holmes thriller starring John Neville, which pitted the detective against Jack the Ripper. As a first assignment, it was a trial by fire. “For a completely green writer, I actually got a lot of time on that film,” Scott recalls. “It was something like five to six weeks, which is quite a luxury. I can remember being so nervous, writing this horror music, that I would play a chord at the piano and jump into the air!”

Scott’s uneasiness may have come not from the film’s content, but the producer’s manner of running a tight ship. “It’s good to be trusted, but with people like that producer… He was a megalomaniac who wanted everything his way. I thought I was learning, but I had to do it his way. In the end, I felt his way was not the best way. When you see the dagger, he wanted you to hear the musical chord. There are much better ways of sustaining atmosphere and suspense. Save it until someone appears, the hand on the shoulder, all those cheap tricks!”

Through his work with other composers, especially Mancini, Scott learned that sometimes he would have to fight to score a scene by his instincts. “I used to witness Mancini arguing with producers. He had a terrible time once with a scene where someone drops acid into someone else’s eye from an eyedropper. The producer wanted the music to start when we see the eyedropper and Henry wanted the music played from the point-of-view of the one who’s going to get it in the eye. He reacted to that idea and felt he should save the music for that time. He had very logical ways of approaching it.”

Over the next several years, Scott scored several British murder mysteries, thrillers and comedies. Among his films were THOSE FANTASTIC FLYING FOOLS (1967), a spoof of Jules Verne’s novel FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON, TROG (1970), wherein anthropologist Joan Crawford discovers the Missing Link alive and well in an English cave, and PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT, the 1977 sequel to the film adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT. While several films were successful, some were not. In each case, though, Scott committed his full resources. “If you have a really great film that works, it’s a luxury,” the composer points out. “Unless you’re a fool, you can do anything. You’re not going to damage the film. Whereas a weak film relies so much on music, and music can only do so much. Nevertheless, you must try and do all you can for the bad film. You’re bound to feel more challenged. When I do any film, I try and regard it as the most important thing I’ve ever done.”

Notes to the Countdown . By 1980, Scott would score the first of several major motion pictures that should have established him on Hollywood’s “A list.” The first was THE FINAL COUNTDOWN, a modest box-office success which has since become popular TV fare. Kirk Douglas starred as the captain of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Nimitz, which finds itself transported back in time to the eve of the Pearl Harbor attack and faced with the chance of stopping the Japanese fleet with modern weaponry. “I loved The Final Countdown. It was an intriguing story that really got the mind working.”

For this film, Scott pulled out all the stops, literally writing an ode to Naval air power – in fact, much of the score was reused in the documentary WINGS AT SEA. Charging drums and sweeping horns created the musical might of the NIMITZ, while the horns, combined with string instruments and woodwinds, added an air of mystery. Despite all the powerful images that would easily motivate the composer, his one real challenge was the time warp itself. “It didn’t work too well in the end because we waited forever for special FX that never arrived!” Instead, Scott was forced to develop his musical motifs for the storm based solely on storyboards.

Sharing the good with the bad, his next two films were less than stellar. First came HORROR PLANET (a.k.a. INSEMINOID) in 1982, an ALIEN clone that suffered from a tight budget. Even worse was the internationally produced YOR, THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE (1983). “I really worked hard on YOR, as you can imagine,” Scott admits, “because it was a really dumb film, but somehow good to write for. It had all these strange situations that people got into. It was a kind of important film for me at the time because it was a Columbia Pictures release and they put me up in one of the great Rome hotels, the Imperial or something. I had a suite and my piano was there. We didn’t have a lot of time, only three weeks, and it was wall-to-wall music. I worked day and night. Then, we recorded with this terrible orchestra. It was the worst. I’ve vowed never to go back to Italy to record again. There were all these kids in the orchestra – students! They told me that if the orchestra was over a certain size, you had to have a certain amount of students. They were putting the money into their own pockets and just getting anyone. They think that if an orchestra is big, you can cover up these things.”

To add insult to injury, in the end, only four cues of music were utilized and the bulk of Scott’s score was replaced by synthesized disco music by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis, when the filmmakers thought they could save the movie by adding a “hip” score. “I was very disappointed that the music was thrown out, especially in favor of the music that replaced it. The Italians are particularly good at that. I mean, if it had been replaced with a good score, well – I can’t say that the new score was bad – Yes, I can! Bad electronics with all these Denny Terrio dance-type vocals, by a singer named Oliver Onions, no less, trying to sound American,” Scott observes, shaking his head in bewilderment. The composer has taken some small solace in the recent release of his complete YOR score on CD.

Score of a Legend . Scott’s next film featured his most famous score. Unreleased to date on compact disc, bootleg CDs made from the original vinyl record for GREYSTOKE: THE LEGEND OF TARZAN, LORD OF THE APES recently showed up on the collector market for a whopping $150 per album. Produced and directed by Chariots of Fire’s Hugh Hudson, this 1984 version of the early life of Burroughs’ oft-filmed character followed Tarzan’s childhood in the jungle before his only living relative attempts to civilize him. Christopher (HIGHLANDER) Lambert starred as Tarzan and Sir Ralph Richardson made his final screen appearance as Lord Greystoke.

The early part of the film presented Scott with a composer’s dream. Since much of Tarzan’s adolescence is spent with the apes who raised him, the lack of dialogue demanded that Scott pick up some of the narrative with his music and, as he put it, “Speak for the characters who could not.” During these sequences, he chose to utilize a contemporary sound for his score. “I’m surprised now that the African side didn’t occur to me,” he remarks when asked if he had ever considered basing that part of the score on tribal rhythms, like Hans Zimmer did for Disney’s THE LION KING (1994). “Hugh Hudson would have probably wanted actual ethnic music as opposed to re-created. The Victorian aspect, for Tarzan’s time in England, was a foregone conclusion.”

“I was actually the third composer on that film. There were two other scores already disposed of. One was all made up of various classical pieces like the music composed by Gustav Holst and Sir Edward Elgar. Some of the Elgar pieces remained because Hudson had his mind set on them for the museum sequences, which was absolutely right. Apart from that, there was no need for any period music.”

GREYSTOKE did lead to better films, though Scott once again saved the day with his powerhouse action score for Dino De Laurentiis’ lackluster 1986 sequel KING KONG LIVES. Scott credits director John Guillermin with helping pull off another of his most popular scores. One of its highlights is “Lady Kong Gets Gassed,” a sweeping four-and-a-half-minute action cue performed with all the power of the Graunke Symphony Orchestra. “I guess I believed in the scene,” Scott notes of its inspiration. “I admired Guillermin and thought he was a very good director. In fact, he gave me one of the best music briefs I’ve ever had from a director. He knew exactly what he wanted, what he wanted me to do, and where the music should stop and start. That was a very refreshing change. Generally, directors and producers don’t know what music can do. I appreciate people who can tell me what they want from a scene. People who neglect to do that, then hear the scene and tell me, ‘No, that’s not what I want,’ annoy me. It’s partly their fault for not telling me what they’re thinking about.”

In 1988, Scott found his music supporting an important scene in DIE HARD, though he was never hired to work on the film. Having defeated the terrorists, hero Bruce Willis and his wife Bonnie Bedelia finally meet L.A.P.D. officer Reginald Veljohnson amidst the building’s wreckage. The cue heard during the sequence was actually a piece called “We’ve Got Each Other,” written by Scott for the 1987 film MAN ON FIRE.

Music in the Future . Scott’s latest works include the espionage thriller THE LUCONA AFFAIR, the Western WALKING THUNDER, and the recently released FAR FROM HOME: THE ADVENTURES OF YELLOW DOG. “It’s a serious story of survival on the order of LORD OF THE FLIES,” he says of Yellow Dog. “A young boy and his dog are lost in British Columbia and must survive by their wits. Currently, I’m scoring NIGHTWATCH. which is the film Pierce Brosnan was committed to finishing before taking over as James Bond.”

On the horizon loom two very different films that have started his creative juices flowing. “Sergei Bondarchuk, one of my longtime heroes, directed one of my favorite films of all time, the 1968 Russian-made WAR AND PEACE. He finished an eight-hour film based on the Nobel Prize-winning novel QUIETLY FLOWS THE DON. It’s a story that follows the rise of the Cossacks to the Bolshevik Revolution. The Don is the river that runs through their land. I’m writing the music for that.” [Luis Bacalov eventually scored the film.]

Scott’s also looking forward to friend Norman Warren’s planned remake of the 1958 FIEND WITHOUT A FACE (Sadly, the film was never made). Previously, the two worked together on SATAN’S SLAVES and HORROR PLANET. Scott is proposing to resurrect some long-forgotten acoustic instruments to create a sound he believes synthesizers can’t provide. “I think, of course, that you have to create strange atmospheres,” he says. “There are various ways of doing it. The orchestra hasn’t been explored fully yet and probably never will be. It’s always being added to in terms of new instruments, or exotic, seldom-used instruments. I really try my best not to duplicate what I’ve done before. The scope within an orchestra is infinite. One can find various combinations, and, in order to keep fresh, you just have to keep looking. I don’t feel tied into one particular way of doing things, so I try and find something different each time, although people have pigeonholed me. They like me to do big scores. I’ve noticed that, generally, they don’t like it if I do something small.”

Scott also plans to release more of his music on his own record Label, JOS Records. The decision to privately finance his own label came about in 1989 when no one wanted to put out his WINTER PEOPLE score. “Soundtracks only make money if the film is a great success, and everyone thought WINTER PEOPLE wouldn’t make it. Record producer Ford A. Thaxton came to me and said, ‘John, I think we can put it out if you pay all the licensing fees.’ So I thought, if I have to pay the fees, why don’t I put it out? I then went on to do seven Jacques Cousteau score albums, several other film soundtracks, and a collection of my favorites [which included THE FINAL COUNTDOWN, GREYSTOKE and PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT.] I would like a decent pressing of GREYSTOKE, so I think I’m going to re-record it and put it out myself,”

Obviously, John Scott’s future is full of work. Not on those big blockbusters that get antacids delivered by the truckload to studio offices, but smaller films that get his mind working. “I really don’t want to do a DIE HARD,” he says. “I like the personal dramas that say more to me emotionally and offer me better opportunities.”

In the end, the movies may not have been winners, but the composer has always scored.

An Interview with Philippe Sarde

Mon, 01 Jan 2024 16:18:22 GMT

An Interview with Philippe Sarde by Marco Werba

Originally published in CinemaScore #15, 1986/1987

Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor and publisher Randall D. Larso n

Although popular in his native France for his light and tuneful film scores, Philippe Sarde has gained a notable reputation in America for his more symphonically-oriented film compositions. First brought to Stateside attention when he scored Roman Polanski’s TESS, Sarde subsequently provided notable scores for GHOST STORY, QUEST FOR FIRE and PIRATES. He has also enjoyed regular collaborations in France with directors such as Robin Davis, Claude Sautet, Alain Corneau, Bertrand Tavernier and Pierre Granier Deferrer. Interviewed in France while working on the score for PIRATES, Sarde discussed his experiences and attitudes towards film music.

Do you enjoy scoring music for films?
Music is something I feel very deep inside. My mother was an opera singer, and ever since I was a small boy I’ve been interested in music. I became involved in film music when I was very young. I am now 37 years old and I’ve made a career that many composers who are even in their seventies have not made. At the beginning of my career I was always present on the set during the shooting to better understand the problems connected to a film. When I understood the film procedure, I stopped going to the set.

Has that understanding given you a particular approach that you employ when scoring a film?
I think that the “shape” is fundamental for both film and music. It can change the original essence. It’s useful to know how to manage a theme, how to vary it to obtaining several feelings that change from story to story. It doesn’t matter if three bars of a music that I am writing are similar to three bars that I wrote some years ago. What is important is that the shape is different. The way I’m doing it is new and has a different approach. There are not so many composers in France who regularly write film music and live with film music. We are maybe twenty or thirty but not many more. It’s a difficult job and sometimes composers forget that, first, you have to know all the secrets of a film, and then the secrets of music. I usually write descriptive music. I give a lot of importance to music for a movie. I like to do something that helps it, no matter how much I have to work or how much I have to write. I always try to do my best to understand which is the correct music for a specific actor or scene. I can’t write the same way for a male actor as for a female actress. I write music differently for Alain Delon than I do for Catherine Deneuve.

Do you work well with directors?
The truth is that I am a difficult person to work with. I’m difficult, I’m expensive and I hate “fashion!” What I mean is that I really hate commercial tunes. I would prefer to rob a bank to get money instead of writing pop cues! Sometimes, for a scene that needs “source music” I have to write music in fashion, because it comes out of a radio, but that is due to contemporary reality and not used in a descriptive way.

Are there particular directors with whom you prefer to work?
I try to cooperate with directors who give the same importance to music and with whom I can seriously discuss the points where the film needs music. Some directors just ask you for music in scenes that lack quality, but I don’t work anymore with this kind of director. I need people who understand my needs and my qualities. Of course, I am the one who writes the music but the director is the one who makes the movie, so I have to respect his point of view. At first I try to give him a general impression of what the right music will be without going into details of instrumentation. It’s not easy to explain how the final product will be.

I am very demanding also while I work with an orchestra. I make them repeat the music over and over again until I get what I want. If a conductor or some musicians don’t understand why I make them repeat the performance, I immediately stop working. We have to be a team that works together and we have to become familiar with each other. For me, musicians are like actors. Like a director, I try to squeeze them to receive the maximum of their artistic qualities. And I like to mix various kinds of instrumental colors just like a director likes to mix various kinds of stories. I feel I am a director. I imagine things the same way he does.

Do you give a lot of importance to melody in film scoring, or do you prefer to write contemporary music?
I think that melody is fundamental. Atonal or dissonant music can be used, but always with a melody on the background. You have to consider that the audience is not prepared to listen to atonal music. It’s dangerous to use, and must be done only for a scene that really needs it. What is important to avoid is creating a fashion because, after a couple of years, it dies. I always tried to avoid films and music that were “in fashion.” I prefer to work for movies that are not related to a specific time period. You can be modern even if you dress in a classical way.

Are you satisfied with your career as a film composer?
You’d think, after all the scores I did and after all the experiences I had, that I knew everything about film music. But the truth is that I still don’t know so many secrets; but I hope to know them one day. I wake up every morning concerned about what I know, about what I have to learn. The film business is a compromise and you can’t escape from it. You have to accept it. Usually I listen a thousand times to my music right after I record it. Then I don’t listen to it any more until I happen to see the film on TV. Sometimes, when re-listening to my music that way, I find the music good but sometimes I find it bad, and this discourages me. Most of the time, though, I fall in love with what I write, or even the idea of what I have to write.

I’m afraid of myself sometimes, because if I judge negatively what I wrote for a film then I don’t have the energy to continue. The film industry is full of traps, one after the other. You have to know how to jump over them. It looks crazy but it’s the truth. The more you realize that the more you try and stay away. Working for films is frightening — if you are not ready to do it you’d better stay in bed!

The problem is that I don’t know how else to make my living writing music. When I was in Italy a reporter asked me if I was “il maestro Sarde.” I said yes, and he said “I thought you were 70 years old!” The truth is that I am younger and feel you nger than most of the people that regularly work for films. In France there is a lot of competition and I always have the feeling that someone will soon be ready to knock me off and replace me! I had the chance to work with good directors, but you never know how long you will have this opportunity. I’m really worried about giving what people expect me to. If I don’t keep my promises I will betray them – but more so, I will betray myself. Every morning, when I wake up, I ask myself what must I do? Where do I start? What do I have to write? Then, after one or two coffees, I forget all my problems, all of the good and bad people that judge you, and I start working.

Philippe Sarde on scoring La Fille de d'Artagnan

Sun, 31 Dec 2023 16:29:07 GMT

An Interview with Philippe Sarde by Yves Taillandier and Alain Decharte
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.13 / No.52 / 1994
Text reproduced by kind permission of the publisher, Luc van de Ven

La Fille de d’Artagnan marks Philippe Sarde's return to a major score in his career. The award-winning Sony Classical recording has been specially reworked for the occasion. Philippe Sarde tells us more...

How did you approach this kind of film, for which you'd never worked before?

For me, orchestral color is the most important thing when I approach a film score. I do it in the manner of a director or writer who situates his characters in time and space. The dialogue comes next. All you have to do is choose what kind of sound universe we're going to wander into. From there, you can build the music and write it. For me, the music always comes second, instinctively. LE NOM DE LA ROSE, which I'd started working on, had already given me an insight into the world of early music, and that first approach served me well for this film. However, in LA FILLE DE D'ARTAGNAN, I approached Baroque music in a way that had never been imagined. Because of its mixtures, it's a genre I've revisited 100%...

Your music, however, is heavily influenced by the Baroque style...
I worked with a musicologist to keep an eye on things and make sure I didn't make any mistakes. For example, I wanted the texts to be authentic, unlike the music, which is completely original. I didn't write it "in the manner" of Baroque music. On the other hand, it has all the basic characteristics of the genre. So, the music is not borrowed, but sometimes revisited. This enabled me, for example, to insert harmonic phrases by Sauget and Ravel into the score. For the latter, it was fun to do so, as he was an atheist, never wrote liturgical music and never wrote for violas da gamba. So I had fun writing these harmonies, for this instrument alone, in the piece entitled "La Passion Selon Eloïse".

What prompted you to rework the content of the album in relation to the music in the film?
The music in the film was quite short. There are 12 significant minutes of music from the film on the disc. The themes are the same, but they've been treated in a more developed way. I'd been working on this score for a very long time, and I'd ended up accumulating a considerable amount of material. Even though there are only 35 minutes in the film, I worked on around 1h30 of music. Not because the film needed it, but because this century interested and inspired me. After that, I said to myself that there was no reason to make a record and produce it in such a way that it could be listened to independently of the images. This long process got under way, and I needed a record company that was really motivated to do it. So I did it with Sony Classical, and it's the first time in Europe that a soundtrack has been released on this label.

Did you record the album at the same time as the film?
My idea was to record on the same day, because of the difficulties involved in getting all the musicians together. But, due to a question of budget and time, it couldn't be done. My problem was to find the same musicians and record in the same studio to benefit from the same acoustics. It took Nat Peck and myself two months to achieve this. It was an impossible challenge, because everything had to be done before the film was released. In the end, we managed to record almost 50 minutes of music in 14 hours of work. Again, it was a tour de force... Sony Classical also did a fantastic job, doing everything they could to get everything ready on time, even producing the CD booklet at the same time as I was preparing the score.

Who financed this recording?
It was made possible thanks to an advance on royalties. In other wor ds, Sony gave its shares to "Little Bear", "Ciby 2000" and myself, and it was all these royalties together that made it possible to finance the recording for the CD. Sony then became co-publisher of the music; it was very important to proceed in this way, as we avoided palavering over money problems; it was a considerable time-saver at the very moment when we had to save time.

Does being published by Sony Classical make you consider this music to be a classical work in its own right?
Today, yes, I do. Just as an opera is born of a libretto, the music on this CD is born of the film. I like that idea. The difference is that it's been fine-tuned and presented in a finished form. I didn't do it just to please myself, but to see the culmination of a year's research and work. For LA FILLE DE D'ARTAGNAN, I really fought to get a CD just as I wanted it and as it is today. I also wanted to make an album in the image of the film, within everyone's reach and that could be listened to without getting bored, which is no easy task for Baroque music...

A Conversation with Philippe Sarde

Sun, 31 Dec 2023 10:18:37 GMT

A Conversation with Philippe Sarde by Jean-Pierre Pecqueriaux
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.4 /Nos.14 /15 / 1985
Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

Philippe Sarde was born June 21, 1945, in Neuilly-sur-Seine. His mother was an opera singer. When he was still very young he enrolled at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he studied composition with Noel Gallon. He wrote some classical pieces which he now consider as being of little interest, and felt himself attracted by the idea of working for the cinema. In 1969 he met Claude Sautet who gave him his first chance: LES CHOSES DE LA VIE. Since then he has worked on approximately 110 feature films.

How do you choose a film: because of the screenplay, the subject or the director?
The director is most important. He decides everything that will be done in a film. As far as I am concerned everything depends on the director, he is the prime mover – though in some cases it can also be the producer. In the U.S.A. a producer can be as important as a director. Filmmaking is an adventure and I only agree to take part in this adventure if the people I am working with are dedicated. You have to make everybody happy: the producer, the director of the film, and especially yourself. After a certain period you become more and more assertive regarding the things you are able or not able to do. At this moment I wouldn’t venture upon a project if I wasn’t sure to give 100% of my talent.

You work a lot with Sautet, Lautner, Granier-Deferre. Do they understand the role of music in a film? Do they sometimes intervene in your work? Do they try to influence you to use a certain style?
This happens with every director. The three you mentioned and, for example, Tavernier, Corneau… There are many good directors in France and each one has his own approach towards film music. I have my proper style, but I begin by trying to understand the style of the film and the approach of the director. A film composer’s art is collaborative. When you compose music for a film like LA GUERRE DU FEU, TESS or COUP DE TORCHON, I would not expect the director to leave me completely on my own. You have to know what the director wants and form a team; and though music must correspond with the images, it can sometimes be used as counterpoint, but it must complement the film.

Do you choose the scenes you have to score when you read the script, or when the picture is finished?
That depends. Generally there are three ways to work:

1. When the screenplay is very important I discuss the score with the director, and I compose and record the score before shooting begins. I have often done this with Tavernier and Granier-Deferre.

2. Secondly I can watch the film when it’s finished or nearly finished, and my inspiration comes from the images. This is the traditional way.

3. Finally, I can board the train half-way. After seeing some rushes I may be inspired to write the music while the film is being shot. The director attends the recording and edits the picture to the music. In my opinion, this way you obtain the best results.

So, your music has an important part in a film, it is no mere complement?
Not any more. I have worked with people who considered music to be wallpaper, but I don’t work with them any longer. Music must be an important element in a film, not a casual addition. Sometimes we must add it in order to hide little imperfections, but that’s not my trade.

Do you always agree with the director’s choice of the scenes to be scored, and does the director always agree with you about the musical approach you plan to take?
If we agree to work together and we agree about the conception, the director is bound to like what I have composed. Since I don’t use a weather cock, it may be necessary to change one or two things during the recording, but that also happens when shooting a scene. Musicians are like actors and it is almost fatal to change an interpretation even a little bit, but one must be vigilant, because the atmosphere of a scene can be completely altered by music. I have to follow the instructions of the director during the recording sessions, but there is room to discuss and alter: editing a film is something alive, it’s not dead.

Normally everything will run smoothly but there can be a different interpretation of playing or recording, all this means 50% of my music, even if I don’t change a note of what I’ve written. The music can be played faster or slower; film music is all atmospheres – so changes may affect the atmosphere of several scenes. Consequently, sound editing, the choice of instruments, mixing, it’s all part of the creation in the conception of a film. I work for the cinema, not against it. There are a lot of people who compose casually for films, but in my case film is a passion; not only watching films, but the whole business of the cinema fascinates me. Music is a way to absorb myself in everything which is my life. This kind of life suits me very well and I don’t see why I should go and look elsewhere. I can easily write a symphony, a quartet, etc… What’s the use of composing it putting it in a drawer so that no-one can hear it?

Do you always follow the same writing process: you start with the story, the environment, or do you focus sometimes on the characters or the actors?
Actors and actresses are of enormous importance. I don’t write the same music for Catherine Deneuve or Isabelle Adjani, for Alain Delon or Yves Montand. That is a capital issue for me. The actor’s face, their expressions, the way of photographing, all this is part of my conception of film music. I’m more than just a composer: I’m a film composer.

Has it ever happened that you have replaced someone at the last moment – a sick composer, or someone whose score they didn’t like? And, if so, for which picture?
Maybe it has happened, but they have never told me the other composer’s name.

In fact you are a music director.
Let’s say I’m a sound director, a music director who composes his own music for a screenplay that already exists in images.

That’s what Alain Corneau said about LE CHOIX DES ARMES…
We work well with directors who feel that music is important. It cannot hide faults in a film.

Certain films contain a lot of music; others on the contrary contain only 2 or 3 themes. Is this a deliberate choice on your behalf, or sometimes just a question of time?
No, it’s a deliberate choice. The question of time never arises. If I don’t have enough time to score a film, I won’t do it. Sometimes a simple score demands as much time as a long one. Writing for 100 musicians is much more difficult than for a solo flute but sometimes it’s difficult to find the necessary ideas for a total expression. In LE REVE DU SINGE a solo flute was playing from beginning to end. It was much more difficult to devise the several variations of this single theme written for flute, for a film that complex, than finding a musical expression for a large orchestra. Time doesn’t really play a role in a situation like that. If you don’t have the time to do it, you must be honest enough to say you can’t and won’t do it.

Have you ever been replaced by another composer, or dismissed at the last moment?
Never.

We have heard that you often compose your film scores before the movie is completed. LE JUGE ET L’ASSASSIN is one example. We wonder what discussions you have had with the director when writing such a score. Since the mood of this music (agitated strings, accordion, ballads) seems so appropriate to the story and setting, what advice did the director give you about the kind of music that would be needed? Also, did Arthur Honegger’s music influence the main title of LE JUGE?

The discussion between Bertrand Tavernier and me was very simple. We have worked together before and we dreamed up the style together: a mixture of ballads, accordion, etc. The accordion player had found an old accordion from 1890, which was rebuilt to give it the required sound and this was mixed with a quartet.

If you analyse it, you’ll find that the music is the history of the film. To me, they are character motifs: the accordion represents the popular side of certain people with regard to the assassin; the judge is represented by sumptuous strings (the quartet) and also by Philippe Noiret’s acting and physical appearance. The accordion plays a kind of desperate music, expressing the frame of mind of the assassin, played by Michel Galabru. Either Bertrand Tavernier or I made suggestions about the use of the instruments. I was inspired by the characters to produce a certain musical climate: so the music mirrors the three major characters.
As to the second part of your question: I like Arthur Honegger very much. I didn’t listen to his music before doing LE JUGE, but I heard his music when I was five or six years old, so his oeuvre is part of my musical heritage. I consider this comparison a compliment.

Your relationship with Claude Sautet has given birth to some very different music scores. LES CHOSES DE LA VIE was your first one: a simple flute motif with an allegro later on in the score. Was all this music written after the film had been completed, or with prior knowledge of the story?
The score was written after the movie was finished. It was my first film and I wrote the music one month before mixing began. I was called in at a very late stage as the director probably thought it over very carefully before entrusting his film to a twenty-year-old unknown composer. In the picture there was a scene which was very difficult to stage: a car accident, without any sound and with “invisible” music if I may say so. I was trying to create the impression of a void this car was travelling in during the accident. The rest of the music was thematic, so relatively easy to score, but the car accident had music throughout; we had a flute and violins, but also tried for some musical tricks which were almost impossible to create at the time (1970). Now this is very easily done.

Also, UNE HISTOIRE SIMPLE, using a simple quartet sound shifting between major and minor keys, catches the resourceful character of Romy Schneider in the film. I can understand how that could have been composed after reading the script. But there are other scenes: when the friend (Roger Pigaut), about to commit suicide, is walking through his impersonal place of business and the piano plays staccato notes over the legato strings: that kind of insightful music seems to suggest that you were composing for a finished film.

Strangely, it’s the only finished film by Sautet I have scored before seeing it. You have described perfectly well the mood of the theme, which shifts between major and minor. There is a quartet of strings, but there is also a 70-piece orchestra which is hardly heard – a kind of phantom orchestra! It sounds as if I had composed symphonic chamber music; we hear the quartet for strings with a piano, some wood and brass and then there is an orchestra behind all this, like a mist: it all reflects the ambiguity of the character played by Romy Schneider.

As to the scene regarding Robert Pigaut’s death, I scored this when the film was finished of course. It’s music which obeys the laws of timing and editing, so it was done afterwards. Some music was written before, some during shooting. For example, I wrote the sentimental theme for Romy Schneider after I had seen a sequence with Romy when shooting began; that was enough for me to imagine the mood of this woman in the film.

When you write music before shooting begins, are you always satisfied with what you have written? Do you change the music very often?
The music for LE CHOIX DES ARMES was recorded before Alain Corneau shot his picture, but I re-recorded two or three scenes once the film had been completed. I did two or three adjustments, re-recorded two or three pieces to better match the music with the images, I don’t want to put the director in a straitjacket, so I re-score certain cues sometimes. In fact, I may make another version of the same music, because things have been changed during the shooting, or because the director asks me to. I have no rules, film scoring doesn’t have them. You must put forward a set of rules at the beginning, but once started you forget all about them to give way to the suggestions of the director or your own ideas.

Writing music in advance is sometimes very difficult, because you must have a very good notion about the evolution of a character, and also the director may not divulge all the secrets of his mise-en-scene. The final result may not match the film 100%. You have to adjust, but that doesn’t bother me. I work with people I know, and even if I don’t know them very well, after a period of time I begin to sense what they want.

I don’t begin writing after just one visit with the director, but after several discussions. Before writing a theme for an actor, one must meet him. It’s difficult to compose music for an actor you don’t personally know. Writing music for a movie is writing music for characters – it’s the same as writing a song for a singer; you must have heard him before and be aware of his singing abilities. And if you know them, you’ll write even better.

What you are looking for in the first place is a kind of understanding and complicity with the director?
Of course. That’s what they are also looking for. It’s not easy to have such a dialogue. With certain directors you can’t talk about music, you must discuss the film and the composer must then transform the cinematic code into a musical one, but in any case we all talk about the same thing: emotions.

This means that the musical concept in films has changed over the years?
To me, it has always been the same for 15 years. I don’t know what the others do, or how they work. It doesn’t interest me, because writing film music is a solitary profession in every way: from conception to composition. There is no dialogue. There are no technical problems to overcome, such as camera operators may have with a new camera, a new film stock. Everyone is master of his own small artistic enterprise. There are no rules. I follow the rules everyone seems to use nowadays.

How much time do they give you to write a score? Do you happen to work on two films at the same time?
No, that’s impossible. You can’t work on several films at the same time. One movie at a time is tiring enough! I try to score a film in one to four months. It really depends upon the picture, the amount and the importance of the music, and the time I’m allotted. An American film takes more time. On Marshall Brickman’s LOVESICK I began working in June, and I recorded the score with the New York Philharmonic in October; that means five months, six months even if you count mixing and everything else.

It was the same for LA GUERRE DU FEU, TESS and GHOST STORY. All the films done in America needed a lot of time and work. As a rule, a French film takes me between one and two months to score, sometimes six weeks or even fifteen days. It depends. If you need only one theme, it can be done in perhaps three weeks.

Has it already happened that you haven’t been allotted sufficient time and so you have had to change things?
It’s up to me to say if it’s possible. Generally, having a limited time is a wonderful discipline. The director and I may decide that a certain cue takes e.g. one minute and 37 seconds: that’s wonderful. If a cue takes 15 minutes, what are you going to do? Why not 14, 13 or 17 minutes? The time you have been allotted facilitates things, because a limit has been set.

When you are scoring a film does it happen that you are thinking music from morning till evening?
Even during my sleep; musical nightmares are frightening, you hit upon a theme and this happens during the night. I think it is the same with every composer.

Does it happen that you get up during the night to write down some notes?
It may have happened that I got up during the night to write something down, so that I could work it out the following morning. The piano and the music paper are never far away.

Do you always compose at the piano?
No, I compose in my head, then I check certain things on the piano, and then I write it down. There are no rules. The piano may disturb you because you may have imagined it differently. You try certain harmonies on the piano and generally you hear the music in your head at the same time. But since I am a piano player I do tend to go to the piano, but not to compose; it takes shape in my head. I like the interplay between the piano and the fingers…

What discussions did you have with director Roman Polanski on TESS? Your music seems to have the passion and strength that the film lacked. Did you orchestrate this music?
Roman didn’t want his players to overdo it. He always said to me; the music will show the passion and it will give life to the characters. I want to show people with a restrained passion, but this doesn’t mean the guy isn’t burning inside. I was asked to explore these feelings and to illustrate them musically.

As to the second part of your question; I never orchestrate my music. I make very extensive sketches and give them to the orchestrator, whom I work with very closely. It gives me the chance to have a second view concerning the music. Somebody else has a look at my music, so I learn to see it in a new light. When you have a little time, say 2 or 3 months, and when you haven’t come up with anything for two months, you may be left with a mere 8 days to write down everything. You must create some distance and the only way to do this is by using an orchestrator. You need an orchestrator, who breathes new life into what you have written during 3 months on your own and you can tell him what is possible and what isn’t. Doing the orchestrations myself would hinder my sense of imagination. You need very precise ideas about instrumentation, I myself think about the instrumentation before writing the music itself, so the orchestrator will do exactly what I want, but if he does have some good ideas about using a particular instrument or certain harmonies, why not incorporate them, since they may be beneficial?

I think it’s only in France that people don’t like the idea of using an orchestrator; it is looked upon as bizarre. In America it is the most normal thing in the world. Every American composer has an orchestrator and the results are sometimes better than if you did the whole thing yourself, as is the case in France; writing the script, taking care of the lighting, shooting the film. The result is all that matters. An orchestrator is also an artist and he may have another point of view about what you have written, he may change a couple of things to put them in perspective.

You don’t usually conduct the orchestra, but you use Hubert Rostaing, Carlo Savina or Peter Knight. Do you give them complete freedom or do you oversee?
No freedom at all. It’s my music they are conducting. No-one has any freedom, neither the orchestrator nor the conductor. These people work for me and I try to approach them with humility, certainly not as a dictator. But they do what I want. They work for me, not for themselves. They have to orchestrate or conduct the way I want it. I’m not going to work for two or three months and then let somebody else in who is going to change things completely. I’m open to suggestions but if I don’t like them, I won’t accept them, because I’m the only one who knows what the music in the film must be like.

More and more film music recordings are done in England…
About ten years ago I stopped working in France, because the musicians didn’t accept my endless rehearsals of the same music. I was very young and I told myself I couldn’t go on this way. I don’t rehearse for my own pleasure, but because something is wrong. A viewer shouldn’t hear there is an orchestra; he must have a general impression of the music, he may recognize certain elements, but he must not be able to analyse it completely, otherwise the atmosphere is lost. The viewer mustn’t be aware of a saxophone when he sees Philippe Noiret or Alain Delon walking along the street. My problem is interpreting Delon or Noiret walking. Music must be transparent and the musicians must rehearse it any number of times. They must not be a bunch of people reading music they are not familiar with, so rehearsals are needed, and I myself must create the nature of the sound with the sound editor, and again rehearsals are needed.

In the past in France this way of working wasn’t consistent with either the budget or the state of mind of the musicians. I felt I couldn’t work like that anymore, so I went to England. I was one of the first to do that and others followed. It doesn’t mean I don’t record in France anymore, but I also bring a number of soloists to England, I do an exchange between French, English and American musicians.

So foreign musicians are more docile and understanding?
Orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra, which is one of the best in the world, consist of people who understand 14 or 15 “takes”. In the past, a French orchestra didn’t. Maybe my reputation wasn’t good enough or perhaps I was too young, but there was not enough discipline in France and discipline is all that matters with an orchestra. The soloists, whom I bring from France, are superb.

You often use well known soloists or ethnic instruments, as in LE JUGE FAYARD, DIT “LE SHERIF” and LE CHOC, a synthesizer in CESAR ET ROSALIE; a bandonéon (a small accordion) and an accordion in VINCENT, FRANCOIS, PAUL ET LES AUTRES and LE JUGE ET L’ASSASSIN; or well known soloists, Stan Getz in MORT D’UN POURRI, Griffin and Rabbath in DES ENFANTS GATES, Ivry Gitlis in LA VIE DEVANT SOI, Ron Carter and Buster Williams in LE CHOIX DES ARMES… What is your goal for instance in MORT D’UN POURRI when the saxophone played by Stan Getz almost makes the symphonic melody disappear?
Stan Getz is the best saxophone player in the world, isn’t he? Why look for somebody else? He will give you the emotion you want by means of a theme played on the saxophone. When I need another saxophone player with a harsher and rougher sound, I take Johnny Griffin. Sadly enough, only soloists with an international reputation can add something to your music which makes it quite different from a score played by a studio musician.

UN TAXI MAUVE shows even more musical sympathy for the Irish/Gaelic music than you displayed in TESS. You were working with The Chieftains there, an authentic Irish group, but your own string writing is remarkably insightful towards the whole atmosphere of the Irish setting. Was this composed before the film, and did you do special studies for it?
Each time the atmosphere must be that of a country which isn’t mine, I’ll do research. I have a look at music typical of that era. I must have music that is not out of proportion with the landscape or the action. For UN TAXI MAUVE I did some research with the group, in order not to have inconsistencies in taste or style. It’s like a decorator who wants wallpaper for an English-style interior. Where else can he go other than to England to find something that resembles an English interior?

Do you also do research regarding special instruments?
From time to time I listen to certain instruments and they remain part of me, so I can say one day I’ll take Stan Getz, or a bombarde (a shawm), or Stéphane Grapelli. So things can come into my mind subconsciously or by seeing the film. Behind every image there’s a secret. I may feel it’s necessary in the film to use either no soloist at all, or if there is to be a soloist, there will be an instrument which is more important than the others. One must find something that has a connection with the story, because there is an adventurous aspect in using a solo instrument. In LE SHERIFF the bombarde gives a kind of provincial setting to the story. At the beginning of the film, there is a panorama of a city and I told myself that people won’t realise it isn’t Paris unless I do a peasant’s dance with a cabrette (a type of French bagpipe); but we also have the rhythm and the dynamics of a police picture.

In UN TAXI MAUVE, one of the Chieftains is playing an Irish flute, so we are not in the south of France, we are in Ireland. It may be simple reasoning, but it’s very useful and you can build upon it to find something more interesting, as the shawm or the Vietnamese instrument I used in LE CRABE-TAMBOUR. That film was about people who are completely obsessed by Vietnam and what happened there. One sees boats in the ice somewhere in Bretagne and one hears this Vietnamese instrument, and it doesn’t make you think about the scenery, but about what’s in their minds. The characters or the scenery make me use those instruments and they reassure or unbalance the audience and let them take better part in the movie. Film music is not supermarket music. When you enter a cinema you must be caught up by an atmosphere which does not resemble that of a supermarket.

That’s why I resent making popular versions of my film music, because it is based on “chemistry” with the images on the screen. Sometimes from all this may come a theme you can turn into a commercial tune, but it bothers me. It is not part of my musical concept.

L’ADOLESCENTE. Did Jeanne Moreau advise you about the music she wanted? Did Hubert Rostaing orchestrate this? Did you have Grapelli in mind for the violin part from the start? This score has beautiful colors in its choice of instrumentation and in the chording that one wonders if you did not score it after seeing the finished film…
Correct. I composed it after seeing the final cut. Jeanne Moreau and I had a very fruitful collaboration. She really acted as a director, who is not at the same time an actor. She behaved completely as a professional with regard to me. She knew exactly what she wanted and we exchanged ideas. She liked Stéphane Grapelli and so did I; I had already worked with him on LIZA by Ferreri. Why not once again? It would work very well with the atmosphere of the period and with the requirements set by Jeanne Moreau. Both Savina and Rostaing collaborated on the orchestrations.

LA VALISE. It seems that there are a number of jokes in this score. You seem to parody the music of Ennio Morricone, of Franck Pourcel, of Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass, even of American country and western music. Were these references deliberate, and are these others in this film that we have missed?
The truth is there is a lot of functional music in this film which is a parody. Generally in Lautner’s films the music is tongue-in-cheek, because he makes send-ups, and he is the only director I have fun with, because I can parody myself sometimes, or other people, by using their music or their musicians. Only a part of the score was not tongue-in-cheek, namely the piano – played by myself – which I used as a counterpart to the rest of the score.

How did you approach scoring LA GUERRE DU FEU (QUEST FOR FIRE)? A big budget was available, but the film is not a typical Hollywood blockbuster. In keeping with the images one might have expected music for a small group of musicians, with ethnic instruments. Instead, you have written a highly symphonic score.
We discussed this problem for a very long time. We could have used so called ethnic music; which would have irritated everybody. You haven’t seen the film without music, no one has done that except for Jean-Jacques Annaud and I, and using ethnic music never even crossed his mind. He was horrified by that kind of music, the small flute kind of thing, music from an era we don’t even know. He wanted the opposite effect.

I used Strasbourg percussion which has its roots in ethnic music anyway; it’s people knocking on wood, but it’s not an African group. I transformed everything which would have turned away the audience. We were showing people from the Stone Age, and I didn’t want documentary music but real film music. The film proved us right; it was an enormous international success.

It seems the film tried to show us everyday life at the time – as far as we can imagine it – while your score shows us the importance of the discovery of the fire.
Exactly. We had 170 musicians and a choir. The discovery of fire could not have been illustrated by two pieces of wood being knocked together. It’s not necessary to back everything that is shown on the screen by sound or by music, yet using no music at all would have been insane. It was a deliberate decision taken from the start by Jean-Jacques, the U.S. producers, and I.

LA VIE DEVANT SOI. Moshe Mizrahi’s films are deeply emotional, yet they are always restrained on the surface. LA VIE DEVANT SOI is most restrained in the way it tells its story and one wonders if you understood the need for your music to be sparse and non-committal, or if you had discussions in that respect with Moshe Mizrahi. You use just 4 players here; violin, viola, clarinet and cello give your music a Hebrew quality, yet the instrumentation in a couple of places recalls Mozart’s ‘Clarinet Quintet’. Was that the model you used?
I had two starting points, first of all, Hebrew music. When you make a film with a Hebrew setting it would be stupid to use, for example, protestant music. Hebrew music has a certain emotion which is very typical. If you don’t use this for LA VIE DEVANT SOl. you miss the point. Secondly, it mustn’t be Hebrew folklore and I have it a classical quality, maybe Mozart, I was thinking of a Brahms quintet, but a classical quality anyway. Everyone visualises it in his own way, it’s a mixture of Hebrew and classical music. But the score must be like the movie, not too outspoken, even if I think Ivry Gitlis is overdoing it slightly. My first idea was to have Benny Goodman playing the clarinet, but Goodman didn’t want to play Gitlis, whom I had engaged first.

The day I interviewed Mr. Sarde, he was just on the way to getting better from a long illness, and in addition he was preoccupied by the transformations going on to his new apartment. Despite his fatigue he immediately agreed to talk to me, and for close to 3 hours he replied to all my questions with kindness and constant courtesy, for which I’d like to thank him most sincerely.

Translated by Daniel Mangodt

Farewell, My Lovely

Sat, 23 Dec 2023 13:49:32 GMT

Label: Film Score Monthly
Catalogue No: FSMCD Vol. 4 No. 20

Release Date: 2002

Total Duration: 72:19

UPN: 0638558004326

Also contains music from: Monkey Shines

Given one of the two films represented on this release dates from 1988, and that this is an entry in Film Score Monthly's Silver Age Classics series, just when did the Silver Age of film music end? Or are we still in it? No matter, for this excellent value disc offers contrasting scores from a fine but largely unsung composer, David Shire.

FAREWELL, MY LOVELY was a second screen version of Raymond Chandler's classic novel, the first having starred Dick Powell in the heyday of film noir . This new version starred Robert Mitchum, and appearing in 1975 post-CHINATOWN exuded a more modern sensibility yet retained impeccable period credentials. I had the original soundtrack LP and foolishly parted with it, so am delighted to be reacquainted with what is an exceptionally attractive score in album form. Indeed, it is almost like having the LP back, but with better, remastered sound. For while Film Score Monthly usually go back to the original tracks, ignoring the sequencing of any past soundtrack albums and presenting the cues afresh, so well constructed was Shire's OST that they have effectively re-created it - re-mixing and re-editing the 16 track masters into the same configuration as the LP. The only difference, apart from better sound, is the addition of one new track, a two minute piece which links three short cues as "To Mrs Florian's / Car-nal Knowledge / I Am Curious".

This is a modern classic score, all 33 minutes being superbly crafted and filled with memorable melody and ingenious invention. Enjoy CHINATOWN and you will enjoy this much less well known score equally. The main theme, "Marlow's Theme", with solos for trombone and alto sax, may be pastiche, but it is so superbly accomplished that just like the Goldsmith, once heard the genre becomes unimaginable without it. Music as haunting and evocative of mean 1940's streets as "Mrs Grayle's Theme", melody for the movie's femme fatale, is sensual and inviting. Around these Shire spins perfect recreations of 1940's style jazz in "Three Mile Limited" offers powerfully dramatic suspense in "Take Me to Your Lido" and fatalistic resolution in "Moose Finds His Velma". This really is superlatively good and belongs in every film music buff's collection.

MONKEY SHINES: AN EXPERIMENT IN FEAR is a very different matter. Though given second billing on the disc the score is longer, coming in at 40 minutes, and here released for the first time. Music for what Jeff Bond and Lukas Kendall's excellent notes rightly describe as George Romeo's most conventional film, this is a romantic suspense/horror score with a predominance of African percussion improvised by the ensemble Nexus within constraints set by the composer - an approach akin to that of Richard Robbins and Zakir Hussain for the new release, THE MYSTIC MASSEUR. Considerably less attractive as a self-contained listening experience than FAREWELL MY LOVELY, it does its job with great efficiency in the movie it was composed to accompany, but I can fully understand why it hasn't been released on disc until now. The music is inventive, but some romantic, lyrical writing aside this is essentially superior suspense underscore - laced with an aspect of comedic writing for the titular monkey - which doesn't significantly reward independent listening. That said, the romantic theme which unfolds in the "Main Title" is beguiling journey into sudden darkness and there is a warm charm to the perhaps unfortunately entitled "Enter Melanie". The End Title, a version of "Ella's Theme" has a gorgeous bittersweet lyrical quality. Giving the score an unusual favour is the remarkable flute playing of Steve Kujala, whose portamento on a conventional instrument lends an exotic, jungle-like sound to the music.

In all respects bar one this release is up to Film Score Monthly's usual high standards. The one deficiency being that the booklet stills are in black and white. I hope this is not the beginning of a decline in presentation. The sound is excellent on both scores.

Gary Dalkin is a freelance editor. Books he has worked on include John Barry: The Man With The Midas Touch (revised 2nd edition), by Geoff Leonard, Pete Walker and Gareth Bramley, and The Struggle Behind the Soundtrack: Inside the Discordant New World of Film Scoring , by Stephan Eicke. You can find out more about Gary and contact him via his website - To The Last Word

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

Sat, 23 Dec 2023 13:32:16 GMT

Label: Retrograde Records
Catalogue No: FSM-80123-2

Release Date: 2002

Total Duration: 30:32

UPN: 6-3855-70123-3-9

David Shire’s urban jazzy music for this 1974 subway-hijack thriller has been nicely rescued from oblivion by Lukas Kendall of Film Score Monthly who, in his first CD release, serves up a dizzying assemblage of nicely orchestrated jazz and symphonics.

Supported by a 12-page booklet which includes a cue-by-cue analysis of the music, Shire’s dark score is 1970s jazz movie music at its finest. In the tradition of BULLITT and THE FRENCH CONNECTION and other crime movies of the decade, Shire offers his own take on the musical underbelly of modern urban violence. In a far different vein than his symphonic scores for THE HINDENBURG or RETURN TO OZ or even the subdued jazz of THE CONVERSATION, the gritty realism of PELHAM is effectively translated through the milieu of jazz – you can taste the gravel and smell the wet pavement and the sooty sparks from the NYC subway trails. Growling trombones, electrifying monochromatic violin glissandi, furtive piano notes, and a consistent percussive riff gives the film a brutal musical edge, while at the same time enhancing and playing along with the film’s subway train sound effects.

The CD is short, but it does include all the music Shire recorded for the film, including several cues not used in the film. Tracks are a mix of mono and stereo, salvaged from the composer’s personal tapes in lieu of the availability of the original session tapes. Sound quality, however, is quite good and the CD is an important addition to the Shire soundtrack catalog.

Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol. 15 / No.60 / 1996

David Shire Film Music

Sat, 23 Dec 2023 13:26:47 GMT

Label: Gorfaine-Schwartz Agency
Catalogue No: Promotional Use Only

Release Date: 2002

Total Duration: 73:43

UPN:

The David Shire Film Music compilation will instantly mesmerize every Shire fan on the planet. With samples of his original recordings that range from the 70s to the present, the 70+ minutes of music on this promotional release are very evenly balanced; each track represents about 3 minutes of a score’s main theme, making for a suite-like effect. The only characteristic of this release that keeps it from being one long, enjoyable listen is the fact that Shire has done five or six surprisingly inferior scores, and many of them appear here. Balanced with the 15 good excerpts on this release, they may not seem that significant. But every time the CD begins to flow very well, a track like THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP comes along and warrants the immediate relief of the forward button on your stereo.

Diversity is the key on this compilation. Shire’s piano solos in THE CONVERSATION are followed by the London Symphony Orchestra’s popular performance of RETURN TO OZ. PARIS TROUT returns to the small ensemble, with two guitars stealing the spotlight. Also making good use of the guitar is the much sought-after ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, which is dark and menacing in tone, but heroic in theme (perfect for the Pakula film). There’s no doubt about the touch of James Bond in FAREWELL, MY LOVELY, but nevertheless, it is an enjoyable film noir remake score with the full spirit of the alto sax.

The sound quality also varies from track to track. BED AND BREAKFAST is impressively full of warmth and depth, while the 70s pop style of THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1-2-3 (recently released on Retrograde) is tinny and distant. Fortunately, the three most remarkable compositions feature excellent sound: OLD BOYFRIENDS is a film that was never released, yet Shire’s viola solos are very enjoyable. The track from the IMAX film, THE JOURNEY INSIDE is more upbeat, grand, and heroic in a larger scale than many of the other selections. Shire’s Academy Award-winning song, “It Goes Like It Goes” from NORMA RAE, still retains its magic. It’s one of the hotter movie songs of our age – the type that compliments any collection of themes.

Overall, there’s such a variety of music on this CD that there’s bound to be a track here that will tickle the fancy of any film music fan. For Shire fans especially, the compilation is a dream come true.

Originally Published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.17 / No.67 / 1998

An Interview with David Shire

Sat, 23 Dec 2023 10:19:16 GMT

An Interview with David Shire by Matthias Büdinger 

Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.14 / No.53 / 1995

 Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven and Matthias Büdinger

There’s no business like show business. It’s a business of glamour, of stars and rainbows, of money and dreams come true, but above all it’s a business, with all its rules of supply and demand. Although Hollywood has always been famous for its greed, its superlatives, its appreciation and its perception of talent has sometimes been quite narrow. The rules that dictate the market aren’t necessarily related to quality and talent. People are not concerned about who might be the best person to score their movie; they are more concerned about who is the “hot cat” in town to provide a musical background.

David Shire is a wonderfully sensitive and imaginative composer but not really a “hot cat” in film music circles right now. Every career has its ups and downs, and David is the first person to admit that he is “inside a valley in my career in terms of feature films.” Although he scores about half a dozen TV movies a year, he hasn’t scored any big features in recent years, and the one that he was supposed to score and even finished recording finally went to Bruce Broughton – HOMEWARD BOUND: THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY.

Yet David Shire is the composer of scores as varied and distinct as THE CONVERSATION, THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1-2-3, FAREWELL MY LOVELY, THE HINDENBURG, ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, NORMA RAE, “2010”, RETURN TO OZ, SHORT CIRCUIT, NIGHT MOTHER and PARIS TROUT.

Along the way he has earned an Oscar (NORMA RAE, Best Song), two Grammies and four Emmy nominations. I don’t want to sound maudlin, nor would David want me to become sentimental. It’s not like him to be sitting in his lovely studio in the garden (not unlike Gustav Mahler’s hut at the lake…), waiting for the one phone call. There’s plenty of work to do. Besides all the TV scores, David recently wrote the music for Talia Shire’s directorial debut, ONE NIGHT STAND, an erotic psychological thriller, and a full-blown orchestral score (85 players) for a 40-minute lmax spectacle called THE JOURNEY INSIDE. David wrote 37 minutes of breathtaking, thematic action music. As he was writing the separate cues he was conscious of the way they would go together as a suite of continuous music. No soundtrack album, of course!

Apart from his TV and film work, David Shire has always written for the musical theater as well. BABY, CLOSER THAN EVER, STARTING HERE STARTING NOW all benefitted from his eloquent melodic skills and Richard Maltby Jr.’s mature lyrics. Each show, after respectable New York runs, has had hundreds of productions all over the world. David and Richard are now working on a musical adaptation of Tom Hanks’ screen hit BIG. The $7,000,000 show will go into rehearsal for Broadway in the spring of 1995.

I have been looking forward to meeting David Shire ever since I saw him in Munich, recording HOMEWARD BOUND.

David, what could be the reasons for that “valley” in your film career?

 I’m not perceived by a lot of potential employers as being the best casting for the kind of scores that I would like to get asked to write more often, big symphonic scores like RETURN TO OZ. Most producers looking for a score like that don’t think of me. More often, they call on me for what I call “brain surgery” scores.

 A lot of my best work doesn’t have soundtrack albums. So even for the collectors I’m a little bit of a maverick. Also, there’s a certain cyclical turn-over in the industry. Fresh faces, fresh sounds are very much in demand. It seems like there are more and more talented people who are coming up and scoring feature films. There are more musical avenues open to more people. But there are also more people who want to write film music and study it actively. Sometimes I wonder where the jobs are for all of them.

 I lost a big feature some months ago to another composer and was very disappointed, except that the other composer is one of my favorite new composers, Patrick Doyle. He’s done some sensational work. I was annoyed that his score for MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING didn’t get nominated this year. Anyway, picking him over me means that they are not going to get a score that’s less good than the one that I would do. I can’t say, “I’m better than he is. Give me the job,” because I don’t feel that.

What about your agents?

 My agents work very hard. We talk about this regularly. They try to be encouraging. Ultimately, you get work because of your previous work. An agent can constantly put you up for projects. He can say, “Listen to this guy,” or “Have an interview with him,” but he can’t make someone hire you. The final decision is out of the agent’s hands. You know that Catch-22 effect: When you haven’t done a big picture for a while it gets harder and harder to get one. But you need a recent big picture in order to start getting others.

 My situation is not unique at all. When I first came out here in the early Seventies, I started meeting some of my film music idols. I remember very specifically meeting David Raksin, having grown up playing LAURA in cocktail piano bars, night after night, year after year. I was shocked by the fact that he was hardly scoring features any more. By that time I was doing mostly TV movies, though his powers were not at all diminished. I realized the other day that I’m probably close to the age now that he was then (David turned 57 in July 1994 – MB).

You just finished recording your score for Talia Shire’s directorial debut, ONE NIGHT STAND (this interview was done in March 1994). Talia is your former wife and Francis Coppola’s sister…
 I was very happy to have done that film. It’s a low-budget feature, but an excellent one. Who knows what other feature work it could lead to? When I did THE CONVERSATION I thought that I would get no work from it because it was a piano score. Instead, it was a breakthrough picture for me. I thought THE BIG BUS, which had a big orchestral score, would establish me out here. Five people went to see it…

Wasn’t it kind of delicate to work with your ex-wife?
 We have one of the better ex-marriages. We are both intelligent and caring people, and although there are scars that itch now and then, basically there’s a good relationship. Talia has always respected my work as a composer, I have always respected her work as an actress, and we’ve raised a wonderful son. As a matter of fact, Talia was one of the stars of the last large orchestral score that I did, BED AND BREAKFAST, and her late husband, Jack Schwartzman, was the producer. It was recorded in Dublin, and there’s a soundtrack on Varese Sarabande that I’m very proud of.

Your score for ONE NIGHT STAND called for two synthesizers, cello, flute, oboe, guitar and two female voices…
 That’s typical of the chamber instrumentation that a lot of us are forced to use these days, because of ever-diminishing music budgets. If it’s a film that requires a chamber score, that’s fine, But often we are supposed to simulate orchestral scores with a handful of players. Some producers hope that eventually a synthesizer will give them the London Symphony Orchestra. In ONE NIGHT STAND I used two keyboard players as the nucleus of my “orchestra”. One of them played almost exclusively string parts. The other one did mostly harp, keyboard or percussion parts. I also used an EWI, an Electronic Wind Instrument, and as many acoustic instruments as the budget afforded. There are certain things that synthesizers can simulate better than others. If you use the synthesizer strings basically as an accompaniment and have a real acoustic voice in front of it, your ear tends to forgive the more artificial synthesizer sound. That’s a common trick. You find more and more ways to skin the low budget cat. But it’s not idiomatic writing; it’s faking an orchestra, faking another kind of ensemble with different forces. And there’s a certain curse: The better we get at creating lower budget scores that sound like higher budget scores, the more many producers think: that they can decrease the music budgets.

Although your score was involuntarily chamber-like, you did the best creatively with the forces you had, which is one of the capabilities of good composers. Let’s discuss HOMEWARD BOUND: THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY, which ended up with a score by Bruce Broughton.
 For me it was truly an incredible journey. I worked as hard and lovingly and with as much enthusiasm on that score as I did on RETURN TO OZ. It was the best opportunity I had had since OZ to do a full-blown, multi-themed symphonic score. I was thrilled to get the project. I had almost weekly meetings for a couple of months with the director. He sat on that couch many Monday mornings while I played him themes and reworked them until we both loved them. The producers also were very enthusiastic about the material. They sent me off to Munich to record the score and we had to leave after 3 days because the orchestra played so poorly. I’m not totally sure why, but I had the feeling that we got a lot of substitutes. I know for a fact that the concertmaster and the lead trumpet were subs. We then re-recorded the whole score in 2 days at the Burbank Studios with a smaller orchestra (60 pieces) because of the diminished music budget. It was about 80 minutes of music. Before he left for Cannes, Jeffrey Katzenberg (the former Disney chairman) wanted to see the picture in whatever state it was in at that time.

 I was at the screening at Katzenberg’s house and he seemed to be pleased. A couple of days later I got a call from my agent saying that my services were no longer required. Katzenberg also fired the stars doing the animal voices and almost fired the director. Then Bruce (Broughton) was called in which surprised me, because I think that we have similar musical sensibilities. I thought that perhaps they wanted a very different style.

People who have heard the score feel it’s as good as anything I’ve done. I think: the cloud of Munich hung over it. It was a double disappointment. When you lose a picture like that, you don’t just lose that picture. You lose all the pictures that that film might have generated. Anyway, one amusing story came out of it: My son Matthew who was 17 at the time is a great fan of mine, very defensive of his father. He went to a dance after this happened and found himself dancing with Bruce Broughton’s daughter. Matt said, “I hear your father scored INCREDIBLE JOURNEY.” “Yes, he did,” she said, “Well, mine did too!” he shot back.

But luckily you do have another career, another life as a composer of musicals, for instance BABY, STARTING HERE STARTING NOW, CLOSER THAN EVER and soon BIG. They had respectable runs in New York, and they have become repertoire musicals constantly being performed in the US and abroad…
 That work is very important to me – working on one project for several years, writing foreground music where dramatic decisions are being made because we are telling a story that we chose to tell. You have the time to really let your musical material evolve, and the work is your own vision. I want to write at least three or four more musicals before I hang it up. I grew up with the Gershwin, Porter, Kern, Rodgers tradition. I wrote theatre music long before I thought I would be writing anything for films.

But there is certainly a connection between your film scores and your song writing.
 What may help a lot of my film writing is the songwriter’s sensibility. I usually go for the long, singing line (e.g. THE HINDENBURG, RETURN TO OZ, BED AND BREAKFAST). I had to teach myself more about writing non-melodic action cues. That’s what the real challenge of movie scoring was for me, and it gave me a great opportunity to work on my orchestral writing. But the fact that I come out of the theatre tradition gives me the dramatic sensibilities for movies. There’s a lot of overlap. The same basic aesthetic that applies to writing theatre music often applies to writing a movie score. Films often make bigger demands in terms of compositional and orchestral technique.

I always wonder what comes first, the lyrics or the melody…
 Richard Maltby Jr. more often than not likes to have the music first. As soon as he hears a melody – no matter how complicated it is – he hears words in it, and usually he writes a lyric that people then compliment me on having set to music so well. On the other hand, when I did ‘It Goes Like it Goes’, the song from NORMA RAE that won an Oscar, Norman Gimbel delivered a finished lyric to me, told me not to change a word and went off on a skiing trip. I set it word for word. It surprised me how successful that song was, because normally I have to work very hard at setting something. I can fall into musical constrictions because of the lyric instead of seeing its possibilities. That lyric just happened to set itself beautifully.

You arranged, accompanied and wrote songs for Barbra Streisand. I think you got to know her in the early sixties.
 Everyone wanted to write for her. Oddly enough, some of the songs of ours she recorded weren’t written for her. ‘Starting Here, Starting Now’ I thought of as a Robert Goulet song. She saw it on the top of my piano one day. I played her some other things that I thought were “Streisand songs”. She said, “What’s that?” I said, “That’s not for you.” – “Well, let me hear it, anyway,” she said. So I played it for her and that’s the one she wanted. ‘What About Today’, for which I did the lyrics too, was written for Peter, Paul and Mary at a time when I was dating Mary. When I played it for them they thought it was “too Broadway”. I got it to Barbra. She loved it and recorded it.

What are the ideal working conditions for considering a film score, where you are not your own master as you are when you do musicals?
 Working with real collaborators like Francis Coppola (THE CONVERSATION), Walter Murch (RETURN TO OZ), Glenn Jordan (ONLY WHEN I LAUGH), Talia Shire or a number of other directors I could name is ideal.  It’s interesting that I worked with Talia in much the same way that I worked with her brother Francis Coppola on THE CONVERSATION, where instead of them finishing the movie and then calling in a composer to look at it and then run home with a limited time to do a score, they had me read a script in an early form so we could start talking about the score early on. The music then had a chance to evolve as the picture was evolving. Almost any composer you ask would like to work that way. You have a chance to have your subconscious work on the project, maybe while you are even working on other things.

 Once I have my basic material and I know it’s right, I can write the cues relatively quickly. Each cue leads to the next. There’s an inner logic about it that carries you through. Subsidiary material starts being generated by the principal material and vice versa. The material reaches a critical mass and starts to explode with possibilities. But as my orchestration and composition skills have gotten more and more fluent, I’ve been increasingly able to turn out a hack score with the best of them, and that scares me. That’s a special danger of doing a lot of TV work. You get too good at doing something in two weeks, often by recycling your favourite ideas and techniques and doing what comes easily.

What’s exciting is when a film asks you to do something you’ve never done before, like THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1.2.3. I eventually realized the way to get the sound I wanted was through serial techniques. It was a style I wasn’t fluent in. So I had to bite the bullet and spend many weeks down here giving myself composition lessons, so to speak! I think any artist does that. With any new project you are a virgin to some extent. You have to initiate yourself, and give yourself the time to discover.

You’ve mentioned TV, what about that medium?
 I’ve been able to do some feature quality work on some very good projects, but in TV, it’s often “Hurry up, write it,” and then “Hurry up, record it”. Even if you manage to write something terrific, you usually can’t realize it totally on the scoring stage. And often you have to commit yourself to themes before you have a chance to live with them as you’d like to.  I like to see a picture a couple of times, write some material, put it away for a week, come back and if I don’t like it, throw it away and try something else. There’s usually no time to do that in TV.

I’d like to ask you about the infamous temp tracks…
 Often producers or directors don’t want an original score. They want a score you’ve already written or somebody else has already written. They don’t realize how constricting it is when they show you their movie for the first time with somebody else’s music on it. It doesn’t allow you to come to it with a fresh sensibility.

 But I have to add that on certain TV jobs, I have asked to hear the temp score when they haven’t played it, because I realized that the director was trying to describe something rather specific to me that I knew was somebody else’s score. And when you only have two weeks to do your own, you are sometimes well-advised to take the specific leads they can give you. You often just want to get the job done and make them as happy as possible in the little time you have. Incidentally, I also have to be very careful about listening too much to music I really love. In a way it’s a curse. The other day I put on James Newton Howard’s THE FUGITIVE in my car. I really enjoyed it. But I realized I had to put it in my closet because if I listened to it again, I would start absorbing it so much that I’d start writing it. That’s why I tend to listen to more classical music than film scores. I try to nourish myself by listening, say, to Ravel, Mahler or John Adams. And I still study scores and keep trying to teach myself. It’s a way of refreshing myself between gigs.

Ravel and Mahler are two of my favorite classical composers. I sense their sensibilities concerning harmony, color and melody in your film scores. THE HINDENBURG, for instance, had a very nostalgic, late romantic, Mahlerian or Straussian texture.
 Trying to come up with a musical metaphor for the Hindenburg itself, I used Richard Strauss as a model. The Main Title was based on one of his ‘Four Last Songs’. The dirigible and Nazi Germany got so overblown that they ultimately had to collapse. And the exhaustion of tonality in the thick, oversized late Romantics seemed like a good musical metaphor for what was going on politically. That’s what I miss most about scoring big projects: in features the music is a real player, able to create subtext. In TV you often have to underline what’s already there or hang some wallpaper around it.

Being a film music aficionado, I often wonder what minority I am a member of. I guess many film music buffs listen too exclusively to film music and are constantly surprised – when they happen to listen to people like Mahler, Strauss, Prokofiev – that these gentlemen wrote real film music, so to speak, setting standards for film composers…
 I hate to think of some film music fans listening to nothing but soundtracks all the time. I hope that once in a while they put on the music that so much film music is derived from. As far as film music being derivative – in the best sense, all art is derivative. T.S. Eliot wrote a seminal essay saying that every work of art created modifies the entire history of perception of every work that preceded it.

Yes, no artist can start from scratch. You seem to read a lot, David.
 I tend to read a lot more than I listen to music. It makes me fresher for writing music the next day.

We talked about the ups and down of artistic life. How do you feel right now?
 It’s easy to feel victimized. You’ve got to fight that and keep your energies up, whatever job you are losing, whatever job you are getting. Certainly the scenario of my life is not anything I could have predicted. So who knows what the future will bring? For instance, my wife Didi and I adopted a new-born boy two years ago, and he’s been a source of joy and inspiration to me. Maybe it’s a natural function of growing older, but I find myself much more able to integrate my career with my personal life. And I’ve never been more curious about so many things. That’s one of the reasons I read so much.

For instance I just became fascinated with astronomy, bought some books and equipment and have suddenly become an avid star-gazer. Also, Didi’s career, as an actress, is as important to me as my own, and I’ve been able to help her more, both professionally and around the house.  As corny as it may sound, I have an incredible amount to be thankful for and to keep me occupied even if I never score a big feature film again. And when I do start scoring them once more, which I’m pretty sure I will, I’ll just have one more thing to feel good about.

A Conversation with David Shire

Sat, 23 Dec 2023 10:00:24 GMT

A Conversation with David Shire by David Kraft

 Originally published in CinemaScore #13/14, 1985

 Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor and publisher, Randall D. Larson

David Shire’s name is prominently featured in the credits of “2010” but, as it turns out, it isn’t a score for which Shire would like to take much credit. Film music buffs are aware of many scores that have been totally rejected and replaced by other scores, but unless a composer speaks out one never really knows how much or how little of the composer’s intention ends up in a film’s final release. In the case of 2010, executive manipulation dampened much of Shire’s intentions for the film’s score. In an attempt to set the record straight on 2010, Mr. Shire agreed to the following interview. We talked at his Sherman Oaks, California, home at the end of March, enough time after 2010’s December 1984 release to allow for some perspective.

I guess the best place to start is at the beginning. Tony Banks, of the rock group Genesis, had first been signed to score 2010. How did you become involved?

 I was on vacation when I got a call from my agents telling me to hurry back to town since director Peter Hyams was changing composers on 2010 and had asked about my availability. I had mixed feelings about doing it, even at the beginning. It was supposed to be a “Big movie” but I’m a little suspicious when another composer has worked for six months and it hasn’t worked out. Also, doing a sequel to a classic film with a classic score is something to be wary of. However, I felt I should at least go and talk to Peter. So I met with him and he told me how he’d worked with Banks for a long time and when some actual cues came in they were not what he wanted. That’s all I know about Tony Banks’ involvement.

Peter told me that it was a given that “Zarathustra” would open the movie and come in at the climax of the last cue. However, he did want a “2010 Theme” which we eventually called the “New Worlds Theme.” He wanted me to write an electronic score yet one that was “orchestral” – in other words not a futuristic or highly abstract electronic score but more like the Tomita/Vangelis school, using electronic instruments to get a rich, quasi-orchestral sound. It seemed like a reasonably good idea at the time. I did ask about doing an all-orchestral score but Hyams felt the score needed a bit of the “other-worldliness” that electronic realization would evoke. Also, this type of score would allow him to hear the work as it progressed, and this was important to him – he wanted that kind of on-going editorial control.

I had a good deal of experience working on this kind of electronic score when I worked for a couple of years on APOCALYPSE NOW (my score wasn’t used) so it wasn’t a strange area to me. But perhaps I was a little naive to think I could write a theme that would supplant “Zarathustra” in any way, and since the new theme I wrote was used so little in the movie, and not in the way I intended, there was really no contest.

Since you’re not known as a composer of electronic music, why did Hyams ask for you? 

I asked Hyams at the outset why he’d come to me, and he said he liked my scores for THE CONVERSATION, THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1,2,3 and ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN. He considers himself a real student of film scoring and is an amateur musician himself, so music is near and dear to him.

I was really torn whether or not to do the picture, but I have a ground rule that if it’s a toss-up between “yes” and “no”, it’s better to say “yes”. If you say “no” you never know what you might have been able to do. However, as it turned out, this was one of the least happy experiences I’ve had scoring a picture. It was long and hard work, which is okay, except the results were not anything like I’d intended. The album is the only record of what Craig Huxley and I set out to do as far as the whole score is concerned, as an integral piece of work.

How did the score develop? 

First I had to pick a producer-synthesist collaborator and I eventually decided on Craig Huxley, after considering several possibilities. I’d worked with him briefly on a few projects and he and I are interested in many of the same areas of math, philosophy and music, plus I’ve admired his musicianship ever since he was a child jazz prodigy. The happiest part of working on 2010 was working with Craig. If he hadn’t been so congenial and such a good “psychiatrist” for me along the way I don’t know if I would have made it.

After Craig was set we worked on two major cues which would be “prototypes” for the rest of the score. We tried to find a “sound” for the film and spent a lot of time with Peter finding out anything he liked and didn’t like. Anything, for instance, that started to get too “electronic sounding” was rejected.

I felt the film was a two-theme movie, the first being the “New Worlds” theme which is expressive of the magic and mystery of the journey and what the astronauts are looking for even though they’re not sure what they’ll find. The second theme is the “Bowman” material. I felt the variations on the New Worlds theme should be heard first, progressively getting closer to the theme’s full statement at the end when the planet comes alive. That’s where the orchestral version comes in and is the only complete, out-and-out statement of the theme. Also, I was trying to find a way to link “Zarathustra” and my score. Peter kept telling me to forget about that, but I felt the score should at least try to have that consistency. If you begin with “Zarathustra” you need a score that has some relation to it.

For part of the Bowman material, Craig and I came up with what we refer to as the “morally-neutral third,” suggested by the fact that one point of the “Zarathustra” theme is the alternation of major and minor triads which sort of asks the musical question, to put it simplistically: “is the universe bad or is it good?” The triad we came up with has a third half-way between a major and a minor one and this makes for nice tension without sounding too ominous. Also, the “Bowman” theme itself uses 4 triads in different alternations, 2 major and 2 minor, that together use all 12 tones once each – another musical metaphor that links with the “Zarathustra” theme. However, not much of the New Worlds theme’s development ended up in the movie in a very hearable form. I had a ground plan for the whole score but I’m afraid you wouldn’t know it from seeing and hearing the movie – the music was so buried or fragmented. There was supposed to be a progression.

One of the first major cues we tackled was the “Probe” sequence which ran about four minutes (it’s the sequence where the first probe vehicle is sent down and there’s a flash of light – the suspense builds as the crew is huddled over the instruments). I was very happy with how that cue came out and I played it for Peter. He then told me he had decided now not to use music for that scene, just effects. He didn’t even try it at the dubbing. I don’t want this to sound like the usual sour grapes. Generally my collaborations with directors have been very good. I love to collaborate and am always playing material for directors whether they ask to hear it or not, but the collaboration with Peter was strange. We had worked very closely together every cue was played for him, every change he wanted was made. He seemed to be a fan of the score. That’s why I expected more of the score to end up in the final picture – and that’s why I was so disappointed when I went to the preview screening and heard the end result.

The reason I feel more of the score should have been used – cues like the probe sequence, for instance – is that I think it would have helped the picture dramatically. From the many reviews I’ve read of the film, most critics felt as I did, that from the start it was too “cold” and that one didn’t get involved with the characters enough. I tried to help that with the score. But Hyams cut out a lot of what I did in favor of an elaborate sound effects track. He was intent on using a lot of these effects from the beginning, including the sound of the humpback whale. I told him this was a sound I’ve heard in at least five other movies and it wasn’t as effective or mysterious as he thought since a lot of people are familiar with it. I couldn’t sway his thinking.

My main bone of contention is that Hyams took the tapes we gave him which contained (as he’d requested) all the separate elements we’d layed down (as well as the total mix) and, in effect, “re-composed” the score by using only certain tracks – not the complete mix we’d delivered. For example, on some cues he used only the bass line, and on others he’d only use a high, sustained sound so it sounded like a television score where the composer didn’t have enough time to do any better. I feel, as it stands now, the score has no unity and, except for the “Bowman” cue and the ending, it was pretty much decimated.

What do you think you’ve learned from this experience? 

Well, if I had it to do all over again I’d try to do a mixed orchestral and synthesizer score, like Arthur B. Rubinstein did so very well in BLUE THUNDER. It’s hard to find a really fresh way to approach a purely electronic score. An orchestra might have better helped add warmth to the film, and it might have had a better chance with all the effects. I did like the idea of suddenly bringing in a real orchestra for the first time when the planet comes alive, but you heard so little of the preceding electronic part of the score that I don’t think it had the intended contrasting effect.

Also, you have to be very careful how you mix even simple electronic music with heavy effects. Otherwise you blot out that part of the sound spectrum, the harmonics, that makes the music sound special, leaving mainly the fundamentals, which sounds flat. Using an orchestra as well as synthesizers, I could have written more elaborate music when I felt it was needed, and it might have come off better in conjunction with all of Peter’s effects.

I learned a long time ago that when writing for synthesizers you need to write much more simply – three or four lines at the most. If you write more than that it starts sounding like an ice-skating rink organ.

David Shire on Scoring Return to Oz

Fri, 22 Dec 2023 13:17:04 GMT

An Interview with David Shire by David Kraft 

Originally published in CinemaScore #15, 1986 / 1987 

Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor and publisher Randall D. Larson

Film music afficianados have often found that many unsuccessful, otherwise forgettable films are made worthwhile by exceptional music scores; RETURN TO OZ is a recent example. David Shire’s brilliant gem of a score (Page Cook, the hyper-critical film music columnist of Films in Review, called it the best score of the past several years) stands out in a film that was almost universally loathed by critics and the few people who went to see it. The genesis of Shire’s noteworthy score is discussed in the following interview (held during June, 1986). David Shire elaborates on OZ’s extensive and varied thematic material, in addition to commenting on his more recent projects, such as the score to SHORT CIRCUIT.

The last time we talked you had just recorded your score for RETURN TO OZ and the release of the film was imminent. You seemed very pleased with your music, but, as it turned out, the film failed miserably at the box-office. Nevertheless, I feel the score is one of your finest.
 I was glad to have an opportunity to write an extensive, symphonic score for a major orchestra – The London Symphony – a score with a great number of themes. I’ve done a lot of films that didn’t require a great deal of music – I call them “brain surgery scores” – where you have to walk on eggs and work hard to keep the music out of the way most of the time and work, for the most part, on a subliminal level. So, I was happy when OZ director Walter Murch said he wanted a lot of music.

There are nine major themes or thematic groups in RETURN TO OZ, and I tried to compose them so they would work as extended pieces of music in addition to their functioning as themes. I wanted the score to hold together like ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ or ‘Peter and the Wolf’. I felt this would give the film a musical coherence and make for a soundtrack album that would really tell the story of the picture.

I started working while Walter was still shooting. However, only one theme – the Gump’s theme – was written before I actually got to see the rough cut of the film. Well before the spotting, Walter and I decided on certain basic ideas for the score’s tone and texture. We had some ideas based on music we liked – for instance, Charles Ives, especially his work for smaller combinations that can be heard on a wonderful album called Deranged Songs for Theatre Orchestra, plus some Prokofiev and Bartok. We later joked how one cue I’d written was in the style of “Prokofi-Ives”.

I tried to find models for each theme from American music that the character of Dorothy could have heard, since the story is, in a sense, Dorothy’s dream – she’s creating it. I wanted the score to have a truly American flavour and even though symphonic, to employ various interesting smaller combinations within that texture. I also wanted each of the “little” characters to have a characteristic small ensemble sound and pit all of them against the larger symphonic forces that mostly represent the “large” forces of evil (the Nome king and Mombi) that they are up against. There are three themes that relate directly to Dorothy. The first is the “Home Theme” which represents Dorothy’s feeling about her Kansas home and Aunt Em. It’s hymn-like – much like something Dorothy would have heard at Sunday services. The other two are Dorothy’s Main Theme and the theme for Ozma. Following a suggestion from Walter, the latter two were designed to work together in counterpoint at the end of the movie.

Ozma is really Dorothy’s alter-ego – she’s the imaginative side of Dorothy that Dorothy is trying to make contact with. The subtext of the movie, according to Walter, is that Dorothy is going back to Oz to rescue and thus be able to reconcile herself with Ozma, and somehow find a way to be true to the world of her imagination while living in the real world. The themes play together for the first time as Ozma steps through the mirror and joins Dorothy in the big resolution scene in Oz. They do so again when Ozma appears in Dorothy’s mirror at the very end of the film. Ozma disappears and Dorothy runs outside to play, and the two melodies then really sing together in symphonic counterpoint during the end titles.

I had the Ozma theme early on, and after Walter made his counterpoint suggestion, it took a very long time to get a Dorothy theme that would work with it yet have an equally strong and distinct character of its own. I also gave each of the themes its own instrumental character – solo violin for Dorothy, solo cello for Ozma. I must have written twenty or twenty-five different Dorothy themes until I came up with one I was really happy with! All the throwaways either didn’t work well contrapuntally, or else sounded too much like counterpoints or obligatos rather than distinctive melodies. I didn’t want the climax to be telegraphed at all.

As for the other themes, the “Rag March,” which is first heard when Dorothy lands in Oz, has an obvious reference to turn-of-the-Century American music. Then there’s “Tik Tok’s Theme.” It features a brass quintet which related to Tik Tok’s metallic rotundity. Also, in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, there were several coronet players who were big musical stars and loved to play these wonderfully silly show-off cadenzas. Walter agreed with me that something like that would work very well for the end of the fight scene between Tik Tok and the evil Wheelers, Tik Tok’s big triumph.

The “Jack Pumpkinhead Theme” is a turn-of-the-Century waltz, again something Dorothy might have heard. I originally wrote it to feature clarinet, but Walter had me switch the melody to bass clarinet an octave lower because he thought the clarinet would be in the same audio range as Jack’s voice and would conflict. Oddly enough, Walter thought of this when he noticed that the bass clarinet (he didn’t know what it was) looked like the character of Jack Pumpkinhead! But he was right about the potential conflict and its solution. Dorothy’s chicken friend, Bellina, has a motif for nervous high reeds and double reeds, moving quickly in major seconds.

As for the evil forces, Mombi’s theme employs a mandolin, since she plays her own theme on one in the movie. I used a synthesizer for this to get a slightly unreal mandolin sound that I could better control. The Gump has a clockwork-type Vamp, and, when he finally takes off, a big symphonic “movie-music” theme with the four horns triumphantly singing away.

The Nome King’s motif uses shifting whole tone harmonies in the lower end of the orchestra. As he gets meaner and meaner his essentially augmented triad harmonic character shifts to diminished seventh and Bartokian harmony. When he finally disintegrates, the three diminished chords are stacked horrifically a la the 12-tone “Wozzek Chord”. I tried to mirror his gradual psychological disintegration with a gradual harmonic one.

I gave the Wheelers a distinctive sound by featuring metallic percussion. I decided to use only string orchestra (with harp and percussion) for the first three reels before Dorothy gets to Oz, so that there would be a musical delineation between the real, somewhat dark world of Kansas and the bright and bizarre world of Oz. The woodwinds and brass are gradually introduced in the storm sequence as Dorothy is swept away to Oz. I especially liked developing all the inter-relationships between the themes, such as in the ‘Rag March’, which has a few bars from each of the little characters’ themes threaded through it.

Why do you think the film itself was so unsuccessful?
 It was a very dark vision, oddly enough closer to Frank Baum’s writing than the original OZ movie. However, the world knew and adored the other one, as I did. Walter tried for a more authentic version, the scenic design based on the original illustrations. But the film is often strange and dark and many people, perhaps expecting another musical, compared it negatively to the original. Some critics said the film was too scary for kids, but my own son, who was afraid to see INDIANA JONES, wasn’t scared by RETURN TO OZ at all. I do feel the film could have used more humour.

What response have you had to the score from critics and fans?
 Not too many people saw the movie. However, the response to the album has been very gratifying. It was a long, hard saga to get one out on a picture that was quickly a dead issue. Disney was little help, but Craig Huxley (my electronic collaborator on 2010 and SHORT CIRCUIT and my close friend) liked the score a lot and offered to put it out if I would help financially so he could structure a deal that would allow him to break even. I was deeply involved with this score, and worked long and hard on it – as I was writing the score I had an album in mind and wanted to wind up with something that would sound like a concert suite rather than a collection of cues. To help this, I often made the silence between cuts on the album shorter than they normally are. I got a lovely letter from Page Cook who wrote a whole article on the score for the May, 1986 Films in Review. It was laudatory even beyond my hopes.

Now what about SHORT CIRCUIT, your new score? The music is a mix of synthesizers and full orchestra.
 Yes. The film is about a robot who is struck by lightning and comes alive. This gave me the idea to start out just using synthesizer and as the robot came alive to gradually use more and more of the acoustic orchestra. The whole second reel of the picture, where the robot hasn’t yet come fully to life, is scored with a synclavier – melodic yet all electronic, then I gradually bring in a 60-piece orchestra. Craig Huxley and I spent four weeks pre-synthesizing elaborate synclavier cues, some to be used as rhythm tracks with the full orchestra, and some to be used alone. One of the thematic elements is for the high-tech, modern Army (which is pursuing the robot) and which is all synthesized percussion. The robot’s rhythmic signature, an agitated sixteenth-note running figure, had to be perfectly precise and robotic. We finally came up with six or seven nested sounds on the synclavier. I wanted to make sure that the electronic rhythm section would have a lot of presence and cut through the big orchestra, and that the synth sounds would be exactly right.

Scoring mixer Danny Wallin brilliantly recorded the score with 6-track (boiled down from our original 24-tracks) synthesizer units against which we recorded 24 tracks of orchestra. I’m really pleased with how it turned out. The only unpleasant aspect, in an otherwise pleasant project, is that early on the director, John Badham, and I had decided on having a song for the end title that would complete the emotional and musical statement of the picture and be the musical climax of the film. I worked for a month to find a piece of music that would score the film properly yet work as a song at the end. I wanted the song’s verse and chorus melody and its rhythm figure to be the three thematic elements I needed to score the picture with. It took a while but I finally got the material I was after.

Well, in the meantime, the film company, Tri-Star, had commissioned some pop songwriters to write a song for El DeBarge because they wanted a “surefire” hit record and music video, and then they said they wanted that song used for the end title. John Badham stayed on my side all the time since he realized the whole score built up to my end title. Anyhow, the songwriters, who couldn’t come up with anything, finally took a song they already had called “Who’s Johnny,” that didn’t have anything to do with the movie. They slightly modified it to try and make it fit, but it just didn’t work – musically or lyrically – with the film. After John repeatedly pointed this out to Tri-Star, and previewed the film with my song, they let him have his way.

As it stands out, the DeBarge song is only used as a source cue for about two minutes (it is a good pop song, by the way). However, Tri-Star gave Motown Records permission to subtitle the song ‘Who’s Johnny – Theme from SHORT CIRCUIT’. So, if there is any confusion, that song has nothing to do with the reality of the score, only with the unfortunate reality of the all-too-frequent corporate insensitivity to the integrity of film scores. But that’s nothing new, of course.

Next you’ll be working on ‘NIGHT, MOTHER (starring Sissy Spacek and Anne Bancroft), based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play.
 It’s interesting going from SHORT CIRCUIT, a film about the progress from inanimation to life, to ‘NIGHT, MOTHER, which is about going from life to death. We’ve just finished spotting the film and there’s only eleven minutes of music in the picture, of which 6 minutes are the Main and End titles. I’m using solo classical guitar with a string orchestra, after the texture of the Vivaldi D major Guitar (lute) Concerto, which was the sound that Tom Moore, the director, and I fell in love with. At Tom’s request I made temp-tracks using guitar and piano for some early executive screenings, and the theme works really well.

Since the film deals with a very sombre, serious subject – suicide – do you think you’ll write a score that underlines this aspect, or will you try to lighten things up with a more upbeat, life-affirming score?
 We don’t want to make the film appear lighter or heavier than it is. The music takes its cue from the dignity and moving serenity of a girl who chooses to kill herself rather than live in insurmountable emotional pain. This more “removed” approach, which emphasized the quiet heroism of the main character if anything, seems to be the most effective way to go. Once again, I’ve been fortunate to enjoy a really comfortable and pleasurable collaboration with a director.

How is your musical, Baby, doing (not to be confused with the dinosaur film, BABY: LEGEND OF THE LOST)?
 Very well. Since it closed on Broadway two years ago, it’s had over a hundred different productions worldwide, including major ones in Japan and Australia, and it’s currently at a big theatre in Chicago for a six-month run. Richard Maltby and I are starting on a new musical show, by the way, and hopefully this next year my time will be equally divided between stage and screen work.

Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 12:50:49 GMT

Label: Chandos Records
Catalogue No: CHAN 10525

Release Date: May-2009

Total Duration: 66:53

UPN: 0095115152522

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Christopher Gunning

I know some of Gunning's work from his Saxophone Concerto on ASV (White Line CD WHL2138 (2002)) and also from several of his film scores. Chris Fifield reviewed an Albany disc of his First Symphony a couple of years ago. I also recall reviews of his symphonic work for brass band: Yorkshire Glory . I was pleased and intrigued to see this CD of his seriously intended orchestral music.

He was born in Cheltenham and has been a pupil of Rubbra, Richard Rodney Bennett, James Gibb - whose piano recordings have been reissued on Lyrita recently - and Brian Trowell. In addition to the works here he has a string quartet and concertos for clarinet and for piano to his name. His writing for the screen includes a score for Firelight. There's more to see at his website . His concert music is predominantly tonal but with the freedom to adopt dissonance to suit mood and trajectory.

While the two symphonies here have a single movement apiece each is helpfully tracked into five segments. The Third emanates from a tortured time in the composer's life. This shows in the occlusion of expression: the shadows, hesitation, even desolation that characterises much of the music. There is a moment of transitory triumph at 4:27 in the first track but the downward tug into fear is dominant. It is typical of this composer that his writing is diaphanous and this work is no exception. In the first section the writing for strings melds with the resonance of bells. This active filigree is also in play in the final pages which offer impudence but little optimism and yet more disillusion. If this symphony carries a doom-laden burden then the Fourth Symphony, written after recovery from serious illness by Gunning and his wife, is more triumphant. Adversity conquered seems to be the message. A glorious fanfaring dialogue surmounts the first section at 4:12 and in doing so reminds us of Copland and Alwyn. It returns in echoing triumph in the final episode.

The Oboe Concerto is here played most skilfully and with great sensitivity by the composer's daughter. This is her first entry as soloist into the world of recording. The Concerto is intended to reflect Verity's character: "thoughtful and sometimes quirky". It's certainly contemplative, pensive and interspersed with flurries of quirky activity. Its perkily active final movement reminded me of the dancing finale of Malcolm Arnold's Oboe Concerto. The composer speaks of a middle eastern tinge to the music but I must say it did not register with me.

The other two symphonies should follow from Chandos in the fullness of time - but how long? Soon I hope.

These substantial works will repay closer attention. For all that they are principally tonal their rewards are yielded up only after repeat listening. Instantly gripping melodic ideas are not on offer here though the writing does beckon the listener in.

The Film and TV Music of Christopher Gunning

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 12:40:48 GMT

Label: Chandos Records
Catalogue No: CHAN 10625

Release Date: 1-Nov-2010

Total Duration: 74:58

UPN: 0-9511-51625-2-1

BBC Philharmonic conducted by Rumon Gamba

The case of Christopher Gunning has been well and truly taken up by Chandos. Last year we had two of his six symphonies and the oboe concerto. Now the genre that brought him to wide attention is tackled.

It's mostly suave music for television. We start with the Poirot Variants for sax and orchestra. This is a combination he has tackled before in On Hungerford Bridge on ASV. A smooth fantasy touches on train rhythms, Buenos Aires dance-halls and a worldly romantic lassitude. Martin Robertson's saxophone presents the music without rough edges, subtle and undulating: not a trace of rasp. La MÔME PIAF - 2007 film – quite rightly fears no cliché in deploying the accordion. It's all very romantic. Under Suspicion leaves such smoothness behind in a gruff nightmare-image speaking of the ruptured emotional landscapes of late Malcolm Arnold… though tenderness does arrive. The COLD LAZARUS (1996) music is at first ascetic and doom-laden with whip-like dactyls reaching out. From this FAHRENHEIT 451 chill arises the most glorious romantic theme - almost BORN FREE or Howard Hanson Second Symphony. THE ROSEMARY AND THYME CAPRICE has the closely recorded Craig Ogden confiding Scarborough Fair to the listener in an English countryside evocation.

REBECCA showcases the cellist Julia Bradshaw in another dark-clouded piece completely in keeping with the brooding and intensely romantic spirit of the Daphne du Maurier book. It's well worth hearing. Innocent folk voices abound in POLLYANA which is heavily freighted with charm. Woodwind solos and piano are prominent. Firelight - 1997 film - is among his most popular scores yet is quite low key and contained. This is not a grand statement and the music is heavily characterised by Yuri Torchinsky's tremblingly vulnerable violin. WHEN THE WHALES CAME - 1989 film - is quite naturally threaded through with the spirit of the sea. There are added elements such as a slowed whale-song recording (like Hovhaness and George Crumb, in that sense only) and a vocalising soprano. THE HOLLOW and FIVE LITTLE PIGS are from Poirot episodes. The first is very romantic and memorable. The second is sly and ambivalent in mood as voiced by the solo violin. LIGHTHOUSE HILL - film, 2004 - is again hyper-romantic and rounded in its progress. I was rather sad that there was nothing here from Geoffrey Household's ROGUE MALE or from PORTERHOUSE BLUE or from MIDDLEMARCH.

A wide soundstage complements a lavish audio image each of which articulates the often simple textures yet meets with a fierce embrace the grander statements.

Firelight

Wed, 20 Dec 2023 15:37:01 GMT

Label: Silva Screen Records
Catalogue No: FILMCD 198

Release Date: 1-Oct-1998

Total Duration: 47:06

UPN: 5-014929-019826

After considerable success with his scores for KARAOKE and COLD LAZARUS, MIDDLEMARCH and YORKSHIRE GLORY, Christopher Gunning has turned to the Bill Nicholson film FIRELIGHT. FIRELIGHT is another tortured, period love story this time featuring fêted young ingénue and Bardot successor Sophie Marceau. Gunning is one of the strongest composers in his field and I fervently want him to be taken up by Hollywood in a big way. His romantic music for the two Potter TV movies KARAOKE and COLD LAZARUS was a perfect match for the dark hopeless/hopeful tone of those films.

The music for Firelight has some atmospheric parallels with the John Barry score for SWEPT FROM THE SEA. More to the point, the style is a step along the same line as Bernard Herrmann when he chose to write a long-breathing tune - slightly haunted, quietly powerful and singing. There is a touch here also of Nyman's score for Campion's THE PIANO, not that it is minimalist music. Solo piano and solo violin (often in Lark Ascending mode) are much to the fore. An introspective, possibly claustrophobic score breaking free in Rachmaninovian splendour in tracks 16 and 17. The latter is very close sometimes to Gerald Finzi's Introit and could easily serve as the slow movement of a violin concerto. Overall then a welcomed disc. I hope to hear much more Gunning. The industry should be using him far more.

An Interview with Pierre Jansen

Sat, 16 Dec 2023 14:04:02 GMT

An Interview with Pierre Jansen by Jeannot Boever and François Olivieri
Interview conducted in Paris on February 21, 1981
Pierre Jansen Photo by Jeannot Boever

Most composers seem to start out in film music by chance. Is this also the case for you?
It's always a bit of a coincidence to become a film composer, because it's difficult to make your first film when you've never worked in cinema before. Generally speaking, when someone asks you, it's because they know the characteristics of your music, and think it's suitable for this or that film; if you don't have any references, it's difficult. I started by learning music. First I studied piano, then composition; I learned harmony, counterpoint, orchestration and fugue. At the Brussels Conservatory, where I did part of my studies, my teacher was André Souris, who had himself done film music and who got me very interested in audiovisuals. I wanted to do film music, but not exclusively, of course.

Usually, in this profession, you start by making short films. That wasn't my case; I went straight into feature films. Friends had told me to go and see Chabrol, who was preparing À DOUBLE TOUR. He received me in his office, and we started talking about music. Chabrol is passionate about music; in fact, he has sometimes said that, if he hadn't been a filmmaker, he would have wanted to be a conductor. We quickly found that we had a lot in common: after half an hour, we started singing Stravinsky themes, and not the most famous ones! He told me he couldn't entrust me with the music for his film, because he already had a composer, but that we'd certainly meet again. I left a little taken aback, telling myself that he would never call on me again.

A few months later, I was informed that Chabrol, who was directing LES BONNES FEMMES, wanted to meet me. He was shooting on location on Boulevard Beaumarchais in Paris. Seeing me coming from afar, he motioned for me to fetch a cut-out (decoupage) . Chabrol told me that in LES BONNES FEMMES there would be two kinds of music: realistic, variety music, to be written by Paul Misraki, and dramatic music, which he was going to ask me for, because he had understood that this was my mode of expression. In fact, I'm a composer of essentially dramatic music; I don't do comedy music, or else it would be gritty comedies. Misraki, of course, was a little disappointed when he told Chabrol that, in short, it was up to him to do the accordion. That was true, although "doing the accordion" isn't quite so simple. I was entrusted with the credits and a number of important sequences. It's music that makes me shudder now, so bad do I find it, too Stravinsky-influenced and badly played to boot; but that's to be expected, and it doesn't stop LES BONNES FEMMES from being an excellent film. In any case, Chabrol was happy and entrusted me with all the music for his next film, LES GODELUREAUX. For this score, I had a large orchestration (it was a time when you could use large ensembles, it's not like now); if I remember correctly, there were at least forty musicians on the recording set. After that, I continued to work regularly with Chabrol, but occasionally I worked with other directors, like Schoendoerffer.

Isn't the composer's work made more difficult by the fact that the director, as seems to be the case with Chabrol, has a precise idea of the music, and perhaps tries to impose it on the musician? Doesn't this create tension?
No, because the fact that a director can talk to a musician facilitates dialogue. This dialogue is very difficult for several reasons. Firstly, because we're talking about two creators. The director is the creator in his own right: he's the one who signs the film. It's his work, and to make it, he calls on actors, dialogue writers and technicians who are entirely at the film's service. At some point, he turns to another creator, a composer, whose language is an autonomous one, because music is a creation in its own right. As creators are always a little megalomaniacal, there is sometimes a struggle between the director and the musician.

A director who knows music well can, at first sight, find the right language to talk to the musician and tell him he'd like to have this or that kind of music. It goes without saying that film music composers have to know how to do a lot of things, as they are obliged to bend their language to cinematographic intentions. When composers write music for themselves, there's nothing wrong with expressing themselves in their own style; but in the cinema, there's a choice to be made among the writing styles available to us, and this choice is generally made with the director. If the director is able to explain what he wants, it facilitates dialogue.

Any friction that occurs is due to the director's lack of confidence in the musician. The musician necessarily trusts the director, because by the time he intervenes, the picture editing is practically complete, and he knows whether or not he'll be able to do the music. But the director is obliged to give the musician some freedom, because film music is not a manufactured object, it's a creation, and part of the composer's personality inevitably comes into play in his writing.

We know that you are practically Chabrol's exclusive musical collaborator. Beyond a simple relationship between a composer and a director familiar with music, mustn't there also be certain affinities of musical taste and conception of the role of film music?
You have to understand Chabrol's cinematic climate. I've made I don't know how many films with Chabrol, and it's certain that I've given them a tone that's repeated from film to film. Even if the music is as different as that of LE BOUCHER, scored for keyboard instruments, and that of LA DÉCADE PRODIGIEUSE, written for a baroque organ and string orchestra, there is a common climate of - the term is a bit silly - suspense and a somewhat gritty side. Obviously, my collaboration with Chabrol is entirely different from that with Serge Moati, for example. With Moati, I made LE PAIN NOIR, a huge fresco in 7 or 8 hour-and-a-half episodes. Then I made NUIT D'OR with him, a film that unfortunately didn't do very well, and 5 or 6 television films. I do things for Moati that I absolutely couldn't do for Chabrol, because he wouldn't stand for them, even though he holds Moati in high esteem.

Working with an occasional director is obviously very stressful, because you have to talk a lot. When I worked with Claude Goretta on LA DENTELLIÈRE, there was a great exchange of opinions between him and me, and we worked a lot together. That's interesting too, but you have to have the time to do it. The composer then has to sound out the director's intentions with regard to the music, because I may not always have a precise idea of what he wants. Changing director from time to time can breathe new life into your inspiration. I remember when Chabrol was making a lot of films, I said to myself at a certain point that it was no longer possible, that I wouldn't make the next film. I was going in circles. And then the films got spaced out, and when I met Claude again for LE CHEVAL D'ORGUEIL, I was delighted. I have to say that he has always made good use of music in his films, which isn't always the case with other directors. There's a great respect for the musical score with Chabrol, and also with Moati, for that matter.

Let's move on to your conception of film music. Do you believe that music should be reduced to a few easily discernible features, or should it be more elaborate and subtle?
I'm in favor of subtlety, perhaps wrongly so, I don't know. But there's no general rule, and it all depends a little on the film you want to make. Far be it from me to say, for example, that the music in THE THIRD MAN isn't good film music! It belongs to a very characteristic branch of film music, namely the use of a very simple theme, which recurs often and ends up bewitching. If the theme isn't simple, it won't captivate. That's not to say that all film music has to be like that. But it's obvious that when you make a melody that's easy, with arrangements that don't make a fuss, you can exploit that music outside the film and do some interesting business with it. If, on the occasion of an extremely simple and effective piece of music, this phenomenon of exploitation outside the cinema occurs, good for you, but we shouldn't try to do it. You should only think of the cinema when you're making film music. But I also believe that music must above all remain true to itself, it must remain music. The musical discourse itself must be completely coherent, which means that it can be listened to even if the images are removed. But the construction, the sequence of musical ideas must necessarily follow from the sequence of images, i.e. the musical form must be found from the form of the image, taking into account the difference between visual and auditory perception. Musical time and visual time are two totally different times, and this is why, if you really want to use film music as it should be used, the interventions of music must be thought out before shooting, and the director must know when he shoots a shot that this shot is going to receive music, because he is obliged to bend his rhythm to that of the music. Otherwise, you can't find room for it, because the image follows the rhythm of vision, not the rhythm of hearing. Of course, I'm not talking about spoken language, or dialogue, whose rhythm is exactly the same as that of the image: my lip movements correspond to the words I'm saying. But musical discourse doesn't correspond to anything visual: where does the music you hear in a forest scene, for example, come from? The director can create a forest atmosphere in 5 seconds, but that's not enough time to create a musical atmosphere, because you have directors who don't realize this, and who tell you, for example, that at the beginning the music must be lyrical, because you need an atmosphere of suspense, and then violent music, all in 5 seconds!

It seems to me that the film musician finds himself in a certain dilemma. A very elaborate, very subtle score runs the risk of confusing the viewer, who already has to assimilate several parallel discourses. On the other hand, if the music makes thunderous entrances and uses easily discernible 'leitmotifs', there's a risk of musical pragmatism. You could say that film music is only good when it's effective, and therefore immediately understoo
I don't think there's a dilemma, because the subtlety I'm referring to shouldn't prevent effectiveness; it should be a means of being more effective. Music can be effective because it's subtle. On the other hand, music obviously doesn't have to be loud; it's a question of knowing where to place it, and whether it has a role to play, otherwise you don't need it. I've seen films where there was no music at all, and nothing was missing from the soundtrack.

In your opinion, what should a film composer's attitude be towards music in general?
I don't think he should just write film music, I think he should absolutely have a creative activity outside cinema, whether it's important or not, whether he gets played a lot or not. Writing for the cinema can be frustrating for a composer, because music, which is an artistic expression in its own right, ends up in a global context, i.e. with dialogue and sound effects. If a composer wants to write something subtle, and he can't do it in a film, and if he doesn't write it nevertheless, he'll never rest until he's placed it in the film. I experienced this myself at a time when I didn't like to write music outside the cinema. I've often reviewed film scores that I've done and found that I didn't like them, because I'd wanted to put in things that I shouldn't have, but that I needed to write to satisfy a simple creative need. You'll end up doing things that are ten times too subtle, and then lose their effectiveness.

I believe you claim film music as a musical genre in its own right, which could have the same artistic value as a symphony or a string quartet?
Yes, why not? I'd even go so far as to say that film music could be a vast synthesis of our entire musical culture, because when you write it, you can use any language. I've used lots of different languages, depending on the requirements of the film, from very classical to avant-garde music. The music for LE BOUCHER is one of the most daring I've done, in that it's very much based on serial music, is totally thematic and uses quarter-tone instruments. I have to say that, at the time, there weren't many mass-market film scores with music like this. Gilbert Amy wrote one for L'ALLIANCE; for L'ARGENT DES AUTRES, Patrice Mestral also wrote a score very much oriented towards new writing techniques, but that's all. In 1970, the music for LE BOUCHER was very daring, and some people wondered what that bell music at the beginning was all about. And the musical idea wasn't mine, it was Chabrol's! He had told me that he wanted vibrating music that would prolong the sound of ringing bells; that he didn't want themes, but vibrations. It was a real "filmmaker-musician" idea, and I take my hat off to him! In LA DÉCADE PRODIGIEUSE, I did a totally different kind of music, very late 19th century French. It's in this spirit that I say that film music can be a synthesis of our entire musical culture.

I think I've guessed that you have a certain predilection for atonal or serial music?
I'd like to talk a little about serial music, since you've given me the opportunity. I must tell you that for several years, from 1952 onwards, I regularly attended the "Ferienkurse für Neue Musik" in Darmstadt, and particularly Messiaen's classes. There we met Stockhausen and Boulez, and heard Webern's quartets, which we didn't know very well at the time. I was drawn into the post-serial movement, in which, paradoxically, I never felt very comfortable, having been trained in admiration of Stravinsky and with a certain mistrust of Schoenberg and the twelve-tone school. I suppressed this mistrust within myself, because I believed in serial music for more than ten years of my life; I played scores of serial music for which I was never satisfied. I was lucky enough to be able to write film music, where I wrote in all the styles that pleased me. Then, faced with the impossibility of writing something I liked outside film, I stopped writing; until one day, when I realized that serial music was leading to a bunch of dead ends, that even the most purist composers of serialism were capitulating one after the other. We didn't give a damn about what used to be an absolute rule, and ended up writing just about anything. One day, I started writing music outside cinema, which was no longer serial at all, but tonal again. If you listen to the scores I'm doing now, they're almost completely free of serialism; for some critics, they'd be downright retrograde and anachronistic.

Nevertheless, at certain times and for certain films, I have used serial writing. Apart from LE BOUCHER, there's another film, a TV film, by Chabrol, whose music also contains many serial elements. In Claude Lallemand's LE CRI DU COEUR, there are two kinds of music, one of which is totally post-Boulezian. But that's all there is to it. For film music, it was remarkable, because serialism had no place there, and all of a sudden, I was introducing it.

In the films you've just mentioned, the serial music seems to suggest that there's something much more disturbing in the characters than the images let on.
Yes, that's true. I think my use of serial music in films has created a certain uneasiness, but one that could also have been created by other means. In fact, I think that music, as I see it, always leads to a certain unease in the film, because it's something foreign to the film. Music must always be a little disturbing, otherwise it serves no purpose. That's why I say that the beginning of the music, the way it enters, is an extremely important thing. It's not just a question of the quality of the music, it's a question of staging, which is discussed between director and musician. The director needs to know where a piece of music begins, just as he needs to know where a tracking shot begins.

There are several types of music: with or without dialogue, with or without sound effects. Music with dialogue is one of the most difficult to practice well, as is music with sound effects. The simplest thing, of course, is music on its own; that's the case with the credits, but within the film, the noises sometimes disappear too. If you take, for example, the end of LE BOUCHER, where the injured Jean Yanne is taken to hospital in the Citroën 2CV, you'll notice that at first the music comes in softly, but then fades out completely with the noise of the 2CV. The sequence lasts more than two minutes; if the noise of the 2CV had been on all that time, it would have been dull. But the noise gradually disappears, and the music stands alone, without any sound effects.

Godard would probably have done the opposite, he would have put in the sound of the 2CV for ten minutes.
Yes, but he wouldn't have shot the film in the same way! Godard uses music in an extraordinary way, for example in this marvelous scene from WEEKEND, where Antoine Duhamel's music, which is admirable, covers the dialogue in which a woman recounts a sort of appalling orgy, of which only a few words can be distinguished. I haven't worked with Godard, but it must be fascinating, because he has ideas like that, and he knows how to use music.

In your film scores, you seem to avoid using easily memorable themes, unlike most composers.

That's true, but it doesn't mean I'm not a melodic composer. I think that melody is extremely important in music, and that we can't do without it, as we thought we could at one time; because the melodic line, i.e. the horizontal relationship between two sounds, no longer exists in serial music. I believe in finding melodies and developing them. So I'm an advocate of musical melodicism.

When we listen to your music, we realize that you often use small ensembles whose composition varies from film to film. This may be due to budgetary considerations, but even in L'ÉTAT SAUVAGE, where you had a large orchestra, the music is never loud and uses orchestral resources sparingly.
L'ÉTAT SAUVAGE is a bit of a borderline for me. Initially, I was asked to write a "Bernard Herrmann-style" score, which is why I used a large orchestra. Francis Girod's use of the music is debatable, as he changed a lot of what was originally intended. Since I work with extremely precise durations and take into account the input of dialogue and noise, it's difficult for my music to move around. I was very surprised by the way Francis Girod used the music, and wondered how it could satisfy him. For example, he didn't use the planned credits, but replaced them with music that comes at the end and is anything but credits music. But he liked the tuba solo, with its heavy, muggy sounds, which he said perfectly captured the mood of the film. I had no way of stopping him, because once the director has his music, he can obviously use it as he likes, but sometimes that doesn't produce very convincing results.

On the record, however, the music gives the impression of a perfectly coherent work. Generally speaking, what do you think of the use of film music outside the cinema?
This use can be very interesting, because if the music is written with a musical logic, it must be possible to listen to it outside the film. But it's necessary to plan segues. There are several ways of doing this. Either, as was the case for L'ÉTAT SAUVAGE, you have all the takes made during the recording, and you look for the colors to be used. It may be that the film's music suddenly follows on from music 4, which in turn follows on from music 6, at which point we have to create possible connections. There's another solution I used for a film by a Swiss director called Simon Edelstein, which unfortunately never came out. In the score, I'd included sequences that would allow you to go from one piece of music to another, and we'd do a special take at the recording stage, where we'd sequence the first four pieces of music, for example, with added bars. It's a very elegant solution, which unfortunately we don't always have the opportunity to do.

For the reasons we mentioned earlier, musical time is much slower than other speech. Look at the labels on film music discs: you'll see 1:15 of this, 0:30 of that; these are not musical times! If you want to have a coherent musical discourse, you have to include long tracks. So either you cheat, and put music on the disc that isn't in the film, as I did for L'ÉTAT SAUVAGE, or you add bridges, or you make sure that there are no false connections between two pieces of music that you think you can link together in the edit. Another problem is that the commercial demands that drive producers to make records are often incompatible with the quality of film music.

What do you think of jazz music on screen? Have you ever used it in a score?
I wanted to do it once for Chabrol, for a film called LES LIENS DE SANG. I suggested a formation that was more or less that of a big-band, but he said to me: "You're not going to give me jazz, I want string orchestra and waltzes. He wanted waltzes so much that the Anglo-Saxon buyers didn't want the music, because they felt it didn't fit in with the film; so there were two versions of the film: one circulating in French-speaking countries and one done, I think, by a variety musician. But I had the opportunity to play jazz in another film, by Stéphane Kurc, called L'ŒIL DU MAITRE, which takes place in television circles. When I saw the film for the first time, I heard these sounds, and I said to myself that I could write for a big-band formation, i.e. a formation comprising 2 alto saxophones, 2 tenor saxophones, baritone sax, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, a double bass, a piano, a drum kit, instruments to which a clarinet, bass clarinet and contrabass clarinet section is added. So, in this film, I created a soundtrack very similar to the jazz arrangements of a certain period. I recruited both jazz and classical musicians, because I don't feel quite up to the task; jazz appeals to me in that way, it fascinates me, but I've never played it, and it's not my world. I can nevertheless make inroads into it, and I confess I'd love to do so again.

What's your opinion on the use of pre-existing music in films? I believe you experimented with this with Claude Chabrol in QUE LA BÊTE MEURE?
Yes, there was a Brahms Lied that was quite appropriate, since it even hinted at the film's title; so the external music was part of the mise-en-scène. In ALICE OR THE LAST FUGUE, there was a Mozart concerto, used as a record. But in general, I'm very wary of using music from the great symphonic repertoire in films. It's sound illustration, and what's more, it's music that's full of connotations. There are cases where music can come with connotations, for example, Mahler's music in Visconti's MORT À VENISE. Obviously, it's extremely reassuring for a director to have pre-existing sound material of good quality. But even if the original score may not be as great as the music of Beethoven, Brahms or Tchaikovsky, it at least has the merit of being shaped exactly to the dimensions of the film and taking all its components into account.

Do you follow the work of other film composers?
I have friends who do film music, like Georges Delerue and Antoine Duhamel, and I'm very interested in what they write. I go to their recordings, and sometimes I go to the cinema just to hear Delerue's or Duhamel's music. There are a lot of things that differentiate us, we have very different musical positions, but I think we share the same concern for a certain quality of film music. I also sometimes go and see American films, because I find that they are much better mixed and know how to use music much better. French directors, who often show so much admiration for American cinema, would do well to open their ears a little and look at what's being done with music on the other side of the Atlantic.

Christopher Gunning on When the Whales Came

Tue, 12 Dec 2023 14:41:19 GMT

An Interview with Christopher Gunning by Randall D. Larson
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.13/No.49, 1994

Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven and Randall D. Larso n

One of the nicest British film scores of recent years was that of the poignant drama, WHEN THE WHALES CAME, composed by Christopher Gunning. The composer has worked in British film and television music since 1971 and brought his gift of melody and thematic interplay to a number of fine scores. Interviewed recently, Gunning describes his background and his approach to scoring WHEN THE WHALES CAME.

Would you briefly describe your background in music and how you got involved in film scoring?
I trained at the Guildhall School of Music, in London, for four years. I studied piano, I studied composition, and I also studied for a Bachelor of Music degree. I think I’ve always been interested in just about every kind of music, although, of course, my musical education was mostly of a classical nature. But I also got interested in jazz at the same time, and I developed an interest in pop music at the same time. Whilst I was at the Guildhall School of Music, I studied composition, firstly with Edmund Rubbra and later on with Richard Rodney Bennett and I went to him specifically because I was interested, already, in writing for films. I thought that, since he was already a very, very successful film composer, he might be able to help me with some of the technical aspects, etcetera. And in fact he did, he was most helpful. My very first jobs in film were arranging some music for him, I arranged bits – the sort of bits that he didn’t want to do, I guess – for NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA and also another film called THE BUTTERCUP CHAIN.

Round about the same time, I started writing the music for television commercials. That came about completely by accident. Actually I was doing some arrangements for a singer who worked on the end of Brighton Pier. It turned out that his day job was producing television commercials and one day he said “Chris, how would you like to write the music for a commercial?” And I don’t mind admitting that I’d heard that there was a fortune to be made at this, so I said yes, in view of the fact that I was really earning no money at all at that time. That’ s how I became involved in commercials, and I was to be involved in commercials for the next ten years or so, on and off. At the same time, I was involved with pop music a little bit, mostly doing arrangements for singers. Some of the names are Cilla Black, Tommy Steele, Colin Blundstone, the Hollies, and later on of course I was to become involved with an album made by Mel Torme, which was a great joy, and also a couple of albums by Phil Woods, the saxophonist.

What were some of the first films you scored?
The first films that I was involved with were all documentary films. Once again, I think it was on the recommendation of Richard Rodney Bennett that I became involved with these. But I wrote film scores about all manner of things, about 20 of them in total. But the first feature film that I composed was GOODBYE GEMINI, which was a film about twins, and that was produced by Joseph Shaftel and directed by the late Alan Gibson. The score for GOODBYE GEMINI was partly pop music and partly orchestral music and some of the orchestral music was pretty freaky, I think, for its time. I enjoyed working on that, quite a lot.

What can you tell us about your score for WHEN THE WHALES CAME?
This, of course, is a far more recent score of mine, and one which I’m inordinately fond of. A series of extraordinary events seemed to come together with WHEN THE WHALES CAME. I was on holiday on a small island off the southwest corner of England, a very beautiful place. My family and I were there and as soon as we arrived there we noticed that a film was being made on the next island, and I jokingly said to my wife, “my goodness me, I should have brought my demo tape on holiday with me!” Day by day we watched from one island to the next – the islands are separated by a sea channel, I suppose about half a mile wide, maybe a little bit wider – and we saw all sorts of things happening, we saw a house being burnt down, we saw lots of shooting taking place at sea, and we saw some inflatable whales, and I learned that the film was called WHEN THE WHALES CAME. This interested me, because, for one thing, I knew about the book, ‘When The Whales Came’, and I knew that it concerned a whale beaching – many years earlier, when I was once in the Canary Islands, I watched absolutely horrified when a whole pod of sperm whales beached themselves in front of my very eyes, enormous black creatures, some as long as a bus, some babies about three feet long. They all beached themselves and of course they died out in the hot sun. To make matters worse, the native Spanish islanders came down and they were sticking huge, great iron poles in these creatures and waiting for them to die, and then the whales would be taken away to be processed, and of course it constituted a rich bounty. I was brought up in a family of animal lovers and I found the whole thing one of the most distressing things that I’d ever seen, and of course the memory has lived with me ever since.

As I saw, the film title, WHEN THE WHALES CAME, immediately struck a chord and I was absolutely astonished to find that, when I got home, there was a message on my answering machine asking if I would be interested in composing the music for the film. I might add that all the time I was on holiday there I never met anybody from the film at all. But it did transpire that the director was somebody with whom I’d worked on commercials and I suppose that’s how that connection came about.

What was needed, musically, for WHEN THE WHALES CAME?
There was a variety of music. We used fairly ethnic music for some of it, solo harmonica, solo pipe, and solo violin. We felt that these instruments would best conjure the loneliness of the place, the isolation of the place. But, contrasted with that, was some orchestral music, with a lot of singing. For no other reason, I’m afraid, that I felt it instinctively to be appropriate. WHEN THE WHALES CAME is, essentially, a sad fairy tale, and it seemed important to get over a lot of mystery of the story, a little of the romance of it, in a way, and of course to paint musically the incredibly beautiful surroundings – hopefully, in a rather haunting way.

What briefly are your current musical activities?
Unfortunately I’ve been in a holding point a lot lately. Last year I composed the music for a six-part series called THE BIG BATTALIONS and in fact I’ve been nominated for a BAFTA award for that. You may know that I have won the BAFTA award for best (original television) music twice before, the first time was for PORTERHOUSE BLUES (1988), the second for AGATHE CHRISTIE’S POIROT (1990). I have also just completed eight more episodes of AGATHE CHRISTIE’S POIROT – this being the fifth series, and so that has involved me in an awful lot of work. Not too long ago I wrote a large-scale orchestral piece called Yorkshire Glory, to which a film was made by Yorkshire Television – the whole thing lasts about 55 minutes and is scored for a large orchestra, and was performed by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Vernon Handley.

Right now I’m enjoying a bit of a rest, having worked absolutely flat out last year, and later on this year I’m working on a wildlife film that I’m very much looking forward to, it’s set in Africa. I’m also going to be involved in a 3-part television drama and I’m writing a piano piece for a pianist friend of mine, and, oh gosh, various other things on the go.

Without wishing to paint too black a picture, there is not much going on in the film industry here. Although, of course I did write the score to a film called UNDER SUSPICION two years ago, which won me an Ivor Novello Award, which I was very happy about. Otherwise most of the work for composers here is television, and unfortunately the general run of television work is not highly glamorous, I suppose, certainly not highly paid. And I think what’s more galling than everything is music budgets sometimes are depressingly small and one has to fight for orchestras as opposed to synthesizers. It’s a great shame.

Hands of the Ripper

Tue, 12 Dec 2023 14:33:29 GMT

Hands of the Ripper by Randall D. Larson
Originally published in Film Score Monthly, Sept. 1993
Reprinted with permission of publisher Lukas Kendall and Randall D. Larson

One of the best horror movie scores of the 1970s was for Hammer Film’s 1971 thriller, HANDS OF THE RIPPER. The film was a poignant story of a young woman possessed by the unwholesome spirit of her father – Jack the Ripper. The picture benefitted from a literate script, excellent direction, convincing performances, and fine production values. Among the latter elements was its music. Christopher Gunning’s score was an outstanding example of the use of thematic interaction and the contrast between very lyrical, romantic melodies and harsher, more dramatic and dissonant motifs to create complementary senses of compassion and horror.

Gunning had gotten into film music through an association with composer Richard Rodney Bennett, with whom Gunning had studied at England’s Guildhall School of Music. Gunning began by scoring television commercials and also gained experience writing arrangements for pop singers such as Cilla Black, The Hollies, Tommy Steele, and Mel Torme. After several years scoring commercials, documentary films, and an occasional feature, Gunning was approached by Hammer Films music director Philip Martell and asked to score HANDS OF THE RIPPER.

“We used a fairly large orchestra for a Hammer film – about forty or fifty. Mostly strings, French horns, and some percussion and harps and vibraphones,” Gunning recalled in a 1993 interview. The composer was given between four and five weeks to score the film. New to feature scoring, the time pressure was taxing. “The biggest challenge was getting the music finished in time,” Gunning said. “In those days we had none of the composing aids that I used now – time-coded video cassettes and the rest. Basically, one has to remember the film. You went to see it once, twice, maybe went through it in the cutting room a couple of times with the editor, and from that moment on you worked from a shot list with timings given to you by the editor, and you had to rely on your memory for what was going on the screen.”

Gunning worked closely with Martell, who insisted on approving each musical cue as it was written. “I found it quite galling having somebody else imposing their ideas and personality on me,” said Gunning. “Nevertheless I do recognize a common failing of novice film composers is to write music that is too complicated. What I finally arrived at was far simpler than what I intended, and that may well have been of benefit to the film.”

This simplicity was indeed beneficial. Gunning’s score is constructed around the interplay of three primary themes – all of which are associated with Anna, the young beauty with the unfortunate parentage. “It was fairly obvious that the music at times needed to be really quite expressive and strings naturally suggested themselves,” said Gunning. “At the same time, it needed to be horrifying, quite aggressive, and I used the strings in a different way there. And of course the French horns come to the fore every time Anna, possessed by the Ripper, makes an attack.”

The most important theme was a rather idyllic motif played mostly by a solo flute accompanied by harp and strings. This motif represents Anna’s innocence, and it’s one of Hammer’s loveliest melodies. In contrast was the Ripper’s Theme, a chilling motif for high-end strings which accompanies the trance-like state when Anna is overcome by her father’s murderous spirit. “We needed something high and suspended,” said Gunning. “I used the vibraphone and the harp and very high strings, suspended, with hardly any movement.” The third motif arises out of the second, and actually accompanies the killings: a 6-note, ascending theme for brass over strings.

Gunning’s three themes are intricately related – the first for the girl herself, her delicate innocence and unfortunate pathos; the second for the unswayable compulsion that overcomes her; the third for the deadly actions caused by that compulsion. As the correspondence of these themes is intricately worked out, the score becomes a tour-de-force of leitmotif interrelation. For example, when Dr. Pritchard, the physician trying to help Anna, returns home to find Anna standing in a trance, hands bleeding, we first hear Anna’s Theme, played softly from an oboe over a very faint Ripper’s Theme performed on the harp, which subtly emphasizes the meaning of her bloody hands. The mixture of the two themes here effectively contrasts and complements the two sides of this unfortunate girl – innocent youth possessed by terrible evil. The music portrays her duality. It’s so subtle that most moviegoers won’t even notice it, yet it lends an almost subliminal effect to the mood and atmosphere of the sequence. The recurring of these themes will continue to establish an emotional undertone to the proceedings.

“It became evident when I first saw the film that contrast was going to be a vital factor in the music,” said Gunning, “because we had to contrast the two personae of Anna; one as a rather poor, disheveled child, and two, as an extremely dangerous, horrific person.”

Later, the Murder Theme is given a very evocative rendition for strings as Dr. Pritchard, having stepped out of the room, returns to find Anna hiding, possibly in another murderous state, potentially to leap out at him in a murderous frenzy. A moment of delicious suspense accompanies the trance music from strings, until Pritchard realizes that Anna has fled.

The Ripper and Murder Themes then alternate as the scene shifts between Anna’s wandering through the West End streets and Pritchard’s searching for her. Here the variation is more for vibrato violin, deep and quivering, slowly accompanying Pritchard’s urgent solicitations. When Anna is taken in by Long Liz, the prostitute, the Ripper Theme is supplanted by the Murder Theme, as Anna is overcome by her father’s compulsion and stabs the harlot to death. A gently shocking cue for spiraling strings and rustling cymbals greets the dying Liz as she staggers into the street and is found by her fellow streetwalkers.

The score segues to a somber, fluid, low strings motif as Pritchard investigates Liz’s house and finds Anna, at which time Anna’s theme is heard from the flute, very sad and tragic as the confused girl is taken away by her benefactor. That fluid strings motif will eventually become a fourth leitmotif, perhaps to be called “The Aftermath Theme” as it will always be associated with the awful results of Anna’s murderous rage, most effectively after Anna has stabbed Pritchard himself and he crawls across his floor, seeking help. But it remains a very minor motif compared to the omnipresent trinity of the Anna/Ripper/Murder themes, and Gunning’s single effort for Hammer horror remains one of their best scores.

An Interview with Christopher Gunning

Tue, 12 Dec 2023 14:25:30 GMT

An Interview with Christopher Gunning by John Mansell

When you begin to work on a project, where do you start, do you work in order of the films running, i.e. main titles through to end titles, or do you tackle small cues first etc?
It varies. But usually I like to “feel” my way in – I’ll probably work on a scene which I feel to be the emotional core of the film, so as to get the emotional tone right. If there’s going to be a main theme, I’ll work on that. Sometimes it comes easily, sometimes not. I don’t think I have ever started at the beginning and worked through to the end, and I think I have nearly always tackled complex action sequences right at the very end, because by then I’ll have some musical material from earlier cues to work with.

What would you say has been the most difficult project for you to work on?
The first feature film I composed, GOODBYE GEMINI (aka TWINSANITY) was unbelievably hard and stressful. The producer, Joseph Shaftel, would call me night or day to insist that “this will be the greatest godamn score ever” and that didn’t help my self confidence at all. Several times I felt like giving up and running away to the seaside where nobody could find me. In particular there was a ritual murder sequence, and for days on end I couldn’t get past the midway point. I grew increasingly desperate and consulted some friends as to how they thought the music should develop. In the end, John Scott, one of my very best friends and an extremely gifted composer, helped me finish the section by FORCING me to write instead of dither interminably. Touch wood, I haven’t had any major composing blocks recently, but the memory of that film still lingers…

WILD AFRICA contained a number of ethnic instruments; do you research all of these instruments and sounds yourself before sitting down and writing them into the score?
Quite honestly, the answer is “no,” although I’ve gained some knowledge of percussion and wind instruments over the years. Before starting work on WILD AFRICA I went to Tanzania and Morocco to soak up some local influences, but when I sat down to compose the score, I decided that the percussion in WILD AFRICA would mostly be programmed myself on my Apple computer. That way I could be certain of getting precisely the rhythm patterns I wanted, as well as the sounds I had buzzing around in my head. It was good fun, but extremely time consuming. I took some other “ethnic” sounds from samples too, and from time to time I had Phil Todd play his EWI (electronic wind instrument) to simulate African flutes. I preferred to work this way rather than with real African instruments, partly because Western instruments are far more flexible as regards keys, ranges, and scales, and partly because within the confines of a restricted TV budget it would have been virtually impossible to do it any other way.

Have you ever turned down an offer of a film or project for any reason?
Yes, plenty. When I was working flat-out on Poirot I had to turn many interesting films and TV productions away, because it was as much as I could do to keep up with the Poirot schedules – usually I had about ten days in which to write a whole episode. Also, round about then, I said “no” to several TV detective series (some of which are still on air now) because I wanted as much variety as possible in my work. It’s always hard saying “no” though – one never knows if there’s going to be another job or not…

You recently won the BAFTA for LA VIE EN ROSE, a wonderful movie and a very emotive and romantic sounding score, how did you become involved on this movie?
I was telephoned by Edouard Dubois, the music supervisor. He had heard a lot of my music and recognised that I have an affinity with some French music, especially that of the early twentieth century. Also, in addition to the incidental score, there would have to be arrangements of Piaf songs, and Edouard had heard my scores for Mel Torme and other singers. Edouard then persuaded Olivier Dahan, the director, that I was the right man for the job.

Prior to working on the film, I knew very little about Piaf. Yes, I knew some of the famous songs (Milord, Non non rien, La Vie en Rose, etc) but Piaf wasn’t my favourite singer at all. Like most British people, I disliked the characteristic French vibrato and preferred to listen to American and British singers. As I became more and more involved with the film I grew to appreciate Piaf and French singing generally, and of course I realised that I was working on a marvellous film with lovely people. It was the happiest working experience I’ve ever known.

POIROT is making a return to the screens in the UK soon, are you involved with this new series?
No. And I’m fed up about it. I was not able to do the last four (my most recent were Death on the Nile, Sad Cypress, the Hollow, and Five Little Pigs) because my wife was extremely ill and simultaneously I had been diagnosed with a heart problem. Happily, we’ve both made full recoveries! But when the new films came up, my agent received an exceptionally terse email from one of the producers to say they were going with the person who did the previous four (Stephen McKeon). I have received countless emails and letters from POIROT fans asking why the tune has been completely dropped, and when you consider how well known it has become it does seem pretty contrary. I suppose I can’t complain, having composed about forty episodes but the manner in which the change was made was about as insensitive as one could imagine. The film/TV businesses can be extremely hard and some executives (thankfully not all) horribly ruthless.

A few years ago you scored a TV series called THE LAST TRAIN, the score was magnificent, alas its never been released, does this frustrate you, that your music is not issued onto compact disc, especially when collectors are going mad for it to be?
The situation regarding CDs of my music is impossibly bad at the moment. I am forever answering emails from collectors and others who have found my website and want copies of POIROT, FIRELIGHT, WILD AFRICA, COLD LAZARUS, and many other scores. Usually I have to tell them the CDs are unavailable, and that’s dreadfully frustrating. The problem is that unless a CD sells a bare minimum of 1000 copies, no company is willing to invest the cash necessary to clear the rights and manufacture it.

Are there any genres of film that you would like to work in that you have not yet?
Yes, plenty. I’d like to do a really big action movie. I’d love to do a period movie again. And I’d always be happy doing something with sensitivity – I’m really quite an emotional person, you know, and I think I react well to films with a big emotional range.

What do you think is the purpose of music in film?
It’s obvious to say it, but music is a language complete in itself. It can express the full range of human emotions. The purpose of music in a film is to heighten emotion, or even express emotions not immediately apparent in the film itself. At its most mundane, music is sometimes used to paper over the cracks in unsatisfactory sequences. At its best it can be a vital “third force” which expresses the very heart of it. Again it’s obvious to say it, but the use of music in film is limited only by the imagination of the composer and the director.

How many times do you like to view a project before you begin to get any fixed ideas about the type of score, and where the music will be placed etc?
I like to live with the film for a few days at least, and maybe weeks, before making big decisions, but it doesn’t always work out that way. Nowadays I always have the film on my computer at home, so I get to know it really well, and I am able to judge how my music should progress through the course of the film.

You have worked in both TV and also for the cinema, apart from the budget what are the main differences when working in the two mediums. Or do you approach them both in the same way?
I don’t recognise many major differences between composing for film or TV – the challenges are likely to be common to both media. But there can be differences in scale. Huge orchestras often feel unsuited to TV productions, whereas in film they are common. However, there are no rules; you use the forces which feel suited to the project and, inevitably, to the budget.

Do you orchestrate all of your music, and do you think that orchestration is an important part of the composing process?
I normally orchestrate all my own music. On two occasions I have had help from Geoffrey Alexander just because the schedule was too tough for me to do absolutely everything myself. For two series of POIROT, Fiachra Trench would come to my house and stay for two to three days helping with orchestrations. In that way, I managed to get all the music written – just! Orchestration is an integral part of my own musical thinking. My themes and ideas always come fully clothed in orchestral or instrumental colours. I absolutely love writing orchestral scores, but the manual effort of writing by hand or entering all the notes into a computer is a fantastically time consuming process.

When a soundtrack CD is being prepared do you have any input into what tracks are to be included etc?
Normally, yes, and I would expect to compile the tracks myself. However, with LA VIE EN ROSE, nobody consulted me at all, and I’m rather disappointed the end title music was omitted.

When do you prefer to become involved on a project, at the start with a script, or is it better for you to see the rough cut of the film and start from there?
I’d like to see a script first, and have a brief discussion with the director as to the nature of the project and what might be involved in the music. Some vague ideas might start to suggest themselves at that point, but I’d far rather leave the nitty-gritty of actual composition until I have some film to work with.

Have you a favourite film score, either of your own or by another composer?
Yes, a lot! In no particular order, FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD and NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA (R. R. Bennett), THE MISSION and ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (Morricone), LA CONFIDENTIAL and ISLANDS IN THE STREAM (Goldsmith), BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S, CHARADE and WAIT UNTIL DARK (Mancini), PSYCHO and TAXI DRIVER (Herrmann), and far too many more to list. In my own work I would mention THE BIG BATTALIONS, WILD AFRICA, FIRELIGHT, and LA VIE EN ROSE.

Do you think a good score can maybe help a bad movie?
It can help – but not completely rescue. There are lousy movies with good scores which sink without trace. There are also plenty of good movies with ordinary or even lousy scores which are very successful!

Temp tracks on films! These are met with mixed opinions by composers, what are your thoughts on the use of a temp track by a director?
I don’t altogether object to the use of temp music if it helps a director to explain to a composer what he wants the music to be or do. The great worry is that all those involved in the post production process become so completely obsessed with the temp music as to lose sight of what new and original music can do. It can happen that a composer’s efforts are rejected simply because the director cannot remove the temp music from his or her mind.

What was your first scoring assignment?
A commercial for British United Airways, an airline which ceased to exist, hopefully not because of my music! The sung line was ‘The Jetset are here’. At the tender age of 24 I attended a meeting in a plush advertising agency during which my only contribution was “shouldn’t it be ‘The Jetset IS here?’” This did not go down well, probably because the creative team had spent months and months devising the script. I was then taken out to a very posh restaurant for lunch, and being totally unused to drinking alcohol in the quantities proffered, immediately got completely plastered. I remember walking away from the restaurant clinging onto the railings by the road and wondering how the guys I had been with were still alive.

I then proceeded to spend three weeks writing my thirty second masterpiece, worrying every minute of each day that the whole thing would be a catastrophic failure. Amazingly, it wasn’t, although I had to cut out several bars in the studio to make the music fit properly. I then went to sleep for two days before submitting my invoice for £150 – an absolute fortune in those days for someone used to earning £3 a night playing in pubs in the Old Kent Road.

What is your opinion of film and TV music today, compared with say 20 years ago?
Unfortunately, I think the general standard, especially in TV music, is declining. There are many reasons for this, but it’s not accidental that, simultaneously, computers and electronics generally have come to the fore. It’s easy to turn out an average score in your front room with equipment that’s pretty cheap to purchase. It’s not easy, and never will be, to compose great music. The major problems include producers tend not to realise what a fantastic contribution music can make to their work, opting for cheap and quick rather than excellent, and a worrying trend for composers to think that composing for the media is so radically different from composing in general that the same standards don’t apply. Music which is harmonically and melodically tedious is tedious whether it’s for a 15 second commercial, a pop song, or a massive orchestral opus.

What are you working on at the moment?
I have just finished recording my 3rd and 4th Symphonies and my Oboe Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and my daughter, Verity, played the solo part in the Concerto. For the past ten years or so I have been mixing my media work with music designed for the concert hall. This is not a new interest – I set out in the beginning to write concert pieces, but have been rather late in getting around to it. In some ways my concert music is quite different to a lot of my TV and film music – and that’s because when composing in long spans you have to use quite different processes. In particular you have to come up with long musical shapes that make dramatic sense in their own right.

Right now I’m embarking on something which I think will be Symphony no 5 (I’m right in the early stages!) and also enjoying myself with some arrangements for Colin Blunstone, a singer with whom I first worked about thirty-five years ago.

Jean-Claude Petit on Le Hussard sur le toit

Mon, 11 Dec 2023 14:01:42 GMT

An Interview with Jean-Claude Petit by Marco Werba
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.11 / No.44 / 1992
Text reproduced by kind permission of the publisher, Luc van de Ven

Five years after the international success of CYRANO, Jean-Claude Petit reunites with Jean-Paul Rappeneau for a new adventure with LE HUSSARD SUR LE TOIT, French cinema's flagship budget and this fall's cinematic event. After taking a step back from his year's work, Jean-Claude Petit was kind enough to answer our questions about this long-awaited score. It's worth noting that soundtracks are very much in the spotlight on classical labels, since this one and a compilation of his film scores have been released by Auvidis!

A year ago, you told us you wanted to write a Requiem. Was it for this film?
Yes, after reading Jean Giono's novel, it seemed to me that, since the story was set against a backdrop of cholera, the music could be done with choirs. I spoke to Jean-Paul Rappeneau about it, and it wasn't impossible that it could be done. However, the film was going to be long, and we felt that using music in the form of a Requiem would have slowed the pace of the film and worked against it. This heavy, ponderous feel may have suited the story, but it didn't suit Rappeneau's style. As soon as I saw the first images of the film, I knew that my idea of a Requiem wasn't going to work. So I gave up on that direction, but I didn't want the music to resemble the film.

How did you go about making your choices?
Jean-Paul kept telling me that the music had to be romantic. In fact, he and René Cleitman, the producer, wanted to take the film in the direction of something less sad and dramatic than what we were talking about earlier. They pushed me a little in that direction, perhaps thinking that the film would never be romantic enough if the music didn't reveal the bonds that unite the two characters. So the idea of romance was very much an interior one, and the film's interior is expressed through the music.

How did you achieve this?
I tried to do it by drawing inspiration from Brahms and his school, which I felt were closer to the film, but also to nature and the wide-open spaces that make it up. I myself felt close to this aesthetic. The main theme of Le Hussard therefore came to me in a very Brahmsian spirit, at once romantic and profound. It was symphonic music, and that's what Jean Paul wanted for these images. Also, you'll notice that the theme is less catchy than that of CYRANO. It doesn't explode, precisely because the very character of the HUSSARD, despite his extraordinary adventure, remains introverted, speaking very little and not revealing his feelings. In fact, the whole story, with its backdrop of death, didn't allow for that.

How did you worked that out with Jean Paul Rappeneau?
I always have long discussions with him about the music. That's how the first choices are made. It helps to eliminate certain ideas. For example, we eliminated the folkloric aspect of the music, because Giono himself eliminated Provence from his novel. Then I play the themes for him on the piano in front of the film images. This leads to comments on both sides, and allows him to absorb them. On the other hand, like all directors, he rediscovers all the music at the moment of recording, when it is written, orchestrated and developed. But even then, he still has questions and fears, because even if he likes it, he doesn't yet know whether it will suit the images. It's only during the editing process that everything takes shape and his anxieties fade away. It's a job that for the composer is based on his own conviction as well as on the director's trust and sensitivity.

In terms of sound, the aesthetic is very much in the vein of American cinema...
It's true, the music accompanying the scenes of duels, chases and wide-open spaces all contribute to this. In fact, my work in this area is quite similar to that of Hollywood musicians for westerns, whose music often comes from the 19th-century repertoire. There's a real kinship there. Also, the music was mixed very loudly, which is unusual in French cinema. In spite of this, it is always in harmony with the images, making the film a single work.

The music in the film develops in a certain way. Tell us about this concept...
As the film hadn't yet been shot, I had the idea of starting it with a large orchestra, to illustrate the adventurous side of the main character, and ending with the heroine, a sensitive woman in love, with a very pure Brahms piano piece. It's a concept that seemed logical to me, but which surely goes against the grain of what people expect and are used to. It was risky to do it on a film for the general public, but Jean Paul and I wanted it to be just that: no concessions, no easy solutions.

How did you come to choose the Orchestre National de France to play your score?
I came up with the idea with Louis Bricard, the director of the Auvidis record label, who edited the film's soundtrack. We wanted an orchestra with an international reputation and, why not, one that had never recorded film music before. This was the case with the National. It was a great pleasure to conduct them, as they were extraordinarily kind and competent. They really enjoyed the experience, and are ready to do it again. What's more, these musicians are just as capable as their colleagues abroad, contrary to what some of our composers may say and think!

Like Le Hussard, we're seeing more and more of the major classical labels releasing film soundtracks. How do you explain this craze?
It's often music of a classical nature that is released by these labels, and that's quite logical from a cultural and marketing point of view. For my part, I owe it to the sympathy of Louis Bricard, who generally makes great efforts to promote film music. I'm all the more touched that he wanted to do it, as it wasn't very easy to sell. Today, like DTS for "Le Hussard", film music also benefits from sound technology. The more these techniques evolve, the more importance is attached to the music they convey. The fact that we see and hear great orchestras playing film music also contributes to its popularity. In fact, today, who can deny its existence?

An Interview with Jean-Claude Petit

Mon, 11 Dec 2023 13:46:57 GMT

An Interview with Jean-Claude Petit by Marco Werba
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.11 / No.44 / 1992
Text reproduced by kind permission of the publisher, Luc van de Ven

Jean-Claude Petit is now one of France's leading film composers, alongside Gabriel Yared. In just over a decade, he has forged a solid reputation, especially since his superb work on MANON DES SOURCES and JEAN DE FLORETTE in 1986 and CYRANO DE BERGERAC in 1990. Since this interview took place, Jean-Claude Petit has signed the score for ZEBRE, the film directed by the late Jean Poiret. Even if some of the films he has collaborated on have not been great successes (MAYRIG, 588 RUE PARADIS, LE RETOUR DES MOUSQUETAIRES or DEUX), the music written by Jean-Claude Petit is always an important element in the final rendering of the film he works on. His talent, eclecticism and well-earned renown make him one of the most talented and important voices in French music. - Yann Merluzeau

Let's start by recalling that you were born on November 14, 1945, entered the Paris Conservatoire and won a prize in Solfège...
Actually, for solfège, it's called première médaille, and it's before harmony, counterpoint and fugue, which come later, at 15/16/17. I then obtained my first prize. It's an exam, and prizes are only awarded to those who have the necessary level. Many French and even foreign composers have graduated from the Paris Conservatoire.

Did you start writing anything?
Absolutely not. In writing, counterpoint, fugue and harmony classes, we did exercises, but what interested me most at the time was jazz, and I played the piano as a reaction against the classical music I'd been taught as a child. Jazz was what I liked and what I practiced, because from the age of 15/16, I played with Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin and many others, all the American musicians who passed through France. Up until the age of 20, I mainly played piano and jazz.

You worked mainly as an arranger for singers like Marie Laforêt, Joan Baez and others.
I was afraid of drugs and all those things, so I was probably right to be a little afraid, and then I was offered the chance to accompany fashionable French singers called Claude François and Sylvie Vartan. I started accompanying them, and very quickly they learned that I knew how to write music, which was rarely the case in the French variety scene, and is still relatively rare. Since I knew how to make music, I was asked to do arrangements and orchestrations for variety records. This happened very quickly, because by 1968, I was one of the most prolific arrangers in France. I arranged everything from Michel Sardou to Julien Clerc, from Johnny Hallyday to Claude François, from Sylvie Vartan to Mort Schumann, from Marie Laforêt to Joan Baez... I made records as an orchestrator and arranger, and from time to time, I composed songs. Gabriel Yared came along a little later, but he was an arranger exactly like me, with a gap of 3/4 years. It was more or less the same kind of career, except that he stopped arranging earlier than I did, and he started doing film music earlier than I did. I didn't have the courage until a little later, 3 or 4 years later. I've always had an interest in film music, and when you have a background that spans jazz, classical music and variety, it's ideal. Once again, it allows you to express yourself in all genres. I had no connections or opportunity to work in the film music world, and I didn't have that opportunity for a very long time. I simply approached film music as an arranger who wrote for others; we call that a ghostwriter. I did it a little, others did it, but I did it very little, for 2/3 years anyway. In the end, it was an enriching experience for me. It was an experience.

Did you also do some theater work?
Yes, it was at the same time as the arrangements. You always get the impression from biographies that I've had several lives. But it's true, I've had several lives, because the variety shows happened at the same time as the theater. I worked a lot with Jean-Pierre Micquel, who was the director of the Odéon at the time. I wrote a lot of music for plays, which got me out of the music business and once again enabled me to re-exploit the classical culture I'd been given as a child. Musicals like MAYFLOWER and RÉVOLUTION FRANÇAISE were great adventures in the French theaters I attended. In those days, I was the essential arranger, or almost, and as soon as something was done, I was asked to take part. For musicals, it was songs or orchestral passages developing songs. They were often large orchestras with strings, as they were in those days. I conducted and still conduct everything I do.

What was your first film?
VIVE LA SOCIALE! with Gérard Mordillai. Once again, it was by chance, because I knew the producer well. René Cleitman, who was the N°1 director in Europe and then became producer of Hachette films. Later, he produced CYRANO DE BERGERAC, and he knew me as an arranger. He asked me to write this first film score, which wasn't the first I'd written, but the first I'd signed. It was in 1981, a rather symbolic date. I jumped at the chance to abandon arrangements altogether. I'd had an overdose of the French variety music scene, so uncultured. Putting up with it for 15 years had become difficult. At first, it was enriching, then it became oppressive.

How did you come to do JEAN DE FLORETTE and MANON DES SOURCES?
Here again, it's the connections I had in variety music, thanks to Julien Clerc's former impresario, who is still my agent and who is now director of Art Média. After seeing me write the music for VIVE LA SOCIALE and the 3 or 4 others that followed, he said to me: "I'm an agent for the cinema and for a few composers, so if you want, we can work together". I replied: "I'd like to, I'm a young, old musician and I'd like to do a bit more in this field". It was he who introduced me to Claude Berri, who immediately trusted me and allowed me to write the music for JEAN DE FLORETTE and MANON DES SOURCES. This gave me a reputation beyond what I had at the time.

Have you done any research into period music?
Claude Berri came to me and said he wanted a theme from an opera, which I could understand. I came up with the theme of "Force of Destiny", and around it I built a score that had nothing to do with Giuseppe Verdi, but had something to do with the 1930s. I thought it was a very simple, beautiful and interesting theme for the film, and it was Claude Berri's idea from the start, so I couldn't do anything else at the time. I didn't just take the theme and unfold it. I arranged it, reorchestrated it and gave it a whole new meaning. I gave it another meaning with the harmonica. I wanted the theme to be grandiose, because the story is reminiscent of Greek tragedy, with its thirst for water, but at the same time it takes place in a humble, poor and fairly simple environment. I wanted you to feel both the grandiose and the simple.

Can you talk about your music for DEUX?
It's interesting, because it touches on contemporary music. I now write contemporary music alongside film music, which accounts for 90% of my time. The rest is more learned music, and it's true that contemporary music has no place in cinema at the moment, because it's rejected by the great mass of people. This gave me the opportunity, since the story deals with contemporary music, to write music that Claude Zidi was very afraid of. I wanted to go further with the music, but he was always holding me back. It was a big debate between us. I wrote a compromise, but I enjoyed writing it because it's the only time I've ever had the opportunity to write advanced music.

Did you find yourself in the film's protagonist, who is a composer?
Yes, strangely enough. Not completely, of course, because he used to be an impresario and now he's back to music. I'll never be an impresario, or even an agent, but it's true that I recognized myself in his attitudes, and his attitude to women too. There must be some things in common, and I think Claude Zidi analyzed the situation well, but unfortunately the film wasn't a success. Claude Zidi had made an effort, and for six months before filming, he had been going to contemporary music concerts. He had no idea what this music was, he'd been with the musicians, he'd seen me for 3 months before shooting the film. I'd spoken to him at length, describing what these musicians were like.

Gérard Depardieu captured the main characteristics of these musicians. This is his only serious film. He bit the bullet a little. He didn't do it again, given the film's lack of success, but he's still glad he did it, because it showed he could do something different from his usual films, which are quite good, but in a different tone. I'd like to reflect on this film. Gérard Depardieu is an extremely sensitive person, he doesn't know contemporary music. I had written a piano piece for him, which he was to play in a concert, pretending he didn't know anything about the piano. But when you see him, you really get the impression that he's playing the piece. He's a very gifted person. On JEAN DE FLORETTE we were together, on DEUX too, and on CYRANO DE BERGERAC and URANUS, it's a complete coincidence. After so many films, we know each other well. I knew his wife Elisabeth. I'd written the music for a play called Le Rire de David, which was being performed at the Théâtre de l'Europe, in which she had a role, and I'd also seen her before, because she was a singer, so she'd asked me to make a record. So we had an old relationship, and I also know her son, who came to see me for advice, because he wants to be a musician.

Let's talk about your music for CYRANO DE BERGERAC.
I was lucky, because first of all, there's a long score, which isn't always the case in French cinema. We know that there's sometimes a quarter-hour of music for an hour and a half of film. In this case, it was a good hour of music, and that's great for a composer. It's a romantic story, even if it's set in the 17th century, so great sentiments are always quite interesting for film musicians.

It's a fresco that works well with adventure and love...
...and at the same time with 17th century ingredients. In Roxanne's theme, there's a psaltery, which is a very old instrument, although this is romantic music.

How long did you have to compose the music?
It was a very long shoot. I was on set a lot. There was some music to write beforehand, for example the fife scene, the theater scene too, concert-style. I spent quite some time on that and then, to write the music, I had about 2 months, which is a luxury for a film in France, because generally, they don't even give you three weeks to do it.

Did you do the orchestrations?
Yes, of course I did. I write everything, with a few exceptions. I once had to get help with Richard Lester's THE RETURN OF THE MOUSQUETAIRES because I was really overwhelmed. There was an hour and fifteen minutes of music. I didn't have enough time to do it, so I got help with a three-minute number. But in general, I write everything myself, which seems to me to be the least I can do as a film music composer. There are film composers in our country who don't write a note of music because they don't know music. It's quite insane. Having said that, even when you write your own music, it can happen that you're a bit overwhelmed and you need help. Gabriel Yared has contributed a lot to French film music, he's very good, Vladimir Cosma too, but that's another genre, Georges Delerue is part of the history of film music. Michel Legrand has talent, originality and an exceptional personality. I respect these musicians.

There are many different types of musician in film music, and you have to be very flexible and let your personality shine through within each style. In general, we don't think badly of our colleagues; all those I've mentioned, I really like them and I listen to them as well. I respect Francis Lai enormously; he plays the accordion very well, he reads the music, he doesn't write the orchestrations, but he's done some unmissable melodies that I wouldn't be able to do. It's a different way of working. In the United States, there are melodists who get their music orchestrated, it's a practice, there are those who write everything, it's the most respectable, deontologically the most interesting, and there are those who write nothing. The American system is a division of labor. I don't mind working for American cinema in Los Angeles, but not in Los Angeles. I'm not interested in working with three collaborators, two lawyers, three agents and five negroes, one film editor. I'm a craftsman, I want to remain free, I'm not an industrialist.

Do you have a favorite orchestra?
I've had some not-so-good adventures with symphony orchestras, because in a symphony orchestra, there's a sound, an interesting sound, they're used to playing together, but there's always a weakness or weaknesses. That's the case in France too. I know all the musicians and I prefer to choose them one by one. When I work abroad, it's with the London Symphony Orchestra. I think they're great, except for specific instruments where they're weak and weaker than in France. I think the London Symphony Orchestra has a great sound, a habit of playing, exceptional flexibility, but there are weaknesses in one section in particular.

What about LE RETOUR DES MOUSQUETAIRES?
It helped me a lot with CYRANO DE BERGERAC. Firstly, I was closer to the 17th century in LE RETOUR DES MOUSQUETAIRES than in CYRANO DE BERGERAC because the adventure was less romantic. In the end, it's a funny film, so I got closer to the music of the 17th century. What's more, Richard Lester asked me to get very close to the music of the 17th century, to find old things, and so I did a whole investigation, I worked with the London Symphony Orchestra and also with an early music orchestra. I had to write this music in a state of intense stress, because it took me three weeks to write an hour and a quarter of music, generally disheveled, because they fight all the time in the film (in the second degree, because we laugh about it). It was very difficult to write, and I was very happy with the experience. The film wasn't a success, but it enriched me a lot for my next film, CYRANO DE BERGERAC. Jean-Paul Rappeneau didn't want to listen to the music. He said to me: "If I listen to this music, you'll have to do the same".

Do you have a favorite composer, a role model?
It seems a strange question to ask. I love all kinds of music. I know Indian music, Oriental music, Chinese music, Japanese music, Western music of course, contemporary music, modern jazz, which I'm still very interested in. I have many favorite composers, from Johann Sebastian Bach to Schoenberg, Berg and John Coltrane, it's so wide.

Let's turn now to your collaboration with Henri Verneuil.
MAYRIG and 588 RUE PARADIS are a bit like JEAN DE FLORETTE and MANON DES SOURCES. They both take place between 1930 and the present day. It's an important saga in the history of Henri Verneuil, the novel of his life. I wrote two themes for the film. He shot a lot of scenes with this music. Which only half pleased me. I discovered an Armenian instrument called the duduk, which is a wooden flute played a bit like a gypsy violin. It's very expressive and lends itself very well to a lyrical theme.

Would you like to collaborate with foreign directors?
I'd love to work with Ettore Scola, I'm a great admirer of his work. I've been a great admirer of Italian cinema in general. I watched Italian cinema as a teenager, with its neo-realism. I'm an orphan of that cinema, which I loved very much and which made me laugh and cry - what could be better in cinema?

Is your contemporary music performed?
I get specific commissions from time to time. I have a string quartet that's played a lot, and I have 2/3 other pieces. I don't write enough for contemporary music. I started around 1982, but since then I've only written five pieces, which isn't very many. I don't think you can do it seriously if you're writing other music at the same time. I like to do the impossible. I'm going to get them published, because I can afford to do that because of my film music. I'd like to do a whole CD with 45/60 minutes of sufficiently interesting music, but I'm not there yet.

The Ghost of Hans J. Salter

Wed, 15 Nov 2023 08:53:15 GMT

An Interview with Hans J. Salter by Preston Neal Jones
Originally published in Cinefantastique Vol.7 / No.2 / 1978

Text reproduced by kind permission of the author Preston Neal Jone s

The man who brought harmony to the House of Frankenstein

Beginning in the 1940s, rival studios would send for prints of Universal's horror films so that they could study one element which helped make pictures like THE WOLF MAN, HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and SON OF DRACULA so successful. Which contribution did these studios most want to analyze and emulate? Was it Jack Pierce's monstrous makeup? The convincing performances of Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney? The imaginative direction of Robert Siodmak and Roy William Neill? The colorful scripts? The eerie settings? The atmospheric photography? Each of these factors had its indispensable place in the creation of Universal’s product. But the reason so many studios wanted to view these champion horror movies was so that they could study one unique ingredient of Universal's magic recipe: the musical scores of Hans J. Salter.

Salter has written hundreds of scores for every type of movie-drama, comedy, swashbuckler, western, musical, mystery, historical epic - and he has been nominated six times for an Academy Award. Yet it is the opinion of many, including this writer, that Salter's masterwork is his contribution to the sagas of the Universal bogey men. When Lon Chaney breaks through his straps in THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN and lunges for Cedric Hardwicke, Salter's orchestral decension down the tonal scale evokes a brutal inevitability which seems to propel the Monster's attack. When a condemned Chaney walks the last mile as the MAN-MADE MONSTER, Salter creates a touching funeral march for the procession. The composer achieves a similarly telling effect in FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN as the villagers carry the dead girl through the street, a march scored subtly and poignantly by Salter within a mere forty-five seconds of screen time. Earlier in that same picture, as the moonlight creeps through the hospital window toward Larry Talbot's bed, the unsettling weavings in Salter's score convey the dark mystery of this seemingly ordinary occurrence. And when Chaney, as Talbot, sees the moonlight and turns his face away, Salter's string section tells us all we need to know of Talbot's torment. But Salter brings the same skill to scenes requiring a lighter touch from the definitive “old spooky touch” music in Abbott and Costello's HOLD THAT GHOST to the scherzo that enriches the scene of Chaney playing with his dog in MAN-MADE MONSTER. Along with the actor and the director, Salter is the third force in providing characterization, from the eerie shepherd's horn theme for Bela Lugosi's Ygor in THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, to the tender violin solos for Elena Verdugo's gipsy girl in HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, to the melancholy themes that haunt Lon Chaney in all of the Wolf Man films, an elegy, not for the dead, but for one who wishes that he were dead.

These movies were made in the years before sound track record albums became an important part of the musical market-place, and in recent years Universal has joined in the barbaric Hollywood practice of throwing written scores into the junk-heap to make room for new files. For the time being, therefore, the only way the public can enjoy this music is by hearing it on the Late, Late Show, mixed in with the dialogue and sound effects. A small portion of Salter's fantasy music survives in the archives of a northwestern university, where may be found sheet music from such later productions as THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN and THIS ISLAND, EARTH, plus one precious relic from the golden years: an old sixteen inch record which the composer has labelled “The Ghost of Hans J. Salter,” containing selections from THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, including a few themes originally used in THE WOLF MAN and MAN-MADE MONSTER.

Born in Vienna in 1896, Salter had conducted in opera houses and silent movie palaces - including performances of Fritz Lang's WOMAN IN THE MOON - before writing music for early talkies at the famous U.F.A. Studios in Berlin. The coming of Hitler led to an exodus which eventually brought Salter to Hollywood in the late 1930s. The chance to score one scene in THE RAGE OF PARIS (1938) led to a career at Universal, though his chores during the first few years included not only composing but also scrutinizing the play-back synchronization of Deanna Durbin musicals and orchestrating the scores of other composers, such as Frank Skinner. Both composers are given co-screen-credit for THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS (1940), and MAN-MADE MONSTER (1941). The battle of Hollywood composers for artistic and financial recognition has always been an uphill struggle, and neither Salter nor Skinner received official screen credit for their contribution to the landmark score in 1941's THE WOLF MAN. Although the hectic deadlines at Universal's film factory sometimes necessitated the assistance of such fellow composers as Skinner and Paul Dessau, Hans J. Salter was the creator of most of the music for Universal's horror classics of the ‘40s.

My first meeting with Mr. Salter is arranged to take place at an outdoor restaurant on Sunset Boulevard. For the two and a half months that I have been in Hollywood, not a drop of rain has interrupted the warm, eternal sunshine for which the town is famous. But as I approach the rendezvous with Mr. Salter, the air is for the first time cooled and darkened by forboding clouds. I am beginning to wonder whether the composer is bringing with him the sinister weather that always hovered over the graveyards, castles and forests at Universal, when I catch sight of Mr. Salter himself, smiling in greeting, sunshine incarnate.

He is a pro. He is quietly proud of the genuine accomplishments of his long career, yet he clearly has a sense for the humorous side of his years at Universal. Although his life's work has been spent in shaping the medium of sound, he makes no sound when he laughs. While his vocal chords remain silent, his head nods, his eyes become cheery crescents and his smile beams fully. During the course of our lunch, his talk drifts to the early days at Universal, and he finds it hard to keep a straight face when discussing the distinction he has earned as composer for their horror films.

“Do you know what they used to call me in those days?” asks Mr. Salter, starting to laugh. The Master of Terror and Suspense! Pretty good? They couldn't understand how a nice, mild-mannered fellow from Vienna could develop such a sense of horror and mayhem. You know, I still get letters from people asking about those scores. This is very surprising, this renewed interest in the scores of the ‘40s. Why is it?”

I suggest that very few present-day films offer scores of the same type or quality. “In those days,” says Mr. Salter, “we had no idea we were writing for ‘eternity.’ We were just trying to keep up with the frantic pace of picture after picture. Let’s say it was a Monday, the producer showed you his picture. You had to write a score, and orchestrate it, and be ready to rehearse and record with the orchestra on the following Monday. It was like a factory, where you'd have to produce a certain amount of red socks, a certain amount of green socks. They'd screen one of those pictures for us without the music, and it would be nothing. All the pictures we saved for them! But those executives, they never knew what they had. We never heard a word from them. They were afraid if they gave us a compliment we'd ask for a raise.”

A week later, amid the fall of leaves, I carry my tape recorders up the driveway of Mr. Salter's home, not far from the studio where he worked for more than a quarter of a century. Mr. Salter shows me to his study and, as I prepare the equipment for our interview, I look around. Here is the piano on which Mr. Salter wrote much of his music. And over there are some of the fruits of his labors: two shelves full of bound conductor's scores, including INVISIBLE AGENT, HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN. Just beneath a row of Academy Award Nomination certificates is a set of sound equipment, upon which Mr. Salter has prepared a surprise. Without saying anything, he pushes a button, a tape starts turning, and the wall speakers fill the room with the mournful music of men singing in a strange language. One word, however, turns out to be recognizable: “Ananka.” It is the ancient funeral chant of the slaves who buried Princess Ananka in THE MUMMY'S HAND. Mr. Salter lets the tape play a few more minutes and I recognize themes from MAN-MADE MONSTER, BLACK FRIDAY and the mounting brass crescendo with which Lou Costello discovered, in HOLD THAT GHOST, that his bedroom had been suddenly changed into a gambling casino. We have been listening, Mr. Salter explains as he stops the tape, to a few minutes from “The Salter Rhapsody,” the only other surviving recording from his horror movie era.

About those movies, Mr. Salter expresses mixed feelings. He has said that the music was usually on a much higher level than the pictures, yet he will say at one point in the interview that the horror films will probably outlast most of the other movies to which he contributed. When I ask him to name his own favorite Salter scores, he names such pictures as BEND OF THE RIVER, a James Stewart western directed by Anthony Mann, THUNDER ON THE HILL, a Claudette Colbert mystery directed by Douglas Sirk, and, especially, THE MAGNIFICENT DOLL, an historical drama with Ginger Rogers and David Niven, directed by Frank Borzage.

I notice you haven't mentioned any of the horror pictures.

Those horror pictures were a big challenge to me. When they presented those pictures to me in the projection room, there was nothing there, just a bunch of disjointed scenes that had no cohesion and didn't scare anybody. You had to create with the music all the horror, all the tension that was “in between the lines” and didn't come off on screen. And that was such a tremendous challenge that these pictures interested me, and I developed a very refined technique for this type of picture. But, as far as giving me a personal thrill, I can't say that they did. (Salter smiles.) Sorry to disappoint you.

You had no special affinity for the fantastic subject matter in the horror films?
I must have had, because I mastered it in a short time. The musical devices at my command were evidently right at the right time and the right spot. And I know, whenever a picture of this type was done at another studio, they always ran for their composers one of my pictures, to show them how to treat it.

In some of the horror films there were moments which could have been used in a “straight” dramatic picture, such as the last mile walk in MAN MADE MONSTER, or the more melancholy passages in THE WOLF MAN. Would you, perhaps, have felt as moved by these as you were by some of your “straight” scores?
My basic approach to pictures is always the same. I ask myself, “What did the director want to tell the audience with this scene? Where does the picture, or the scene need help?” Very often, I've told producers that they didn't need music for this scene, and they disagreed with me violently. There was a producer, who shall remain nameless, who showed me his picture, PHANTOM LADY (A Cornell Woolrich mystery with Franchot Tone and Ella Raines), directed by Robert Siodmak, and he said that he wanted a lot of music in it. I told him, “All you need is a main and end title. The picture plays just the way it is. You'll have a big success.” He argued that they needed a lot of help with this scene, and this, and this... I said, “Well, you’re the boss, so I will write it, but it's just a waste of money, because in the dubbing room (where dialogue, music and sound effects are blended into the final sound track), you'll take out all this music.” Okay, I wrote it, and, as I predicted, in the dubbing room, he took out the music for first this scene, then this, then this... The picture went out with just the main and end title. Half a year goes by, and the same producer has another Siodmak picture, UNCLE HARRY. (A murder-suspense story with George Sanders.) He says, “In this picture, we won't need any music. I've already used up the music budget for other things, bigger sets, better actors, and so on.” He shows me the picture, and it was a real lemon. And I told him, “Sorry to contradict you, but this picture needs an awful lot of help.” He said, “You are really crazy! One time, you tell me I don't need any music, now you tell me I need a lot of music! You're wrong, and I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll take it out to a preview with just main and end title music, and then we'll release it that way.” So they took the picture out for a preview that way and it must have laid a big egg because the next morning the producer called me and said, “I need a hundred percent score!” He had to go to the front office on his hands and knees and beg for money for the music budget. I gave the picture, I would say, at least sixty percent music. The producer saw his picture and it was like - (Salter raises his hands and eyebrows in wonder) - he was so amazed. That's the way it went out.

When we first met, you were talking about the frantic, assembly-line pace at Universal. Did you, like most film composers, have to use an orchestrator to meet those deadlines?

Yes, whenever there was no time for orchestrating it myself. I started out as an orchestrator for Frank Skinner. I orchestrated for him one of those early Frankenstein pictures, SON OF FRANKENSTEIN. I remember, there was one stretch, pretty close to the recording date, where we didn't leave the studio for forty-eight or fifty hours. He would sit at the piano and compose a sequence, and then he would hand it to me. I would orchestrate it and he would take a nap on the couch in the meantime. Then, when I was through orchestrating, I would wake him up, and he had to go back and write another sequence while I would take a nap. And this went on for forty-eight hours or so, so that he could make the recording date.

That was one of Skinner's finest scores. Was it written in just those couple of days?
No, no, not a couple of days. But I don't think we had more than maybe two weeks to write the whole thing. There was always a release date staring us in the face, and my friend, Charlie Previn, who was the head of the music department, would aggravate the situation by saying, “They want this picture on Thursday. Let's show 'em! We'll give it to them on Wednesday!” He was a bachelor, and he couldn't understand how some of us with wives and families might actually have some kind of a life away from the studio. He was a charming fellow, and I was very fond of him, but sometimes he just drove us nuts with these things.

TOWER OF LONDON was also released in 1939, had Rathbone and Karloff, as Richard III and his executioner, supported by the same music as in SON OF FRANKENSTEIN.
I remember TOWER OF LONDON very well. What we tried to do there was to record music of that period, John Dowland and other early English composers' music, without regard to the scene, just for sort of a mood. And we used harpsichord, and flutes and viola da gambas - all those old instruments. But when we went to the preview with this, it didn't work out. The executives were somehow startled. They didn’t like it. They couldn't make heads or tails out of that sound. I think I had orchestrated some of that old music for strings and harpsichord, and I think I wrote a few sequences, too, in that style. It was a good idea, but it didn't work. So, after the preview, all this music was replaced by some other music, and some of it was from SON OF FRANKENSTEIN.

You, yourself, would sometimes re-use parts of your scores in other films.
It was a matter of necessity, sometimes. When we were behind the eight-ball with these recording dates and there wasn't time to write a completely new score, I would use bits and pieces of scores written by myself or my colleagues for other pictures. Charlie Previn called this process “Salterizing.” I would try to create something that would be on an equal footing with a complete new score. And I'm sure that ninety percent of the people didn't know the difference.

Graveyard - The opening music from the first scene in FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN was one of Salter's most atmospheric creations, and one which made many felicitous reappearances in such subsequent Universal thrillers as SON OF DRACULA, HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and others. (© 1943 Universal Music Corp.)

At the factory that was Universal, did you have any voice in choosing which pictures would be assigned to you?
They made, in those days, an average of about seventy-five pictures a year. So, you can divide two men into seventy-five, and what do you arrive at? In those days, everybody had to work on practically every picture. And the credits rarely reflected the whole story.

In TOWER OF LONDON, Previn is credited with the score and Skinner only receives credit for “Orchestrations,” even though most of the music was his. And Previn receives the only music credit on THE WOLF MAN.
Once in a while, Previn wrote a sequence, too. He had that ambition to keep his hand in the pie. (Universal no longer has any of the written score from THE WOLF MAN, but a list of that film's music cues gives credit to Salter, Skinner, and Previn, sometimes individually, sometimes collectively.)

Just how would you and Skinner collaborate on such a score?

We would split it up. Let's say, I would tell Frank, “I'm going to write this theme, and this theme, and this theme, and you write this theme, and this theme.” And then we would exchange them, and use them as close as possible to their original form, and that would give the whole score a certain cohesion. We each tried to write in a style that was not too far apart.

How would you decide on that style? THE WOLF MAN is a film score very much of-a-piece.

This can only be described in musical terms. We would stay within the bounds of tonality, so to speak, and not try to write anything too complicated which would stick out like a sore thumb. And, since we thought along more or less the same lines, musically… Maybe I was a little ahead of him in certain respects.

Such as…?

Maybe in harmony, or in melodic development. If I held myself back a little, and he progressed a little, then we would meet somewhere in the middle. Frank Skinner was a real pal. He was such a wonderful fellow, so dependable. I don't think they make them any more like they did in those days, because Frank was, in many ways, a self-taught man. When I came to Universal in 1937, he was actually just learning the trade, so to speak. He had been a dance arranger before that. He came out of a dance band himself. I think he was a trombone player. How he adapted himself, with this limited knowledge, to write music for films, and to see how he grew with every assignment was wonderful to watch.

You say one of your first Universal jobs was orchestrating his music?

Yes, and then later on he orchestrated some of my music when it was necessary. When I first met him, he was not very talkative. He must have had some kind of inhibitions. He didn't open up easily to another person. But once you were his friend, you couldn't ask for a better friend than he was. He was very warm. He had a certain aura about him that was really wonderful. He would do some sequences in pictures when I couldn't get through in time. Frank Skinner was always there to the rescue, like the Marine.

Did he ever tell you what he considered his finest score?

No, I can't remember that he ever did. There were some pictures that he was fond of. (Salter smiles) But the Frankenstein pictures were not among them.

Many people regard THE WOLF MAN as a milestone score, and yet, neither you nor Skinner had any special feeling for it at the time…?

No. I don't think anybody who created the basic material for a film like this, not even writers or directors, had that feeling at the time. Only time can tell if it has any lasting value. And I, personally, think that the horror films of that period will survive everything else. It's such a valid piece of Americana that it'll overshadow, not the westerns, but all the romantic comedies, the adventure stories, and so on. And this will survive into the twenty-first century, more than anything else. Because, it was such a unique piece of work that couldn’t be duplicated, no matter how hard they try. And it has retained its flavor to such a degree that, in spite of dated costumes and dated style, it still remains a valid piece of work. And, it was such a good wedding between music and story and direction. I think film music, per se, is an art form, and the horror picture, per se, is an art form, and the wedding of these two elements created something unique.

There is much music in your scores which is complete in itself. In MAN-MADE MONSTER, Lon Chaney plays with his dog and there's a delightful scherzo with a beginning, a middle, and an end...

I always tried to do that, write set-pieces that made sense within themselves, if the scene required it. It was always my endeavor to write music that made sense as music and, within the flow of the music, to accentuate certain aspects of the film. But generally speaking, it's the wedding between the picture and the music that gives it that unique value. In picking my favorites from among my own scores, however, I can only judge by the way the music affected me while I was recording it on the stage. Some of the scores are just more or less a routine job, although I am happy they work out the way I had planned. But at other times the music affects me very deeply, and it gives me an exhilarating thrill, something that you can't get with any other endeavor. The laws that govern the flow of a scene, visually, and the laws that govern music, aurally, are diametrically opposed, and to bring these two disciplines in unison is not easy. Sometimes it made me cry, to see how well the music fitted the scene, how much it did for the scene or lifted the picture to some new heights that it didn't have before. I just couldn't believe it. Maybe other people were not affected the same way, but for me as the creator to see how all the musical devices I planned worked out to such perfection and improved what they had on the screen was a very big thrill. It's a unique feeling to get back what you have put in. Even in the horror scores, some of the sequences affected me deeply.

In looking through your copy of the HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN score, I find a section which must have been written for Boris Karloff and J. Carroll Naish's stormy exodus from prison, called here “The Gruesome Twosome Escape.” That certainly indicates a less than reverent attitude...
(Salter smiles) Yes, that was a great hobby of mine, developing those titles.*

I notice, just before that sequence, a short section by yourself and Frank Skinner called “Lightening Strikes.” And I see you share writing credit on many selections with “Paul Dessau.” Who was he?
Paul Dessau, a very talented man. It was one of those cases where there was very little time, and I needed some help to meet the recording date, so I called on him. He worked very fast and very well. I knew him from Berlin. He's a well-known opera composer now, in East Germany.

Did you work with him in the same manner as with Skinner on THE WOLF MAN?
It was similar. I would lay out themes for certain situations and certain characters in the film, and we would both use the same themes, only develop them differently. I discussed every sequence with him, how I would have done it, and then left it up to him to use his own musical language. But still, it created a certain unity and cohesion in the score, and it sounded like one composer. If you organize it right, and work it out, then it's bound to culminate in a good score.

On a film like HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN or THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, did you work with director Erle C. Kenton or with his producer?
With Kenton. Kenton was a routine director. He was nothing particular. He was very matter of fact, and he left everything musical up to me. He had no opinion.

How about his HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN producer, Paul Malvern?
He was the same kind of fellow, sort of a minus-B producer, you know? This was just a routine job for them. I don't think they had any particular love or feeling for these fantasies they were making. They trusted me and I was pretty much on my own.

How about director Roy William Neill?
Neill? He did most of those Sherlock Holmes pictures, and FRANKENSTEIN
MEETS THE WOLF MAN. He impressed me at that time as a better grade director. But I don't recall that he expressed any likes or dislikes. He accepted pretty much what I gave him.

Did a fellow like Erle C. Kenton ever thank you for what you had done?
Oh, yes. And George Waggner, director of THE WOLF MAN, he appreciated it very much. I think he wrote the lyrics for that “Faro-La, Faro-Li,” the song in FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN. (Producer-director Waggner did indeed write lyrics for Universal, but studio records reveal that Curt Siodmak, author of the screenplay, wrote the lyrics in this film. Incidentally, a 78 pm recording of this musical number still exists in Mr. Salter's private collection.)

Yes, that's the villager's song about death and eternal life which so upsets Larry Talbot. Was that actor singing to a playback of his own voice or someone else's?
Oh, that was his own voice. I can't remember that actor's name, but he was
making several movies in those days. He was a very pleasant fellow. He was a Russian gipsy by heritage, and when we pre-recorded this song he just ate it up. He loved doing it.

Do you have any recollection of Rowland V. Lee, producer-director of SON OF FRANKENSTEIN and TOWER OF LONDON?
Very charming fellow. A typical yankee. He embodied the best things in America. He had a wonderful sense of humor, and a wonderful outlook on life which was very heartening. While we were working on his pictures, Frank and I sometimes had lunch with him in the commissary, and he was always a lot of fun.

Elegy for the Undead - A few bars from the “Queens Hospital” cue in FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN show a fragment of the theme Frank Skinner originally wrote for “Bela's Funeral” in THE WOLF MAN. This plaintive motif was “Salterized” into the scores of all three of the Wolf Man sequels. (© 1943 Universal Music Corp.)

Fritz Lang's SCARLET STREET isn’t one of his fantasies, but it was a bizarre murder story. Was that your first association with Lang since conducting a score for him in the silent days?

Yes, and we became very friendly again. As a matter of fact, even long after the picture was finished, we used to eat lunch together in his office. He brought his lunch and I brought mine, and then he gave me half of his and I gave him half of mine, and it was a surprise every day, what we would bring. He told me a lot about his early days, and about some pet projects of his that he couldn't get anybody interested in producing. He was a very sophisticated, very intelligent fellow, and he had a strong feel for music in making pictures. Lang was basically an artist. He'd wanted to become a painter, originally, and then later he got into films. But he had the eye of a painter, and also a certain affinity for all other arts through that. So, you could talk to him in artistic terms and he understood what you were trying to do. And I can see how some people might find him hard to get along with, but he certainly has made his mark on the history of film.

Did you find him hard to get along with?
No, not the least bit. The only disagreement we had - not exactly disagreement - was a long discussion about the ending of SCARLET STREET. It was one of the first films in those days that ended downbeat.

The film has a haunting ending, with Edward G. Robinson trudging off into the snow, haunted by the voices of Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea, the people for whose deaths he was responsible. How did you originally plan on scoring those last moments?

Well, very similarly to as it finally was. But at the very end, I wanted to go up a little more, and leave some ray of hope for the man. Musically, it seemed more natural - to develop it, and then end on a rise and a final redemption. But Lang didn't buy that. He said, “If we did that, it would defy the whole idea of my picture. This has to be downbeat, all the way to the very last frame.” And he convinced me he was right. That's the way I scored it. Goes out, very sombre to the very end, and just a few finishing chords, and that's it.

You scored two films produced by Val Lewton, unfortunately after his series of horror pictures. Did you work with him or with his directors?

I only dealt with Val Lewton, and it was a joy working with him. Such a wonderful fellow. He was a very literate guy, and he had a very highly developed sense of humor. PLEASE BELIEVE ME was at MGM and, to my surprise, he appeared a year later at Universal, and he asked for me. I did something interesting for him in APACHE DRUMS. The main title is nothing but drums, running against each other in counterpoint. I recorded it on five different tracks and then combined them into one.

Had you discussed the idea with Lewton?

Oh, sure, he loved it. And with a title like APACHE DRUMS, you couldn't ask for more. Another interesting development - I think it was this film, but it may have been some other western that I did. There was a war chant in it, Indians dancing around the fire, so they had the brilliant idea to call in real Indians to do the prerecording. Now, when these real Indians come in, none of them could speak any Indian dialect. None of them. They were real Hollywood Indians. I said, “We can’t do it this way,” so, what I did was I invented an Indian language. I did some research, studied different dialects from the part of the country where the picture took place. I wrote the chant and the dance that accompanies it, and I put these Indian words into it. And then I called back these Indians, but I added about eight good voices, because these Indians had no voices, they were just mumbling. (Salter smiles) And then, I, the guy from Vienna, the master of suspense and terror, taught these Indians how to sing in Indian!

How about the funeral chant in THE MUMMY'S HAND - did you have to do research on that?
(Salter laughs) That was pure unadulterated Salter! Right from the tap! I had to get an extra provision in the budget to hire the eight vocalists for that sequence. I always liked to dress up certain scores with unexpected ingredients like the human voice.

I have a tape here of selections recorded from the sound tracks of a few of your horror pictures. According to the Universal cue sheets, you wrote the main title to THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS, introducing the motif which receives many varied treatments throughout the score. Perhaps the loveliest variation occurs in the final scene when Vincent Price regains visibility and is reunited with his beloved. (Playing tape) Skinner shares credit with you on this sequence. This was a long time ago, of course, but can you recall which contribution was yours and which was Skinner's?

The only thing I can say is that probably only those last three or four bars were Skinner's tacked on to the rest of it. But I think it's all mine up to the point where it goes into that apotheosis at the end. It sounds like a good piece.

When you Salterized SON OF DRACULA, you used the same piece but for a totally different, unhappy ending. You superimposed a solo violin, which made a lot of difference. Now, in these selections from THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, the theme Ygor plays on his shepherd's pipe at the beginning takes many forms, for many different purposes, in the background scoring throughout the picture.

At the time, it seemed a logical idea to devise a strange-sounding theme for Ygor’s horn that could also be used and enlarged in all kinds of disguises and fashions in the rest of the score.

Frank Skinner took a similar approach in SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, using an instrument called a blute for the sound of Lugosi's horn.

Mine was an English horn. It's probably that lowered fifth that repeats itself - da-da-da-da-da - which gives it that particular flavor.

For the opening graveyard sequence of FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN, as the ghouls approach the Talbot crypt, you wrote one of your moodiest themes. Is that an organ playing the melody over those low strings?

It's a novachord. These string chords are based on fourths, which have a strange quality. Usually, chords are based on thirds, but these are based on fourths - there's a fourth interval between each voice. When you move these chords back and forth it gives a special, eerie and mysterious feeling. And then, if you put on top of it an eerie-sounding melody line with the novachord, it really adds up to something very strong.

When the grave-robbers break in and remove the wolf-bane from Larry Talbot’s corpse, the moonlight filters in and we hear the theme which will accompany the moonlight and warn us throughout the film whenever Talbot is about to become the Wolf Man.

There is a celeste in there, high strings, and high woodwinds. It's the interplay between these three elements that creates that effect.

Your scores are usually very melodic, even in the most horrific passages. But when that animal hand grabs slowly for the thief's wrist, you merely build a few slow chords that are so low-pitched they're almost more sound effect than music. The effect is chilling. How did you achieve that unique sound?

That's the novachord again, but in a low register which is very rarely used. Most people use the instrument for melody line, higher, or screaming chords, higher. But that low register has an ominous quality. (As the tape plays the scene of Talbot’s transformation in the hospital) Boy, oh boy. All that music that I've written. I never realized it!

How does it sound, being heard the first time in over thirty years?

Pleasing. I'm very critical of my own music. And if I hear, after thirty years, that I was on the right track even then, that gives you a good feeling.

After handling all the major Universal horror films, including all the Wolf Man and Frankenstein pictures, why didn't you serve as musical director on the last of the series, HOUSE OF DRACULA, in 1945?

In all probability, I simply wasn't available. I must have been working on another picture at the same time. We composers were like taxi drivers. As soon as we finished one job, we grabbed the next fare that came along and then we were off.

In the 1950s, you participated in the science fiction boom at Universal through your contributions to the scores of THIS ISLAND, EARTH and THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN. Do you recall working with producer William Alland or director Jack Arnold?

As far as my work was concerned, Alland's contribution was a minor one compared to Jack Arnold's. Arnold was a very congenial man. We would discuss the scoring and we pretty much saw eye-to-eye on the approach. That SHRINKING MAN was a very interesting project. In scenes where his size reduced, we weren't able to work from the final product because the special effects team was still working on it, so we composers had to use our imaginations and score our own fantasies. The music cutters told us the rate of the character's reduction (for the climax) and how many seconds it would take, but that was all. But this was typical with a special effects picture; we often had to revise our scores or shorten them after the effects were finished. On those Invisible Man pictures we never had the finished product to work with. That was understandable, because John Fulton took great pains to see that every effect would come off as he had planned. We composers never saw the final product until the preview. I remember how mad I used to get when, after working frantically day and night to meet a certain recording date, Fulton still took his good time-maybe a week or ten days-before he was ready for the preview. I could have used some of this time to very good advantage.

I believe that Herman Stein and Henry Mancini scored all of the early portions of THIS ISLAND, EARTH and that your work was on the cataclysmic finale, with the planet blowing up and the mutant running amok...

I usually inherited the “colossal” sequences.

Although you wrote some melodic passages for THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, your scoring of the Creature and the Metaluna mutant in THIS ISLAND, EARTH was strikingly discordant, more so than for the Frankenstein or Wolf Man pictures.

I can only tell you that what is right for one picture is not necessarily right for another picture. I tried to write music that would be appropriate for those particular scenes.

What are your feelings about this year’s highly successful science fiction scores by John Williams, STAR WARS and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND?

It really is not fair to compare the two scores. I like them both. Of the two, I like STAR WARS more, because it contributed more to the picture. In CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, however, I liked the final scene in which music became an integral part of the story. I thought that that was a very fine touch.

Do you have any recollections of the late Bernard Herrmann, whose fantasy scores have gained renewed interest in recent years?

I'd prefer not to discuss my memories of him. “De mortuis nil nisi bene.” But I must say, he was a very talented man. I liked his early scores more than his later ones. His CITIZEN KANE was a landmark, a real breath of fresh air. Later, I think, he seemed to go off on a tangent as though he thought his music was more important than the picture, and this got him into a lot of trouble. PSYCHO was good. Not all the way through, but some of it was great. But in some pictures he started using outlandish orchestrations. It was as if he had the faculty of cutting out the director when they were discussing what kind of a score was needed. He would seem to be listening to the director but he listened only to himself. This is just my impression, however; I never discussed it with him.

Are you familiar with Rozsa's classic fantasy scores for THE THIEF OF BAGDAD and THE JUNGLE BOOK?

Oh, yes. Of all the film composers, I would say that Miki is in a class by himself. He has developed his own unique style which is highly recognizable, and he has kept his high standards. He is really the only one of us who has managed to maintain a film career and still fulfill himself in the concert field.

Before you came to Universal, the studio had been blessed by distinguished scores by Heinz Roemheld for THE INVISIBLE MAN and, especially, by Franz Waxman for THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. Might they have any influence on your work in the horror genre?

I did not meet Roemheld until much later. I studied his score for THE INVISIBLE MAN at the Universal library, because I was looking through all the scores, but it made no indelible impression that I can recall. I thought Franz did very well with his score for THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. I saw the film before coming to this country. But Franz and I knew each other from the very beginning when he was playing the piano with a German jazz band. I always thought he was a very fine composer. But when I came to Universal, he was with MGM, so the pictures of his which we discussed were for that studio. His Frankenstein score was not really an influence on me.

What sort of compensation did Universal offer their composers? Were you paid per film, or per week, or what?

For a composer, that can work in one of several ways. He can be paid a weekly salary, or on commission, or by a package deal in which the composer acts as an independent contractor, not only writing the score but hiring the studio and the musicians and gambling on his own talents to get through in time - otherwise the overtime comes out of his own pocket. In my case, I started at Universal with a weekly salary which increased every year until I left in 1947 to work on a free-lance commission basis. I came back to Universal in 1950 and signed a three-year contract. After that ran out, l worked freelance again, on a flat weekly salary with a three-to-four week guarantee.

And were you ever paid when your music would be re-used, without screen credit, in later Universal films?

No. Once they paid you for the original assignment, they were free to use your music again and again, run it backwards, or mutilate it in any way they saw fit. A composer like Jerome Kern or Richard Rodgers could make arrangements for future credit and remuneration for his work, but we miserable plebes never had that chance. Congress passed a new copyright law in 1976 which corrected some of these inequities.

Often the music credit would merely say “Musical Direction by Joseph Gershenson…”

When more than two composers contributed to a score, only the music director got the credit. I conducted most of my own scores, but when Gershenson came in, he liked to conduct sometimes. He would conduct, and I would sit in the control room and tell him what was wrong.

So it was wrong more often than right?

Well, naturally. I know better what I want to express in a sequence than he does. He was a good technician, but he had no sensitive feeling for what was in the music itself, sometimes he missed the meaning completely. So I had to tell him what was the idea behind this or that, and he would agree and do it the way I wanted.

Do you receive residuals when your films are shown on TV?

I get something from the three networks. That is, they pay a sum to ASCAP once a year for the use of their whole catalog, and this is divided among the membership. We get nothing from the independents. I try to let ASCAP know when I see one of my pictures on an independent station, but there is no regular survey basis to keep track of these things, so there is no proof that the ASCAP material is used. There are many inequities in this business. Because of the United States' medieval copyright laws, the studio, and not the composer, is the “author” of his own music. There was a time when even ASCAP refused to pay film composers special compensation for their work. Revenue from film showings used to go into the pot for distribution to the whole ASCAP membership.

You've spoken of Universal as a factory and of the pressure to meet release dates. About how much time would usually elapse between your pre-production discussion with the producer and his showing you the rough cut of the film?

That differed. Sometimes they were in trouble or they had bad weather, so it took longer to shoot it and longer to cut it. But at the end of it was always a release date they had to meet. So the longer they took to cut a picture the less time would be left between that point and the release date, and the people to suffer would be composers and sound-dubbing men, because these had to be squeezed together. Instead of one week, maybe in three days or so. On the average, it would take at least six weeks after pre-production discussions before they would show me their film.

After which you would run the film a couple of times for just yourself?

And then started a fight for the film. Because, in those days at Universal, each one of these departments wanted to have the film to work on it, and there was only one copy available. Later on, when they made color films, they made a dupe in black and white for us to work on. But in the early days, everything was black and white, so this was the only copy that was available. So the sound department would call up and say, “I'll give you Reel One if you'll give me Reel Six.” And two hours later they said, “Okay, you can have Reel Six, but now we want Reel One back.” And you couldn't make any marks on this film because this was to be the copy that was taken out for a preview later on.

How many instrumentalists did the budgets allow you for your orchestra?

For the horror pictures, something like thirty men.

Did you have to employ any technical tricks to get those thirty to sound like the larger orchestra we seem to hear on the films' sound tracks?

Oh, sure, you'd have to orchestrate in a way that hid all the weak points in an orchestra. Let's say you have only six violins. If you just let the six violins play, it sounds thin. But if you double up the six violins with two flutes and two clarinets and an oboe and bassoon, it hides it somehow. It sounds fuller and it takes on a different coloration altogether. Then there was the placing of the mikes and balancing certain parts of the orchestra against the rest of it. And in the dubbing you could help, too, by adding more to the lower end or the higher end of the frequencies on the sound track, according to what was necessary.

On a recording day, how much time would be allowed to rehearse before recording?
(Salter laughs) Very little. The less the better, because time was money. You had to write it in a way that the musicians could read it without difficulty, rehearse a few key spots that were a little harder, and then you would go for a take right away. Sometimes one sequence would be six minutes long, which would be too long to record. If there was a mistake at the end of six minutes you would have to go back to the beginning and record the whole thing all over again. You had to have one take that was immaculate. So you would break the sequence into two or three pieces which would segue o ne into the other. Even then, there could be problems. I remember one instance where I had already made a take on one sequence and the moment the red light was off the film's cutter rushed in and said “Hold everything! We just made another cut!” So he showed me the cut. I had to discard the whole take, make a cut in the music, and then record it. Things like this happened quite often. Rarely was a picture really finished when I got it.

Although such madhouse conditions no longer plague Mr. Salter, he remains musically active. Until recently, the Salter representations on commercial recordings was meager and in no way reflective of his stature as a film composer. Salter has always maintained his good humor about such inequities. When a film-music publication recently paid tribute to Salter and other “Obscure Film Composers,” Salter was amused to note that he was in good company, as the list included Aaron Copland; and for a time Salter would occasionally refer to himself as “that obscure composer.” Recently, however, what amounts to a Salter renaissance has begun to redress the balance. “The Master of Terror and Suspense” is appearing with increasing frequency in print, in person, and, most importantly, on records.

In the spring of 1977, the UCLA Extension and Filmex (the Los Angeles Film Exposition) cooperated in presenting a series in which film composers showed film clips of their work and discussed their art with the audience. Author / producer Tony Thomas, the series' coordinator and host, organized each evening around a single theme. The program devoted to “Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction” featured Salter, Jerry Goldsmith, Leonard Rosenman, Jerry Fielding and David Raskin (presenting a tribute to the late Bernard Herrmann in addition to discussing his own scores). Following a screening of the first reel of FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN, Salter, with his customary good humor, answered questions from Thomas and members of the audience. Afterwards, the composer's fans gathered around him seeking his autograph and the answers to further questions.

Shortly after the Filmex / UCLA celebration of film music, Tony Thomas' Citadel Records issued MAYA, the first LP devoted solely to a complete Salter score. Citadel soon followed this Salter television score with another, WICHITA TOWN. Yet perhaps Citadel's most important Salter record is the third and latest: The Horror Rhapsody (back to-back with the John Cacavas score for HORROR EXPRESS). Subtitled by Thomas “Music for Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, The Wolf Man and Other Old Friends,” the album presents selections from Salter's earliest efforts in the genre, (before, in fact, he had met a couple of the notorious gentlemen listed in the subtitle) including a few pieces discussed in this article, and incorporating references to some of Frank Skinner's themes. A glorious musical surface has at last been scratched, and it is to be hoped that The Horror Rhapsody is but a harbinger of more horror to come. (In the early '60s, Coral Records issued a Themes From Horror Movies album, conducted by Dick Jacobs and including music by Salter, Mancini, William Lava, Herman Stein, James Bernard and others. Of the four Salter selections, all but one was played and recorded abominably and / or smothered in superfluous sound effects. The French MCA label has recently reissued this disc, without the sound effects, according to one source.)

As to the scoring of films, Salter describes himself as “practically retired. These Producers,” he says, “now want to get rich quickly on the music. They're not interested in helping their pictures. It's an entirely different ball game now, and I’m not going to contribute to that.” Does he, however, still write music? “I'm working on a trio for piano, violin and cello, and also an orchestral piece, sort of a suite of about four or five movements. I hope to have two movements finished within a short time. I'm taking my time. I'm in no hurry. That's not like writing for the movies, where you have to be ready on Thursday.”

Acknowledgements: For permission to reproduce portions of scores by Salter and Frank Skinner, the author wishes to thank Mr. Harry Garfield of the Universal Music Department. For countless acts of kindness during the research process, the author thanks Mr. Irwin Coster of the Universal Music Library, and Library staff-members Ms. Patricia Glass, Ms. Gladys Johnson, and Ms. Masia Massett. Gratitude is due Mr. W. A. (Al) Skinner for the photograph of his late brother Frank. The author is grateful to Dr. Gene Gressley of The University of Wyoming for the supply of both research material and encouragement during this project. Further thanks go to Ms. Elizabeth Allensworth for technical assistance. Above all, the author thanks Mr. Hans J. Salter for his time, for patience, for his good cheer. For his photographs, for his words - and his music.

* It was a hobby shared by Mr. Salter's colleagues. Selections in Frank Skinner's score for ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN include such titles as: “Franken Skinner's Monster,” “Out-Monstered,” and “Dracula Hits the Jackpot.” Long before PETER GUNN, Henry Mancini's titles for THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON include “Something's Fishy.” and “Who's Stalking Who?” Heinz (THE INVISIBLE MAN) Roemheld contributed to THE MOLE PEOPLE such punning pieces as “Nasty Crack,” “Hello Statue,” and “Sandy Claws!”

A Conversation with Akira Ifukube

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 10:21:55 GMT

A Conversation with Akira Ifukube by Wolfgang Breyer / Translated from Japanese by Sachiko Tonegi 

Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.12 / No.50 / 1994 

Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

The following interview took place at Mr. Ifukube‘s house (in a garden-city district of Tokyo) during my concert tour with the “Wiener Johann Strauss Orchestra” in January 1991 and January 1993. As a collector of antique samovars and tea pots/cups, Mr. Ifukube personally served us traditional Japanese green tea, which is a great honor for foreigners visiting Japan. We all had a wonderful afternoon in a warm hearted atmosphere and I feel very proud having been able to talk to one of Japan’s most famous composers – an artist with a great sense of humor.

What can you tell us about the history of film music in Japan, from the beginning, in the silent film era? 

The first film music in Europe appeared in THE ASSASSINATION OF DUKE GUISE by Saint-Saens in 1908. The first film music in Japan was made to provide the sound effect when a cellist threw his cello! It had much sound but no sense. Only in Tokyo we had small string orchestras and many organists. The first composers of Japanese film music were Noboru Ito, Shiro Fukai and Ryoichi Hattori, who is also famous for popular music.

In Japan we learned the Russian, American and European styles of film music. The Russian style: a composer composed film music after reading a script but not having seen the movie. American style: many composers sold their themes and music scored to the music director or publishers, who chose the music for each part of the movie. So it was unbalanced music on the whole. European style: Film music was composed after the composer saw the movie. So the audiences were impressed with the music. In Japan we borrowed the European style. We composed film music after we saw the rushes. When I first started I composed film music without seeing the rushes. For example, when I composed a love scene at sunset, I imagined long shots of lovers, but actually the film took close shots of them. So I could not express the atmosphere.

What was your family background, your education and how you got into film composing?

 I was born in Kushiro/Hokkaido and I first majored in forestry, so I was a forest engineer before World War II. Also I studied music at the University and became a good violin player performing as a soloist with my great friend Fumio Hayasaka accompanying me on piano. At a concert in Sapporo in 1934 I was the first musician in Japan to play Erik Satie. During the War I made a design of an airplane for the GHQ but when we lost the War I also lost my job. So I became a musician. Some of my concert music was performed in Paris and other places. After the War I was also a professor at Tokyo Geijutsu University, for one year. But I could not live on a small salary, so I lived in Nikko for a while. And I came back to Tokyo to compose my first film music, GINREI-NO-HATE (To the End of the Silver Mountains) in 1947.

What has influenced you musically? Do you have some favorite composers? 

The Russian composer Alexander Tcherepnin has influenced me the most. With one of my concert works I won the first prize in an ‘A. Tcherepnin Contest’ in Europe and after that I studied with him in Boston. He was also responsible for the premiere of my first ballet, ‘Bon Odori / Bon Dance’. It was performed at Vienna in 1938. I’m still very proud of it. I also like Stravinsky, Manuel de Falla and Mussorgsky. In film music, I am influenced by Jacques Ibert and Alexander Tansmann. I had a close friendship with Alexander Tansmann and we exchanged letters but the War stopped all that. I am also influenced by opera, especially Verdi. The spirit of my movie music is from an operatic style.

When you score a film does the director influence your decisions?

 I always like to meet the director before shooting starts. A director does not order me to do anything, but I try to grasp the meaning of his ideas during the discussion. I have always had a free hand when composing.

Do you have a personal philosophy about film music? 

I always think that film music can establish four things: At first, it can establish the situation of time and space. The second, it can excite the emotion that the film expressed. I think there are two types of excitement – one is “interpunkt” – I compose sad music for a sad scene; the other is “kontrapunkt” (counterpoint) – I compose joyful music for a sad scene in contrast with the sadness. Thirdly, it can indicate the sequence. For example, in the first scene a fisherman is drowned at sea. In the next scene, his wife and child play at the beach and know nothing about the accident. So I continue to play the same music from the sad scene to the peaceful scene to show that it’s one sequence. Fourthly, it can embellish the photography. For example, if a rose is blooming in high speed, the picture does not need any music, essentially, but I’ll add music because I want the audience to feel the atmosphere of that growing rose. Screen music should not explain – screen music should express expressions.

What is your opinion about the character of good film music?

 I think that a movie consists of three parts: dramaturgy, photography and music. You see, sometimes the story is strong, sometimes the camera work is strong, sometimes the music is strong. I consider that it is not good to treat these three parts equally. For example, if you have a dinner, you will start to have hors-d’oeuvre, soup, main dish, dessert and coffee. If you mix all these dishes you will have a nasty taste and you won’t enjoy your delicious dinner. We experience the same thing in a movie. After you finish seeing it, you will feel the harmony of all three parts.

In 1954 you were hired to write the music for Inoshiro Honda’s first giant monster film, GODZILLA. How did you get involved in it?

 I really don’t know why the film company chose me as the composer of GODZILLA. I guess, because GODZILLA is big and I like big things and at that time I composed for and conducted a big symphony orchestra. Maybe that was the reason!

I read that you composed your famous GODZILLA music before you ever saw the film. Is that true?

Yes, that’s true. I only saw the model of Godzilla and I read the script. In Japan, in most cases a composer has only one week’s time to compose film music after the film is finished. I didn’t have enough time, so I composed my Godzilla music before I saw the film.

How did you get the idea to use a march theme as a leitmotiv for the monster? 

I don’t remember – but the sound of Go Dzi La resembled the musical scale Do Si La – but I decided to use the minor mode key. I really don’t remember – I just thought it was good and striking. When GODZILLA first appears on the screen they needed strong music – just his horrifying face would not be enough.

You scored only one film for Akira Kurosawa. Is there a reason you never scored another film for him?

 I worked with him on SHIZUKANARU KETTO (The Quiet Duel) in 1948-49. At that time, I felt something strange about his script – it seemed unnatural to me. It’s about a doctor who, during an operation, becomes infected with syphilis from a patient. I told him it’s an unnatural, stupid story and then we never worked together again. We didn’t have good feelings for each other, either.

In 1953 you wrote the music for the Viennese-born Hollywood director Joseph von Sternberg…

 (Enthusiastically) Yes, yes, of course ANATAHAN!

Would you tell us your impressions about this famous director, about the film and his understanding for music? 

That was really a fantastic experience. He was such a gentleman. ANATAHAN (The Saga of Anatahan) was actually his last film – he did it for himself, and as an insult to everyone else – especially Hollywood. This film was his swan song – he was such a pictorial stylist. I discussed a lot of things with him and at the beginning it was rather difficult for me as a Japanese to understand his foreign mentality and all its fine nuances. I tried to work hard with him and I played all the different themes on the piano for him. The whole movie was full of music except only five minutes. So I had to compose a lot of music – actually one reel a day, so I completed my work in ten days. He requested that I use Asian instruments. I had, and still have, a collection of very old Chinese instruments (300 years old). So I taught the musicians how to play them. Mr. Sternberg also liked mysterious moods, so I also used the Japanese instrument, Koto, which was played by a blind musician. This caused some problems because when I conducted the orchestra the player could not see me, so I had an assistant behind him who patted the blind player’s shoulder when he had a part to play. It caused a little time lag, but Mr. Sternberg liked my music very much and accepted the time delay. It took four days to record the music, which was composed in a European style mixed with Asian orchestrations.

The third well-known director you have worked with is of course Inoshiro Honda, the director of GODZILLA. How do you see your relationship with him? 

Again, I talk about everything with him ahead of time, and he always gave me a completely free hand. When he visited the recording studio he never said anything, but it was his idea to accomplish Godzilla’s famous roar musically. I loosened the strings of a double-bass and pulled them with resin-coated leather gloves; then we slowed the speed and tried other things, and that gave us Godzilla’s roar. For the sequels, Mr. Honda used my recorded music quite a lot because it saved us time. I always felt a shortage of time to compose music – especially in the film business. Therefore I am not very satisfied with my film music, but I am glad I got into movies and I learned a great deal about orchestration.

That means you see yourself not as a film composer, but more of a composer for the concert hall?

 It is the form which I think is the most important element in concert music. As you know, film music has no form. I am not satisfied with my film music because of a lot of the limitations. So I try to express my ideas in concert music. But my film music is popular with people while my concert works are not so well known. I still work hard to compose for the concert hall. Once I retired I became President of Tokyo College of Music about 15 years ago. I retired as President and now I teach composition. In 1978 I retired from film music after having scored LADY OGIN. Just for fun – and because so many fans asked me to do it – I wrote the music for two new Godzilla sequels, GODZILLA VS KING GHIDRA and just recently GODZILLA VS MOTHRA. The kids still like it!

Akira Ifukube

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 10:08:55 GMT

Akira Ifukube by Randall D. Larson
Originally published in CinemaScore #15, 1986/1987
Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor and publisher Randall D. Larson

Film music in Japan has tended to follow one of two, or perhaps three, directions. Much music is derived from historical Japanese musical traditions, particularly in older films and, of course, historical dramas. But there has been an increasing tendency to adapt Western musical influences, and often composers find themselves alternating between the two modes from film to film, as Masaru Sato did with his scores for THRONE OF BLOOD (very traditional Japanese music, based on Noh Theatre) and SUBMERSION OF JAPAN (Western jazz/pop). Perhaps most musically interesting has been a merging of the two, as ably demonstrated by respected composer Toru Takemitsu in his classical works and many film scores, such as that for Kurosawa’s RAN.

Akira Ifukube has maintained a notably symphonic style in his prolific array of film scores, utilizing traditional Japanese styles and voicings for many of his adventure and dramatic films, while embodying his music for science fiction and horror films with more Westernized music. Since the late 1940’s until his retirement from film composition in 1979, Ifukube scored more than two hundred Japanese films, providing a broad arrangement of music for a diverse number of films. Best known outside Japan (and in some cases scorned for) his music for Toho’s Godzilla and similar monster films, Ifukube has in fact scored many more pictures of different kinds, but most of them are not exported outside of Japan.

Akira Ifukube was born in Hokkaido in 1914 and studied there at its University, where he met Fumio Hayakasa, another composer who would gain respect as a film composer in the late 40’s. Ifukube and Hayasaka performed together at Hokkaido, Ifukube on violin and Hayasaka accompanying on piano. During his youth, Ifukube was raised up in the country and was exposed to much traditional folk music from various regions in Japan, all of which contributed to his later style of composition. “The reason for my paganish air is probably due to my upbringing,” Ifukube said. “I was born in Kushiro (Hokkaido) but I was brought up in the middle of Tokatsu Plain. There was a school for Ainu and another for Japanese. I heard more Ainu songs than Japanese when I was small. Since Japanese came from all parts of Japan, I heard folk songs of difference localities.”

After graduation, Ifukube established himself as a composer of concert music (his Symphony was performed in Europe), until the late 1940’s when Hayakasa invited him to Tokyo to join him at Toho Studios, writing the music for motion pictures. Ifukube accepted and, at the same time, started to teach music at Gei-Dai University.
Ifkube’s first film score was for Senkichi Taniguchi’s TO THE END OF SILVER MOUNTAINS. “The movie was originally named THE THREE VILLAINS OF THE MOUNTAIN HUT,” Ifukube later recalled. “I thought that was a terrible name! I told them I was too ashamed to work on such a movie. So they changed the name.” *

This wasn’t the first disagreement Ifukube would have with the filmmakers on END OF SNOW-CAPPED MOUNTAINS. “Everything went smoothly at the beginning,” Ifukube explained. “But, there was a beautiful scene at the top of a mountain in which Setsuko Wakayama and Akitake Kono were skiing. I wrote a solo for a woodwind instrument because I wanted a little sound of wind added to the music. But Mr. Taniguchi was dead against my idea and wanted me to write something similar to the ‘Skater’s Waltz.’ We kept on arguing until next morning. Finally I said I will drop the whole thing if my idea is not accepted.” In the end it was decided to follow the opinion of the composer, an indication of Ifukube’s stature even on his first film assignment. “The reason I thought about the woodwind was because if you used a horn, for instance, it might give the feeling of nature’s vastness, but it won’t give the feeling of love between a boy and a girl. Mr. Taniguchi later said he was interested in my idea. However, people started to think I was easy to get into fights with directors!” Despite this initial friction, Ifukube and Taniguchi went on to collaborate on several other films over the years.

When Ifukube started in film music in 1948, movie music was not taken very seriously in Japan, and as a result he learned much of the skill of composing for cinema from opera music. Ifukube considers film music to be a utilitarian music which has little if any connection to “pure music.” He once described movie music as having four functions: suggesting locations and periods, exciting feelings and moods, and useful in the rhythm of the montage. This has given rise to some criticism from Japanese critics, such as Kuniharu Akiyama, who feels Ifukube is cool and nihilistic about movie music.

“That might come from the idea that I consider film not an art but something utilitarian,” Ifukube responded. “From the time of Greek tragedy, there was something in drama that could not coexist without music. When music starts to create its own world, visual and dramatic elements get pushed away. I think film music must have its own microcosm. The perfect sound will have no room for visual and dramatic phases. Music has to sacrifice itself for other things. I do not like any scene in which drama, color and music are equally balanced. A scene can be just beautiful, dramatic, or full of music, but it should not be a mixture of all three. In other words, each scene should not contain each element to the same degree. A musical can be weak dramatically. An opera might have a very simple story. The life of a movie is in its camera work and its drama. Music is only to support the above. That’s how I feel.”

Ifukube continued to score dramas and adventure films, including Akira Kurosawa’s A QUIET DUEL (he had become acquainted with the noted director while scoring several films for director Senkichi Taniguchi which Kurosawa had scripted). Ifukube established and maintained regular collaborations with directors such as Kon Ichikawa, Hideo Sakikawa, Hiroshi Inagaki, Daisuke Ito and Kenji Misumi. By 1950 he was firmly established as a major film composer along with his friend from Hokkaido, Fumio Hayasaka (the latter became Kurosawa’s regular composer from 1948 until his untimely death in 1955). In 1954 he accepted the assignment to score the film which would link him irretrievably to horror film music in the minds of many. The film was GODZILLA, Toho Studio’s low-budget premiere entry into the giant-monster cycle of the 1950’s.

As the composer’s first foray into music for this genre, it was an assignment he enjoyed. “I’m a country boy and a megalomaniac,” he said. “I get happy when I see big things. Some musician advised me not to work on GODZILLA, saying that once an actor plays a part in a ghost movie, he cannot go back to play an artistic role. But I don’t mind it, because I felt I wouldn’t be spoiled by writing more direct music.” While Ifukube did typecast himself as a monster composer, he all the same managed to continue to score serious films and dramas and, although he gained little fame for his film scoring outside of Japan, is among the most respected of Japanese film composers within his own country.

Ifukube’s music for GODZILLA was indeed “direct” music – much more so than his drama, historical or adventure scores, which tended to be more restrained and melodic. GODZILLA – and, remarkably so, every monster score he would write over the next twenty-five years - was rooted in same three musical elements. The first is heard in the main title of GODZILLA: a stirring march (used as a ‘Battle Theme’) for fast moving brass (or strings, elsewhere) over militaristic drum beats represents the machinations of the humans as they either try in vain to defend themselves against the giant beasts or launch a triumphal victory. Secondly, there is the ‘Horror Theme,’ often played by low, rumbling growls from the woodwinds and brass with much percussion added. This motif refers to the monstrous aspects of the creatures, usually opening with three or four heavily accented, ascending notes, pausing and followed by a series of descending notes. Finally, there is the ‘Requiem’, an intensely sorrowful and beautiful motif which denotes the emotions of the human characters (or, occasionally, the monsters themselves, as in KING KONG ESCAPES.) The Requiem is characterized by a slow rhythm and a slight, ultra-sad melody, the final note of which descends dramatically below the previous note, giving it a very powerful emotional grip.

This trio of motifs was established in GODZILLA and repeated in Ifukube’s further work in the genre with few new motifs created to supplement them. It is remarkable, and not without criticism, that Ifukube managed to score more than 20 genre films utilizing the same three thematic pieces in all of them, yet it is to his credit that despite this repetition, most of these scores worked quite well and linked the monster movies with a similar musical atmosphere.

The Horror motif became the main themes for RODAN, KING KONG VS GODZILLA and MAJIN THE HIDEOUS IDOL, the latter film (Daiei Studio’s samurai version of the golem legend) given a strong, oppressive atmosphere of doom through the groaning, warbled music. The March became the primary theme for THE MYSTERIANS and BATTLE IN OUTER SPACE, Toho’s two outer space spectaculars, DOGORA THE SPACE MONSTER and others. A particularly fine version of the Requiem is used as the main theme in KING KONG ESCAPES to create a poignant paen for the great ape, giving the film a remarkably moving, emotional feeling — all the more amazing considering the hilarity of the bounding, cross-eyed, clown-in-suit Kong.

While the Toho monster films started out seriously enough, by the mid-60’s they had degenerated into silly juvenilia with endlessly reworked sequels and “Meets”, and Ifukube’s music gradually became forced and self-derivative, with fewer new variations in his trio of staple themes. All the same, even laughable turkeys like KING KONG ESCAPES, gained a degree of futile respectability through Ifukube’s music (as well as the consistently top-notch miniature effects work).

When Ifukube was hired to compose the music to the first GODZILLA film, he did so without the benefit of seeing any of the film’s footage. He was told little about the title character, only that it would be “one of the biggest things ever on the screen.” As Ed Godzizewski wrote in ‘The Making of GODZILLA’ [Japanese Fantasy Film Journal #13, p. 21], “Ifukube took his copy of the script and authored a powerful composition for the picture. Audience’s seldom forget the ominous, pounding march heard during [Godzilla’s] rampage through Tokyo, conjuring up an atmosphere of death.”

Ifukube was also involved with the creation of Godzilla’s famous roar, which he accomplished musically. “I loosened the strings of a contrabass and pulled them with resin coated leather gloves,” Ifukube explained. “We slowed the speed and tried other things. As for the sound of Godzilla’s footsteps, we found that the echo machine Mr. Tonegawa made turned out to be perfect.” It wasn’t the first time Ifukube had chosen musical means to create a sound effect. Two year’s earlier in CHILDREN OF HIROSHIMA, Ifukube had produced the sound of an atomic bomb explosion by a microphone inside a piano and hitting all the keys with coins while the pedals were down. “I understand people overseas wondered how it was done!” said Ifukube.

It is not surprising that his biggest fame outside of Japan lies with these scores for the Godzilla family of horror films. While few of his adventure or drama films were distributed outside of Japan, nearly all of the fantasy films achieved great popularity in America and Europe, and their fans recognized his prevalence among them. Not all of the fans heard Ifukube’s actual music, however, as it was a common practice to re-score foreign films when imported into the United States, so many of Ifukube’s intricate musical textures were lost to American audiences who instead heard library music randomly inserted instead.

RODAN is a prime example of this musical mismanagement. While Ifukube’s original score for the Japanese film is ranked among his best compositions, according to Japanese fantasy critic Ed Godzizewski, who wrote that “with the use of muted horns, shrill woodwinds and quivering violins, Ifukube succeeded in creating an eerie, sub-strata impression. [An] example of such effect occurred when Shigeru’s amnesiac memory was jarred by witnessing the hatching of a bird’s egg. A loud, harsh chord sounded as the egg cracked open, followed by a variation of the main theme as Shigeru relives the hatching of Rodan in his mind.” In the film’s stateside release, all that remained of Ifukube’s composition were the main and end titles, and a portion of the Meganuron [aliens’] theme heard during the search for Goro in the mines. The replacement music was mostly ineffective; substituting a grating, saccharine Romance Theme as Shigeru comforts Kiyo, and leaving the film’s highlight scene, Rodan’s attack on Sasebo City and the subsequent jet chase, completely un-scored where Ifukube had provided his thrilling, brassy march to whip the action along.

In contrast to his fantasy and horror scores, Ifukube’s music for historical films are far more delicate, often utilizing choir and traditional Japanese music. In A WHISTLE OF KOTAN, he drew his score from historical folk music from older Asiatic races such as Ainu, Giriyak, Oroko and Keelin, and much of the musical atmosphere is conveyed via chorus intoning this ancient music. “Instruments alone get too loud and do not give the feeling I want,” said Ifukube. “So I go after human voices. However, I cannot go all the way to singing either. Human voices are heard through the reverberation.” THE THREE TREASURES, a samurai fantasy directed by Hiroshi Inagaki, was also drawn from traditional Japanese folk music, emphasizing chorus (singing a wordless chant over rhythmic drum pounds, as in the opening). The choir also sings an intriguing variant on Ifukube’s Horror Motif, in which a similar melody is given a unique effect by the singers. Another rich fantasy score was for the animated fairy tale, THE LITTLE PRINCE AND THE 8-HEADED DRAGON, which balanced Ifukube’s Requiem and Horror motifs with a resonant, clear trumpet theme, and a wailing female choir singing a poignant melody.

HARP OF BURMA, one of Ifukube’s most noteworthy historical scores, had to use existing music performed by Japanese harpist Mizushima. “The way he played was unique,” Ifukube said. “It did not follow the normal European rules. I purposely made it so that musicians will notice something is wrong. Actually, nobody could play that [particular] harp. So we substituted a regular harp played by the late Yoshie Abe. Nylon string was replaced with sheep string to get better sound. But they were expensive and broke easily.”

The biggest film Ifukube scored, in terms of orchestral size, was Kenji Misumi’s BUDDHA, a sweeping religious film with mystical fantasy elements in which Ifukube emphasized the bass section. “I like good foundation with contrabass in it,” said Ifukube. “I like low sound. In the case of recording for movies, there is a limit in the number of musicians. My usual number of players for the string section are 8 first violins, 6 second violins, 4 violas, 3 cellos and 2 contrabasses. When we are short of money we eliminate the first violins. This is going to sound cheap and people will notice, so I tend to lower violins and raise cellos to compensate. This tends to lower the music as well.”

The low-ness of sound in much of Ifukube’s work also coincides with his preference in using the requiem, the sorrowful melody which figured so often in his monster scores as well as in other films, such as SANDAKAN 8, and leant such a profoundly haunting, dirge-like atmosphere to much of his music. One Japanese reviewer told Ifukube that his music “seems to be related to peace preceded by destruction or death, followed by birth. It is some sort of requiem.”

“The reason my music sounds like a requiem is because of the scales,” the composer replied. “In Japanese music, the one above the ending tone is a half tone. One below is a full tone. This cannot be classed as a major key nor a minor key. I value our traditional sense of beauty. When Westerners hear my music, they think of church music of the Middle Ages; when Japanese hear it, it sounds like Japanese but its tempo is slow and sounds like a requiem. Another reason may be that I change from 3/4 to 4/4 and 5/4 frequently.”

Ifukube’s preference for strings may have much to do with the fact that he studied and played violin since his earliest days in music at the Hokkaido University. “I like melody and I like to mix sounds,” Ifukube said. “I think, generally speaking, people who started with string instruments like melodious and less mobile music. When I write music, I start my outline using string instruments. The tone quality of string gives a sense of loudness; it has expression. I think, next to human voice, the string instruments are the most important.”

If strings are Ifukube’s melodious instrument, the piano represents aggression and dissonance. He makes dominant use of both the keyboard and the piano strings themselves in many scores, especially the monster films. “The string instruments and orchestra are not always powerful enough,” he said. “Then I use brass, percussion instruments and piano to their fullest. I don’t like piano, but I use it often for movies.”

Other films made use of particular instruments as matches the specific mood Ifukube was looking for. Once again, it is in the non-horror films to which non-Japanese listeners are most unfamiliar, that best demonstrate Ifukube’s compositional range. JAPAN ARCHIPELAGO featured a remarkable score featuring solo guitar. “I wanted to express the feeling of the leading actor being overpowered by unknown forces,” Ifukube said. “I did that by having the orchestra taking over the guitar solo. Solo piano is used commonly nowadays, but it sounds a little too aristocratic. So I used a guitar.”

SHINRAN made strong use of voices, including that of Ifukube’s himself, due to a peculiar quirk. “Mr. Denjiro Okochi was supposed to sing ‘makuzugahara’ after he rose to the rank of the archbishop Shinran,” said Ifukube. “I handed him a score, but he just couldn’t understand it. The producers asked me to tape my voice for him to use as a reference. I happened to have a cold at the time, but I sang anyway accompanied by a koto. When the movie was finished, I found out that my voice was used! To my great surprise, my hoarse voice matched Mr. Okochi’s perfectly!”

In 1953 Ifukube scored THE SAGA OF ANATAHAN, directed by the American director Josef Von Sternberg, one of the composer’s rare cases of scoring a non-Japanese film. “The editing of the film was finished,” Ifukube recalled. “We played one reel a day and I made piano sketches while von Sternberg coached me. Then I went home and orchestrated the day’s work. There were eleven reels, so it took me eleven days to finish. Besides the orchestra, we had four koto, four kokyu, four stringed fiddle and an old Chinese instrument. Von Sternberg insisted on blind koto players! Later, we had people who could read music to tap on the shoulder of the koto player when the baton came down. But we still had trouble. Von Sternberg liked saying it was mystic. I didn’t understand that.

Akira Ifukube’s approach to film scoring remains a thoughtful and calculated one, and is often characterized by a sparseness rather than an overabundance of music. “Music has to have enough time to create an image, except when a ‘bang’ is used for a surprise,” said Ifukube. “I try not to use music as bridges. It is my policy to express, not to explain. Hollywood movies often use music to introduce a new scene. French movies usually play music longer and make you feel like whistling. Hollywood movies have their music well-fitted to each scene, but when it is over, there is no melody left. I like the French style better, and it is easier to work with. I became famous for eliminating music and Mr. Isao Kimura probably copied me. When a director says ‘I need music here,’ I light a cigarette and go into deep thinking. My staff liked that.”

In 1979 Ifukube retired from film music composition after having scored LADY OGIN [LOVE AND FAITH, in USA]. He continues to teach music full time. Reflecting on his career in movies, particularly in view of his being an established composer prior to his involvement with cinema, Ifukube remarked that “In the case of pure composition, there is less of a chance to rework things. I learned a great deal about orchestration. On the other hand, it is common among movie makers to emphasize the music too much as an effect and the true spirit of music becomes lost. We get good at making something sound like a cheap scarecrow.

“When people tell me that I might have written something serious if I had not gotten into the movies, I tell them it is possible, but I might have starved also. Of course, I sometimes wish I had written serious music during that time. But when I see some composers who have not had experience in movies make serious mistakes, I feel I am glad I got into movies and learned what I did.”

Darius Milhaud

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 09:33:30 GMT

Originally published in the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 4th Edition 2000 

Text reproduced by kind permission of the author, Philip Kemp

Darius Milhaud was one of the most prolific composers of the century, with a final tally of well over 400 opus numbers taking in every major musical form. It is not surprising that, along with everything else, he composed a good deal of film music. Indeed it would have been more surprising if he had not, given his lifelong love of the cinema. His first major success, the 1919 Surrealist ballet Le Boeuf sur le toit , was originally subtitled a Cinéma-symphonie , “suitable for an accompaniment to one of Charlie Chaplin's films.”

Milhaud supplied music for some 25 films, starting out in the silent era with a score to accompany Marcel L'Herbier's avant-garde melodrama L'INHUMAINE. The music is lost, but it is reputed to have matched the film's abrupt, expressionist rhythm, climaxing - for a scene where the hero resurrects his dead love in a futuristic laboratory - in a bravura cadenza scored solely for percussion instruments.

Audacious and (at least in his younger years) impudently iconoclastic, Milhaud relished experimentation for its own sake. He was one of the first to co-opt cinema into opera; his Christophe Colombe uses a backdrop movie screen to convey the thoughts of his characters, or to extend the action “into an inner universe opening out from our own.” Even when his stance had become less outrageous, he retained a penchant for the avant-garde, and provided some suitably spiky music for the Man Ray section of Hans Richter's self-consciously Surrealist DREAMS THAT MONEY CAN BUY.

Milhaud's own musical idiom was nothing if not eclectic. He admired Debussy and Mussorgsky (and detested Wagner), but happily threw in elements of whatever took his fancy - jazz, Brazilian dance rhythms, the medieval troubadour songs of his native Provence. Rather than cast his music in a predetermined style, he preferred to adopt whatever forms and materials seemed appropriate to the given task. This adaptability, together with his fluency (he once defined inspiration as “the amount of ink in my pen”), should have made him an ideal film composer. But his relationship with the movie industry remained oddly uneasy. He believed that his “symphonic” style aroused mistrust among filmmakers, recalling in his memoirs a “rather inquisitorial visit” from Renoir while he was composing the score for MADAME BOVARY.

This, coupled with a perhaps inadvertent tendency to write down to movie audiences—he felt that film music must “remain modest… be extremely simple” - may explain why Milhaud's film scores are mostly less distinguished than might be expected from a composer of his stature. He was at his best with straightforward, light-hearted subjects such as Raymond Bernard's CAVALCADE D'AMOUR, a look at love during three periods of history. Each section of the film used a different composer: Milhaud chose the Middle Ages, and produced a fresh, transparent score, whose chamber-music textures breathed Mediterranean sunshine. He later adapted it into a suite for wind quintet, entitled La Cheminée du Roi René .

If offered a subject which genuinely engaged his emotions, Milhaud could still come up with film music that belied his reputation for elegant frivolity. André Malraux's only film, the stark Spanish Civil War drama L'ESPOIR, has no music until the final reel, when a long procession of villagers winds down a mountainside carrying the bodies of dead Republican airmen. For this wordless sequence, Milhaud supplied an 11-minute passage of sustained and sombre nobility. This too was adapted for concert use, as the Cortège funèbre .

Although Milhaud spent much of his later life in America, he was loath to work in Hollywood, disliking the system of handing over the composer's short score to professional orchestrators “who churn out on a commercial scale musical pathos à la Wagner or Tchaikovsky.” The one Hollywood assignment he did accept was THE PRIVATE AFFAIRS OF BEL-AMI, scripted (after Maupassant) and directed by Albert Lewin - “a highly cultured man,” Milhaud noted, “and what is even rarer in those circles, genuinely modest.” Lewin allowed Milhaud not only to orchestrate his own music, but to conduct it and sit in on the mixing sessions. The result was a score that vividly evoked the Paris of the Belle Epoque, but without the usual wash of romantic nostalgia. This, Milhaud's strutting themes and jaunty brass writing suggested, was a society whose glittering facade concealed callousness and rampant ambition - a vision entirely in keeping with Maupassant's cynical tale of a cad on the make.

Jacques Ibert

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 09:20:31 GMT

Originally published in the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 4th Edition 2000 

Text reproduced by kind permission of the author, Philip Kemp

Jacques Ibert's reputation as a lightweight composer of witty frivolities - a kind of ex officio member of "Les Six” - does him a lot less than justice. The ebullient high spirits of his best-known works such as the parodistic “Divertissement,” though typical of one aspect of him, have come to eclipse the darker, more complex elements in his music. For Ibert was also the composer of the somber symphonic poem “Ballade de la geôle de Reading,” inspired by Oscar Wilde's poem, and the nightmarish “Chant de folie.” And this “shadow side” of Ibert's musical personality emerges too in his film music, as in the scores he wrote for Duvivier's GOLGOTHA and Welles's MACBETH.

Like others of his generation, Ibert developed his love of cinema during the silent era, and for a time earned his living (as did Shostakovich) playing piano in movie houses. The “Divertissement,” composed as incidental music for a staging of the same Labiche farce, UN CHAPEAU DE PAILLE D'ITALIE, that René Clair used as basis for his film, could well stand as a tribute to silent film comedy. The finale, with its frenetic percussion and massed police whistles, immediately evokes the world of Chaplin, Keaton, and the Keystone cops, and even allows the trumpet to mimic one of Chaplin's skidding, one-legged about-turns. Indeed, though not written as a film score, Ibert's music was subsequently used to accompany Clair's film, an oblique acknowledgment of its essentially cinematic spirit.

Proudly eclectic, Ibert always disdained schools of composition. “All systems are valid,” he maintained, “so long as one derives music from them.” In his film music, as in his concert and chamber works, he was happy to incorporate elements from whatever style or culture seemed appropriate to the job in hand. For his first feature film as composer, Duvivier's LES CINQ GENTLEMEN MAUDITS, he matched the North African story line by working Moroccan chants and animal cries into the score. It was for another film directed by Duvivier, the biblical epic GOLGOTHA, that Ibert composed one of his most expressive scores of the 1930s drawing on elements of Gregorian chant, Handelian chorales, sinuous oriental melodies and the traditional theme of the “Dies Irae.” For the climax, the crucifixion itself, he unleashed a tour de force of orchestral sonorities, with brass and rattling percussion vying for supremacy, culminating in a sepulchral march with the ondes martenot wailing desolately above it like a grief-stricken voice.

Expert at adapting his own characteristic tone to a wide range of idioms, Ibert was the ideal composer to provide evocative orchestral color for films set in exotic times or places - whether in the Sahara (COURRIER SUD), in dynastic Ruritanian Europe (KOENIGSMARK), or even in the other world (LA CHARRETTE FANTÔME). When the ailing Maurice Ravel was unable to meet the deadline, Ibert stepped in to craft elegant Spanish pastiche for Pabst's DON QUICHOTTE.

Hollywood never tempted Ibert, for whom the idea of entrusting his orchestration to some studio hack would have been anathema, and only twice did he stray outside French cinema. For the “Circus” episode of Gene Kelly's INVITATION TO THE DANCE he provided a ballet score full of whirlwind rhythms and darting fantasy. But his finest and most original film music was inspired by Orson Welles's idiosyncratic version of MACBETH, filmed amid the papier-mâché sets and dry ice of the cut-price Republic studios. In place of conventional Shakespearean grandeur, Ibert set out to evoke the play's eerie atmosphere through grotesque, prowling dissonances, outlandish scoring - including celesta, tabor, and Chinese gongs - and such disquieting effects as a wordless “breathing chorus” like a host of unquiet spirits. An insidious march on high woodwind and snare drum acts as ominous leitmotiv (accompanied at one point by an ensemble of out-of-tune bagpipes), and Banquo's ghost is heralded by a lurching bass-tuba backed by gurgles from the double-bassoon. Regrettably, much of the subtlety of Ibert's score was lost in the murk of Republic's garbled soundtrack; had it been better presented, it might well have put paid to the dismissive view of him as a skilled but conventional composer.

Virgil Thomson

Mon, 30 Oct 2023 08:47:16 GMT

Originally published in the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 4th Edition 2000 

Text reproduced by kind permission of the author, Philip Kemp

Virgil Thomson’s reputation as a composer of film music is out of all proportion to his output. He wrote scores for only eight movies, six of them documentaries. Yet these scores - and two of them in particular - exerted a lasting influence on the development of 20th-century American music, not only for films but in the concert hall as well.

Born in Missouri, Thomson studied during the 1920s with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, revelling in the musical and artistic ferment of the era. Invited in 1936 to provide a score for Pare Lorentz's documentary, THE PLOW THAT BROKE THE PLAINS, he responded with music that treated indigenous American folk themes with a wit, litheness and affectionate irony learnt from Satie and the composers of Les Six , creating an engaging blend of naivety and sophistication.

Lorentz's film, commissioned by the US Department of Agriculture, dealt with the Dustbowl disaster of the American Midwest, when thousands were driven off the land by economic and ecological breakdown. Working closely with Lorentz - and virtually for nothing, since the director had long since overspent his minuscule budget - Thomson wove further strands of association around the film's evocative images. For the arrival of cattle on the high plains, banjo and guitar pick out the plangent melancholy of cowboy songs like “Streets of Laredo,” while scenes of rampant financial speculation are treated to a raunchy, sardonic blues, vibrant with saxophones, that recalls the Weill of DREIGROSCHENOPER.

Thomson's score for THE PLOW reached wider audiences through the orchestral suite he drew from it, and so did the music for his second collaboration with Lorentz. Backed, like its predecessor, by Roosevelt's New Deal Administration, THE RIVER sketched a brooding, elegiac account of the Mississippi valley, culminating in a celebration of Roosevelt's pet scheme, the Tennessee Valley Authority. Once again Thomson's score set off the images - and Lorentz's incantatory script - with a piquant mix of original material and indigenous melodies: hymn-tunes, spirituals and popular songs, including (for scenes of booming industrial expansion) an uproarious handling of “Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.”

To Aaron Copland, Thomson's score for THE RIVER provided “a lesson in how to treat Americana.” Its influence can be heard in Copland's own ballet scores - Rodeo, Billy the Kid, Appalachian Spring - as well as in the work of associated composers such as Roy Harris and Walter Piston. But in the specific field of film music Thomson's two scores for Lorentz established an alternative mode to the lush Germanic romanticism then prevalent in Hollywood movies. Not only through Copland's own film scores (and via Copland, those of his followers such as Bernard Herrmann and Alex North) but for American film music in general Thomson set out options of concision and spareness, of a clean, sharply-etched idiom rather than an overall impressionistic haze.

“The movie,” Thomson once wrote, “is a true musical form, as truly a musical form as the opera, though without the opera's inseparable marriage of music to words.” Nowhere was his theory better demonstrated than in his score for Flaherty's LOUISIANA STORY. The film, financed by Standard Oil, showed the coming of oil prospectors to the swamp wilderness of the bayous, seen through the eyes of a native Cajun boy. Drawing this time on an anthology of Cajun folk song, Thomson clothed the haunting melodic lines in a rich variety of instrumental texture, combining them as before with original passages of his own. Though employing complex formal devices—a twelve-tone chorale, a passacaglia, a chromatic double fugue - the music never seems academic, nor loses the simplicity and rhythmic freedom appropriate to its basic material and to Flaherty's lyrical images.

Thomson's score for LOUISIANA STORY won him a Pulitzer Prize, the first Pulitzer award ever granted to a film score. Once again he adapted the music for concert use, deriving from it two separate orchestral suites and a ballet, The Bayou .

The only feature film Thomson scored was THE GODDESS, the rise to fame of a Monroesque Hollywood star directed by John Cromwell from a script by Paddy Chayefsky. Less distinctive than his documentary work, the music suggests that Thomson felt hampered by composing for fiction film, with its limited scope for elongated lines and symphonic development. Even so, THE GODDESS allowed him to exercise his talent for spot-on pastiche. At various points in the film (which covers the years 1928–58) a radio is turned on and jazz emerges, each time perfectly in period in its style and instrumentation. Yet all of it is Thomson's original work - further evidence of his exact and appreciative ear for indigenous American music of every kind.

Arthur Honegger

Sat, 28 Oct 2023 11:47:59 GMT

Originally published in the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 4th Edition 2000 

Text reproduced by kind permission of the author, Philip Kemp

Arthur Honegger first achieved fame as a member of “Les Six,” the group of composers impulsively yoked together in 1917 by Jean Cocteau to create anti-Romantic, “quintessentially French” music. But Honegger's pensive, serious-minded outlook found little in common with the nose-thumbing frivolities of Poulenc and Milhaud, and he soon seceded from the group. In his film music, too, he always responded most intensely to subjects of a tragic or exalted stamp. Faced with lighter material his work, though never less than craftsmanlike, could become what he once dismissively described all film scores as, “music that one forgets.” At its best, though, Honegger's film music is powerful, imaginatively scored, and anything but forgettable.

Like so much of the music composed for the silent cinema, Honegger's earliest film scores have either been lost or survive only in fragmentary form. Of his first score, for Abel Gance's railway melodrama LA ROUE , only the overture still exists. As well as providing - with its motoric rhythms - an early example of Honegger's lifelong fascination with trains (his famous symphonic poem “Pacific 231” would follow a year later), it shows him responding to the pulsating intensity of Gance's conception. His score for Gance's grandiose epic, NAPOLÉON, survives as no more than a few episodes in the composer's autograph; Honegger himself stormed out before the premiere, infuriated by the director's obsessive last-minute reediting. But one passage, depicting the swelling fervor of the revolution, anticipates a polyphonic device he favored in his symphonies: over a low, brooding theme on brass and low woodwind, two revolutionary songs (“Ça ira” and “La Carmagnole”) are counterpointed, rising to a frenzied climax.

Unimpressed by the sound quality of early talkies, Honegger composed little film music in the early thirties. But by 1934, with recording and reproduction techniques rapidly improving, he had regained interest in the medium and that year alone composed five scores, remarkable in their diversity. For Berthold Bartosch's animated satire L'IDÉE, Honegger set the remote, ethereal tones of the ondes martenot (representing the eponymous idea in all its purity) against a restless, urban-jazz tinged ensemble dominated by trombone, trumpet, and alto sax that hinted at the influence of Kurt Weill. RAPT, like FARINET, ODER DAS FALSCHE GELD five years later, was adapted from a novel by the Swiss writer Ramuz; both scores recall the composer's own Swiss background, evoking the mountain landscapes of the Valais with striding, folklike motifs of elemental dignity. Raymond Bernard's three-part version of Hugo's LES MISÉRABLES brought out the lyrical, romantic side of Honegger's nature with a score that rises to stirring pathos with the death of Jean Valjean and erupts in fury for the uprising of the urban poor.

Over the next ten years, until ill health curtailed his activities, Honegger composed virtually all his most original film scores. Regrettably, they were rarely destined for films of great distinction. LE CAPITAINE FRACASSE reunited him with Abel Gance, but it was a minor work in Gance's declining career; even so, Honegger entered with gusto into the film's swaggering spirit. His score for CRIME ET CHÂTIMENT did far more justice to Dostoyevsky than anything else in Pierre Chénal's stilted adaptation; somber and atmospheric, it set obsessive ostinato figures and canonlike themes roaming about each other to suggest Raskolnikov's tormented mind and the quiet doggedness of the implacable Inspector Porfiry.

Three of Honegger's most exceptional scores were composed for films now largely, or entirely, forgotten. His music for DER DÄMON DES HIMALAYA, highly chromatic and audaciously scored, underlines the way that mountains and high places always brought out his most personal responses. “Le Grand Barrage,” a three-minute fragment from 1942 evidently intended to accompany newsreel footage of the building of a dam, conjures up in its brief span a vivid picture of enraged, rushing waters. Even more dramatic is the score for Louis Cuny's MERMOZ, a biopic about a celebrated French aviator. Honegger's music, dissonant and tumultuous, allotting prominent roles to high woodwind, saxophone, and percussion, recreates the trepidation and hypnotic strangeness of the pioneer airman's world.

Had Honegger been able to work with major filmmakers at the height of their powers, his reputation as a film composer would almost certainly stand far higher. Until recently, most of his finest film scores have lain buried in obscure movies and primitive, crackly sound-tracks. Their emergence on compact disc offers the opportunity to reevaluate his contribution to the genre, and to do it belated justice.

The Fred Karlin Collection, Volume 1

Sun, 22 Oct 2023 14:05:22 GMT

Label: Reel Music
Catalogue No: RMFK5701

Release Date: 1995

Total Duration: 73:40

UPN:

Among recent composer collections from specialized and promotional labels is this notable Fred Karlin CD. Another underappreciated composer, Karlin’s work has graced screen and tube since 1967, and has included several excellent works. Karlin also authored two major texts on film music appreciation. This CD, rather than collecting brief excerpts from a wide range of films, includes near complete scores from three television films, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MISS JANE PITTMAN, VAMPIRE and INSIDE THE THIRD REICH.

JANE PITTMAN (1974) is pure Americana. Opening with very period-sounding, tuneful march for the Confederate soldiers, Karlin counterpoints with a sorrowful, intimate violin soliloquy for the slaves, accentuated by the clanking of chains embellished onto the rhythm. ‘River Scene’ is about as Americana as you can get, a pure traditional banjo and fiddle and winds piece that perfectly sums up the excitement of the old West. ‘The Dye Plantation’ is a short, bluesy cue for harmonica, acoustic guitar and muted horns. The rest of the store moseys on in similar fashion; very folksy, very Americana, acoustic guitars, harmonica, banjos, fiddles ‘To Clyde Ranch’ is an excellent example, moving from one jaunty tune to more somber tonalities.

The music for VAMPIRE is full of somber, brooding, malevolent atmospheres of evil. This stylish 1979 TV horror film starred Richard Lynch as a high class vampiric art collector, a film that was quickly forgotten when the more earthy SALEM’S LOT was broadcast a month later. Built around a theme for string and brass accentuated by oboe, electric harpsichord and electric violin, this well-colored score is an excellent one, moodier and more deliberate than most TV -movie scores of the day. ‘Vampire Released’ is a very good cue, menacing tendrils of violin spiralling out of a froth of harpsichord, piano and low bass chords. ‘Research Montage’ takes the hitherto quiet and subdued main theme and launches it through a surge of strident violin notes over pounded harpsichord and percussion into a rhythmic pursuit of danger. ‘Find Vampire’ contains innumerable variations on the main theme and this same pursuit music during its nearly 4-minute length, powerful violin strokes over low rumbling harpsichord and piano, percussion and bass, a well-colored and well-integrated cue. ‘End Scene’ carries the style through to a relieved crescendo.

INSIDE THE THIRD REICH (1982), a semi-documentary based on Albert Speer’s autobiography, is mildly militaristic, though more somber and dismal in tonality, underscoring this story of Hitler’s intimates with disquieting music. ‘Nightmare’, though, gets positively lush near its end, when the relentless, high-register violin notes give way to buoyant strings melodies. ‘Champagne’ is a likewise uplifting cue, a pretty theme for violins. ‘Works Montage’ is a very effective cue, richly orchestrated for trumpets over percussion, heraldic and dynamic in style and texture. ‘Snow/ Mountains’ is likewise effective, dynamic travelogue music. Much of the rest of the score is pessimistic, secretive, tempted to reveal the dark nature of Speer’s personality.

Three noteworthy scores from an underrated composer – a most welcome CD, attractively put together with a 12-page booklet featuring photos and descriptive notes about Karlin and the three scores here represented.

Randall D. Larson – Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.14 / No.54 / 1995

An interview with Fred Karlin

Sun, 22 Oct 2023 13:50:56 GMT

An Interview with Fred Karlin by Daniel Mangodt
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.13/No.52/199
4Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

Music is Fred Karlin’s life: from jazz to symphonic music, from ethnic to electronic music, from composing to writing about it and finally teaching it. Very little of Karlin’s music is available on disc. However, a series of CD’s, focusing mainly on Karlin’s television scores, will be released during the next 2 years. The first album will contain THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MISS JANE PITTMAN, VAMPIRE and INSIDE THE THIRD REICH. The second one will contain excerpts from THE STALKING MOON and ROBERT KENNEDY AND HIS DAYS. Fred Karlin was nominated, with various collaborators, for three Oscars for songs in the films THE STERILE CUCKOO and THE LITTLE ARK, and for the score to THE BABY MAKER. He won his Emmy for THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MISS JANE PITTMAN.

You started out as a jazz trumpetist… 

I was 14 or so, went into a movie theatre to see a movie called YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN, and I walked out just wanting to play jazz trumpet. It was just instantaneous. So I went back and asked my folks for a trumpet. They had always been very enthusiastic about my interests, very supportive, and they got me one. It was a cornet actually at that time. And for the first few years that’s what I did; I learned to play jazz trumpet and my interests grew over the years and by the time I went to college (I went to Amherst College, Massachusetts, where Lukas Kendall now goes) I had my own big band that I worked around the college circuit with. I wrote extensively for that band and also played bee-bop in small groups. It wasn’t until after college that I began to expand more and more interests into different kinds of music.

You also worked with Benny Goodman… 

When I first came to New York in 1958, Benny Goodman organized a tentet, with a number of his favorite musicians: there was Philips, Red Norton, Jack Shelton was the trumpet player. He had a terrific group. They did some touring and we recorded one album while I was his arranger for that tentet, which was an album with my arrangements for THE SOUND OF MUSIC, a show that had just opened. One of my original pieces from that time has just been reissued on the ‘Yale University Series’ of Benny Goodman material that was unreleased, called ‘Marching and Swinging’ and it’s one of the 13 pieces selected for the newest biography of Benny Goodman.

You wrote your first film music for UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE in 1967 at the age of 31, wasn’t that rather late for a film composer? 

At that time it was very young. There is a big difference between 1967 and 1994, in terms of age. At that time we had all 5 to 10 years professional experience doing other things before we even thought of getting into television or film scoring. Today students, as soon as they are out of college, are ready to score television and features. There has been a big difference to learn the technique and the drama and the dramatic sensibilities that are required. But then it was not unusual and it was a double deal: I was young and I was from New York, so outside the Hollywood system.

How did you get involved with UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE?

 Because I was in New York. It was an amazing twist of fate. The producer and the director (Alan J. Pakula and Robert Mulligan) had shot the film in New York and were quite certain they didn’t want somebody from Hollywood to score the film. They had worked with wonderful composers such as Andre Previn and Elmer Bernstein and they had done some terrific movies, including TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. It wasn’t a reflection on the Hollywood composers whatsoever, they simply felt it was a New York film and they didn’t want somebody who would try to adapt it to a Hollywood style. They wanted a new look and they heard my tape and it seemed very appropriate.

How did you decide on the style for this rather difficult movie?

 It was a difficult movie but for me it was the ideal way to start, because the film centered on a New York high school and I felt that the street sounds the kids liked were appropriate. I used sound effect music, like pouring water into bottles, I created pitches that were like a glass xylophone, I had refrigerator drills that were stroked by a percussionist, New Year’s Eve noise makers, clackers, etc… I used a lot of non-musical percussion sounds plus rock and roll guitar, rock and roll rhythm section. In other words, I used the kids’ sounds against the streets and I wanted to work the opposite coloration with the high school teacher, because she was an outsider and she had never even been into contact with the big city. She didn’t fit in, her personality wasn’t aggressive and should have been for that high school. Her background was explained in the script – middle ages literature. So here we have a crispy, light character, without assertiveness, just floating around, coming into this incredibly real situation and the recorder would be a perfect sound and it came directly from her story and her character. In the end she succeeds and I put the 2 colors together.

You have scored several westerns, including THE STALKING MOON… 

I wanted to find something that was singularly appropriate to express the unseen villainous personality of this unseen mythic Indian in the dark. He is always behind the next bush until the very end when the big fight takes place with Gregory Peck. I wanted the music to express that and I wanted it to be a little different and difficult to label and identify it. It’s a 2 hour story and it’s a stalk from beginning to end and it’s slow moving. There is a love story as well, but basically the heart of the story is that they are terrorized, it’s jeopardy. That score is going to be issued on CD.

According to some filmographies you also scored ZANDY’S BRIDE? Did you score it or was it Michael Franks?

 It shouldn’t be in my list. I was considered for it until about 3 weeks before scoring, but they never wanted anybody but Michael Franks.

You also wrote many songs as part of some film scores…

 I love writing songs. I’m very happy when I’m writing songs, but I wasn’t a song writer and my songs have always come out of film experiences. So the first one was for YOURS, MINE AND OURS. I did 2 songs for this film, including the title song and Ernie Shelton was the lyricist of both. The next film with a song was THE STERILE CUCKOO, with ‘Come Saturday Morning’, which was a big hit. It was the first film directed by Alan J. Pakula; he wasn’t sure that he was going to use lyrics and he wasn’t at all sure that he would have a song but he had these long montages that required music, whether it was vocal or not. They were reliant upon music to carry them, since there was no dialog in the 2 big montages and there was relatively little in the main title and at the end of the film (all four places where the song ended up). So the theme was written and he decided that Dory Previn would write a lyric to it. So all these songs that have come after that have grown out of film situations.

One of your lyricists is Marsha Karlin… 

That’s my wife. You will also find her ‘nom de plume’, Tylwyth Kymry. Her real name is Megan, but for a period of time she used Tylwyth Kymry as an homage to her Welsh family and just as people were able to pronounce the name she changed it. She was nominated twice with me for work that we did together and once for an Emmy as well, and additionally she wrote a beautiful lyric for the theme for THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MISS JANE PITTMAN. We weren’t asked to put a song in the film, she just couldn’t resist writing the lyric to it. It goes with the main theme as I used it over the end walk (which lasts 5 minutes) and this will be included on the first CD that is coming out.

An interesting diptych is made by WESTWORLD and FUTUREWORLD. The music sounds very metallic and there are even some “imitations” of’ Bernstein’s MAGNIFICENT 7.

 It wasn’t meant to be an imitation but it was definitely inspired by Bernstein’s score, by the old tradition of western scoring as I knew it. The concept was that the robots are human, except they aren’t. In every way they are, except you can kill them and they are repaired, especially when they gain control of themselves and the chase begins and they are no longer controlled by the technicians. My feeling was to use almost completely acoustic instruments, but manipulate them electronically, so they weren’t quite human. That was the concept that triggered this and therefore I would do the same thing with the style which would be evocative of the western. For instance I had a single violin – I played all this music incidentally – that captured this horse galloping, but it was manipulated so that it sounded much more than one violin and secondly it didn’t sound like any violin, because I wanted that shrieking, primitive quality. So it’s a little electronic, but manipulated from an acoustic instrument. The same thing with my trumpet. I use the echoplex, to give it a more electronic feel. There were few electronic instruments used, and almost exclusively in some scenes when the robots are repaired at night. That, I felt, should be more electronic.

Did you change the concept when you did FUTUREWORLD?

 It grew from that. It was a different story, but it had the same problems with the robots. I used a full orchestra, but kept some of the original coloration with some reminiscences of the original theme and the electronic violin.

You also performed in CHOSEN SURVIVORS. Do you often perform?

 That was the same period of time. I had my own studio at home and I performed quite a lot. It was very difficult at the time, much more so than now. It was all multi-track and there was no computerization to help you out, so it was quite difficult, but I loved it.

You also wrote the music for LEADBELLY, a biopic about the black blues singer Huddie Leadbetter… 

That’s one of my favorite films. I used pre-existing music as a starting point; they were all Leadbelly songs, sung by Hi Tide Harris. One of them is a beautiful duet with Art Evans, playing the role of Blind Lemon Jefferson, but most of them are solos. A lot of the scoring is either adaptation, as in the case of ‘Cotton Fields’, which I use once, or it’s so extended and adapted that it becomes an original composition. The chase sequence is a real blend of several of materials that existed along with my own compositions.

You have scored some 30 features, but the bulk of your work is for more than 120 television films and series. Which do you prefer? 

What I loved about TV and what caused me to do so much TV was that it reached more people, and secondly that they often made social statements for the first time, way before they appeared in significant feature films. I scored films about alcohol, teenage prostitution, drug addiction. I was called for many different kinds of subjects and I felt that I was making a contribution in my own small way to increase the awareness to the public of these problems.

You don’t like being typecast?

 I never had that problem. I also liked the mini-series, like IKE, ROBERT KENNEDY, INSIDE THE THIRD REICH, and THE AWAKENING LAND. These are big subjects. They are 6 or 7 hour films. That was extraordinary and an opportunity that doesn’t exist many times in features. I like doing those historical-scope films and expansive scores. Features on the other hand give you – especially these days – a wonderful sound panorama for a full life. In general there is much more room for the sound palate to work together and that’s thrilling and when the subject is serious, there is no medium like it. We saw NOSTRADAMUS last night, a wonderful film, a wonderful use of music. The music was very true to the style of the film. This is a feature film I would have loved to score. Anyway the art of film scoring is not lost.

You received an Emmy for THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MISS JANE PITTMAN. 

That story reached so many people and my music and Cecily Tyson’s acting were so heartfelt, everything was so rich in scope and feeling. It was about civil rights. It’s the story of a woman who lived from pre-slavery days until 1955 and still her great grandson is shot on the day the story takes place. The film shows how much progress was made in a hundred years. So the film is about something, even if it is a fictional character.

You used a lot of ethnic music… 

I have a strong feeling for that. Because of my jazz roots, I’m very close to ragtime. One of my favorite scenes is the sequence where her son she hadn’t seen for a few years and who had gone off to fight in the Spanish-American civil war comes back after the war, and he is with his wife and child and Jane Pittman sees them coming up the river. My goal was to use the pure ragtime language, but also to give the scene an emotional build as they finally meet.

You also did MAN FROM ATLANTIS.

 I scored every episode. We did 4 two-hour movies and then we did 13 one-hour episodes. I enjoyed that. For those days we had a large orchestra, 35 players. STAR TREK – THE NEXT GENERATION has 45 players and that’s a big orchestra for television. This was a little series but they wanted an orchestra. For those days we got a pretty good size chamber orchestra. It gave me a lot of music opportunity with the sequences under water and when they did the episodes they went into different locales and times, like STAR TREK used to do. Some were western, some were medieval, and some were futuristic. It was fun.

BLIND AMBITION was a 4-part mini-series. Walter Scharf scored episodes 1 and 2, you scored parts 3 and 4. How did that happen? 

David Susskind was the producer and I had worked with him before. One day he asked me if I would like to step in and do episodes 3 and 4. This kind of thing happens all the time and especially nowadays. They just wanted a different approach. Each episode was 2 hours long, but there was very little music. It’s a kind of docudrama and it’s about a person you really can’t be too sympathetic towards. So what do you play? I never listened to the other music. I did a new theme and started all over. There was a big tradition in the thirties and forties with the big studios like Fox and Universal where they had 3 or 4 people working on one film.

You compose and you also teach film music. What made you decide to do that?

 It really grew out of my deciding to write about films. Ray Wright and I co-authored ‘On the Track’ and there was a long period of time, about 6 years from the time we started until we held the book in our hands. During that time I did all the research, did a lot of interviews, except 2 or 3. I liked writing the book, studying the films, doing the research and it became and extension of my musical interest. By the time that was finished and I was asked to do a second book by the same publisher for the general audience, it became an easy decision to do it because it was part of my life. During the period of writing ‘On the Track’ I began to realize that it would be good for me and for the students to connect with some of them whenever practical on a one to one basis to teach the materials. So I have now my own ASCAP Fred Karlin Film Scoring Workshop, just finishing the 7th season. I do that once a year and it’s nine 4-hour meetings. I did a little teaching at USC every fall for the last 3 years. And I have done some teaching at my home town, Santa Barbara, University of California, for film students, who have no musical background, and I teach the same way as you saw me teaching Saturday at the seminar. And I’m now looking forward to give seminars around the world like the one I did here. It’s really a kind of a raw model for what I hope to do, to reach both kinds of groups, both the filmmakers and non-musicians and also the composers.

I guess that you go much further when you teach composers?

 Yes, but it’s step by step. It’s very much like the material in both books. Those materials in those books are designed for teaching as well. Eventually you’re getting to music, but it’s the last step. The next step after what we talked about is how to play the drama and that’s a considerably broad subject. That could be a day in itself. When I do a quarter (10 weeks) at the University of California, Santa Barbara, I have a 2 hour lecture twice a week (about a 32-hour course), I discuss genres eventually, the difference between scoring a western, a science fiction film, etc… Even the same materials, where the music goes, the spotting is different. There are different expectations, we just mentioned a docudrama shown last Saturday where you wouldn’t score.

In the end, do you actually teach how to compose? 

Separate course. At USC last year we did some work with music, at UCSB last spring I had two different courses, one with non-music students and with the composers I worked almost exclusively on writing music for a film. We actually did 2 scoring sessions.

Fred Karlin on Film Music Masters

Sun, 22 Oct 2023 09:26:03 GMT

An Interview with Fred Karlin by David Hirsch
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.15/No.58/1996
Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

Fred Karlin is a man who wears many hats. As a film and TV composer, he has created some wonderful scores for films like THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MISS JANE PITMAN, WESTWORLD and the TV series THE MAN FROM ATLANTIS. Recently, Karlin has embarked on a career as an educator. However, instead of sharing his knowledge with a privileged few at some university, he chose to reach out to the public at large, first with two books, now with the launch of an unprecedented video and book series.

How did you conceive of this project? 

Well, in the spring of 1994, I was having lunch with Ron Tilford, a friend of mine and a passionate film music aficionado. Jointly, we both wished that we were doing something with media, with film basically, about film music. Loving the material, in my case having just finished my second book the year before, I wanted to work with the music, instead of just talking about it. That was my urge, to get the material out there and available. Ron shared that vision and we decided to form a company together, right then, called Karlin/Tilford Productions. We decided that we would start with some profiles of outstanding film music composers and met with Jerry (Goldsmith) not that long after, sometime at the end of July. With his approval, which we wanted, we started. Within a couple of weeks after that, at the end of August, we were on the scoring stage taping THE RIVER WILD.

Jerry was your first choice?

Yes.

Why did you choose video as opposed to CD-ROM, which is a format that’s becoming more and more popular? 

Video is more practical and it can be broadcast. We showed the film at the Santa Barbara Film Festival in March and we’ve been invited to bring it in October to the Flanders International Film Festival, which is one of the few festivals that majors in film music. They only give two awards, one is for “Best Picture” and the other is for “Best Use of Music in a Picture”. It’s held in Ghent, Belgium.

Right in Soundtrack!’s backyard. So after you taped THE RIVER WILD scoring session, what was your next move? 

Over the next period of many months I did all the interviews, the shooting and editing. After I had edited the film, showed it around and done some fine editing, I met with Rusty Nields and Rusty came in as an editor and together we polished and finished the film.

In addition to your own footage, you augmented a lot of archival footage. How did you go about obtaining it?

 I had to license it all.

Were you aware of this footage at the start? 

No. It was always a question of discovery and I got help along the way. Jerry had some reference copies of some of the material including, for instance, the footage taken when he got his honorary Doctorate at Berklee College of Music. I was able to contact the college and license the footage. Other people, like Gary Kester in England, asked some of his friends and colleagues, Jonathan Axworthy, Barry Spence and Lyn Williams, all helped to get audio tapes together that would be reference material.

Did Jerry supervise the project, select what was seen? 

No, not in the slightest. In addition to THE RIVER WILD scoring footage, I spent four hours one morning taping his interview and some other footage. His wife, Carol, was very helpful in offering stills, and, through Lois (Carruth), Jerry answered some faxes about factual details and approved the use of a few of his sketches. He never worked directly with us, but he was always very helpful when I needed information about materials, something about early radio days, or whatever. Then Ron and I ran it for him before Rusty and I did our final cut and polish. That version ran about 85 minutes. Jerry liked it a lot and he had a few comments which we took very seriously when we did our final edit. Not too many comments, but we had a high regard for them. He called me to tell us how pleased he was with the final version.

On some of the film clip sequences, I noticed the music was nicely mixed up louder than the dialogue. 

I remixed a lot of the sequences, particularly THE RIVER WILD, because in some cases you would not have been able to hear the music from the original dub. This was designed to help the listener hear the music.

In addition to the video, we have the book. Was this part of your original plan? 

We always felt that this should be a package, which included the black and white photos.

Was there ever a music CD, or cassette, considered? 

There was. In fact, I spoke to all the right people, but that became impractical. There was too much to do all at once and the project as is was very expensive to produce. That’s why it’s so expensive, and we will not break even when we sell our 2,000 units. A CD would have been nice, but it was impractical.

Since you’ve planned an entire series, will each package then remain consistent, same presentation, a book, video and photos? Or will you try and make each unique? 

Both, actually. The point of view is being specifically designed for each composer. I’m now producing the next one on Elmer Bernstein and the film is being tailored to Elmer, so it will be different, even though the elements will be the same in terms of the presentation. I certainly want to play excerpts from his films and find archival footage. The packaging, the book, photos will remain similar.

The video will again be framed around a scoring session? 

Yes. I’ve already done one and may do another, though they may not be used the same way.

You avoided the use of a host or narrator on the Goldsmith video, will you use the same technique on Elmer’s? 

Yes. I prefer that people tell their own stories.

That’s a challenge if the subjects can’t express themselves. 

Well, yes. Sometimes you can be missing something and there’s no way to get it.

Elmer’s career unfolded quite differently from Jerry’s. He’s actually had to reinvent himself several times over the years. For a composer of his caliber, that’s been quite unusual. Goldsmith cruises easily from scoring science fiction to suspense to comedy. He doesn’t have to prove he can write for a picture outside in a particular genre. Elmer, on the other hand, got terribly pigeon holed as a comedy composer in the early 1980s after ANIMAL HOUSE and AIRPLANE! He eventually had to drop out of Hollywood and start over from scratch with small dramas like MY LEFT FOOT. 

We talk about that. The viewer, who is a film music fan, will have his expectations satisfied. Those elements he’d want to see will be there.

Several people I’ve showed the Goldsmith video to, who were all film music fans, commented that this was an excellent educational tool. They enjoyed learning how the composer thinks. When you first set about doing this, were you targeting a general audience of film music fans or the film music student?

 My approach is to satisfy both groups and a good example of that was my book, ‘Listening to the Movies’, which is written for a general audience, but all the aficionados seem to enjoy enormously. The video is also designed for both and it seems to work very, very well that way. A good example is (Silva Screen record producer) Ford Thaxton, who told me he enjoyed it enormously. He happened to watch it the first time with his girlfriend, who is not into film music whatsoever, but has a good diversity of musical tastes, rock-n-roll and this and that. She was fascinated. Gary Kester’s father is also not a film music fan, but he’s around it and was likewise fascinated.

Now, forgive me; I’m not familiar with your first book, ‘On the Track’. I’ve never read or even seen a copy, but was that written with the general public as your target audience, too? 

Yes, with the one distinction that Ray Wright* and I set out very deliberately to create a textbook for composers. However, it was always my goal with that book that it be so accessible that maybe 80 or 90% would be easy to get if you came from the outside and weren’t a musician. I’m told that it does read that way and it’s just that the non-composer would never think to pick up that book. That was one of the motivations for me in writing ‘Listening to the Movies’. I was asked to do it by the publisher, but I was uncertain whether I should or not. Eventually I decided that the people who would get a lot out of the historical material in ‘On the Track’ would never see it.

You’ve been a highly respected and successful composer for years, what motivated you to try and become a teacher? Not many composers seem concerned with reaching out to the general public. 

I don’t know. I think I’m drawn to communicate these things. I find myself wanting to understand them and express them to other people. When you’re doing that, you’re teaching. So, it happened through my personal inclinations. I started a book before ‘On the Track’, just because I was inclined to write about film music. I’d done two or three chapters and just put it aside. Within a year after that, Ray called and said he’d been asked to do this textbook by Schirmer and he would only do it if I’d work with him. Since I’d already started, I was inclined to do it. In 1988, Lyn Benjamin, then working at ASCAP, asked me to create a film scoring program for them.

ASCAP and I are now preparing for the 9th ASCAP / Fred Karlin Film Scoring Workshop! I lecture and teach, now and then, around the world. I’ll be teaching at California State University, Long Beach, for a week in July, and in Denmark at the European Film College for a week in August. The film music documentaries are a natural extension of all this related educational activity.

You’ve started to create what may become the ultimate film composer portrait collection. How far do you see this going?

 I don’t know. A lot of it depends on what kind of support we get. The first marketing tier is the “Limited Collector Edition” and if it’s successful, then we can go further. We’re going to take it as far as we possibly can.

There’s been a lot of film music programs on television recently, the Randy Newman hosted special for the ‘American Movie Classics’ cable network, the Bravo cable network running of the Bernard Herrmann, Georges Delerue and Toru Takemitsu documentaries. Do you foresee these videos leading to its own television series? 

Oh, I would hope, but that would be our second tier of marketing. As we move along on the Elmer book and video set, I am beginning to market the Goldsmith video.

What’s your average production time for each set? 

About a year and a half on Jerry. I did a couple of days of shooting Elmer and some preliminary research during the time we were doing Jerry, so I’ve no idea how long it will really take. I would like to have Elmer available this fall.

Market a new title each year? 

Yes. And we have a lot of other plans. We can’t contain all our ideas. Ron is great that way, he has this energetic vision. He sees all the possibilities and he relishes them. He’s got this completely relaxed comfort zone to trust me to do what needs to be done.

Are you wholesaling these sets to catalog outfits? 

No, we can’t because of the production cost. Stores like Intrada have a few on hand for those who ask, SLC is distributing in Japan and some PAL video copies are being distributed by Soundtrack! But we’re doing just about everything through direct shipping for both NTSC and PAL videos.

Are both video formats part of the 2,000 total limited run? 

Yes. We’ll run off a quantity in either format based on the incoming orders.

That’ll help to keep you getting stuck with copies of one particular format. 

It’s working out fine and going smoothly. The word of mouth is terrific, as are the reviews – not only the film music journals such as Soundtrack! but magazines like Cineaste as well.

I know friends in the business in L.A. who have shown the video to others, so I know the industry has found it fascinating. 

The response has been very gratifying.

What are your plans for the future besides this?

It’s really hard to say because I haven’t scored a film in about four years. I spent time writing ‘Listening to Movies’ and now this. My first jazz album came out on Varèse Sarabande last year, ‘Jazz Goes to Hollywood’, and we recorded a second one last March.

What about your CD anthology series?

 Bob Feigenblatt produced that out of Miami and he has a whole string planned. I don’t know when he’ll do the next one. A lot of work goes into them.

It’s expensive to produce these CDs. 

Yes.

Maybe one day you’ll do a ‘Film Music Masters’ set on yourself.

 (laughs) I think I have a full slate to go through before I get to that!

The documentary ‘Film Music Masters: Jerry Goldsmith’ was planned to be the first in a film music documentary series but unfortunately for film music fans no follow-ups materialized. In the intervening years, Goldsmith passed away in 2004 from cancer, as did Fred Karlin. Music from the Movies released a limited DVD (1500 copies) in June 2005. Bonus features included extended interviews and 60 minutes of scoring session footage of Mr. Goldsmith working on THE RIVER WILD.

* The Rayburn Wright (1922-1990) Collection will be found in the Ruth T. Watanabe Special Collections, Sibley Music Library, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester NY.

The Best Years of British Film Music, 1936-1958

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 13:20:37 GMT

The Best Years of British Film Music, 1936-1958

Author: Jan G. Swynnoe

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer, 2002

A study of the British contribution to film music, detailing the idiosyncracies of British film. Jan Swynnoe's study is concerned with the special British contribution to film music, detailing how the idiosyncracies of British film, and of the British character, set it apart from its Hollywood counterpart. She shows how the differences between the two industries in all aspects of film making variously affected composers on both sides of the Atlantic.

It is true that some of the most memorable British film scores were written by many of our leading composers in the period 1936 to 1958. One thinks immediately of beacon scores like: Bliss’s THINGS TO COME, Vaughan Williams’ inspiring score for THE 49TH PARALLEL and his evocative SCOTT OF THE ANTARCTIC and Walton’s three Shakespearean scores: HENRY V, HAMLET and RICHARD III and his music for THE FIRST OF THE FEW. John Williams has observed that Walton was highly regarded by the American film music fraternity.

Ms Swynnoe, who is described as a pianist, percussionist and composer, looks at this period before the rise of the American quota movies filmed in England and the advent of British kitchen-sink dramas and before audiences deserted the cinemas in favour of cosy fireside TV. Generally, she paints a bleak picture of the British film industry: often, with a few notable and brilliant exceptions, producing films debilitated by low budgets, and stilted and class-conscious stories and buttoned-up acting. Music written for films, in those days (nothing much has changed) was generally regarded by critics and the musical establishment as inferior and often major British composers were dragged reluctantly into the studios.

The difficulty I have with this book is that Ms Swynnoe cannot resist parading her many prejudices and in doing so presents a totally distorted picture of the world of film music. She disparages Hollywood’s essential contribution, belittling the accomplishments of Steiner and Korngold (with little or no mention of the other giants of the Golden Age like Waxman, Tiomkin, and Herrmann etc), rubbishing the over-use (?) of leitmotivs and the habit of mickey-mousing and general lack of subtlety. Somehow I wonder if she has really troubled to listen widely and study enough American film music of this period.

She practically dismisses all the music written for the marvellous and colourful Korda films made at Denham in this period, especially by Miklós Rózsa. She can find no merit in Rózsa’s fine THE FOUR FEATHERS music for example – although she scores a small point when discussing its weakness as a support to non-action dialogue scenes. Another target is the music contributed by foreign composers. Georges Auric’s contribution is all but swept aside. To support her often tenuous arguments, she quotes from sources that are too often ill-informed or unsympathetic to film music, or both. But most objectionably her selected negative quotes from Christopher Palmer’s brilliant book The Composer in Hollywood gives a totally wrong impression of Palmer’s work, which accentuated the strengths of Korngold and Steiner etc. It is notable that Palmer was a great champion of not only British film music but also the concert music of many British composers, especially Walton and Delius and yet most of his work in the genre of film music was orientated towards Hollywood. (My concluding remarks below might suggest why.) Unhappily Swynnoe cannot resist diminishing Palmer’s reputation in an interview with Doreen Carwithen that forms Appendix II of this book.

The book’s only strength is in its analyses of a number of British film scores well-known and not-so-well-known including such excruciatingly awful minor opuses like ONCE A JOLLY SWAGMAN and WATERLOO ROAD. Swynnoe does make some valid points, useful for aspiring film composers, about how music used with subtlety and discrimination can enhance a screenplay particularly when intelligently used to support dialogue especially when it needs to reveal a character’s feelings that might be at odds with delivered lines. One of Swynnoe’s most interesting examples in this context is Lord Berners’ music for the mystical ghost story HALFWAY HOUSE. One chapter is devoted to an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of Sir Arnold Bax’s score for OLIVER TWIST, not by any means representative of the composer’s best music. It was written towards the end of Bax’s life when he was living in Sussex, and when his best work was well behind him – in fact the only really memorable theme from this film was lifted from one of his much earlier works, In Memoriam .

Although the book is valuable in its discussion of the practical aspects of film music in enhancing and clarifying screenplays, Swynnoe seems uninterested in an important aspect of film music that of its ability to stand apart and to be appreciated on its own merits as music. And this is where I return to Christopher Palmer and the Hollywood composers. I am going to stick my neck out here. Dare I say it, but apart from the film scores quoted in my first paragraph and a few others by Brian Easdale, Malcolm Arnold (and certainly not his Oscar-winning score for THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, celebrated for that excruciatingly awful Colonel Bogey March) and William Alwyn (who wrote a few fine scores like ODD MAN OUT but too many others that are pedestrian), so much of British film music is frankly dull. So little of it is memorable, so little of it touches the heart and raises the spirit. American film music of this period does so in spades and that is perhaps why Palmer wrote about American film music first and collaborated in so many recordings of the music of Hollywood’s Golden Age as a first choice. One has to face the fact that there are far more recordings of American film music than British.

This book does few favours for British films or British film music. In fact it puts back the appreciation of film music in general by years. Approach with caution.

Originally published at MusicWeb International - Text reproduced by kind permission

American Film Music

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 13:01:26 GMT

American Film Music

Author: William Darby and Jack Du Bois

Publisher: Jefferson, North Carolina : McFarland & Compnay, Inc., 1990

The book includes discussion of trend-setting work such as Max Steiner's King Kong (1933--an early instance of music carrying a significant portion of onscreen action), Bernard Herrmann's Psycho (1960, with its unusual, high, scraping strings-only support of the famous shower scene), and Alex North's A Streetcar Named Desire (1951--the first essentially jazz-oriented score), as well as remarks on the work that followed within the resulting trends.

A number of highly recommendable books on the subject of film music have appeared recently, including Christopher Palmer’s The Composer in Hollywood , Steven Smith’s Bernard Herrmann bio, A Heart at Fire’s Center and his treasure-trove Film Composers Guide , and the forthcoming revised edition of Tony Thomas’s archetypal Music for the Movies . Among them is this detailed historical study of American film scoring.

Darby, an English professor, and Du Bois, a teacher and opera student, have compiled a well-researched and thoroughly documented treatise on the history and development of American movie music. They analyze, historically, dramatically and musically, major film scores from 1915’s BIRTH OF A NATION through 1986’s TOP GUN, enhanced by musical excerpts from significant themes and movies. Although the book is mainly concerned with American movie music, the authors do discuss many foreign composers in connection with their work on American films. Chapters on 14 individual composers – Steiner, Newman, Waxman, Friedhofer, Tiomkin, Victor Young, Rozsa, Herrmann, North, Bernstein, Mancini, Goldsmith and Williams – offer in-depth looks at the work of these important figures in film music history. Each of these chapters includes a filmography of the discussed composer. Other chapters like ‘From Silents to Sound’, ‘Studio Arrangements’ and ‘The 1960s and 1970s’ offer perceptive views of these stages in the development of American movie music. The book is supplemented by a comprehensive bibliography of film music books and publications, listed by subject, and an Appendix of all film music-related Academy Award winners and nominees.

The authors identify 2 broad stylistic categories of American film music – the leitmotivic style characterized by Steiner, Korngold and John Williams, and the more atmospheric style of Alfred Newman and Bernard Herrmann, who often employed only a single major theme to represent certain key elements reprised throughout a score. “In examining Hollywood’s major composers,” the authors write, “we have come to believe that the motivic approach of Korngold and Steiner is more in keeping with what film music should do and be. A motivic score can more readily be fitted to the varying dramatic and temporal demands of a film. The atmospheric approach tends to produce scores that often numb or bewilder because of the frequency with which their leading musical ideas are employed”. With this attitude established at the onset, the authors endeavor to analyze the works of American film music along primarily motivic lines, even when discussing such “atmospheric” composers as Newman, Herrmann, Friedhofer, and North. This is not necessarily a drawback, but it does color the approach of the authors and as a result some notable scores that derive more form atmosphere than motive will be given contrastingly short shrift.

All the same, American Film Music is a very commendable and broad overview of its subject. It is especially notable for discussing in comparative degree of detail the efforts of minor composers (such as the Salter-Skinner-Stein-Mancini et. al. music factory of Universal in the 1940s-1950s), although several notable motivic composers, especially Roy Webb, are dispensed with in only a few paragraphs, even though their work cries out for a longer retrospect.

In closing, the authors remark, “Certain stylistic trends in film music will probably continue into the 1990s with far too many films having scores that resemble the pastiche of TOP GUN rather than the unity of HOOSIERS or RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. No matter what the future of film scoring, one can only hope that greater attention will be paid to the dramatic powers implicit in music, so that even a score by many hands can attain a degree of artistic sophistication and integrity so often lacking. If TOP GUN achieves a certain musical-dramatic integration most of the time, its end credits, with a new song by Harold Faltermeyer, designed to get the audience out of the theater to an uptempo beat, represent a mindless approach to film scoring. A modest hope for the film composer’s craft would be the eradication of such lapses in taste as well as artistic logic in the future; and given the commercial nature of film production, a modest hope is all that any reasonable observer would want to entertain.” (p. 550).

Randall D. Larson - Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.11 / No.41 / 1992

Hollywood Holyland

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:48:53 GMT

Hollywood Holyland

Author: Ken Darby

Publisher: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1992

Alfred Newman’s score for The Greatest Story Ever Told is regarded by many film music commentators as his finest achievement. Unfortunately, due to the interference and dictates of producer/director George Stevens and his production associates, the music ended up as a pale shadow of Newman’s original conception.

As choral director, Ken Darby assisted Alfred Newman with many of his film scores. In his posthumously published book Hollywood Holyland he gives the full details of his and Newman’s travails in working on THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD. Darby visited the set while the picture was still shooting in order to rehearse the choral scenes and the first part of the book details his reminiscences whilst on the set, involving his discussions with Stevens and other production staff about the music. The second part details the tribulations and frustrations of composing the actual music. As such, this book is unique in that no single film score has previously been examined in such detail. Written from the witty and philosophical viewpoint of Darby, it is a fascinating and revealing look at the difficulties encountered by film composers and the power wielded by movie producers.

Newman’s previous dealings with George Stevens on GUNGA DIN and THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK had already put him on his guard and he had expressed doubt about how things would work out – even before starting work on the film. The first trial for the composer was being asked by Stevens to piano audition the score. This was obviously insulting for someone of Newman’s reputation, who had composed the music or acted as musical director for nearly 200 films and was the recipient of nine Oscars. Nevertheless, Stevens pronounced that he was pleased with the proposed themes and Newman and Darby set to work.

Having composed choral music for the end of Act 1 and Act 2 of the film, Stevens abruptly informed Newman that he had decided to replace it with the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah . He also decided to use Newman’s own music from the crucifixion scene in THE ROBE for the scene portraying the resurrection of Lazarus – complete with thunderclaps from a clear blue sky. A later substitution was the use of Verdi’s Requiem for the Via Dolorosa sequence. Newman decided to have nothing to do with these substitutions and left the recording of them to Darby. Other music changes were constantly being made and Newman found himself composing music for edited scenes which Stevens would re-edit and which would then require different music. Ultimately 23 days were spent in actual studio recording time with the orchestra. A tremendous amount of time considering the average film score is recorded over a period of a few days.

When the film opened there was much criticism, unfairly laid on Newman, for the vulgar use of Handel’s Messiah . If George Stevens had been prepared to listen to the advice of Newman, then he might have seen the sheer bad taste of the scene himself. Well, it didn’t take long for George Stevens to get the message, due to the critical mauling which the film and that sequence received. Within days he was at work re-editing and restoring part of Newman’s own choral composition for the scene. However, the damage had been done.

Newman tried to have his name removed from the film. As he said, “My own music, good or bad, was interpolated, deleted and misplaced. Music designed for sensitive scenes was removed and inserted into other sequences where it actually damaged the dramatic content. Some of it is my music but it is no longer my score.” However, Newman could do nothing about it. He was tied to the usual and onerous Hollywood “for-hire clause”, which basically said that the product of the composer belonged to the employer as though the latter had created and/or composed it.

Darby also reveals that he supervised the separate recording for the sound track LP and that the philosophical liner notes, which gave no credit or mention of Newman (!), were written by Stevens. Fortunately Darby was able to preserve a two-track tape of the entire score as originally recorded, which he then presented to Newman. It is a sad, sorry tale, but one which Darby tells without rancour and with considerable humour.

Meetings with Remarkable Men

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 09:54:17 GMT

Label: Citadel Records
Catalogue No: STC 77123

Release Date: 1999

Total Duration: 41:49

UPN: 7-9581-77123-2-0

MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE MEN is a remarkable film with a remarkable score. The film appeared in 1979, and quickly disappeared, rarely to be seen or heard of since. Perhaps this is not surprising, for even in the eclectic 70's this was an unusual project. Theatre director Peter Brook - who later made the marathon C4 TV drama based on The Mahabarata , the score for which is an intriguing collaborative work available on the REALWORLD label - chose to bring to the screen the autobiographical story of Gurdjieff's 20 year quest for the meaning of life. This involved much beautifully filmed sojourning against the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan, ably standing-in for both the Middle-East and Asia, and understandably proved to have very little box-office appeal. It is therefore initially surprising to find, over 20 years later, the score appearing on a specialist label. However, as recent releases have proved, Citadel know what they are doing, and would not have issued this music had it not deserved a fresh lease of life.

This disc comes with two sets of notes, the first by Laurence Rosenthal, the second unaccredited. Regarding Peter Brook's approach to the score, Rosenthal comments "he envisioned music pervading the film, music of all kinds and colors, a rich atmosphere of sound..." However, rather than create a specifically 'ethnic' score which would relate to the places visited, it was decided that the music must "relate in a dramatic way to the inner meaning of the narrative". This was found in the music of Thomas de Hartmann, a celebrated composer who came under Gurdjieff's influence and developed a new, simpler style of writing out of their collaboration. Hartmann's pieces were all piano works, and with the permission of Madame O. de Hartmann, Rosenthal was able to arrange and orchestrate selections from these works to suit the film. Additionally, he wrote pieces 'from scratch', where nothing appropriate could be found in Hartmann's work as a starting point. When orchestrating the music Rosenthal augmented the orchestra with a wide variety of ethnic instruments, from the kantele to the cheng, the zither to the santur. The result is a unique score, and while such practices are now relatively common, being implemented by Graham Revell for THE CROW and John Debney for END OF DAYS, to name but two, this was far from usual in the 1970's.

Given that the whole was recorded with the National Philharmonic and the Ambrosian Singers - the same forces as recorded Charles Gerhardt's magnificent Classic Film Scores series in the 70's - it is clear that the music was taken with the uttermost seriousness, and as is to be expected, both the sound and the performances are first rate. The result is an epic tapestry, a richly orchestrated arthouse LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, an ethereal mystical pageant anticipating SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET by two decades. The music is exceptionally diverse, spanning the English pastoral tradition to the sounds of the Far East, a big, serious score, delicate as a snowflake, as austerely powerful as a mountain face. Richly rewarding for those prepared to give it the attention it deserves, MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE MEN really is a remarkable achievement worthy of recommendation without reservation.

Originally published @ MusicWeb International / Text reproduced by kind permission of Gary Dalkin

Logan's Run

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 09:33:11 GMT

Label: Film Score Monthly
Catalogue No: FSMCD Vol. 7, No. 4

Release Date: 2004

Total Duration: 79:28

UPN: 0-63855-80174-2-5

Strange are the ways of the film music industry. It's currently not possible, for example, to buy on CD John Williams' outstanding, Oscar nominated score for the major Jack Nicholson hit movie THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK (1987). Yet here we have a compilation of scores from a truly terrible and long forgotten 1970's TV series. The music though, is perhaps surprisingly, rather better than the show it was written to accompany.

LOGAN'S RUN (1977) was a rapid TV spin-off from MGM's 1976 cinema success of the same name, itself a very loose adaptation of a rather pulpy but vigorous science fiction novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. The TV series bore even less relation to the novel than did the film, which boasted a brilliant, groundbreaking score by Jerry Goldsmith – a combination of wonderfully romantic orchestral music for the world outside the domed city of the 23rd century, and state-of-the-art electronics which pretty much made redundant everything done in the ambient-techno-dance field until Don Davis collaborations with Juno Reactor for THE MATRIX movies.

While the film had a nominally plausible narrative set 300 years hence, the TV series settled for the popular TV format of putting its heroes on the run, having a fresh adventure each week and moving on, the clock being reset as if nothing had happened. It had worked for THE FUGITIVE, ALIAS SMITH AND JONES, and of course STAR TREK. But it had failed miserably for PLANET OF THE APES, which on TV lasted just 14 episodes. Someone really should have been taking notes, as LOGAN'S RUN lasted exactly the same number of episodes, but made PLANET OF THE APES look like a masterpiece by comparison. It was clear from the beginning those behind the show had neither the budget nor the imagination to realise anything interesting, and rapidly descended to introducing every SF device in the book (or rather not, as there are no aliens or time travellers in the original LOGAN'S RUN novel). A truly terrible series; nonsensical, tacky and bland, a fine example of the very worst of 1970's American network television.

As for the music… well, nine of the 14 episodes received original scores composed by either Laurence Rosenthal, Jeff Alexander, Jerrold Immel and Bruce Broughton, while the remaining five instalments were completed with library cues. Laurence Rosenthal scored four episodes, including the pilot, which is represented here with an almost 23 minute long suite in three sections. All nine episodes which were scored are represented on this disc, though obviously there is not the space to include the compete music from each episode.

The album opens however with Rosenthal's title theme, a catchy melody arranged in typically light pop '70's film music instrumental vein, and rendered laugh-out-loud hilarious by the application of a "whoo whoo" sound generated by a Yamaha E5 electric organ. According to the booklet this theme is well remembered for this sound, and beloved in certain quarters. I remember finding it laughable a quarter of a century ago, and the passing years have just made it mature into an unintentionally side-splitting musical joke. Call it kitsch or camp, or call it 'misguided'.

Regarding the episode scores; typically for television of the period they are for comparatively few musicians and show a range of inventiveness the material simply did not deserve. Rosenthal's suite from the pilot episode makes good use of percussion and piano to generate suspense, stark string writing adding to the tension. While synthesiser effects recall someone Goldsmith's work on the cinema incarnation of the story, the menacing mood is somewhat closer to that same composer's great score for the original cinema PLANET OF THE APES (1968). There is much that is commendable about the incidental writing, though it also often feels very fragmented – as indeed do many of the sequences through-out the disc. But that is the nature of much television music, perhaps even more so than film music.

Towards the end of the first part of the Suite Rosenthal's offers a lovely pastoral setting of his main theme, and also offers attractively intimate writing through the early passages of the 'Suite Part 2'. The suspense / chase music is less interesting when detached from the images it was written to accompany, and when the music turns would-be triumphant an unavoidable element of '70's US TV cheese enters the mix. The 'Suite Part 3' continues along similar lines to the preceding movements, while the following track, from Rosenthal's score for 'The Collectors' is again more of much the same, while four cues from his music to 'Man Out of Time' form an intriguingly atmospheric nine minute long suite. The final Rosenthal score, 'Futurepast' begins with more pastoral variations on the main theme has a lovely light fantasy quality accented by gentle bells and harp.

Two episodes scored by Jerrold Immel both offer something of a French quality, an impressionistic sound which distinguishes elements of both 'The Innocent' and 'Half Life', while Jeff Alexander's contribution to 'Capture' is similarly pastoral and eloquent.

The final composer is Bruce Broughton. The disc presents a delicate, spectral mood piece from 'Night Visitors' and an 11 minute suite from 'Fear Factor'. This last is among the more interesting sequences on the disc for harking back to Goldsmith's LOGAN'S RUN, and has more energy and dynamism than anything else on the CD. A curious companion to Goldsmith's score, it is an interesting curiosity for fans of both composers.

This is an odd album to summarise. The music is much better than one might hope for, but still not really memorable enough to recommend wholeheartedly in its own right. That said, the sound and presentation are excellent. Followers of the composers represented, or of the show, or simply die-hard science fiction buffs, may wish to pick up a copy. But with so many fine releases vying for attention this Logan's Run must be considered something of an also ran.

Originally published @ MusicWeb International / Text reproduced by kind permission of Gary Dalkin

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Vol 4

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 09:12:07 GMT

Label: Varèse Sarabande
Catalogue No: VSD 5421

Release Date: 1994

Total Duration: 75:36

UPN: 0-3020-65421-2-7

The fourth in Varèse's notable series of music from the Lucasfilm TV series may be the best thus far. Vol. 3 was comprised primarily of 1920's jazz music, appropriate enough for the episodes they accompanied but somewhat restrictive, dramatically. Vol. 4, however, is purely and thoroughly dramatic adventure music. Rosenthal’s “Ireland, 1916” is steeped in Irish folk music, utilizing numerous quotes from Irish melodies while held together in a broader, grandiose theme which still retains an Irish quality in its melody. A fine, rich score; even its fight scenes retain the rhythmic, tuneful quality of Irish folk music. ”Northern Italy, 1916” is likewise drawn somewhat from ethnic melodies, and a tarantella rhythm is always close at hand; even the main series theme is given an Italian style in “Romantic Adventures”.

McNeely's “Indiana Jones and the Phantom Train of Doom” was a 2-hour TV movie set in Africa, closer in style to the feature films than the TV series, and McNeely's music is likewise larger and more involved than his slightly smaller TV scores. The music thunders along briskly, full brass and percussion, then smooths out for a woodwind interlude or a stately British theme which recurs from time to time. Once or twice an ethnic aborigine motif sets the scene, as in the percussive “Native Battle”. “Indy Hijacks the Balloon” is a standout cue, a fast-paced juggling act of themes, instruments, variations, a great action piece held together by McNeely’s symphonic glue.

Like the first three CD's, the booklet contains valuable background notes on the episodes and their scores by each composer, as well as a few words from George Lucas. The Western Australian Symphony provides a striking performance on their first film score (the Rosenthal episodes are the Munich Philharmonic). These fine scores contribute a great deal to this underrated series, and Varèse should be commended for preserving the music so well on CD.

Randall D. Larson – Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol. 13 / No.50 / 1994

Laurence Rosenthal on Young Indiana Jones

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 08:47:11 GMT

An Interview with Laurence Rosenthal by Thomas Karban
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.11 / No.44 / 1992
Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

Mr. Rosenthal, you have come to Munich to record your new scores for the YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES television series. What was the overall concept? For what reason were three different composers involved?

Originally I was asked by George Lucas to compose the music for the entire series, but then very quickly it became apparent that there was so much music and so little time that it was humanly impossible for one man to do it all. So a young composer was brought in, Joel McNeely, to help out, to do some of the episodes. Now in fact he was so tied up on certain shows - for example an episode about early Jazz, in which he is an expert - that we had to bring in a third composer to make it - Frederic Talgorn. I am doing all I can. We are recording five shows while I am here. In most of them Lucas likes a lot of music and so most of them have 30, 40 minutes of music. For a 48-minute episode that means the music is almost constant.

Were these totally different composers chosen because you all have the same agent, Gorfaine & Schwartz?

Well, it's possible. I think it all began because John Williams recommended me to Lucas. So Lucas got in touch with my agent and when it became necessary to find another composer it was natural to ask them for support. (Gorfaine & Schwartz is probably the biggest agency for composers in Hollywood). That's what happened, I think. But it seems logical to me that all 3 composers came from the same agency.

This recommendation by John Williams was not the first one. I heard that he did the same for METEOR.

Yes, John was supposed to do METEOR but he couldn't do it. So he recommended me. We have a great mutual admiration. He is a wonderful man. Really a first-class musician.

But in your music you don't pay any musical tribute to the Indiana Jones features…

This was specifically Lucas's wish. He wanted to disassociate himself from the series except that it is the same character. But the approach to these shows is so different from the features that he didn't want the same style of music, he didn't want John's theme. He just wanted a whole new idea. And the series itself is more lyrical in the sense that the episodes have to do with a young man's growing up and with his encountering a number of remarkable and celebrated men of that period. So the style of these shows is quite different. Some episodes which take place during the 1914-1918 war are very violent. In fact those are mostly done by Joel. I have been mostly involved with the ones dealing with Sigmund Freud, Diaghilev, Picasso, Lawrence of Arabia and so on. Otherwise every really exotic score was done by me, for episodes set in Egypt, Kenya, Mexico, India, China, Spain and whatever.

I heard you didn't like some of the scripts…

Some of them were heavy on war sequences. I don't always enjoy doing that. When we did the episode set in Mexico it had a great deal of violence. It was very interesting for me because it had a very moving quality, but it wasn't so much violent as it was sad. And that was what George Lucas wanted emphasized. If you work on a battle scene, the only thing you'll hear is machine guns and cannons firing - the music will barely be heard. Then you feel that all the efforts you're going to will be for nothing. If one episode doesn't appeal to you, I think it's not a major thing. I am really interested in human relationships. Sometimes when it's pure action it is one-dimensional. When you have a relationship between people it's richer, and gives you a chance for finer shadings.

It seems that each episode has its own musical concept…

That's true. It's quite unusual for a television series because it does not follow a certain formula. Not only does every show usually take place in a different locale with its own special ethnic atmosphere, but also every show has a kind of idea, a special theme. For example one of the shows that I'm doing takes place in Vienna in 1908. This one is really about the subject, What is love? There is a remarkable scene when Young Indiana and his father have dinner with three noted guests who are Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and Alfred Adler. And there is a long conversation about love. There the music is rather fin-de-siècle with echoes of Strauss and Mahler.

Another episode takes place in 1917 in Barcelona, where Indiana Jones - working as a spy - gets a job, arranged by his old friend Picasso, to appear in a ballet of Diaghilev Scheherazade . So there the musical style is a combination of Rimsky-Korsakov and Stravinsky, mixed with a lot of flamenco guitars. That is a comedy, you can see it is a pastiche, so of course it's a whole different sound.

The one I did for Africa is very, very lyrical with some African drums. In the episode where he meets the young Krisnamurti in 1910 we use a certain amount of traditional instruments and the score echoes this musical style. In the episode which takes place in Petrograd during the spring revolution of 1917 the music is very Russian in feeling. For a composer like me this is a very interesting project because if you are interested in all kinds of nationalistic and ethnic music, which I have always been, it gives you a chance to experience with all of these idioms, to try and filter them through your own musical language and come up with something that is new without falling into old formulas.

My own feeling about film music would be that there should be no music at all unless the film absolutely needs it. If the film plays by itself - why add music? Why do you need music? It is only when music can produce a new dimension, then it becomes really interesting because then the music contributes something. As long as it is merely underscoring it does add a certain excitement. You can always tell when you are looking at a picture without music, it seems quite clear then where music really makes a difference. George Lucas has his own feeling about this and the films John Williams did with him are absolutely loaded with music. Lucas seems to love a kind of musical description that is there all the time, that is constantly commenting and supporting what the eye sees.

That's a very operatic approach.

My approach for a long time was to go for spare use of music. And then when the music appears it has a certain power and when it stops the silence has a certain force. But you can’t do that with certain subjects. You can't do that with George Lucas because that's not what he likes. And these films are his concepts. He wrote every story. One has to admire his extreme sensitivity. When we ‘spot’ the films his approach is extremely precise, “You know at that moment when the change takes place the music should reflect this”, etc. He is very specific. But his contributions are very useful because he has a sense of what the music will add to a certain scene. I worked with Marvin Chomsky for example (PETER THE GREAT, ANASTASIA), he is a totally different kind of man. He is a different personality but in his way he is also very specific about what music should add. I have also worked with directors who have practically nothing to say. They simply note, “Well, you know what will be most stable here.” They don't have a clear idea of what the function of the music will be.

Was all the music for the Indiana Jones Chronicles recorded here in Munich?

The very first one, which was a two-hour telefilm, was recorded at the Skywalker Ranch with members of the San Francisco Symphony and the San Francisco Opera House Orchestra.

That must have been very expensive…

It cost a gigantic amount of money and they decided they couldn't afford to do the whole series over there.

Your first experience with a German orchestra was in 1958 for DARK ODYSSEY…

DARK ODYSSEY was a small, low-budget movie. There was very little money to record the music. It was a kind of package deal. I even had to finance the travelling costs from the budget. For this reason I decided to go to Vienna to record the score over there. There was a strike in America at the time which was not a strike against independent producers but against major studios, but as I came to Vienna they thought I was trying to break the strike. So they refused to record my music. Then I went to Munich to record the score with the Graunke Symphony Orchestra. They didn't care about the strike, and they did a good job, but there was a certain lady there who didn't trust me; she forced me right at the beginning of the first recording session to give her the money for the musicians - in front of the entire orchestra. That was really embarrassing but the orchestra was on my side. When the session was over one cue remained unrecorded and the musicians said, “Come on, let's do it.”

You returned to Munich 20 years later to compose and record your score for BRASS TARGET.

I really thought that was a very good film. The director John Hough and I agreed about the fact that the score should be lean, light and short, but very powerful, when it makes an appearance. When we had made the first cut, 6 executives from MGM came over to Munich and we ran the picture for them. A few weeks later they called me when we were back in Los Angeles, they had just done a sneak preview and they said to me, “Well, we think the music is wonderful. But there is only one problem: there isn't enough of it. We think there should be more.” I said, “Gentlemen, the reason you think it is so good is because there is just the right amount of it. That's what makes it so powerful.” But they said, “We don't agree with you. There should be more.” They let me understand that if I didn't write more music they would find someone else who would. I thought, if anybody is going to write more music then it better be me. So I added more music to it. And it's the only time in my life I read a review in a newspaper which said, “The music was intrusive and there was too much of it.”

Your last big assignment before the Indiana Jones Chronicles was the STRAUSS DYNASTY mini-series. There's a huge portion of original score.

When the producers were speaking to Marvin Chomsky about the film, and he wanted me to be in charge of the music, their reaction was, “Why do we need a composer? We have Strauss, Offenbach, Lanner… The music is already there.” But you can't just take a handful of Strauss music and throw it at the film. It still has to be shaped, arranged, made to fit the film. There were many sequences like the 1848 revolution: what would you play here from Strauss? The fact is that I did find a revolutionary march that Strauss actually wrote; so of course I used that, but you couldn't just play the march. Also, there were all kinds of dramatic situations going on. So I decided at the beginning that I would try to base every cue in the film upon some kind of melodic elements drawn from one of these other composers. In almost the entire film, even when it seems like a dramatic cue, I would try to weave in some element of their music, I'd only be there as a kind of co-ordinator, somebody who brings all these elements together and fuses them into one kind of musical fabric. Sometimes I would have to do a bit of suspense music (something which was quite unmelodic) but almost everywhere you look you'll find behind it some source taken from Strauss material.

But your own personal style shines through all the time.

You find that I use the same harmonic modulations that I do in other films? It's interesting that you are saying that. Of course it's true. But to do everything for 12 hours strictly in the style of those other composers would not have been very interesting. It is a film, not a literal reproduction of that period. Just as the screenwriter himself would not be able to avoid certain 20th Century points of view.

Were you there when filming began?

No, by no means. There was a great deal of music which had to be pre-recorded, principally the early waltzes from Strauss Father and Joseph Lanner. So I was brought in long before shooting began, to work out an entire musical programme for the film. I came to Vienna and we had a Viennese conductor because the ORF (German TV station) insisted that we should have an Austrian conductor for Strauss. When the music was to be recorded I had to be there because a great deal of the early Strauss exists only in a very primitive form. So all of it had to be re-arranged, re-orchestrated, trying to stay as close as possible to the style of that period (1810/1820).

Then after all the playbacks were done they shot the mini-series. Unfortunately they couldn't afford to keep me there, and I couldn't afford to stay there for eight months. Finally it would have been useful for me to be there because they had many musical problems that I could have helped them to solve. But there was no way to help that, it wasn’t practical. At the end, when filming was over, we came together again and started all the post-production and underscoring. There I had an additional problem. For example, at the very end there is a scene where they are playing a waltz which is also danced on the screen. This sequence was shot to a particular DGG recording - and then it turned out that they had no rights to use this recording.

It may have been too expensive…

Yes, it was expensive, and there were other problems. So I had to conduct this waltz and the Blue Danube like the original recordings; you can't move freely, you're bound to do exactly what they did. However it was a fascinating project and for me it was fascinating research. That was what interested me most: to discover so much of Strauss's unknown work. Pieces like the Fantasy on Russian themes, pieces that I never heard before, as well as many of the polkas from Lanner and Strauss senior which are almost unknown - even in Vienna.

How did you conduct this research?

I was introduced to a man named Franz Mailer who is still the head of the Johann-Strauss-Society and a real expert. He knows every piece that Strauss ever wrote. We had long meetings together and talked about the film. I said for example, “We need a kind of gallop from this period, but if possible in a minor key.” He was extraordinary - he went out of the room and two minutes later he was back with exactly the kind of score I needed. There was a huge amount of research.

May I ask which projects you have turned down?

Mostly I don't even remember. There were always films which were too violent or too disgusting. I wouldn't like my name on them. And even more to the point: I wouldn't want to spend 6 weeks looking at these images. I have most recently turned down a mini-series by a very well-known author of bestselling novels about Hollywood. I felt it was cheap, exploitative, shallow and stupid. I would never dream of wasting my time on something like that. I would have nothing to say musically.

(This is an excerpt from a much longer interview, published in German in FM-Dienst.)

An Interview with Laurence Rosenthal

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 08:30:10 GMT

An Interview with Laurence Rosenthal by Roger Feigelson
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.7 / No.28 / 1988

Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ve n

On May 21, 1988, Intrada Records was host to Laurence Rosenthal. He met with collectors and signed autographs while enthusiastically discussing his film music career. I met with him a couple of hours before to ask him a few questions of my own. I’d very much like to thank George Champagne for preparing the recording of the interview. I’d also like to thank Doug Fake and Fred Shepard for giving us a place to hold this meeting.

What drew you into the magical world of film music? 

The extra-musical aspects of music have always interested me. My inspirations have often come from such sources as a poem, a story, an image, a painting, or an atmosphere, rather than a purely musical construction based on the abstract arrangement and rearrangement of tones themselves.

I could tell you the actual story of the beginning of it all. I don’t remember how old I was, but I must have been pretty young because you could get into the movies for a dime on the corner where I lived. I went to the movies one Saturday afternoon to see A TALE OF TWO CITIES. I was, to put it mildly, profoundly moved. The story was overwhelming and during the final moment of the film, when Sydney Carton was about to go to the guillotine, I thought that the music being played was the most beautiful I had ever heard. I may have wept; I was so completely swamped by this.

Two weeks later I was taken to a piano recital by my mother. The pianist had been playing at Bach and Beethoven when finally a new part of the program began and I was absolutely galvanized by what I heard. I was listening to the music and I said, “Mom, that’s Sydney Carton going to the guillotine.” She said, “No dear, that’s the Chopin E-Minor Prelude .” Well, that really excited me. The next Saturday I ran to the music store to get a copy of the E-Minor Prelude and as I played it, the entire scene unrolled before my eyes. I think it was in that moment I recognized the power of film music to add an emotional dimension to a scene.

I remember seeing a very early Henry Fonda movie, YOUNG MR. LINCOLN. This must have been in the thirties and when I got home from the theatre with my parents I sat down at the piano and played just about the whole score. They were pretty amazed and they just took it for granted it was something I knew how to do – and I did.

Probably the one film that totally exploded this whole interest into a burning intention was KING’S ROW. I thought that Korngold’s score was just about the greatest thing I’d ever heard. His skill at musically capturing the essence of a scene really staggered me. I wrote him a fan letter and even sent him a sketch of one of the themes from the film that I had written down after having seen the picture nine or ten times (since there were no soundtrack albums in those days, the only way to hear the score was to see the movie again and again). I had almost the whole score in my head – but this theme seemed to elude me. He very kindly sent me a long letter – I must have been 14 – complimenting me on my musical ear and sent me a correct version of the theme.

Many composers work their way up from insignificant films before anyone recognizes their name. I’m sure not many collectors could tell you what “Johnny” Williams’ first film score was. Yet you landed a rather significant film as your first assignment – RAISIN IN THE SUN. How did you manage that?

Well, that wasn’t my first feature film. I really started writing for films when I was in the Air Force during the Korean War. I actually joined the Air Force for 4 years because the Commanding Officer of the documentary film squadron wanted a composer on the staff, after I suggested the idea to him. Here was an extraordinary opportunity to compose for films. A chance for on the job training.

I really didn’t know anything about film scoring in a technical way, but I figured that little as I knew, it must be more than they did. I wrote countless scores including one for a big historical film called THIS IS RUSSIA. I, a mere corporal, was given the chance to write an hour and a half film score to be played by the 90-piece U.S. Air Force Symphony Orchestra, which was principally composed of men from Juilliard, Eastman, and Curtis. There was nobody there to teach me the craft of film scoring. For example, I had never heard of a click track so I figured out the principle for myself.

Four years in the Air Force taught me a lot about composing for films and I came out with a lot of tapes. While in the film squadron I had met two officers who shortly after leaving the Air Force asked me to score small feature films, one was called YELLOWNECK and the second had the embarrassing title of NAKED IN THE SUN, even though it had nothing to do with nudity. And then I came to New York where I got started in the theatre. One of my first theatre scores was for David Susskind’s RASHOMON, directed by Peter Glenville, an assignment which I received with a bit of help from Leonard Bernstein, whom I had known in my college days.

When David Susskind did RAISIN IN THE SUN, he wanted to bring an entire New York crew to Hollywood. We weren’t very popular with the studio folks when we went out there. Susskind was also responsible for REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT which he asked me to score, and also my first TV assignment, still one of my very favorites, THE POWER AND THE GLORY. The final answer is that it was through my connections with the theatre in New York that my film career began.

I’ve heard that you created a concert piece derived from your beautiful score to THE MIRACLE WORKER, is this true?

It still remains one of my favorite scores. There are many scores that you write which you realize have a certain life and validity in their original context, but when separated from the film become a series of background cues. There are scores that have enough musical substance of their own to hold up in a non-film setting. I felt that the MIRACLE WORKER had a thematic integrity which would play in a concert hall.

Interestingly, when I compose a film score I am always vaguely aware (and sometimes’ not so vaguely) of the connection between one piece of music and the next, even if there’s a strip of film in between that has no music. I always feel that in a certain way the music is picking up where it left off, not necessarily for the purpose of an eventual suite, but because the film score should have an organic life of its own.

I found making a suite of THE MIRACLE WORKER quite easy, because one piece seemed to flow into the next. It’s exactly the same as the original film score, with the slight exception of the expansion of the orchestra to almost standard symphonic proportions. It’s only been performed once, by the San Diego Symphony, conducted by Charles Ketcham. It was done at an open air summer concert and I suddenly realized as I heard it that the setting for a piece of music is crucial to how it is received. THE MIRACLE WORKER is such an intimate and delicate score that in a great outdoor bowl, even on a summer night, it got lost. The ambience was not intimate enough. It probably would be heard at its best in a smallish concert hall played by a chamber orchestra.

Amazingly, there is hardly a note from the original score that does not appear in the symphonic suite. I just couldn’t bear to let anything go.

You composed both the film and the Broadway versions of BECKET. Many collectors are familiar with the film score, but know virtually nothing about the Broadway score. Does it bear any similarity to the film score or is it all new material?

When Glenville made BECKET into a film he asked me to come to England to expand my little theatre score into a full-blown film score. Actually, not too much of the theatre score remains. A few themes I did retain in the film version, and the essential style of the music.

Your score to THE COMEDIANS is rather unusual. Do you feel it was one of your more challenging scores, and how did you choose to approach the score?

Definitely, and also one of the most exciting. This was another Peter Glenville film and one thing he was terribly worried about was that any kind of music would soften the very gritty edge of the Graham Greene novel. For example, I had written a love theme which I felt was anguished, unhappy, and restless. Peter felt that even so it made him nervous, and that it was still too pretty, too warm, too haunting. It didn’t have the quality he was looking for.

Another fascinating aspect for me was that the Haitian children were obliged to sing every day in school a chant in praise of their leader Duvalier – it is kind of a ritual chant. It was a horrifying thought: glorifying in song this absolute butcher as the great leader and saint. I was intrigued by the melody but I didn’t know what to do with it. So finally we got a bunch of English school girls into the studio one day and recorded them. I conducted them singing this chant with their very correct British accents. After that I embedded this chant into the Main Title and built Haitian rhythm and atmosphere around it so that it floated into view and out of view. I thought it was one of the most effective moments in the film, because of the tremendous irony of the girls’ sweet voices singing this hymn of praise to a ruthless dictator.

This was the only time in my entire collaboration with Glenville when I was unhappy. He got so nervous about the danger of the music smoothing over the hard edge of the story, that after the film had been dubbed and I had left Paris, he went back to the dubbing studio and remixed many sections of it, sort of dipping the music out at certain moments in a desperate move to correct the situation. In the movie version I’m afraid the score sounds a bit erratic. It doesn’t do what I had intended. In fact, of all the directors I’ve worked with, Glenville had perhaps the most unerring sensitivity about the relation of music to a scene. I feel this was a rare lapse of judgement. I’m very grateful for the great recording by John Richards in which the score is intact.

Although you haven’t done many sequels, you composed an exciting score for ROOSTER COGBURN, the sequel to TRUE GRIT. Were you at all influenced by the Elmer Bernstein original score?

I’ve never seen TRUE GRIT. I didn’t make a special effort to avoid it, but I’d never seen it. I was having to deal with Hal Wallis, whom I’d only worked with once before, on BECKET. It was very tricky dealing with him. He was a cranky type, very canny, very perceptive, but not someone with whom I had very good chemistry. I did try my best, and he invited me to his house one evening and ran ROOSTER COGBURN in his living room on a screen that occupied a complete wall, with a projectionist in the next room. We sat there and watched it, and he said afterwards that he would want to hear some themes. I came back a week later with “the big tune”, a love theme, and two or three others. I had to play them for him and I was scared to death. He sat there glowering at me. Finally he said, “I think you’re exactly on the right track. It’s good, go on with it.” Of course that’s what you want to hear, so I went ahead with it. I must say it’s really not my favorite score, I’ve never been a great fan of westerns.

It was originally rumored that John Williams was to compose the score for METEOR, but the assignment went to you…

Yes, I think he was. We have a great mutual admiration, and if I’m not mistaken the producer, Sandy Howard, wanted John Williams because he was at the time the premier disaster-movie composer. I never did know exactly why John elected not to do it, whether the picture wasn’t good enough, or he didn’t have time, or was tired of doing that sort of movie. But John apparently said to Sandy, “I don’t think I can do it, why don’t you get Larry?” It was just as simple as that, I had already done one film for Howard – RETURN OF A MAN CALLED HORSE – and Sandy and I got along very well. There may have been one or two other films that John was considered for or wanted to do including CLASH OF THE TITANS, that came to me. I’m not vain or proud or sensitive about that subject. John is at the top of the heap, but once you get a picture it doesn’t matter who was originally slated, it’s now your responsibility, your job, and your opportunity.

Over the past several years, the bulk of your work has been for major miniseries such as GEORGE WASHINGTON, PETER THE GREAT, and THE BOURNE IDENTITY. Why is it that you’ve chosen to work in the television medium rather than for motion pictures?

I don’t think it’s that I chose television; I think that television chose me. There is a certain freedom and a certain range in motion pictures that you don’t get in television. Television is a limited medium because of the vastness of the audience whom it has to be aimed at. In a way, you’re composing for a common denominator. You can’t really gear a television show for a particular audience as is possible in motion pictures. You’re always leaning to the middle ground. I really do love working in features. There’s usually more time, a bigger production budget, and therefore more recording time, and more orchestral possibilities. On the other hand, there is a certain kind of film that I really enjoy doing that is rare now in feature films. They are not making biographies like WASHINGTON or PETER THE GREAT, or a story like ANASTASIA – which used to be very much the film stuff. I find that I have a certain possibility with miniseries that I would not have in films, especially since a great many films made today don’t suit my particular interest or talent. Still, the opportunities for a composer in features are undeniably rich and various.

If you were asked to place one of your scores in a time capsule that wouldn’t be opened for one hundred years, what would it be?

Can’t tell you. It’s like asking a father of five to pick his favorite child. I’m fond of my youthful efforts, BECKET, THE COMEDIANS, and THE MIRACLE WORKER. I’m also partial to ANASTASIA and BRASS TARGET. THE MIRACLE WORKER holds a very special place in my heart. I suppose if I was pressed to the wall that would be the one, but I think by selecting it I would leave out of the Time Capsule many other aspects of my work which are especially characteristic.

Is there any score that you wish you could put in a cement container and dump into the Pacific?

(Laughs) I’m not sure there’s a whole score. I certainly know there are cues that didn’t work, and entire scores that are eminently forgettable! It’s not so much a question of the cement container. That is, in itself, a kind of inverse egoism. But, if you asked me whether any of my scores would make a concert for Carnegie Hall, the answer would definitely be: only a few. Some scores are best where they are, doing a workmanlike job for a film, but without any special character. Hardly any of my work really embarrasses me, although sometimes I can listen to an old TV score and say, “Well, that was kind of a routine job.” Of course, it is a fact that composers like J.S. Bach occasionally turned in merely routine jobs, but needless to add, his routine is not exactly my routine. Almost every composer has his moments of more or less high inspiration, and also moments when he simply relies on his craft to do a decent, professional piece of work.

How do you feel about the American Federation of Musicians “re-use” policy, which requires the entire orchestra fee to be paid a second time if an album is to be issued?

I don’t have strong feelings for it. If I was a playing musician, I would welcome it. If someone was going to compound the profit of my work without paying for it, I would certainly object. It does, however, produce problems for a composer who would like records released. It sometimes drives us to use orchestras in places where re-use fees aren’t applicable, orchestras which are not at the standard of Hollywood or New York.

I’m not in principle opposed to the re-use fee. I think it’s legitimate for the musicians. I think, however, like all things that begin as being justifiable and then turn into something else, the musicians’ union has made demands that ultimately work against the union’s purpose. They just drive people away because one can’t afford to comply with these incredible demands. For someone who grew up in a family that was solidly pro-union, I have come to see that this whole situation can turn into its opposite when a union is working against the interests of its members. (Hear, hear! -LVDV).

Several of your albums have appeared as bootlegs – THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU is one of them. Some composers feel insulted by bootleg issues of their scores, while others are flattered. Where do you stand on the issue?

In the case of THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU, the album is preposterously out of shape. The cues were rolled onto the record in the order that they were recorded and given wrong titles, all completely jumbled and without any concept whatever. It’s just a complete hash of my original intention and while the original pieces are there, as an album it’s non-existent and I think that sort of butchery is unconscionable. If there were a way to stop it I would, but frankly, I’d rather spend the energy writing more music and let somebody else worry about it. I do find it a disastrous situation.

You’ve composed some rather important feature films and television miniseries. You are a fantastic composer, yet you do not seem to be getting the recognition you deserve – you’re underrated. Why do you think that is?

I really can’t say. It may be because so much of what I’ve done is thought of as being in the large-scale symphonic tradition and perhaps many producers are unaware that I’ve worked in other idioms as well – certainly more avant-garde, with smaller-sized orchestras, and electronics – and that my range is much wider than the historical epic or the lush love story. If there are reasons beyond that they elude me. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I refuse to live in Los Angeles!

Which of your work that is yet unreleased would you most like to see recorded?

Certainly THE MIRACLE WORKER is up there (if not at the top of the list). Very close behind is THE POWER AND THE GLORY, RAISIN IN THE SUN, and REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT. I think A GUNFIGHT, although I haven’t heard it in quite a while, might make an interesting album. There was a lot of interesting music in WHO’LL STOP THE RAIN. Whether it would make an album, I’m not sure. Maybe it could work in conjunction with the wonderful songs by Creedence Clearwater Revival, which were very much a part of the score.

An Interview with Maurice Coignard

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 08:47:27 GMT

Maurice Coignard and Gabriel Yared in Biarritz

Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.13 / No.50 / 1994 

Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

Maurice Coignard was Georges Garvarentz's closest collaborator for many years. As arranger and orchestrator on over 150 films, he continues to collaborate with France's leading composers. Invited to the “Écrans Sonores” Festival in Biarritz, he has drawn on this experience to write an educational book on the art and craft of composing and orchestrating film music. This unique work, with a preface by Gabriel Yared and Jean-Claude Petit, was published by Max Echig under the title “La Musique et l’Image”. Maurice Coignard was kind enough to invite us to talk about his profession and career.

Could you tell us about your musical background… 

I began my studies at the Paris Conservatoire. My ambition was to take part in the Rome competitions and write oratorios and operas. But when I graduated with my diplomas under my arm, I realized that I'd made a mistake and that I didn't know how to do anything! Then I met a jazz conductor, Noël Chiboust, who gave me my first chance. So I did orchestrations for a Glenn Miller-style orchestra, and everything I'd learned at the Conservatoire was of no use to me. I'd studied harmony, counterpoint and fugue, and then I found myself swinging. But I liked it. Then I joined Chappell Editions, for whom I orchestrated all the American standards of the time over a four-year period. It was during this period that I met film music composers who asked me to work for them. That's how I found my way into film music, and I haven't stopped since.

How would you define the terms arranger and orchestrator? 

The orchestrator is given a score in the form, for example, of a piano part on 3, 4 or 5 staves. All the music is written, harmonized and synchronized. All he has to do is agree with the composer on the choice of instruments and their timbres. There's no creative work involved, but it's exciting! The arranger, on the other hand, has a very complex job, all the more so when the composer is self-taught. Often, all he has to start with are snatches of themes, which he then has to develop and harmonize. In other words, he has to create all the background music for the film, based on elements he would rather not have had. That's what's known as being a “ghostwriter”, and it's not glorious. He stays in the shadows all the time, lending a hand to the “broken arms”. I've got out of that role and now only do orchestrations, and I'm very happy about that. If I have to compose, I prefer to do it for myself, but unfortunately I don't have the time.

How did you feel about working in the shadow of other composers?

 Badly, of course! But I didn't have much choice. Having said that, for the past 10 years I've been lucky enough to work with composers who consider me a collaborator and mention me alongside them in credits and on CDs. Today, I can no longer consider myself to be in the shadows. Now that I'm experienced, I'm in a position to turn down uninteresting business. To get to this stage, it takes a few years and no longer chasing after a fee.

You say that composers now mention you alongside them. Do you think this is legitimate?

It's a nice thing to do, but it's not an obligation. And then, there are cases where the composer is supposed to have done everything and so we don't appear, so as not to offend certain sensitivities. But it's true that when that happens and my name is associated with one of the “greats”, I'm happy. It's a reward. There are other types of recognition too, such as the one I received for the film LES MILLE ET UNE NUITS when Gabriel Yared introduced me to the Orchestre de Paris, saying, “It was Maurice Coignard who orchestrated all the music, because I didn't have the time to do it.” Jean-Claude Petit and Pierre Porte are also at the same level, but not all of them are.

At what point do you intervene in the composer's work process?

Often, when the composer doesn't have enough time to do everything. In the end, I live off their delays! But in general, they're not philanthropists, and if they make me work, it's because they can't do otherwise. It also happens sometimes that they're not inspired by a given scene. That's when I write it. But I don't know any composer who's made me work because he was fed up with writing. They're all passionate when they're composers in their own right.

Do you ever go beyond the scope of your profession?

Yes, I have written for others. But then again, they didn't have the time. Among other things, I made a 6-hour TV movie. It was an important assignment, and the composer involved had asked me whether he should accept or refuse, even though he wouldn't be around to write it. I advised him to take the job and wrote it for him. I did him a favor, and as far as I'm concerned, it's legal. It's supply and demand, and the arranger gets paid for it anyway. You just have to make sure that it doesn't become systematic.

What is your working technique?

When I started out, I did music no.1, no.2 and so on, and I've completely changed my technique. Music no.1 often corresponds to the credits, and I write it at the end. What's important is to keep moving forward, because deadlines are often very tight and there's nothing more distressing than repeating the same piano phrase all day long with a theme that doesn't develop. Now I start with the music that works best. What you can't find on Monday will be easy on Tuesday.

How much time is usually needed?

I knew the “heroic” days when you only had 8 to 10 days to get everything done, at a rate of 18 hours a day. It was a real mess, but thank God it's turned around! You have to remember that the film has already been made, and the recording and mixing dates fixed in advance, with a very tight schedule before the musical score is written. Just imagine the work involved. For example, for STAR WARS, which contains millions of notes, they needed three months and five orchestrators - and there weren't too many of them! But in eight days you don’t have enough time to compose a good film score. Even less so with a large orchestra…

Is it easy for you to adapt to different musical trends and new sound techniques?

You always have to keep up-to-date with new trends. I started with the predecessor of the synthesizer, the Ondes Martenot. It's an instrument I'm particularly fond of. Unfortunately, it's been overtaken by synthesizers because it's monophonic. When I was asked by a composer to use Ondes Martenot in an orchestration, I used 4 of them to overcome this problem. This quartet was magnificent! The result was all the more surprising, as it was to play a bossa nova! As far as the synthesizer is concerned, I use it a lot, but it's a new element that shouldn't be used to replace a trumpet, a violin, etc. It's to be avoided. That's a no-go. On the other hand, it considerably widens the sound field and goes very well with the symphony orchestra.

Is there a genre in which you feel particularly comfortable?

Definitely the symphonic style. Ultimately, it's easy, because all the instruments you want are there. It's more difficult to write for a quartet, because you're limited in terms of timbre. It's one of the most complex forms... With a large orchestra, the sound palette is obviously richer, but it takes a lot of time to write the score.

Can you save a film?

Yes, I think so. But the opposite can also happen. It's worth pointing out that a good score will never save a mediocre scene; on the contrary, a thundering, old-fashioned score can do considerable harm to a good film, especially several years after its release.

Can you add anything special to a score?

I do everything along those lines. When I can add something interesting, I do it with the composer's agreement. That's what he expects of me, if it's necessary to make the result better.

Is it possible to recognize an orchestrator's style by listening?

Yes, but you need a trained ear. Sound engineer William Flageollet recognizes Hubert Bougis's style and mine without making a mistake. I too am rarely mistaken, and when Hubert Rostaing was orchestrating for Philippe Sarde, I recognized him even before seeing his name mentioned in the credits.

Does your profession have a future?

No, not at all! It's a profession that's disappearing. People no longer say, “I'm going to be a film music orchestrator.” Today, it's a group job. What I do in the symphonic niche no longer exists in France. There must be four or five orchestrators left. I'm part of the last guard, and what I'm trying to do is pass the baton to young composer-orchestrators, as I was given the opportunity to do at the Biarritz Festival. They're keen to learn how to do it, but there's no specific training in writing film music... To make up for this shortcoming, I wrote an educational book entitled La Musique à l'image , published in March 1994 by Editions Max Eschig.

Can you tell us a little about this book?

It's a checklist that covers everything: the instruments, their tessituras, their possibilities... There are examples of the most diverse musical styles, from Viennese waltz to Hollywood style. You need to know how to write and orchestrate all these things, for which there are techniques and examples. There are other things too, such as how to orchestrate a piano phrase for several instruments. I also talk about all the possible combinations of timbres, as well as what not to do. Even if there are no rules in this field, it's still possible to give advice.

What advice did you give your students at the last Biarritz Festival, and what do you remember about it?

I have excellent memories of it, of course. It was the second time I'd been there. The idea for my book came from the notes I'd prepared for the classes the previous year. I already have plans for next year. The trainees have all been enthusiastic, and I'm always delighted to bring them something. I pass on to them what I've learned from experience and explain all the blunders I made when I was starting out, so that they don't make mistakes.

What would you say to young people considering this profession?

That there are two fundamental axioms. (1) All orchestral timbres are beautiful. (2) All compositions must be written in such a way as to be easy to perform. The study of orchestration comes after the study of harmony, counterpoint and fugue. After that, the best schooling is to read and listen to the works of the great masters. Organizations such as SACEM should be encouraged to provide a specialized film music room, complete with scores and CDs. The mistake young people make is to buy a synthesizer and think they're a great composer within 8 days. As Gabriel Yared says, “If you learn the alphabet, which has 26 letters, you can make the effort to learn music, which only has 7 notes”!

An Interview with Elmer Bernstein

Mon, 16 Oct 2023 16:01:16 GMT

An Interview with Elmer Bernstein by Daniel Mangodt and Luc Van de Ven
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.12 / No.48 / 1993
Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

Transcribing an interview from a cassette is one of my least favorite activities as far as editing this magazine is concerned. Transcribing this interview, however, was pure pleasure. Elmer Bernstein looks and sounds much younger than his 71 years. He's funny, he's an excellent raconteur, he has a prodigious memory for anecdotes, and I suspect he is something of a bon vivant. We met him briefly last October when he was at the Ghent Film Festival to introduce Martin Scorcese's AGE OF INNOCENCE. - LVDV.

What's the biggest problem you have to face when you score a movie? The director's total ignorance of what music can do for his film, or his fear of what the score will do to his movie?
(Laughs) In the way you're asking this, you're already answering your own question! The biggest problem that you run into could be the greatest help, but also the greatest problem - it's what the director is like. How ignorance expresses itself can either be a help or a problem. If the director says, “Look, this is really not my field, this is your problem, I expect you to solve it”, then you have a free hand to be creative.

These directors must be a minority…
Yeah, the minority. What's happening in recent years is that directors tend to be much more invasive of the creative process. There's an old saying, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” The director is always making a big mistake if he lets the composer have a free hand. What bothers me is this: there is a tendency these days to put a temporary score on every film. I refuse to listen to such a score. They must take the score out for me when I see the film, because if you hear a temporary score your creative process is already inhibited. What I really want from a director is that he talks to me about mood, about style, about what he wants from the music, not the music itself. Then, if he is open-minded I can tell him what to expect, what I think the music ought to do. Whenever I start to do a film, I look at the film and I ask myself some questions: What is the role of the music in this film? Music can play different roles in a film, depending upon what the film is like. Why is the music there? And then, when we go through the film, somebody says, “I think we ought to have music here”, or I say, “I think we ought to have music here”, and then I must ask myself, “Why would I put music here?” What is the music supposed to do in this scene? How is it supposed to make people feel? Generally directors like to have music in scenes that they think are not working (bursts out laughing), I always much prefer to have music in scenes that are working! If something is dull you put music in, it gives the audience something to concentrate on so to speak. But it's much better for the music to have a real function, a real reason for being there, and that is what I look for.

In the case of a temp-track, that is what happened with Alex North's music for “2001”… One of the sad cases where a director falls in love with the temp-track he uses.
Generally speaking, if the director has engaged a composer to do a score for a film, he should have engaged a composer for whom he has some respect. If you have respect for the artist, then you should let the artist function. If you hire somebody you perceive to be an artist, and you say, “I want you to do so-and-so-and-so,” and you actually start to direct the music, the chances are that he's not going to get as good a score as he would if he let the composer function.

I was wondering whether a good score can save a bad movie...
No (laughs). No, a good score can't save a bad movie. However, a bad score can hurt a good movie.

Have you tried to save some movies that way?
I don't think anybody ever sets out to do a bad movie. I've never heard a director say, “Well, we're making this bad movie…” (laughter). Nobody tries to make a bad movie, but some movies don't work as well as others. Music can do amazing things. Take a movie for instance like THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. When I first saw THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN without music, the pace was essentially fairly slow, there were some longueurs. The music is very energetic. This way you can help a film. You can give energy. I remember that from Cecil B. DeMille as a matter of fact. We were working on THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. There was a scene where Moses leads the Hebrews out of bondage and out of Egypt. When I first wrote a piece of music for that scene, I wrote a piece of rather slow music, because they seemed to be moving very slowly. And DeMille said, “No, no, don't do this. It already looks too slow. I want more energy in the music itself,” and I said, “Won't it look wrong?” and he said, “No. This is one way you can help.” And he was absolutely right, that was a great lesson I learned from him. Music can add energy.

We've heard that THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN will be out on compact disc...
As a matter of fact, there are going to be two CDs. As I understand it, the Phoenix Symphony is making a version of the entire score, and MGM has a plan to release the original sound tracks, which were never done. The album called THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN was actually made by me, for the second film, RETURN OF THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, which is essentially the same music, but they're not the original sound tracks.

There have been various periods in your career. First you were labeled as a jazz composer with STACCATO, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM... Then the Americana music period with TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD… Then you started scoring westerns, then came war movies. In the last 10 years, you've scored a lot of different genres. Is there a particular genre that you prefer scoring?
Well, obviously, from your comments you can see that I've consciously tried to keep changing. One thing that can happen to you, particularly in Hollywood, is that you can be typecast. If you do a successful war film, then everybody wants you to score a war film. You do a successful comedy, everybody wants you to score a comedy. I really never wanted to do that. My first great success in Hollywood was jazz, with THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM, and then everybody wanted me to be a jazz composer. So I said, “No, I'm a composer, I want to feel that I can do all kinds of other things.” I consciously moved from genre to genre.

Twice in my career I really got stuck. The first time was with westerns, after I did THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN they wanted me to do THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN again! So I got stuck for 10 years with westerns, but I finally got out of that rut. Then, beginning in 1977, I did 10 years of comedies and finally I said, “No, I don't want to get stuck with comedies,” but I did them for ten years. The first few years I really enjoyed it. But after a while I wanted to move on, I didn't work for about a year and a half at that point, because I wouldn't do any more comedies. Then I did the music for MY LEFT FOOT.

There's an instrument you use a lot in that score, the Ondes Martenot... How did you come to use that particular instrument?
I was at a seminar, about 11 years ago, and a colleague of mine, Richard Rodney Bennett, kept talking about this instrument, which I didn't know. I first used it in a film called HEAVY METAL. Subsequently Cynthia Millar has played the instrument for me, and she has also played electronics for me and she is now also a composer in her own right. It's an instrument of which I've been very fond. It's a very unusual instrument, because it can sound electronic, but also unearthly, it sounds like nothing else.

It doesn't sound like a synthesizer at all...
The way the instrument is played, the technique of playing the instrument is very similar to playing a violin, it’s very personal, it's very hands-on. The instrument sounds very, very different depending upon who plays it.

Let's go back to westerns. THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN has a definite Mexican flavor. Did you do any research?
Since very early in my career I've always been interested in folk music of my era, basically United States and Mexican. I really enjoyed doing THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN because it gave me a chance to use that genre of US-Mexican border music.

You did 3 sequels for THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN...
I think I only did two of them. I may have done all of them, I don't remember (laughs).

That does say something about those sequels… The album TRUE GRIT contains pop music instead of the real score from the film, although you conducted the music for the album. I've always wondered what the reason was for releasing such a pop version?
This was the only time I ever did that. This was the brainchild of a record producer. Artie Butler did the arrangements. When this album was released, I got a really angry letter from a fan…

It wasn't from us!
...I wrote a reply and we became great friends and correspondents. I said, “It wasn't my idea!” (laughs)

You did a great western, THE TIN STAR, with Anthony Perkins and Henry Fonda. I remember the scene where the boy rides the horse, and you had some playful music for that scene...
It's a film I tend to forget because it came very early on in my career. That was my first chance to use western themes, but it was a more personal kind of score, it wasn't as big as THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. It was a film I very much enjoyed doing.

Your last western was THE SHOOTIST. In that score you can hear really every theme you ever wrote for westerns.
(Laughs): It's funny you should say that, because during the western ‘period’, people would say, that the western scores always sounded very similar - which is why I stopped doing them - to which my reply was, “Well, they all sound alike because they're all the same story!” (laughs).

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is one of my favorite scores... The film begins with the little girl humming, but in the actual score - which can be found in Irwin Bazelon's book Knowing the Score ... - there is another beginning…
There is another beginning, and if you listen to the record, that beginning is on the record. What happened was - and this was the source of some disagreement - it was the producer's and director's decision that they wanted to have a sort of introduction and then go to the little girl humming like that, that was their idea, not mine.

So that was why there is a difference between the score and what was used in the movie... You used an interesting combination of instruments, piano, vibraphone, celesta...
That's correct, and they had to convince me that having the girl hum was better than the score (bursts out laughing). The whole point of that score was children seen in an adult world and the adult world seen through children’s eyes. The vibraphone, harp, glockenspiel, piano, music box, all of these instruments were associated with children’s sounds, which is what it was all about.

You've scored a lot of war movies, the most famous being the BRIDGE AT REMAGEN and THE GREAT ESCAPE.
THE GREAT ESCAPE was a very enjoyable film to do. As a matter of fact, all the films I did with John Sturges were fun to do, I enjoyed very much working with him. John never pretended to know anything about music. He would bring me in, he didn't give me the script, but he would tell me the story in person. The way he would tell the story was so inspiring and so exciting, that from the way he was telling the story, you began to understand what you were supposed to do. It was very exciting.

The march from that film has been recorded many times and it has been used by other composers, more or less ‘borrowed' let's say.
(Laughs): I'm aware of this, but I'm flattered.

The film ESCAPE TO VICTORY has a march that sounds very similar to your theme from THE GREAT ESCAPE.
As they say, imitation is the best form of flattery.

In THE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN there is a scene where George Segal walks across the bridge, it's a really impressive application of film music.

Actually I find a lot of war films very difficult (to score), because there are certain things that are obvious in a war film. For example you want to express that it’s dangerous, that the character can get killed. It's hard to find for the music to say something, to make a contribution in some other area. Actually in my opinion the best war film, in terms of the use of music, is MEN IN WAR. In MEN IN WAR there's a scene where the men are marching through a mine field. At any minute they could get blown up, but the ‘look’ of the film is very beautiful, it's a forest, the birds are singing, things like that. And I had the sense of “Here is terror, in the midst of some beauty.” I thought it was a very interesting approach, because the tension is obvious.

When I looked through your filmography I noticed that you have scored quite a few shorts, more than fifteen.
I did a whole series of them. First documentary films for television, but also a series of short films for Ray and Charles Eames, which were very effective learning films. Many were for universities, about computers for instance, about silence... Some were just for fun, TOCCATA FOR TOY TRAINS is just a film about toys.

Do you approach scoring a short film differently from scoring a feature film?
Well, TOCCATA FOR TOY TRAINS was a case in which I was given a scenario, and you write a piece of music first. Obviously, if you're writing a piece of music first, you approach everything quite differently.

You have scored films which were previously scored by other composers, SEE NO EVIL (aka BLIND TERROR) and FIVE DAYS ONE SUMMER. Do you know what went wrong?
In the case of BLIND TERROR or SEE NO EVIL as it was called, I had no idea when I was given that film that André Previn had written a previous score. Had I known, then I would never have touched it! I had no idea that such a score existed until I was halfway through it. The producers were very quiet about it. In the case of FIVE DAYS ONE SUMMER, I knew that there had been a previous score but I had no idea who had written it. I learned subsequently that Carl Davis did the score, but I never heard it. In that case, Fred Zinnemann, who directed the picture, was an old, old friend and that was quite a different situation.

You've been on the other side of the fence a few times yourself, with NATTY GANN and MURDER IN MISSISSIPPI…
(Laughs) I've been on the other side of the fence many times! I don't know what happened on NATTY GANN. They were worried about the film, they kept changing things. We did the score, we made some changes, they said they loved the changes, then the next thing I know, James (Horner) was engaged to do the score. I think that the director was not feeling well, he must have been going through some sort of crisis. James is very good friends with Jeffrey Katzenberg who basically runs the studio, and I think that, as a last attempt to deal with the director, he had James do it. I spoke with James before he undertook it and I warned him about the director and that time, I really don't know how he got on. By that time I had already written maybe 3 scores for the film (laughs).

You said there were other occasions...
Yes, most recently, with A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT, directed by Robert Redford. That was my fault. Robert Redford and I saw the film in totally different ways. I thought it was a good film. To me, the film was a very poetic film, and I had done some themes which were sort of abstract because I perceived the film as a very poetic film. He did not, he perceived the film as more sort of down-to-earth, a folk tale, and he wanted a much simpler approach in the music than I was interested in doing. Eventually, he ended up with Mark Isham at the last minute. I think Robert Redford, as a director, has a great deal of difficulty making up his mind, he is not certain, he is the opposite of Scorcese. Scorcese always knows.

What is Scorcese like to work with?
Well, he is what every composer should dream about. Just as he is this great genius of motion picture making, he is also the best person to work with as an artist, he treats other artists like artists, it's just a pleasure.

What was scoring AGE OF INNOCENCE like? It's set in the nineteenth century…
First of all, the great thing about Scorcese is that you're not called in just at the end, you're with him all the way. I was involved with AGE OF INNOCENCE when it was still only a script. We talked about it and even before the film was shot, I began to develop concepts. I wrote four or five themes that I recorded with a small orchestra, so that he would begin to have a sense of what I had in mind. Even before I wrote these themes we had discussed the character and style of the music and how we were going to approach the late nineteenth century period. I said, “To me, the model would be Brahms”. And that was fine with Scorcese. So we had already discussed that much. Then I wrote some themes. When he was still editing the film, I went and did a temporary score (seeing the question mark on our faces, he hastily adds), based on my music! (laughter all round), so that while he was editing the film he was living with this music at the same time. Music is very important to him, he'll cut a scene to music. When we recorded the final score at the end of June, seven months later, we were already well acquainted with the material.

You've done several television scores for Jacques Cousteau… DIVING FOR ROMAN PLUNDER and THE SEARCH FOR THE BRITANNIC. How did that come about?
Actually, I did a lot of work for National Geographic in the old days. As a matter of fact, the theme they use is still my theme, written 25 years ago. I did a lot of work for them so it came about through these connections. It was very interesting meeting him.

The budget seemed pretty decent, it was an English orchestra…
I think it was the Royal Philharmonic. I guess the budget was all right, I don't remember.

In Film Score Monthly you said that you hate all record companies. Did you mean that as a joke or were you quite serious?
(Bursts out laughing) I said this? There are several senses to this. One sense is, of course, that record companies seem to be only interested in the kind of records that can sell a million copies. If it’s under a million, they're not interested. They're not interested in a special audience. The other thing is, that they also have very interesting accounting methods.

You mean they tend to fiddle with royalties?
They're very difficult to get!

Yet you nearly always work with the same company…
Yes, I don't include Varèse Sarabande among those companies I mentioned before! Varèse Sarabande has really made a business of soundtracks. I think in that sense they have been very, very important to those people who want to have soundtracks. I think they’ve been very good in that field.

Yes, sometimes you have to wonder how they can break even...
Well, sometimes I'm sure they can’t.

Let's go back to your Film Music Collection (FMC). You have done a few albums with Varèse Sarabande, so we were all thinking and hoping you were reviving the FMC series, and then it suddenly stopped…
They just had a license for some of them. My wife and I started the Film Music Collection because we just thought that something ought to be done - that was the very beginning of general interest in film soundtracks, that was in the sixties. The LPs were distributed through a private club. We never had the time to get enough members in the club to break even, although that was all we wanted to do - to break even. We were not looking to make money. But we couldn’t and it got to be very expensive, and that's why we stopped.

In those days, people were not in touch with each other the way they are now, there were no specialized magazines around such as Film Score Monthly , Soundtrack! , or The Cue Sheet with a combined readership of maybe 3500 to 4000 readers. If you launched the FMC club today, you'd have a much better chance to break even...
That is entirely possible.

You don't have any plans to re-launch the Film Music Collection ?
Not at this time!

Suppose someone wanted to buy some of those titles to put them out on compact disc, would you willing to license them?
Not really. I'm taking a more mercenary position on the Film Music Collection (laughs), I'd be willing to sell the entire collection but not at a price anybody wants to pay! (bursts out laughing).

Maybe a major company might be willing to pay the kind of money you'd need?
Well, I don't know. There are some titles in the Collection that would be very hard to do again. We had access to some fairly basic material. Things like TORN CURTAIN by Bernard Herrmann... And probably the best recording ever done of Herrmann’s THE GHOST AND MRS MUIR.

I'm talking as a businessman now, if I may do so for a second.... The FMC means capital that is lying dormant, so to speak. Not using it goes against the grain, somehow...
True. Forever is a long time, and I might change my mind at some point. But it just got very difficult for us. Varèse Sarabande licensed a few of them and sales were disappointing. WB licensed three of them (TORN CURTAIN, THIEF OF BAGDAD, TO KILL AMOCKINGBIRD - LVDV) and that didn’t work out either. The WB thing for a moment was quite promising. But then there was a change of command.

I first saw you in 1976 at the Royal Albert Hall. You played a few of your own themes and also themes by others - Herrmann etc. Do you like conducting?
I do like conducting, but I got tired of conducting only film music concerts. I've had a lot of offers to conduct film music concerts, I generally don’t do that. I do albums. I've just done an album on Denon and I did the Herrmann album on Milan, which is a really nice album.

Are there any scores which you'd like to see on CD? KINGS OF THE SUN perhaps?
(Laughs) This is so funny! That is the most requested score! And I have to tell you the truth: I listened to the tapes, I don't understand this. It must be the percussion, it's interesting percussion. One day I’ll do it. That is definitely something I have in mind to do.

What do you think of the newer generation of composers?
Of the younger composers, that is, a generation younger than me, I would put Bruce Broughton and James Horner at the top of the list.

Horner has been known to borrow from classical composers…
You know, it's interesting. I hear this complaint about him a great deal. If it is true that he borrows, then he makes very good use of it. I find his scores generally speaking very good - the score for FIELD OF DREAMS was brilliant. For me, it's the best electronic score I’ve heard.

Apart from the Ondes Martenot, do you like electronic instruments?
Actually I've always been interested in electronics but in a very different way. There are scores that I did as early as 1953… ROBOT MONSTER, it's full of electronics of that period, an electrified flute, things of that sort. The very first sound you hear in HAWAII is a synthesizer! I've always had an interest in that sort of thing, but only an integral interest within the orchestra. Just as another instrument in the orchestra, not as an identity itself. Except in the case of the only score I did which was highly electronic, THE GRIFTERS. Much of THE GRIFTERS is electronic. More than most people even realize. There are a lot of electronics too in RAMBLING ROSE. The piano was electronic, it sounds slightly different. Generally speaking, these days I'll have at least a synthesizer in the orchestra, but only as an instrument within the orchestra.

You've worked several times with Christopher Palmer. Does he work like an orchestrator?
There are composers for whom orchestrators do a great deal, they do half the composing. I'm not going to get into that. When I first came to Hollywood, I had a clause in my contract which said that they couldn't give me an orchestrator, that I wouldn't allow it. Then later on I realized that you're called upon to work just too fast, you can't do it yourself, you have to make sketches. Christopher Palmer is absolutely the most brilliant orchestrator. When you have an orchestrator, you have a colleague, there's no question. The orchestrator is going to do some things differently to what you'd do. It's a kind of collaboration, and you have to enjoy the collaboration. Christopher Palmer is not called upon to write any music, but he makes a rather different sound sometimes than the sound I would make myself, and scores that I've orchestrated myself would have a different sound. For instance THE GRIFTERS, MY LEFT FOOT, RAMBLING ROSE are all scores that I orchestrated myself. They're slightly different. Christopher Palmer is probably the greatest living orchestrator I know, he does wonderful things. You have a colleague, you must let him make his own contribution, you can't say, “Just be a copyist”. So we have a deal, Christopher and I: “If you have an idea, do it. But you must be prepared that if I don't like it, I'll take it out.” We have this agreement. The last few films have been orchestrated by my daughter, Emily.

Peter Bernstien no longer orchestrates your music?
No. Peter is a composer in his own right now. That's what happens. André Previn sometimes played keyboard for me, obviously he's a great conductor-composer. Then it was John Williams, who was my keyboard player on GOD'S LITTLE ACRE for instance - then he became a composer. My next keyboard player was Dave Grusin - so he became a composer! Then Artie Kane, now he's a composer. And now my ‘Ondiste’, Cynthia Millar, she's a composer! (laughs).

What can you tell us about THE GOOD SON?
THE GOOD SON is a kind of horror film in a way, it's a kind of horrible story about a bad kid, sort of a deranged child. I kept the sense of beauty as well, although there is some suspense, you have to see it in the film. It lends a very strange, interesting quality to the film.

What about your future assignments?
It's vacation time now. I did four films last year, that's too much. I'm resting.

The Day the Earth Stood Still

Sun, 15 Oct 2023 09:50:01 GMT

Label: Fox Records
Catalogue No: 07822-11010-2

Release Date: 8-Nov-1993

Total Duration: 35:33

UPN: 0-7822-11010-2-8

The fifth release in Fox Records’ commendable first set of “Classic Series” soundtrack restorations is one of Bernard Herrmann's best scores. The first composer’s outright science fiction score, this 1951 cautionary tale contained the first electronic science fiction score of the decade, and one that remains to this day a landmark of genre film music. As Hermann's biographer explains in the CD booklet, “The result was a scoring milestone that anticipated the era of electronic music with its unheard-of instrumentation for electric violin, electric bass, two high and low electric theremins, four pianos, four harps, and what Herrmann called a very strange section of about 30-odd brass.”

Herrmann's music underlines the film’s sense of otherworldly strangeness. Despite the ordinariness of much of the film's scenes, the impressionistic music literally wraps the film in claustrophobic sense of the bizarre and unsettling. The film has no real themes, instead built around the kind of two-note chord progressions that characterized Herrmann’s suspense and science fiction music. The high-powered tone of dual theremins give these plodding chords a tremendous power and an eerie, extraterrestrial undulation. The fast-paced piano motif of “Radar” embellishes the urgent bustle of the military radar room that first glimpses the approaching spacecraft. The cavernous groans accompanying the appearances of Gort, the robot, echo deeply with the same two-note progressions, punctuated by irregular drum beats, low-end piano and the hypnotic, wavering trill of the theremin. The score's only light moments occur during the scenes at Arlington Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial, where Herrmann pauses for quiet horns over organ, respectful yet sorrowful.

Seven cues re-recorded by Herrmann for his London Phase-4 collection, The Mysterious Film World of Bernard Herrmann were the only excerpts from the film previously available. With this CD, producer Nick Redman delved into the 20th Century Fox vaults to unveil the original soundtrack recording, including one cue never used in the film, ”Solar Diamonds”, meant to accompany the jewels Klaatu presents to Billy, a quiet glittering arrangement of the predominant two-note choral motif.

Fox Records’ Classic Series is probably the best thing to happen to vintage film music since RCA's Classic Film Score Series . THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, one of the most sought-after Hermann scores, is splendidly preserved on CD. The sound quality of the 40-year old tapes is outstanding. Liner notes by Steven Smith and Jon Burlingame provide back ground data on the composer and the film.

Randall D. Larson – Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol. 13 / No. 49 / 1994

The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Sun, 15 Oct 2023 09:31:43 GMT

Label: Marco Polo
Catalogue No: 8.225168

Release Date: 2001

Total Duration: 66:24

UPN: 6-3694-35168-2-9

The Moscow Symphony Orchestra conducted by William Stromberg

The welcome outpouring of previously unrecorded 20th Century-Fox scores continues with a new Stromberg/Morgan release, THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO and FIVE FINGERS, two lesser-known Herrmann scores from 1952. The screenplay for SNOWS is a series of flashbacks, and more a Technicolor fantasia on Hemingway themes than a valid adaptation of the author’s original short story of the title. Herrmann’s score is best known for the delicate “Memory Waltz,” but as a whole poignantly evokes themes of love, longing, and death in a manner akin to VERTIGO. A key cue is “The Death-Watch,” constructed almost entirely on a repetitive figure in low flute, and a motif that recurs fleetingly throughout the score. Two love themes, for the Ava Gardner and Susan Hayward characters respectively, and brief moments of hysteria (“Panic”, “The Witch Doctor”) flesh out the score, which is often quite haunting. There is some unique Herrmann here, including a swirling “Prelude” and very brief “Awakening,” but one wishes the composer had been given a bit more screen-time to develop his lyrical material. William Stromberg and the Moscow Symphony capture the vivid but elusive Herrmann sound effectively, though not always with the luminous intensity of Herrmann’s Hollywood originals, nor is the celebrated “Memory Waltz” as ethereal as one might like (and also commences with some questionable intonation from the violin soloist).

FIVE FINGERS is a spy drama with, as the notes put it, “the exoticism of Turkey and the perilous unstable emotionalism of film noir.” The Muscovites seem at their best with bold material – their KING KONG IS excellent – and FIVE FINGERS is considerably less subtle emotionally than SNOWS, with only a few lyrical cues (“Dreams,” “Romance,” “The Departure.”). Much time is also given over to Herrmann’s suspense mode, which, while working wonderfully in such films, treads a thin line between hypnotic and tedious on a complete recording. “The Film” makes interesting use of string tremolo, and “Cicero” is unusual for its almost jazzy muted brass. Several cues, the powerful “Prelude” and “The Old Street,” also exhibit Herrmann’s exotic flare, and suggest a kind of Hitchcockian / SINBAD hybrid. Two energetic tracks, “The Pursuit” (referred to as “Scherzo” in the notes) and “The Boat,” plus a brief (and incongruous) Latin cue,”Rio,” conclude the score before the obligatory ‘50s big-sound “Finale.”

Ross Care – Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol. 20 / No. 80 / 2001

Elmer Bernstein on Scoring Cape Fear

Sun, 15 Oct 2023 09:22:01 GMT

An Interview with Elmer Bernstein by Daniel Schweiger
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.11 / No.41 / 1992

Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ve n

The newly bloodied CAPE FEAR is haunted by a rapist seeking biblical vengeance from the lawyer who betrayed him to 14 years of imprisonment. Director Martin Scorcese has thrown the story into his favorite swamp of twisted morality, having the attorney's family caught between revulsion and attraction for the stalking rapist. Though he pays the first CAPE FEAR movie homage with star cameos and shot-for-shots, the filmmaker takes his greatest pleasure by splattering its brooding tension into kinky sex and savage gore. Scorcese has remained canny enough to preserve the stuff of the original's nightmares.

Bernard Herrmann's score for 1961's CAPE FEAR is even better suited to Scorcese's film than its old haunting grounds. But this soundtrack is more than some ghoulish slash-and-paste job, for Herrmann's tunes have been newly invented by Elmer Bernstein, a one-time protégé given the unenviable task of shaping this restrained music for Scorcese’s needs. Herrmann's work explodes with such terrifying force in CAPE FEAR that you'd swear a new composing wunderkind had just made the scene.

Martin Scorcese gave Elmer Bernstein a long-awaited release from frat antics (ANIMAL HOUSE, STRIPES, GHOSTBUSTERS) with THE GRIFTERS, a ruthless slice of film noir that threw Bernstein back to his pounding MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM style. “That film was the last real jolt I gave myself,” Bernstein remarks. “People can usually recognize my scores because I speak a certain musical language, but even those fans were thrown off by my approach. I had such a good association when Martin produced THE GRIFTERS that I immediately called up when I heard he was directing a CAPE FEAR remake.

“Though Martin reminded me he was intent on re-using Herrmann's music, I couldn't have been more excited. Bernard helped me get one of my first Hollywood breaks with THE VIEW FROM POMPEY'S HEAD, and I’ve always considered his work to be a primer on film scoring. So it was the thrill of attacking my friend's music, as well as working with one of the five greatest directors alive.” Scorcese's CAPE FEAR is rife with booming sound effects and head-bashing melodrama, overt stylism that could have easily buried Herrmann's music. “Bernard used his score as an engine to push the film along, but Martin's version didn't need that kind of drive,” Bernstein comments. “It's a lot more intense, complicated, and violent than the original, which was basically a thriller about good and evil. So I was constantly in a position of thinking, ‘what would Bernard have done?’ That was psychologically troubling, because I was worried he'd think of something better! But my interpretation of his score ended up being quite different.”

Bernstein had already demonstrated a strong grasp of Herrmann's technique with his re-recordings of THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR and TORN CURTAIN, a rejected Hitchcock score that was also revamped for CAPE FEAR. “Bernard would write in short segments, taking musical pieces and spinning them out into a complete score. That let me extract his ‘building blocks’ and create a new structure with them. His theme for CAPE FEAR consisted of four brief horn notes. My daughter Emilie used the same orchestrations, including 4 flutes, 8 horns, and strings, but no percussion. Because it was impossible to just place his original score into the remake, I thought I'd have to write a lot of connective material. Though I never made a conscious attempt to sound like Herrmann, I also didn’t want to stray too far from his approach. But I only ended up putting six minutes of original material into his score.”

Once Bernstein could only admire Herrmann from afar... a New York kid listening intently to the composer’s radio work. But when he eventually moved to Los Angeles, Bernstein was able to become close friends with his idol. “Composers used to spend a lot more time with each other, and go to recording sessions to offer creative input,” he recalls. “That let me meet Bernard as a colleague. I'd go to his home and talk about music and life. He'd be writing notes directly onto the scoring page, going from the film’s beginning as if he was jotting down a letter. That really astonished me, because I never knew how to start my scores. I'd always be trying to jump into the film's easiest section.”

Bernstein's desire to learn from Herrmann allowed him to become one of the composer's few confidants, spared from the bursts of artistic temperament that were as legendary as his scores. “Bernard was a very unusual person for Hollywood, because there's a give and take to working in this town. You have to deal with other people's aesthetics, and Herrmann's perfectionism made it very hard for him to deal with charlatans. That's why he basically ended up working for Hitchcock, because their relationship gave Bernard the creative expression he needed. But that was over the minute Hitchcock violated Herrmann's sense of purity by replacing his TORN CURTAIN score.”

Martin Scorcese's one teaming with Herrmann would result in TAXI DRIVER. Though he's rarely used traditional film music since, Bernstein feels that Scorcese’s grasp of popular tunes shows a real knowledge of scoring. “The biggest problem you have as a composer is a director’s ignorance of music, and the arrogance that usually comes with it. But Scorcese is an old-time fan. GOODFELLAS might be all rock and roll, but it's brilliant when you examine how he uses those records. He even gave me a 78 rpm recording of THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM to autograph. That shows how respectful Scorcese is of his colleagues, which is common among great directors. But he'd always be sure to offer comments about my work. About the third day into our CAPE FEAR recording sessions, I turned to Marty and said that we'd both be dead by now if we weren't pleasing Herrmann! His music is so well integrated into the film that audiences won't be consciously aware of it, but that won't stop them from being astonished.”

When it comes to his own groundbreaking work, Bernstein seems to shrug off his importance. “I've been very lucky to do a couple of seminal things but it wasn’t like I tried to score classic films. As Mark Twain would say, ‘They just seemed like a good idea at the time!’ The jazz in MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM told Hollywood that they could use a pop medium in a film, and that was long before rock and roll. I also had a tremendous impact on westerns, though you'd think Jerome Moross' music for THE BIG COUNTRY would have had more of an impact than my MAGNIFICENT SEVEN score. Then John Landis had the idea to compose ANIMAL HOUSE with the utmost seriousness, an idea which Ira Newborn followed with THE BLUES BROTHERS. But it's fine when people imitate my work, because composers have always been influenced by each other. SILVERADO is a lot like THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. Since Bruce Broughton is a first class musician, it's an honor to have him acknowledge any indebtedness to me. How many of my scores can you hear Aaron Copland in? We're all products of what's gone before.”

Though Elmer Bernstein has been doing some of his most beautifully innovative work with the Irish melodies of MY LEFT FOOT, the uptown beat of A RAGE IN HARLEM, and RAMBLING ROSE's Dixieland blues, the composer's dynamic reworking of CAPE FEAR truly promises to make him Hollywood-hot again. “I don't think CAPE FEAR says much about me, other than the fact that I love old movies and welcome the chance to resurrect their music,” Bernstein counters. “I got lost in comedies for 10 years, and was so fed up with their eventual stupidity that I stopped working for 12 months. Now if you look at the films I've done in the past two years, especially with RAMBLING ROSE and THE FIELD, you'll realize that I've come home. People are noticing me again.”

“Big films are scary these days, because that means a lot of studio pressure. I just want to do movies that have something in them for me,” Bernstein explains. “I might be composing for a Babe Ruth film, but right after that I'll be doing a Robert Redford picture about fly fishing. From a purely creative point of view, it's these kind of ‘little’ pictures that really matter to me. Because I've always told people that they should quit when they know how to ‘do it’, I've become determined to spend my remaining working years being challenged instead of collecting huge scoring fees.”

Cape Fear

Sat, 14 Oct 2023 13:05:50 GMT

Label: MCA
Catalogue No: MCAD 10463

Release Date: 1991

Total Duration: 43:01

UPN: 0-0881-10463-2-3

Many Hermann fans approached the 1991 version of CAPE FEAR with both hope and trepidation, wondering exactly how Elmer Bernstein would arrange Hermann's score from the original 1962 version. Therein lies the trick to enjoying this score to the fullest: put the 1962 version out of your mind. If one approaches this adaptation with expectations of hearing the old score verbatim, disappointment will result. Tempi are different (usually slower), certain musical ideas are quoted only momentarily, and then are never heard again (such as the short chase music at the end of “Love?”), and some of Hermann's sequences never made it into the new film. However, if listened to with the same openness one affords a new score, the score is able to exert itself and be judged on its own merits.

Bernstein supplies his own arresting main title music (in the beginning of the cue, “Max") stylistically matching Hermann’s sound, and interpolating Herrmann themes. At 2:39 into “Max”, the real Herrmann takes over. Basically from thereon, Herrmann’s oppressive feeling of tension and despair presses onward, uninterrupted by any moments of calm or hope. Some particularly chilling moments are the eerie, slow build-up of string dissonances in “Rape and Hospital” and “Teddy Bear Wired” - a slow, queasy descent into insanity; and the PSYCHO-like string chords during the latter part of “Strip Search”.

Although the brooding mood is occasionally broken up by a few slightly urgent moments, as in the beginning of “Houseboat”, and the coarse, high violins which open “Frightened Sam”, full-out fury is saved for “The Fight” and “Destruction”, in which Bernstein melds original CAPE FEAR themes with fragments of Hermann's unused TORN CURTAIN score, and some pseudo-Hermann original Bernstein. The power of this savage music, full of jabbing brass, is further intensified by the introduction of tympani, which have not been heard since the main title (and indeed were not present in any of the original CAPE FEAR, which was totally without percussion.)

Herrmann's music was fitted by Bernstein to the film with great care and respect for the music and the needs of the film, but on CD, the adapted score seems rather disjointed and repetitious. But there are some standout moments, and all in all it is fortunate to at least have a recording of this music in some form, in truly wonderful sound.

Jim Doherty - Originally Published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.11 /No.42 / 1992

An Interview with Jerome Moross

Sat, 14 Oct 2023 09:45:55 GMT

Jerome Moross in Conversation with Noah Andre Trudeau
Originally published in Music from the Movies Issue 1, 1992
Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Paul Place

I'll begin with a question that was suggested to me by Bernard Herrmann. Would you label yourself as a film music composer or a composer who writes film music?

I'd say a composer who writes film music.

Where would you place film music in relation to concert music.
Well, my main music has always been concert music and theatre music, and film music was after that.

But you consider it a form of theatre music, definitely.
Well you haven't got the control in film music that you have in theatre music. You don't have the final decision on the piece that you wrote for the job. You don't decide on the length of the composition; you’re writing to the scene that is finished. It is theatrical, of course, but it's a different kind of theatre.

You got started in the film music business as an orchestrator as I remember. What exactly did that entail? Obviously an orchestrator orchestrates, but actually there's more to it than that, isn't there?

Well, it goes according to the composers you work with. Some give you a completely laid out sketch and some give you a piano piece.

Did you work with any specific composers for any length of time?

Yes, during the war when I was at Warner Bros I was assigned to two composers especially - Adolph Deutsch and Freddie Hollander. Deutsch used to write everything down to the last sixteenth rest and Hollander used to write Chopin-like pieces which had to be turned into orchestral pieces. So it was a difference of style. Then of course we were all farmed out. If the studio was in a rush you'd be assigned to Steiner or anybody.

Did you work with some of the big ones like Steiner or Korngold?
Well Warner Bros. had loaned Steiner over to Selznick and I forget what picture he was doing but he got into some sort of problems and I remember I had to go over and help out on some of it. I never worked with Korngold although he was around the studio.

What was it like working with these prominent figures? You're in the golden years now...
Oh sure. You see my name on television at night as an orchestrator on a lot of the old Humphrey Bogart films. But I had already been performed. “Frankie and Johnny” had already been done at the Chicago Opera Ballet and I'd had a show done by the Theatre Guild. I had any number of concert and theatrical performances. Then I couldn't get a job in Hollywood. I was considered too wild. But I had to get something to do - I was very broke. An orchestration job came up and I took it and stayed with Warners for three years, then I couldn't take it anymore and I left. Then followed a peculiar period of about five years in which I would be in New York doing something - “Ballet Ballads” was produced during that time and other things - and when things would go bad I would go out and get an orchestration job. I rather liked that - it seemed easy. Then finally, in 1950, I got a composition job in Hollywood and from then on I began to be offered composition of pictures.

When you say you got out of orchestration because you couldn't take it any more, what was it you couldn't take? Was it the pressure of the work, or having to subjugate your own creative instincts?
Oh no, I didn't feel non-creative. As a matter of fact I really learned the orchestra then and I thought I was a good orchestrator when I began. There was nothing like this business of sitting and orchestrating away at ten or eleven in the morning and then getting on the stage in the afternoon and hearing it. You really learn what goes with the orchestra and you learn not to make orchestral mistakes. What I didn't like was the demands on my time and I began to feel that it was more and more cutting into what I wanted to do. And then you were always in a rush, always working all night long.

When you first started in film composition, I tend to think the films you got were small budget films.
They were low budget films and they were mostly dull but it was a better living than being an orchestrator. At the time I was fascinated with the theatre and I was writing things like “Ballet Ballads” and “The Golden Apple” and while both of these brought great personal satisfaction, they did not bring in any money. So I would have to run back to Hollywood and do something to let me write the next one.

But you didn't feel that you were lowering your standards by writing for films?
No. It was just another medium but one that wasn't most attractive to me.

Perhaps even in the best of your film scores, were you ever trying to make a certain musical statement either through the drama or through the music? Meaning were you trying to pass your own message along, your own commentary on the story?
Well you have to. You are underlining the story musically at that point for the audience and you've got to add to the film. You've got to heighten it or lower it or whatever the problem is but you're helping the film, you're helping the director, you're helping everybody. You're trying to make the best film you can. As far as musical statements go, I never felt I was writing any differently for a film than I would write for the concert hall or theatre. Perhaps you didn't have as much time to work on counter-points or something. You did certain things because there was lack of time, but there was no question of writing differently for films.

You obviously had to work with the director and the producer in film scoring. Did you ever have any great difficulties getting your ideas across to them? Did you ever want to try certain things that they turned down because of their lack of musical feeling or did you have a pretty good collaboration with the people you worked with?
I rarely worked with the directors. Occasionally I came in on a film early and worked with the director. Mostly, I was assigned the film after it was written. I would write the music afterwards and parts that they didn’t want they could drop out and they did quite often.

Are you concerned about the stigma that seems to go with the tag of “film music composer”? Do you think it's hurt the integrity of your serious music?
It hasn't hurt the integrity of my serious music but it certainly has hurt my acceptance. The serious composers immediately form a block, you're a film composer now and they have that. To try and break that is almost impossible. On the other hand, I have never seen any of them turn down a film except that now there are no films for them.

Do you find that film music itself is evaluated as music or that it hardly ever gets a good evaluation?
Well it's very difficult to say. I've made two orchestral suites out of film music. One is a suite from THE BIG COUNTRY and one is a suite called “Music From The Flick” which is from five early films which were of varying quality but there were five pieces in them that I liked. More than five pieces, I sometimes combine them. Anyway I made a film suite out of it. By the way, THE BIG COUNTRY had an enormous sale in records and gets played practically every day on some radio station or other. There are concert performances of it too, both here and in Europe.

In a sense then, it would be kind of ironic if you were to get back into the concert hall with film music which in a way got you out of the concert hall.
Well, yes, except THE BIG COUNTRY is meant for pops concerts and things like that. Our concerts have changed; we no longer have a varied programme. We tend towards those dreary Bruckner symphonies, you know. And gone are the days before the war when the programme had music of all sorts of interests. We now assign that to what we call our promenades or the pops concerts.

Could you perhaps in a general sort of way describe the process of how you wrote your film music? Did you usually come in after the completion of the film?
Yes, most of the time I came in after the film. Generally it was a very rough cut and I would sit down with the producer, or sometimes with the producer, the director and the music editor who would make notes, and we’d decide where the music would go. I had been schooled by Leo Forbstein at Warner Bros. and his theory was he never knew where the “top brass” would want music so he'd score almost everything. My tendency is pretty much the same way. If the scene is slightly dull, I say well lets put music in there, they can always throw it out. After we decide where the music is going to be, the music editor goes back and starts working with his Moviola and ends up giving me timing sheets which give a complete breakdown of each scene to be scored. I see the film work a few times then I take the sheets and start writing.

From there, you do a piano score?

Well I write in a kind of four or five line short orchestral sketch. If I have time to orchestrate it myself, I can work from that. If not, it's easy to mark down exactly what I want the orchestrator to do and then you move to the stage and start recording. Any final changes you want to make, orchestration or cutting or anything, you make then and there.

The studio orchestras must be quick readers.
They're brilliant. The studio orchestras, at least in the heyday of the film period, let us say between 1935 and 1965, were the most brilliant musicians in the country. I first arrived in Hollywood in 1936 and I was astounded by the quality of the orchestras. I wasn't working with films then, I was working for the Chicago Opera and instead of spending a dull winter in Chicago I had gone to Hollywood and it was very exciting then.

I guess the big money attracted the good talent.
The money attracted them but also they played all the time. They played all year round and in between there was a tremendous amount of chamber music going on. The musicians were marvellous. Every studio had an orchestra. Every studio had to have a minimum of men and there were about eight or ten big studios.

Did you ever write with a particular soloist from any of the orchestras in mind?
No, you scored for what the film wanted. They called in extra men or you didn't have to use the full orchestra if you didn't want to although everybody did. Because the orchestra wasn't that big we always wanted more strings. The only thing that would happen was that players would buy peculiar instruments and they would come rushing up to you and say they had a double bass oboe or something and suggest that you use that in your next film. So instead of using a bassoon you would use a double bass oboe and it would mean an extra few dollars for the player. Sometimes you did it just to be nice to him.

I'd like to talk specifically about those of your film scores that have been recorded. We'll talk about the biggest one first, which is of course THE BIG COUNTRY. It seems to me that there is something there besides just another western score. I have a feeling that you reacted to the drama in a very personal way.
Well I was very excited about doing that picture. It was my first really big picture. And it was a western and my own style is - unconsciously - American. I just write that way. It fitted the way I wrote and without knowing it I seem to have turned out the prototype western score. This is the way to do a western now - the way I did it in BIG COUNTRY. The style, the ambience.

You were one of the first American composers to score in this natural way. I mean, Steiner did his westerns but not in an indigenous American style.
There were other American composers but they all wrote that same way. Tiomkin would come along and do westerns with sad Russian songs in them. Their western was the western of the Russian steppes or the Hungarian plains but THE BIG COUNTRY was a western with American rhythms, American tunes and a boldness and brashness about it and this was the way to do a western.

After you did the film were you acclaimed for this score in any way or was it considered just another a job?
Most peculiarly, I think the composers in Hollywood realised it was something because I got the nomination from the Academy but I couldn’t possibly compete with the political goings-on.

Do you remember who won the Oscar that year?
Yes, Tiomkin won it with THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA. He really campaigned for that award.

THE BIG COUNTRY is still as fresh today.

It still goes on. It's still in print and it's lovely that it has that kind of insurance.

I can understand why the Europeans do the concert suite from it. It's because of that special sort of American quality that really few composers can achieve.
I think I achieved that quality even in the First Symphony. You can hear that same kind of quality.

Just as Korngold used a pot-pourri of his film themes in his violin concerto have you ever found yourself quoting some of your film scores in your concert works? I was thinking especially of your Sonatina for Clarinet and Choir, I mean that's got THE BIG COUNTRY written all over it.
No it hasn't. It has my style but it doesn't have a single theme or rhythm from THE BIG COUNTRY. I would love to use some of the melodies from my films. They'd make marvellous material, and I created a lot of material. There are all kinds of problems - copyright laws etc. The thing to do is to write new tunes.

An interesting paradox that strikes me is that in the concert hall it’s a rare composer who conducts but in film music it's a rare composer who doesn't conduct. I noticed you conducted a good many of your film scores. Was this always your own choice?
Well, when I went to the Juilliard, which was completely a fellowship school at the time, my fellowship was in conducting. I then discovered that I don't like conducting before an audience. I'm not an actor; I have no extraversions. But I discovered that in a theatre or on a sound stage I can conduct and I feel I can do my own scores better than anyone else. I knew exactly what I wanted. As soon as the opportunity came to conduct I took it.

I noticed you didn't conduct THE WAR LORD.
No I didn't conduct THE WAR LORD because the musical director of the studio insisted on doing that because otherwise he had no job.

Now the recordings from both THE BIG COUNTRY and THE CARDINAL - were they separate recordings made specifically for records?
No, they were the soundtrack. The records weren't made separately and THE BIG COUNTRY was recorded in Hollywood and THE CARDINAL was recorded in London.

Usually when you listen to something taken from the film score it tends to be shorter and more choppy. I'm surprised the recordings weren’t edited.
But sometimes the things were edited in the film. They went in and out of them. I believe in writing enough so that you do write a piece. Actually I wish that they would leave those things alone. I think the sense of form in a well-formed piece of music aids the scene it was written for but it's hard to sell that idea to a director. I'm talking about what happens in opera or a musical comedy even, or ballet where the roundness of the performance is aided by the music. Good ballets, most peculiarly, are always done to music which helps them formally.

In every case after you did a film score, did you see the finished product?
Yes.

Was there ever a case where a film was edited against your intentions?
Yes, one. And I was horrified. The producer wasn't in town. He was producing a play on Broadway and the director and I worked on the film and we finished what we thought was a very good film. The producer came back and he cut the film to hell and consequently had to cut the music and shift and change things. All kinds of incredible things happened and he destroyed a perfectly marvellous film and a perfectly wonderful score, if I may be immodest. But he destroyed the film too which was awful.

But it's still your name on the credits and possibly you might have to share the blame for this...
Right. The film was FIVE FINGER EXERCISE.

It's kind of a shame because if people start blaming you for it, they’ll curse you for that film not knowing that it wasn't your fault.
Well you've got to take your lumps.

Do you agree with someone like George Antheil who felt that a film score should also stand on its own as music?
I think mostly it should stand on its own as music, yes I do. It should have a validity, it really should. I haven't done that many films, but on the other hand if you do a lot of films I suppose you do get into the habit of saying, “well, this film is nothing very special, I'm doing it for X-amount of dollars and I'll just toss out something.” But I never felt that way about the films. No matter what they were I always tried to exert myself. Maybe it’s vanity, but it's also a feeling that perhaps I can help this film somehow.

Even those grade-B films that you started out with?
Naturally, and which I continued to do. Up until the last films I did I had grade-B films mixed with some big ones.

I take it THE BIG COUNTRY didn't open any doors. Did you start getting a lot of offers to do westerns after that?
Yes, I got offers for westerns. That became very tight, but then I got others. After THE BIG COUNTRY there was JAYHAWKERS and THE MOUNTAIN ROAD.

Sounds like a couple of westerns...
No, MOUNTAIN ROAD took place building the Burma Road in China or something like that. I forget exactly what it was.

Have you ever turned down the opportunity to do certain films?
Yes I have. I've turned down films for two reasons. Because I felt that they would do better with a jazz or rock score that I couldn't do or the last few films I've turned down because they've gotten too violent. Just the idea of writing violence for that length of time, I found very unattractive or unappealing.

So you were never concerned with whether the film had the potential to be a big film or not. It was just a specific task and you were out to do your best job whether you were scoring a film as big as THE BIG COUNTRY or as small as FIVE FINGER EXERCISE…
It's always a question of doing your best. Of course on a big film, quite often they will give you more time and more means and a bigger orchestra.

How much time would you say you got per film?
Well it varies. THE BIG COUNTRY took ten weeks. Some films I got four weeks. Most films are about one hour and forty minutes long and run to about thirty to thirty-five minutes of music. But THE BIG COUNTRY was three hours long and had seventy-five minutes of music which is as much as you write for two other films. And they could have used more music in it than they had.

Did they cut any music from the final product?
No, nothing substantial was cut out but they kept saying that they didn't want me to do music here and they didn't want me to do music there. When I realised the enormity of the work that was being asked of me, I agreed with them. I think that in the back of their minds was the fact that they were afraid that I wouldn't have time to do that much, but they could have used more music. I thought it was a good film. It wasn't very popular here. It just managed to make back its money, but in Europe it was enormously popular.

There's a real kind of motif in THE BIG COUNTRY. Did you quote an old western tune in that or did you create that motif?
No, I wrote it. I wrote every tune in it.

What do you recall of another western you did, THE PROUD REBEL?
PROUD REBEL was really a marvellous film. I really knocked myself out on it and so did the producer, Sam Goldwyn Jr. I thought it was a beautiful film and it just died. No film could have been prepared more lovingly or with more intent, acted better or anything. It's a marvellous film, but it died.

From what I heard of that score I tended to think that your writing wasn't as exuberant or as wide open as THE BIG COUNTRY.
It's a different subject. THE PROUD REBEL was kind of a human drama and THE BIG COUNTRY was more of an impersonal drama.

In your main title to THE CARDINAL there's an echo motif that strikes me as a baroque idea, a very medieval sound.
It's a baroque sound. THE CARDINAL main title was a walk through some sixteenth century castles and they put those shots together and you were entirely in a baroque world. I decided that musically at that point you had to throw your audience into that. You weren't going to be in a baroque world all the time although you were in it quite a bit. So it would have been silly to do anything but a baroque score.

If I can believe the liner notes on that album, I understand it was an exceptional situation where you were invited to attend the actual filming. Was that the first time you had come in early and how did you think it affected your music?
Well I'd come in early when I did things like the ballet sequence in HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. Actually what happened on THE CARDINAL was that Otto Preminger was dragging me all over Europe acting as a music department. We had a lot of pre-recordings for the ballroom scenes, for scenes with monks, we had to have music for this or that. It turned out he needed a lot of music to help in the making of the picture. Ordinarily in Hollywood the music department would deal with that but here on location I had to do it because Otto figured out that was the cheapest way of having a music department.

Do you really think it made a difference to your dramatic score, the fact that you were involved at every stage of the production?
I really don't know, I can't say. It was a different kind of experience, it was fun.

When you were required to write Dixieland jazz for this film, did you do a sort of pastiche of it, because obviously you were not a Dixieland composer?

No, but I used to play in a Dixieland band. I wrote out a piece and I called five guys together and we were on it until it was good for the scene and off we went. You can't write out the notes for a Dixieland piece. But you can rehearse with the men and work it out and that's what we did. The film itself required this kind of thing because it moved around so much. It required tango, it required Dixieland jazz, it required religious chants. So you had to write them.

Alright, let's move on to THE WAR LORD. This has a twelfth century setting but it's not really a period score. I was wondering why?
Well it was my idea. I mean I think it has an archaic sound, but it goes according to whose archaisms you're thinking of. We haven't the faintest idea what the music sounded like in the eleventh century. I just gave it an archaic sound; my idea of archaism. It's like the Debussy or Satie things of Greece. We now accept that as Grecian. You're not talking about accepting things as conventional. You're just reacting to the period and to the drama.

If you compare THE WAR LORD music to the music for IVANHOE or PRINCE VALIANT, films with a similar period setting, your music has a much more human and wistful quality than those others.
That's the way I felt about the film. Maybe what I was thinking about was tinged by the fact that I knew the play. The film doesn't follow the play too much except in broad outline, but I suppose the memory of the play was always with me.

I noticed that a certain segment of the score was composed by someone else. Was that a question of time pressure?
Well a strange thing happened on that score. When the film was finished a fight started with the studio on one side and the director and the producer on the other side. Both sides started cutting it. Actually they shouldn't have cut it at all. The director Frank Schaffner and the producer should have possibly stuck to their guns but it was a losing battle for them I suppose. When the film was longer, the breadth and perfection of the movement and the slowness of the piece created a feeling of speed. When the film was cut it lost that quality and became just an ordinary film. I had a ten week contract and I sat waiting while they were fighting this out. Finally after five weeks the film was cut down to the two hours they wanted. So I only had five weeks left with an enormous amount of music to write. I just had to farm out the two big battle scenes. Of course, everybody knows about it because when it came to putting it on the record I said you must give the author credit.

They were going to give you credit for the battle scenes?
Oh, sure, they do on all of them. I had to fight with Decca.

Now the fellow who did the battle scenes, did he draw on your material for the film? I mean you can notice the difference, but it fits very well…
I gave him some phonetic material but most of the time its brass chords hanging around, and drums. The usual thing in battles is to try to make as much sound as possible. With all the screaming and roaring and smashing of pikes and maces against metal and all the rest going on in a medieval battle I don't know why they want more noise but they always do.

Did you ever have to fight for a sequence where you thought the music was being overwhelmed by the dialogue or perhaps a sequence where you did something you thought clever but which was rendered practically inaudible in the dubbing room?
Yes, I might have done something very clever but if some important dialogue is being spoken, they're going to put you down. People will remember whether a line of dialogue comes out. They won't remember that you suddenly had an oboe d'amore doing a lovely turn. Actually you have no control over that. If I was staying in Hollywood after I was through with the film, I would go into the dubbing room and I would sometimes discuss things but most of the time I found that they would do it very well. They were being very fair to every element in the film. They really try to make as good a film as they can, they don't want to destroy any of the things they've paid for. They're not out to undervalue the music or undervalue the dialogue or the acting. They want at that point to make a very good film.

Did you ever have a score completely thrown out?
No. That happens.

I heard about the Alex North score to 2001.
Did that get thrown out? I knew somebody had done it, I didn't know it was Alex North. And then they re-scored…

They just used some classical themes.
Lots of people have had scores thrown out. Tiomkin had a score thrown out. But then that's the producers prerogative. They hire you to do something and if they can't get what they want, they can go and get someone else to do it.

On the subject now of liner notes written for soundtrack albums, I feel that those written for THE CARDINAL and THE WAR LORD are pretty insipid...
They're better than some of the things you buy. I bought a piano concerto by Lalo because it was quite rare and I wanted to have it. The liner note implied that it was a terrible piece. Well, no book jacket would ever say anything like that, they entice you to read it. But to pick up a recording and have them say it's an awful work is impossible to understand. Actually I didn't think the Lalo piece was that bad and I was furious at the man who wrote the notes. These people should not be critics. People who write liner notes are supposed to be like the people who write the blurb on the dust jacket of a book - they should draw you in to buy it.

Some notes, like those on THE WAR LORD are just superlatives about the score, calling it magnificent over and over again.
Well that's doing it the wrong way. But there is a way of doing it by being moderately or even immoderately enthusiastic about the piece and giving you all the musicological reference you need, if you're the kind of person, like myself, who wants to know everything musicological about the work.

What has been your most recent film score to date?
Well I did three films all together. I suddenly discovered that I had to buy this apartment that was going co-operative so I made a lot of calls and did these films boom-boom-boom, one after another. RACHEL, RACHEL was the first and I did one in England called THE VALLEY OF GWANGI, then one in Hollywood called HAIL, HERO. And that I think is the last one I'll do.

You say that with a finality. I take it you're not going back to Hollywood?
I don't have to. I don't think I'll do any more and besides the film music of today has moved into an area in which every film maker is hoping to get a big rock album or something out of it. The film music to aid the film is gone. The film music is going to be a separate commercial entity on its own after the film. There are some good films being made but they are few and there are a lot of people fighting for them. I'd just as soon sit back and write when I want to write.

What would you consider the major differences to be between the Hollywood at the time of your arrival there and the Hollywood as it is now?
By the time I began composing for films they had an entire set-up that was wonderful in Hollywood. There was so much at your service, whole departments knew how to aid you. It was all set up, you had no problems. But that aspect of Hollywood is over.

When you look back upon the film scoring you've done, would you describe the act of creating film music as a craft or as an art?
Let me say this. When you work on a film, you are an artist and you have a craft and you use both things. You write art and you use your craft to enable you to do it in that particular form of having a two minute episode and to say what you have to say in that limited amount of time. You may have five or six weeks to do a film, so your craft has to be handy. But if you want to write a good score you have to be an artist.

[Jerome Moross was talking to Noah Andre Trudeau in an American radio broadcast.]

To Kill a Mockingbird

Sat, 14 Oct 2023 09:07:49 GMT

Behind the Screen: To Kill a Mockingbird by Fred Karlin
Originally published in Music from the Movies Issue 22, 1999
Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Paul Place

The American Film Institute announced in June its list of “100 Years… 100 Movies,” a ranking of one hundred of America's best films made since the Edison Company first projected motion pictures at a public exhibition in New York City in April, 1896, as part of a vaudeville show featuring live acts. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, released in 1962, was ranked thirty-fourth, just after THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, ANNIE HALL, THE GODFATHER PART II, and HIGH NOON, and ahead of JAWS (forty-eight), VERTIGO (sixty-one), FORREST GUMP (seventy-one), and YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (one hundred). Why did fifteen leaders from the American film community place Mockingbird on this list, and what does this tell us about the movie and therefore the score?

Great films are usually about something - some subject, some overall dramatic theme. First on the AFI list is Orson Welles' 1941 classic CITIZEN KANE. The list continues: CASABLANCA, THE GODFATHER, GONE WITH THE WIND, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. True, these are big films, but with a dramatic theme at the core, nevertheless. Others on this list, however, are small, singular films with a message: ON THE WATERFRONT, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, and TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD are good examples.

If a film has a dramatic theme, then the music becomes significant in framing that theme, perhaps expanding it, focusing in on it, even giving it more scope and breadth than it might have otherwise. The composer must know what the film is about, and so must the audience. The concept of the score will often evolve from this overall dramatic theme or some aspect of it.

If the film has a complex interweaving of themes, finding just the right approach can be very difficult. “In many ways,” Elmer Bernstein has said, “TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD was one of the most difficult scores to write. I distinctly remember procrastinating for weeks before committing a single note to paper. The problem I was having related to what role the music should play in the film. The elements I was dealing with were those of a father's love for his children, the children themselves, a small town in the South, the depression, and racial bigotry.”

Ultimately Bernstein developed a concept that would work perfectly for the film. As he pointed out in his own journal in 1976 (Filmmusic Notebook Volume II, Number Three), “After some time it became clear to me that music could most help to create that special magic that is a children's imagination and that wonderful innocent and straightforward way that children see the world around them.” TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is a powerful indictment of racial bigotry and prejudice against the unknown, narrated by the young girl (Scout) as an adult looking back on her childhood experiences. The film is certainly about the beautiful innocence and nobility of childhood.

Once the composer decides on a concept, then other decisions follow more easily. Bernstein's score for MOCKINGBIRD is a definitive example of the use of small, chamber orchestra textures and dynamics to score a motion picture. Simplicity and subtlety are the musical and dramatic means to express the children's point of view. So we hear bell-like colours (piano, celesta, harp, vibes), and we hear light solo colours - especially piano and flute (note the unaccompanied single piano line at the opening, and the unaccompanied flute as the jury begins their deliberation); we rarely hear the cellos and double basses in their lower register, although they are sometimes playing; there are definite and specific dynamic shifts from soft to loud and back again, but the overall levels are not as great as in John Williams' score for RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK or even Bernard Herrmann's strings-only score for PSYCHO. Strongly played dramatic moments in MOCKINGBIRD include the appearance of a man's shadow as Jem crawls along Boo's porch, and the attack in the woods.

In order to reduce the overall level of the dynamic / dramatic range of the score, many of the moments in the film when the children are frightened are played more for mystery than terror or pure suspense. This keeps the score attached to the children. When the small boy rides on a train in WITNESS (1985) Maurice Jarre provides an air of mystery - something is going to happen, something unusual, something unknown. Perhaps something dangerous - we don't know. The music floats through the air in the mid-range, creating this atmosphere, as it often does in MOCKINGBIRD (although Jarre's music when used in this way is strictly a sustained sound used for atmosphere). Adding cellos and double basses to some of these moments would create an ominous tone for the film. Dramatically, had he done this, Bernstein would have replaced the children's curiosity in confronting the mysterious aspects of their small town with a much darker, more foreboding atmosphere. This would have changed the score from its intended concept and purpose. Therefore, several of the moments of the children's terror are played predominantly with woodwinds in the mid-upper register, including the cue that scores the appearance of a man who begins to cement the tree hollow.

Even the dubbing of the music onto the soundtrack contributes to this concept. Listen to the cue that begins as they all drive off after the dog is shot. In general, if you compare the original soundtrack recording on CD to what you will hear on a home video screening of this movie, you may be amazed at how much more dynamic range and low end actually exist in the score. The music levels on the film have sometimes been dubbed a bit softer than we are now accustomed to hearing, in keeping with Bernstein's concept (shared by producer Alan Pakula and director Robert Mulligan). Even so, the orchestra itself is small, and the overall effect on CD is, of course, much more intimate than the scores we now hear for big films such as ARMAGEDDON. Within this more subtle approach to texture and dynamics, bold changes make a significant emotional impact. When the children are attacked in the woods, the score's sudden aggressiveness is all the more telling.

Bernstein's excellent new recording of his score, on which he conducts the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, is available on Varèse Sarabande. Bernstein's score is impeccably phrased with the drama. There are examples throughout the film of the shifting or evolution of the score from one dramatic phrase to the next. Some moments to listen for: the dialogue scene between Jem and Scout at night as they discuss the gifts Jem has found in the hollow of a tree; Jem and Scout walking through the woods near the end of the film, followed by the attack; Boo and Scout talking at the end of the film while Jem sleeps.

Alan Pakula once observed that composers are afraid of silence. This is certainly not true of Bernstein, and there are marvellous silent moments within this score when the music pauses briefly before continuing again. Good examples of this include the cues scoring the attack in the woods and Jem crawling on Boo's porch, and the cue referenced above as Jem and his sister Scout talk about the gifts.

The long courtroom sequence is unscored, which is typical in films of any era. Courtroom scenes are usually presented as docudrama, and most filmmakers and composers choose to play them reportorially. Exceptions generally include scoring unusually powerful, significant emotional moments, and highlighting deep psychological insights. THE CAINE MUTINY, scored by Max Steiner and released in 1954, has no music during the entire court-martial hearing, even when Humphrey Bogart breaks down at the end. There is no score during the courtroom scenes of ANATOMY OF A MURDER (1959). THE ACCUSED (1988) has score in the courtroom only after the first verdict is read. A TIME TO KILL (1996) has one courtroom cue, after defendant Samuel L. Jackson testifies that he believes the rapists of his ten year old daughter deserve to die, and shouts, “I hope they burn in Hell!”

In A FEW GOOD MEN (1992), Marc Shaiman contributes a 1:15 cue (on the laser disc at 10:10 on side three) when one of the defendants agonises while testifying. The only other cues during any of the many courtroom scenes in this film are a short cue that begins on Jack Nicholson after he is arrested at the end of the film (38:48, side three) and the music for the long wrap-up scene which begins as the judge reads the verdict (39:43, side three).

After the dissolution of the studio contract orchestras in the mid-fifties, filmmakers and composers worked with different sounds and orchestral combinations when appropriate. Large orchestras still prevailed for epic pictures - Maurice Jarre's score for LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, which we'll look at in a future column, won the Oscar the year MOCKINGBIRD was released. But the films of the sixties stimulated a good deal of variety with scores such as THE PINK PANTHER (Henry Mancini), TOM JONES (John Addison), A PATCH OF BLUE (Jerry Goldsmith), and COOL HAND LUKE (Lalo Schifrin). Bernstein's score for TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD earned him his third Academy Award Nomination and has become a landmark score in the history of film music.

Somewhere in Time

Fri, 13 Oct 2023 09:17:49 GMT

Label: Varèse Sarabande
Catalogue No: VSD 5911

Release Date: 1998

Total Duration: 41:24

UPN: 0-3020-65911-2-5

“I think that in a sense music is the highest of the arts, because it really begins where the others leave off,” wrote C.S. Lewis in his book “They Stand Together.” Of course, when wonderful, emotional… nay, wonderfully sentimental music appears wrapped in resplendent layers of those ‘lesser’ arts, one may then call the result a complete joy. This is an attractive release, from the heartfelt reading by John Debney and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra to the lavish cover painting by Matthew Joseph Peak. Honest sentimentality, so wrongly and maliciously maligned by cynics, receives a warm embrace.

As a reminder of the feelings a romantic film score can generate, this expanded re-recording of John Barry’s classic score soars, and reaches down to touch the soul. The original “Somewhere in Time” recording was hapless. Murky sound, remastered or not, is murky sound, and the limited selections did not do the score justice. For those cynics who already met Barry’s somewhat obsessive fondness for whole notes with OUT OF AFRICA and DANCES WITH WOLVES, the presence of yet more sluggish film scoring may sound unthinkably dull. However, this is a real eye-opener. While the album has its share of melancholy, most of the score revolves around the beautifully plush main theme – composed with the same liquid style Barry used in MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS and would later use in OUT OF AFRICA and DANCES WITH WOLVES, among others.

What sets it apart from the rest is that it has feeling. John Barry can write music that is note-perfect and a surefire ear-pleaser, but the music ultimately must succumb to pure feeling if it is to connect with the listener in a profound way. The only quibbles are with pianist Lynda Cochrane’s occasionally mechanical performance, strange noises in “Rowing,” and the tiny cursive listings on the back that are liable to make someone cross-eyed. Still, virtually everything about Varese Sarabande’s re-recording exudes sincere artistry. The music is exquisite, the playing is top-notch, someone remembered to include Rachmaninoff’s gorgeous 18th variation from his “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” (always a plus), the sound is quite near being utterly superlative, the liner notes are perfectly appropriate, and the packaging is heavenly. It is the ideal recording for the soundtrack-lovin’ romantic.

Jeffrey Wheeler – Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.18 / No.69 / 1999

Tai-Pan

Fri, 13 Oct 2023 09:07:01 GMT

Label: Varèse Sarabande
Catalogue No: VCD 47274

Release Date: 1986

Total Duration: 36:59

UPN: 0-801439-900097

The first question that comes to mind: “Is TAI-PAN a repeat of SHOGUN?” The answer is no. The second question that follows: “Is TAI-PAN a good album?” Well, sort of Maurice Jarre sets the tone for his TAI-PAN album right away in this full sweeping orchestral score. The “Main Title“ is a grandiose, percussive one complete with standard Alex North oriental ornamentation and some familiar if awkward Jarre modulations. Probably the best thing about the main title is that it evokes pleasant memories of better oriental scores, like THE SAND PEBBLES. However, it is still an aesthetically appealing exercise in orientalism but without much thought or intellect.

The second track, “Macao“, is a delicately orchestrated, mezzo-piano track with listenable solos by string instruments, clarinet, oboe, and flute. There is also a flowing love theme that is nicely developed if a little over-dramatic on the percussion and rolling timpani (it makes Rozsa’s cadences sound subtle). Much of the rest of the album is of a brooding nature.

The most distinctive characteristic of this score is the contrast between impressionistic reflective sections and louder, more percussive sections. There are no surprises in TAI-PAN, just pleasant listening without originality. The fact that Jarre took this assignment, is an indication of his desire to be eclectic and he has separated himself away from SHOGUN enough to make TAI-PAN worth a listen, albeit with his stylistic trademarks both good and bad.

Actually, one of the more pleasant trends in film music of recent years is the graduation of Jarre from a composer and scorer of ineptitude and vulgarity into one of considerable inventiveness and sensitivity. TAI-PAN is not a direct reflection of this, but is still a listenable album and a lot more than this banal film deserved.

Kevin Mulhall – Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.6 / No.21 / 1987

An Interview with Maurice Jarre

Fri, 13 Oct 2023 07:43:01 GMT

An Interview with Maurice Jarre by Daniel Mangodt

Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.12 / No.45 / 1993

Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ve n

I've been a fan of Maurice Jarre's music all my life. In 1984 I saw his ballet Notre-Dame de Paris in a choreography by Roland Petit and I attended two of his concerts at the Barbican: the first in 1985, with David Lean present and the second in 1991 in honor of the director. Each time I was able to attend the rehearsals and in spite of a maddening schedule, Maurice Jarre always had time for a few words. During these concerts Jarre proved to be an admirable entertainer with the short speeches he made.

Late last year he was invited to Düsseldorf by Udo Heimansberg (also a Jarre fan for many years) for the premiere of the composer's new film AGAGUK (SHADOW OF THE WOLF) which was held at Udo's cinema November 12. There was a press conference November 11 and Maurice once more turned out to be the perfect causeur. In an inimitable way, and not without some irony, he talked of the many experiences he has had in a career that spans more than 30 years in film music.

The following is a brief résumé of many of the interesting comments of the press conference, followed by the interview proper. There are two ways to compose music for a film: there is a good way and there is a bad way. Too often only the bad way is possible: not enough time, last minute changes, problems with the director, the producer, and so on… A good way is possible, but then you must work with people like Peter Weir, Volker Schlöndorff, David Lean. Georges Franju...

There are three kinds of directors: the first kind are the musically cultivated ones like Zeffirelli, Weir, Visconti, Schlöndorff. The second kind are those who actually don’t know anything about music, but who express their ideas with feelings, with images. David Lean is a case in point. When Lean was explaining the beach scene in RYAN’S DAUGHTER to Maurice, he said. “It's a beautiful scene, they are on the beach, it's beautiful weather, but there is something wrong. The music should come from here” and Maurice stood up and pointed to his groin. The third kind are those who think they know everything about music, but they don't and they spoil everything by giving the wrong directions. Jarre is so gentlemanlike that he didn't give any names, too bad.

Jarre left France because the French were driving him crazy. Not Franju, of course. Jarre still thinks very highly of the late Franju - and with good reason. After all he owes a lot to Franju and to Jean Vilar, the director of the TNP (Theatre National Populaire). He clearly admits that these were the best years of his life.

Jarre commented that he won't be doing NOSTROMO, if it is eventually made (there are plans to make the film after all), because he would consider it a betrayal to David Lean and he certainly won't be doing GHOST II, because he dislikes sequels.

Jarre loves to travel. Sometimes he visits locations, for instance for THE MESSAGE and for THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY. He was forced to use electronics for this film, because of some problems with the musicians who refused to work for the film company. He composed the music for THE MOSQUITO COAST before shooting started and Peter Weir tried to edit the film to the music. In fact Jarre had to write a completely new score to adjust to the film.

He told some wonderful stories about Italy, Japan, India (he had to write the Indian music in a special notation, because the musicians couldn't read the music), David Lean, Hitchcock, etc. Maybe one day he'll decide to write an autobiography. He has so many anecdotes to tell.

After the showing of AGAGUK, it was signing time for the fans and Jarre didn't disappoint them. When he was asked to sign Silva Records's release of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, it became clear he's still bearing a grudge about this re-recording. “This CD belongs in the dustbin”, he stated. Maybe one day he'll tell us what went wrong.

At the age of 68 Maurice is still a handsome man (as a matter of fact there were many female fans present, which shouldn't surprise us). In 1952 Elisabeth Barbier wrote about him: “Ce garçon aux yeux bleus, qui a l'air d'un adolescent angélique, est à son aise dans le surnaturel, voire l'inquiétant. Quoi d'étonnant? Il est en réalité, un possédé. De l'espèce tranquille, mais un possédé bel et bien.” (Présences Contemporaines: Musique Française / Jean Roy. - Paris : Nouvelles Editions Debresse, 1962, p. 444) (Freely translated, it means, “This young man with blue eyes, with the face of an angelic adolescent, feels at ease with the supernatural, even the disquieting. What's so amazing about it? Actually he is possessed. In a mild way, but possessed anyway”).

Could you tell us something about your last film AGAGUK. What's it about?

It's the second film I've done for Jacques Dorfmann (the first was LE PALANQUIN DES LARMES). He is a young director who is still learning. It’s more out of friendship I wrote this music for him. It’s an interesting picture. We know very little about the Inuit society. The eskimos are a really strange people, their way of living is strange, mainly because they have to fight the cold. They have interesting customs. It's a very primitive society.

What interested me was the challenge. There is basically no Inuit music. They have drums - not a variety of drums - but basically one drum, a kind of moon-shaped drum and they don't have a kind of chant, they have some mumbling (Jarre imitates this). There are only 2 or 3 notes in this kind of primitive chant. When there is an ethnic element involved I always try to use ethnic sounds. In this case I couldn't do too much, because there was not much variety. So basically I used a normal symphonic orchestra, because it's a big space and I used one Inuit female voice which I doubled and tripled and quadrupled to make a kind of little choir. When the wolf appears - the wolf in this case is not really one animal, it's more than that, it's a symbolic creature: it represents the soul of the shaman - I try to identify him musically and I gave this kind of choir a little bit of electronic background.

So finally there are two different kinds of music: the big orchestra and this strange combination of voice and electronics. Later on when we don't see the wolf, we play its music without seeing the animal, the audience knows the wolf is around. Again it's not the animal, it's threatening.

As in JAWS. Do you also reflect the savagery of that society in your music?

I tried to do it. There are two different orchestrations. First one normal classical orchestra with strings, woodwinds, etc., and the second is an orchestra without any strings at all, just basses, including 8 horns and 8 Wagnerian tubas, which give this score a kind of savagery, plus percussion and a baritone saxophone to emphasize the basis of the thing, and also to give a little touch of the sinister: this big icy frozen space gives you a frightening feeling. We realise that these people live there all year long and they have no chance to survive without weapons to get their food. It's worse than in Africa. I suppose dying from hunger and cold is even worse.

About your use of electronic music... In an interview about 20 years ago you were asked about the use of electronic music and you were not very enthusiastic about it. Since then you have written about 15 scores with electronic music. Why this sudden about-face?

First of all, when we talk about 15 or 20 years ago the use of synthesizers was very depressing, because film producers thought when they had one synthesizer and one player they could double or triple the instrument and try to make a big sound and replace an orchestra, which is ridiculous. That's why I was totally against this electronic business at that time.

Especially on television, you have one synthesizer player doing exactly what I was afraid of: just playing track after track after track and sounding awful, just trying to imitate strings. No synthesizer - even the most sophisticated one - can imitate the sound of violins or the viola. The celli and basses can be played rather close to the sound of real celli and basses. With electronics you can never replace an orchestra, that's why I was so much against it at the time.

With technology evolving and the evolution of digital recording we started to create a new tool for the composers. Instead of thinking about imitating orchestral instruments to save money or trying to put more tracks above the other ones, I began to realize we could do something totally different and that's why I think - and I'm saying this without any pretensions - the score for WITNESS showed the way for a different attitude towards electronics. From a financial point of view scoring WITNESS (with electronics - DM) must have cost much more than if I had done the same number of sessions with a normal 80 piece orchestra.

You had very good synthesizer players, like Michael Boddicker…

Exactly. People like Ralph Grierson, Rick Marvin, Michael Fisher, Judd Miller. Besides, I didn’t work with one synthesizer, I worked with the electronic musicians like a chamber music type of orchestra. So each player had five or ten different synthesizers and with six or seven instrumentalists you have an unbelievable choice of sound. With the electronic genius of the E.V.I. (Electronic Valve Instrument), which was invented by Nyle Steiner (it’s a kind of woodwind electronic instrument) you can create a human sound instead of staying on the keyboard synthesizer and using this as a complement to the normal synthesizer it gives another dimension. I also try to use some ethnic element, like for instance the Japanese Shakuhuchi (bamboo flute), or something like that. So the music I wrote for films like FATAL ATTRACTION, NO WAY OUT, MOSQUITO COAST and JACOB'S LADDER uses electronics in a totally different way.

That's why I changed my opinion. And it's also very interesting to mix some electronics with orchestra - I was not the first composer to do that, Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner did it first. But WITNESS was definitely something a little bit new as far as an electronic approach was concerned.

During this time I heard someone from the musician’s union saying: Oh, my God, Maurice Jarre is doing something very dangerous because now we are going to have electronics replace a live orchestra. That was totally wrong. As I told you, scoring WITNESS cost much more money than with a live orchestra. Besides, you can't use electronics the way you can use a big acoustic orchestra and vice versa. They both have their reason for existence.

I think the “Building the Barn” scene in WITNESS is a copybook example of beautiful scoring, yet people are asking why you didn't use a normal acoustic orchestra?

Well, first of all there are some sounds I couldn't get from a normal orchestra. That's one thing. Then we come back to the basic concept of the music for WITNESS. When I was asked to do WITNESS, I started to study the music of the Amish society, and I discovered that just any kind of instrument in this society was considered to be more or less the weapon of the devil. Consequently I thought if I was going to put any kind of acoustic instrument in the score, it would not be right, because the Amish society does not allow musical instruments, so I choose to use electronics.

The second reason is the Amish have a different, clean way of life. So clean that's it's almost close to coldness and to express this coldness it was more interesting not to use vibrato instruments like strings and even woodwinds. In a way the electronic quality of the synthesizer, the E.V.I. and electronic percussion create a little coldness and these are the two reasons I didn't want to do it with a conventional classical orchestra. But for the concert performances I made a transcription for “Building the Barn” for orchestra and it’s interesting to hear the sound. If I had to redo WITNESS without any financial limitations, I'd exactly have done the same thing.

I still think it sounds beautiful in electronics, it really gives you the kind of atmosphere it needs. When I heard it in concert, it sounded a bit Coplandesque to me.

It's a very classical form of music, it’s a passacaglia. It's a nice compliment you gave me. Coplandesque means more classical things. That's why Peter Weir and I chose to have this special feeling, this special sound.

Did Peter Weir use a temp track for this scene?

Yes. Peter Weir used a piece he loved: a canon by Pachelbel. He edited the film to the music. So I was confronted with this temp track, it worked so well in the film. When we were ‘spotting' the film. Peter said, “In this case I put in music I love so much, I think I'm going to keep it. You may try to score this scene if you want to do something, but I think I will keep the music”. It was a big challenge for me. I came back to my office and I started thinking about this piece and I studied how he had edited it to the music. I made some kind of map of the dynamics of the cut and I started to write the theme I wrote for the film and started to adjust my music to this map, completely technically.

I hadn't completely finished the music, I was playing with the musicians and Peter arrived a little bit earlier than expected and he asked “What is that?” I said it was my suggested piece of music for the barn scene. He said: “That's great, that’s fabulous!” and he started to be very excited and he never mentioned the Pachelbel canon again.

So you won from Pachelbel! You also won from Mozart…

I was lucky this time that Mozart wasn't eligible. AMADEUS was filmed at the same time as PASSAGE TO INDIA.

Sometimes you combine electronic music with a solo instrument, as for instance in GABY, A TRUE STORY, which is a marvellous film.

I agree with you completely; a small, but very good movie. I used a cello in combination with electronics. That's also a thing I like to explore: the mixture of a solo acoustic or ethnic instrument with an orchestra or with electronics. In GABY it was interesting to have this solo because there is no way to confuse the cello solo with any kind of electronic imitation of a cello, plus a group of synthesizers.

The cello is a warm instrument.

Absolutely, but not sentimental. A good film should never be sentimental. At times very sensitive or touching, but sentimentality is a thing I always try to avoid in any kind of music.

You work with people like Christopher Palmer, Michel Mention, Richard Bowden. How is your relationship with your collaborators?

For me, orchestration is a part of the work of the composer. When you have a long score, and you don't have too many weeks to complete the assignment, you need someone to help you, but help is very dangerous, because for me orchestration is the color of the score and if you don't have somebody who does exactly what you want, you've got problems.

Sometimes the orchestration is basically a copy of a smaller map you have. Fused to have specific instructions on what you call a sketch - in fact it's a very sophisticated sketch - and I'm very careful about using percussion, or about using a new electronic instrument. Even Christopher Palmer, who is one of the most intelligent and most musically cultured people I know - sometimes he doesn’t know what I mean by E.V.I. or which sound I want to introduce electronically. If I don't put the maximum of information on my sketch, he will probably make a wrong decision, if it's not the right combination with the electronics I'm using.

When you find a collaborator like Christopher, it’s very good, but I'm always open to different people, because you're never married. It's the same with a director, I don’t want to do all the films of a particular director. But of all the people I worked with, Christopher is probably the best.

You like percussion. You started as a percussionist with Pierre Boulez in the late forties. I remember that the main title for DIE BLECHTROMMEL consists only of percussion and even so at one particular moment you hear a theme coming out of the percussion.

Again, DIE BLECHTROMMEL means exactly what it means. You have a tin drum which has a metal sound. I try to bring the audience in the right mood from the beginning with all these sounds by different drums. The main character is a boy who doesn't want to grow up. I used a different kind of percussion instrument, called a flexatone, which does ‘djinn’, some kind of a little bell, it makes people think of children but it also sounds a little strange, you hear there's something wrong. It's not a nice nursery rhyme.

I believe you used the same instrument for Michael's Theme in RYAN'S DAUGHTER?

Not exactly the same instrument. That was a different combination, even weirder. In DIE BLECHTROMMEL, there was only a little touch of that. He's not the same character as Michael. He's still a child, with a little purity in a way. That's why he such a fascinating character. The creature of Michael on the other hand is very disturbed, in almost a demented way. I used an even stranger combination if I remember well: there was a cymbalon, a salterio, a zither, a kamanche (a kind of oriental, single string violin). It was an interesting combination to orchestrate for. You see, when you have a problem like that, you can’t give it to an orchestrator and tell him. “Try to do something with it”. You have to write exactly, for each instrument, what you want to obtain.

That's one of the reasons why I like your music: you are always looking for the exotic, the ethnic.

And I like that. Unfortunately you sometimes have big problems trying to find a player who can play these instruments well enough, and also trying to find someone who can read the music. In many cases you have to practically spend hours rehearsing with these people. Now it's fantastic, you have a sampling and you take one note of a strange instrument like, say, a Gambian instrument - for instance the kora - which is a very difficult instrument to play and it's very difficult to find a player - and you sample that and you play it on the keyboard like the most virtuoso kora player!

The problem was even worse when I was doing ZHIVAGO. I did not want to have 2 or 3 balalaikas, but an orchestra of 25 people. I was lucky enough to find these 25 people in Los Angeles, but they couldn't read music. So I had to teach them the 16 bars of “Lara's Theme” and when we recorded the music, I had a symphonic orchestra in front of me and my balalaika players on my right, I had to mime with my mouth just to show them which kind of rhythm they should play. It worked well, but it was much more difficult than with people who could read music.

You like to use several instruments at the same time, for instance you used a dozen harps in RYAN'S DAUGHTER…

Eight (on the record sleeve it says 9, so we were both wrong - DM.)

Twelve pianos in PARIS-BRÛLE-T-IL to illustrate the Germans marching through Paris…

The reason why they say Maurice is becoming really crazy now, he wants to use 12 pianos.

You mean, you were being criticized at the time for using so many pianos?

Sure. There is a reason why I used 12 pianos and not 8 or 6. Unfortunately we didn't have a really good engineer and the effect I wanted was not realised completely. When we rehearsed the beginning of IS PARIS BURNING?, the idea was not to use the cliché of percussion illustrating the marching goose steps into Paris (Maurice imitates the Germans marching), but instead of that starting with one piano, just playing a cluster on the lowest part of the piano and add two pianos, and then three... to give the feeling we were surrounded. We felt the Germans marching into Paris with this kind of sound and when we played that in the recording studio, the director and the producer were absolutely astonished by the strength of this music at the beginning. But we don't hear that very clearly on the record or on the soundtrack, because unfortunately at that time il was not a digital sound and because there was a large orchestra, they didn't have enough microphones to put on the pianos. Can you believe that? That was ridiculous, and again the engineer was not a first-class engineer. The effect was no right.

Sometimes you use a large orchestra sometimes one instrument only. There is a beautiful scene in DIE BLECHTROMMEL, ‘La Poste Polonaise’ where you imitate a Chopinesque waltz, which starts and then stops, starts again and stops again about 5 or 6 times. It is an example of counterpoint scoring.

When we talked about this sequence with Schlöndorff - who by the way is one of the most musically cultured directors I have ever worked with, together with Peter Weir and Visconti - he told me it's a really dramatic and important sequence for me, maybe we ought to add some military drums to emphasize the strength of the military, the tanks, making the scene stronger by adding some more percussion. I said let me think it over. I was fascinated by this scene and I said I felt we could do better by just adding percussion.

And one day I said to Schlöndorff, “Look, maybe it would be interesting to do the contrary and play the music against the scene: we see a very dramatic scene with a lot of explosions. Polish Post means Poland. What means Poland musically to the audience? They immediately identify it with Chopin, a romantic Chopin waltz. Let's say I play the piano just with one hand, a kind of little waltz à la Chopin (Maurice hums the waltz) with silence”, and suddenly Volker looked at me and said, “That's great, Maurice. You know what I’m going to do: I'm going to stop practically all the sound effects and make them sound as if we hear them in the snow, something very muted, very dampened.” So in this scene we see some horrible things with ... (Maurice hums the music again) with ‘chew’ instead of ‘bang, pang’. In this case we have a dramatic scene with music totally scored against the film. That's an example of how I like to use music.

Unfortunately again, critics sometimes accuse the composer when they don't like the music in a particular scene. It's not the fault of the composer, it's the fault of the director who forces the composer. You are hired to execute more or less the feelings of the director. You can argue, but at one point you have to do what he says, what he asks. Also, the quantity of the music may be a problem. Always when I see a film I want to have much less music, because music is supposed to say something. If you see a scene and it's very well done, why put more sugar on the cake in this case? It's very aggravating. I have had lots of experiences with directors who are a little bit insecure, they don't trust some scenes (to work on their own) and they think the music will give more information to the audience. If the music only illustrates the film, we just don't need the music.

Personally I think there is a little bit too much music in RYAN'S DAUGHTER…

That was part of the criticism, but I don't think so. You see, the film arrived at the wrong time. There was a lot of snobbery. Any film made for less than $200,000 was obviously a very good film, even with a lot of bad music, very badly recorded.

With RYAN'S DAUGHTER we tried something the critics didn't get and the film was attacked, even slashed. I still think it is one of the best films ever made. Now it's going everywhere. Now they love the movie. When A PASSAGE TO INDIA was released, I was stupefied to read in Time magazine (by a critic who panned RYAN'S DAUGHTER 15 years ago): “Oh my God, David Lean did this beautiful film, A PASSAGE TO INDIA, but remember RYAN’S DAUGHTER and DR. ZHIVAGO and even LAWRENCE OF ARABIA.” They called it the sand opera at the time.

Sometimes you work for fairly unknown directors, for instance William Richert who did WINTER KILLS and THE AMERICAN SUCCESS COMPANY…

I'm not being sarcastic, but you see, the fact that they are fairly unknown is probably because they deserve to be. In the case of Bill Richert it was a very difficult subject (WINTER KILLS) and unfortunately in Hollywood, if a film flops and you do another film with the same result, that's it. You are then totally ignored. He hasn’t done anything since. I think it's wrong, because this film about the Kennedy business was a very interesting movie with John Huston playing a marvellous villain.

I have another example, a very interesting film called JACOB'S LADDER. No success at all. The film was a little bit too complicated for modern audiences. They want to understand everything very fast and that's the reason why we have less and less intelligent films, because people want to go and see films like BATMAN, or LETHAL WEAPON Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8! It's very sad. I don’t criticize pictures like these, but you shouldn't make several sequels when you have had a successful movie.

You have scored several westerns, I particularly like VILLA RIDES!

VILLA RIDES! was not a very good film. It was a good subject, but not really a good film and I'd love to do westerns. One of my favorites was THE PROFESSIONALS. Buzz Kulik was a nice man, but he was not really equipped to do a really good film.

There was something missing and your music couldn't save it completely. You also did EL CONDOR…

That was interesting again. Here it was not the fault of the director or the producer, but of the studio which went bankrupt and didn't distribute the film very well and didn't make any effort to promote the film.

MANDINGO?

That was really a mistake. Sometimes you read the script, you think it's going to be a good movie, you sign the contract and then you are confronted with a very bad picture.

(The interview had to be interrupted here because other journalists were waiting to take Daniel's place - if you can get an hour with a well-known composer like Maurice Jarre you can count yourself lucky - but we hope this conversation will be resumed at a later date. Special thanks to Udo Heimansberg for making the interview possible. LVDV)

An Interview with Georges Garvarentz

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 13:25:44 GMT

An Interview with Georges Garvarentz by Philippe Loranchet
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.11 / No.44 / 1992
Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

Georges Garvarentz is perhaps one of the least talked about of the great French film composers. Paradoxically, however, he is the man who has had the most success in the top 50, with famous songs such as “Retiens la nuit” and “Pour Toi Arménie”. Of the same generation as Michel Legrand and Georges Delerue, he has composed the music for hundreds of films since the 60s. He moved to the USA in the 70s, where he pursued an international career, returning regularly to France. His frequent travels and workaholism unfortunately led to a heart attack, from which he is slowly recovering. He was kind enough to answer Soundtrack's questions, and we take this opportunity to thank him once again and wish him a speedy recovery. The interview begins when the cassette is changed in the recorder. The cassette that came out of the machine was Borodin's Symphony no. 1.

Aren't 19th-century Russian composers the precursors of symphonic film music?

Absolutely, because they were composers of ballet and spectacle. The Korsakovs and Tchaikovskys needed to compose for the stage, for dance, which is like cinema: there's an image. There's no doubt that these musicians influenced composers... especially American ones. You know, we shouldn't be ashamed to say that we've been chasing Americans for half a century; we have to admit that they know how to make films. When Mr. Truffaut came back from shooting Steven Spielberg's CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, he said with modesty: “Finally, I've seen how films are made, I feel like I've never made a film”. You'd have to be as generous as Truffaut to say that. Over there, nothing is left to chance. Here, very often, the subject is badly written, the dialogues are not finished... There was a time when we knew how to make cinema in France, then came the time when we had to make films with 1.5 million Francs, we called it the new wave.

Did film music suffer as a result?

Of course it has! Because when the director is unsure of his work, he asks the composer to take a back seat. So as not to “eat up the images”, as they say. The writing of the film has to be as good as the music. At that point, there's no longer any struggle, there's only complicity.

What good French films come to mind?

At the moment, there are Jean-Jacques Annaud's films, among others, and all those films with Gabin.

How well did you know this period?

Yes, I did the music for almost all Denys de La Patellière's films, starting with UN TAXI POUR TOBROUK.

Your first film score?

Yes, and at first I didn't want to do it because it seemed so complicated. I'd read the script by chance and thought that a Handel hymn would be perfect to turn into a military march. The suggestion was made to the film's composer, who didn't understand, so the director (Denys de La Patellière) asked me to start work, and little by little what I was doing was used, so I signed the music. At the time, there were maybe a million electrophones and we sold a million and a half records! I signed a 3-year contract with the producer and off we went.

Are you classically trained?

Yes, my father was a musician, but initially it was my sister who was predestined to become a professional musician. She spent eight hours a day at the piano, so I was given a violin, which I later used to write for strings.

For which film did you first use a full orchestra?

For MARCO THE MAGNIFICENT (1965) with Anthony Quinn.

Was that your first epic score?

Yes, even more than epic, since I got the Vatican medal for it, let's say “epic christiano”! (laughs)

What was your source of inspiration?

At the time, I listened a lot to the classics: Bartók, Prokofiev, Stravinsky. I hope I've done something completely different.

Did you use atonal harmonics?

Atonal, yes, but not like Schoenberg. I don't do mathematics in music, which basically says that two identical notes must be separated by at least twelve other notes. I'm not a dodecaphonist at all.

Do you compose a theme for each character?

That's a good question, because that's the classic school of film music, but you have to be careful not to overwhelm the audience. Film music is above all symphonic writing. The greats of film music: Steiner, Waxman are German symphonists who left Germany because of the arrival of Hitler (in fact, Steiner was Austrian and left during WW1 - LVDV). They dreamed of composing symphonies and ballet music, but in order to eat, they had to put their musical knowledge and their formidable desire to write at the service of what was there: that is, films. They literally went wild. When Miklos Rozsa worked on BEN-HUR, he first composed a complete symphonic work as soon as he knew the story. That's how lazy he was! Then, when he saw the images and had to time the pieces, he sort of stole from himself, drawing from his symphony the themes he'd already composed. In fact, he recently recorded this symphony with the New York orchestra.

Do you know Miklos Rosza?

Miklos Rozsa gives lectures at universities to teach musicians about the relationship between music and images. I met people like Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams there, after he composed E.T.! Over there, you learn from experience. Let's take an example. In a film, two sequences follow one another; the first highlights the music, the second is very strong from a dramatic point of view. The composer needs to know how to remove the music from the first sequence to better reinforce its effect on the second. Keeping the music on both sequences would take the breath away from the second. These are little things that only experience can teach you.

Are you attached to a particular director?

No, not really, but I understand that you can be, like Williams / Spielberg or Lai / Lelouch, it's a question of chemistry.

What do you think of composers who give concerts?

It's wonderful, I gave one myself for TRIUMPHS OF A MAN CALLED HORSE. Music is perceived differently. All at once, everyone can imagine images. I myself have had chills at Goldsmith concerts and, without false modesty, I'm not ashamed to say that I get chills listening to my music!

Speaking of thrills, I personally got some when I heard your music for the Franco-Romanian TV series GUILLAUME LE CONQUÉRANT.

Yes, it was pretty good. In fact, the credits were played in Bayreuth alongside Wagner. It made quite an impression on me. But this music is Miklos Rozsa's influence, and I kept thinking, “How would he have composed this sequence?”

Do you use the synthesizer?

Yes, I have, but I find it a bit easy. When you've got the rhythm, everything sounds good.

What do you think of Jerry Goldsmith's use of it?

Goldsmith uses it to create new sounds. But given enough time, he's one of the very best. He was a pupil of Lionel Newman, who was never a great composer, because he was a bit crushed by his brother Alfred, but he was a very good teacher.

He also orchestrated music for Goldsmith.

In fact, in the United States, it's quite common. There's also Arthur Morton, an orchestrator who works for both Goldsmith and Williams. It's worth noting that these composers keep a very close eye on orchestration, as they are also capable of orchestrating. It's the same for me. If an arranger changes a note or a harmony, I'll kill him on the recording! In the United States, there are orchestrators' offices! At Paramount, there are doors marked "love scenes", "battle scenes", there are specialists. You put the pig in at the entrance, the sausage is ready at the exit! Goldsmith and Williams, given the time they have available, are obliged to entrust part of the work to an orchestrator; sometimes, they take on a particular orchestrator for a special scene. There's also the time factor for a symphonic score, sometimes only a month is given. The arm's speed of writing has its limits.

How much time do you ask for?

I ask for six weeks, or else I write like Delerue. That's not a pejorative at all, but he could get away with it because he made very fluid music for strings. There are four lines to write. Or make notes and pieces last, moods.

Did you work under strict time constraints?

Yes, for the series CHAMPAGNE CHARLIE, about the life of Charles Heidseck, I had in principle 10 weeks to compose 4 hours of music. Because of a delay in editing, I had to do it in 4 weeks. At the time, all the good orchestrators in Paris came to see me, and while one went out, the other came in, but I didn't sleep because he had to leave with a written score. I worked 22 hours a day. We got through it, but we were dead!

Don't you think these time and money constraints are becoming more and more pressing?

That's true, but you also have to know how to say no. Generally speaking, I get 80% of what I ask for in terms of time and salary. Nowadays, there are young composers who send a score to a producer without having seen the film or even read the script, simply on the rumor of a project, saying "this is my theme for the film". From then on, they're prepared to do anything to get the job. They're unaware, but I don't blame them, it's not their fault. There are producers in France, and you wonder if they've read the script. You'd think they were making films so they could have lunch at Fouquet's or go on vacation to St. Tropez.

Is there a difference with American films?

It's so different that in the States there's a budget for the music right from the start. On average, they plan between 250,000 and 300,000 dollars. In France, you'd have to do the same music for ten times less! It's not possible, even if you go and record in Italy or Hungary. But I think that French producers don't want to have intrusive music. There are exceptions, but the director, especially if it's his first or second film, is afraid that his baby will be taken away from him. I've often heard the phrase: “Georges, you can't do that to me, you're eating up my images”, and how can you eat up images? If the images are up to scratch, there's nothing to worry about. The musician can't contribute anything. In SPELLBOUND, it's the music that makes it clear that there's poison in the milk. The scene without music would be meaningless.

Are there any directors who think they know something about film music and in fact know nothing?

There are a lot of them. That's the trouble with cinema. They're the ones who say to me: “No, don't do that to me, Georges! It was so pretty what you played for me at home on the piano, you can't do the same thing to me again!” So you bust your ass writing for 90 musicians and in the end, I find myself in the recording studio playing the piano alone, and what's more, I don't play very well and everyone thinks it's great. You've got to do it! (laughs). There are a lot of them. They'll recognize each other!

Conversely, have any of them impressed you?

Yes, De la Patellière, Terence Young, people like that. For example, on GUILLAUME LE CONQUÉRANT, they let me do exactly what I wanted. I'm not saying that's why it's good, but it's close (laughs).

Did you have any problems using temp-tracks?

It's when the director chooses a temporary score. I've just done a musical in the USA: STAR FOR TWO with Anthony Quinn and Laureen Bacall. The editor had the good idea of putting Puccini's music in it, and the director got used to it. So you know, to dethrone Puccini, you have to wake up early. That's why I woke up early, by the way (laughs). I did something that the director really liked, but I was in agony because I also liked the music.

How many scripts do you read a year?

About twenty. Half of them I'm not interested in. Of the other half, half don't get made because the financing doesn't work out.

How do you make your selection?

I have to believe in the project and the subject. When I read the script, I can tell if it's written by an intelligent person or not. Sometimes I find stupid or pseudo-intellectual things in the dialogue. It bores me! For me, cinema is entertainment. I want to be able to tremble when I watch films. When I see IVANHOE or TARZAN again, I love it. If producers were to remake these films, they'd sell a lot of tickets. These are immortal subjects.

Who decides where there should be music in a film?

In the United States, it's the composer alone. You have to deal directly with the producer. And then, if the music isn't right, he'll tell you “it's not right, it doesn't suit this film”, but he's not angry. He can call on you again. In France, everyone's immediately pissed off. If it doesn't work, it's because you don't understand anything, because you're no good.

Have you ever composed music that was never used?

Never! But in the United States, it's common and not a disgrace. I arrived over there in 1976 to make a film for Paramount. It was a MANNIX spin-off. Bill Stenson, the big boss of music at the studio, when it came to signing the contract, said to me “Georges, you're doing your best, but if it doesn't work out, don't worry, we'll get someone else to do the music!” As a Frenchman, I was terrified to hear that; it was only later that I realized it was commonplace.

What do you think of soundtrack albums, which end up containing more songs than orchestral music?

I'm facing this problem right now with the music I did for WHISPER WHITE, a film set in New York. I'm in discussions with the producer, who would like to release the record with the songs and fill the little space left with the film's music.

Do you conduct the orchestra yourself?

No, I'd rather be in the booth during the recordings (laughs). The one time I tried it, I recorded a minute and a half in a day, instead of ten with another conductor!

Do you think there's still room for symphonic film music in France?

Yes, we'll come back to it once we've had enough of these little gumshoe themes and synthesizers.

There's no shortage of orchestras in France…

No, but you have to write something for the orchestra, but that's bound to happen, new composers will emerge.

Does orchestral music cost more than synthesizer music?

No, it doesn't. No. Considering the hours you have to spend in professional studios at the price it costs. Or maybe some people do it in their bathroom. Then it's different.

Is there any music, by Goldsmith for example, that you particularly like?

No... Because I love Goldsmith! I'm an unconditional fan! Everything he does, even if it's bad, is good. Whatever music he does, he's got his fingerprints on it.

What kind of films do you prefer to compose music for?

Adventure or epic films. I'm not much for comedy. I did a lot of comedies with Poiret and Serrault in 1965, but maybe I just got fed up with them. Now I'd like it to be big!

Maurice Jarre on Scoring The Sunchaser

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 11:55:54 GMT

An interview with Maurice Jarre by Daniel Mangodt
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.15 / No.60 / 1996
Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

Maurice Jarre fans have every reason to be delighted: this Summer Jarre gave an open air concert in Berlin, a career achievement award dinner given by the Society for the Preservation of Film Music took place last October and his concert at the Royal Festival Hall in London a few days later (on October 16) attracted quite a crowd.

The highlights were a London premiere of a suite from THE TIN DRUM and 2 world premieres: a suite from THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY complete with gamelan, Ondes Martenot and EVI, and a Concerto for Electronic Valve Instrument, Strings and Percussion .

At the age of 72 Jarre seemed to be in top form, clearly enjoying himself during the sold-out performance and demonstrating once again his talents as a raconteur. This short interview took place at the Dorchester Hotel in London. Some of the questions and/or comments are by Trevor Willsmer, the editor of Movie Collector. Later that week Jarre went to Paris to attend a performance of his ballet Notre-Dame de Paris at the Bastille Opera, an event he wasn't even informed of by the people who organized the event…

THE SUNCHASER is your most recent score…

When Michael Cimino started the film, from the beginning he thought about me, but he had a lot of problems with the production. They told him Maurice Jarre wouldn't be available and he'd be too expensive anyway. But Cimino was persistent, he sent me the script and I liked it. It's an engrossing story, a movie with real characters, like in the seventies. This kind of film is making a come-back, like RYAN'S DAUGHTER, which was a flop when it had its release, but a few years ago when it was shown again people applauded. I saw the film in pretty bad conditions, and I didn't even see the ending at the time, because they were still editing the film. I liked the movie and it was very interesting from a musical point of view: there were big open spaces (kind of Americana) and a character confrontation between the Indian Blue and the doctor who is kidnapped by Blue. They live in 2 different worlds and in the end the doctor has to admit that there may be another way to cure people, not only the scientific way, which is kind of a modern theme.

What approach did you take?

When you see a film in its final cutting stages, if the film is good you really feel inspired. Good directors like Cimino, Lean or Weir know very well what they are expecting from the music. So you have to express your ideas and it's a kind of collaboration. I love to work very closely with the director. They say you are not free when you are writing music for films. That is not true. I still write the same kind of music I wrote a long time ago with different directors. You have to be able to go with the director's point of view, but still it is your music. THE SUNCHASER has a big orchestral score. After all these big movies like LAWRENCE and IS PARIS BURNING? it was very difficult for me to ask directors whether they'd allow me to write an electronic score or a score for small ensemble. They said “No. You are very good at writing those big scores.” Finally I was allowed to write an electronic score for THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY for Peter Weir and for other directors and recently my agent got a call from a producer who wanted me for his movie and he asked: “Can Maurice write an orchestral score?”

There is a piece by Copland from Appalachian Spring in THE SUNCHASER (it occurs when they are driving their car through a pack of horses).

Michael Cimino chose that because there was so little time. I had two weeks to write about 45 minutes, and I said I doubted I could write all the music. Cimino told me not to worry and he suggested to keep Copland's piece for this particular scene. And I was relieved.

Did he use that as a temp-track?

It was on the temp-track and it works very well. The only thing I did was to write an intro and an ending to Copland's piece so that it comes across as one piece.

Warner Bros. were a little bit wary about giving Cimino too much control over the film. Was that manifested when you were working?

Warner Bros. were very happy. The problem was with the publicity surrounding the film and with the Cannes Festival where the film was shown in competition. Everybody from the Cannes organisation loved the film and they wanted to give it “Le Prix du Jury”, but Francis Ford Coppola disliked Cimino and so the prize was given to another film.

What happened on THE RIVER WILD?

I worked with the director, Curtis Hanson, and producers Larry Turman and David Foster. They always came to the recording sessions and everybody was very happy. We mixed the music and everything was fine and we did the record and the people from RCA went to see the movie with the music and they liked it. Curtis Hanson had even written liner notes for the CD booklet. But the preview was disastrous and the head of the studio at Universal, Sidney Sheinberg, didn't like the movie. He ordered Hanson to change the music, who was really surprised, but Sheinberg was the boss. The next morning, they called Jerry Goldsmith. So, fine. I was paid. In the end Sheinberg wanted to change Goldmith’s music also, again because he didn't like the music. What qualifications does this guy have? Does he have a degree in music? He is a business man. He knew that the film was not really good and when he realized that, the only thing left to do was to change the music. David Lean told me once a composer can be a doctor. The only problem is when the patient is already dead. You cannot save the film.

Producers tend to regard the score as the last chance to save the film, like with THE SCARLET LETTER, which is a dreadful film. You've been in the line of fire a few times, especially lately…

I think it's because directors have less power than before. They couldn't do that to Hitchcock or David Lean.

One of the reasons is of course that films are so expensive nowadays and film scores have become so much more expensive to perform…

I'm not so sure about that. They send a lot of composers to the East-European countries and it cost 10 times less, but lately they are charging more. I turned down several films because they wanted me to go to Hungary. I said “No”, because we have the best musicians in the United States and London is fantastic also. The orchestras are wonderful here, because they play together every day. But even in the States a pick-up orchestra is very good. France is out, because the French are not really professional. The studios are not so good in Eastern Europe; they have to bring in recording engineers and so on. I don't think music costs more. The thing is, it costs more if you have 3 different scores! I even heard that Demi Moore had a lot of say about the music for THE SCARLET LETTER.

The rumor is actually that Elmer sent her a thank you note for rejecting the score, saying that now he could use it on a better film.

An assistant in L.A. told me that Elmer's music was wonderful.

The same thing happened on WHITE SQUALL…

That was worse. I was supposed to do BLACK RAIN for Ridley Scott, but I didn't do the film, I don't remember why. When he asked me to score WHITE SQUALL, I was curious why he asked me. He had used music from WITNESS and DEAD POET'S SOCIETY as temp-track. He wanted me to write music in the same mood as for those two films. It was partly electronics and there was a little choir and an orchestra. We decided to start recording the electronics first. So we did one session with electronics and he came in late and I told him what I was doing, and he asked me to continue. Before the second session started, the producer told me Ridley didn’t want me to continue with the music. He had changed his mind. He didn't want to have the mood of DEAD POETS. He would have liked to have more time to cut the film.

Everything was ready, all the musicians were booked, the choir was booked and I said: “Let me at least record what I wrote, because no matter what, you are going to have to pay these people and we have 3 full days of recording ahead.” The producer had no idea what it is like to work with musicians. You have to pay the musicians and the recording studio. But they decided to stop after just one session. I couldn’t believe it. I called Ridley and he told me he had made a mistake to have the same mood as DEAD POETS. The real problem was that they realized the film was bad and Ridley wanted to have some time to recut the film. Actually they wanted me to wait until February (this was in December of last year) and then write a second score for the same money. In the end they had to pay the full three days: an orchestra of 80 people for 2 days, five men for the electronics plus the choir, plus the studio. They could at least have recorded the music.

You sued them.

Yes. I was paid in three installments. The first two payments were okay and they thought the third payment was a part of the deal. I had to sue Ridley Scott to get my money. Big movie moguls like Zanuck or Spiegel were careful with money. They cheated a little bit, but they knew what they were doing. But I signed a contract. This year 7 or 8 composers were fired from the film they were working on, people like Silvestri, Bernstein.

I heard that there will be no CD of THE SUNCHASER?

Maybe the re-use fees were too high or maybe there was a song they wanted to use. Probably that was too expensive. But I always mix for a possible CD.

In the fifties and early sixties you wrote a lot of “classical music”, e. g. the Mobiles pour Violon et Orchestre and the Cantates pour une Démente . They were never recorded.

We have a project with Milan to record some of those pieces. You heard this piece yesterday. I wrote the Mobiles for a violinist called Devy Erlih. When you write a piece like that with a lot of freedom for the soloist it is very difficult for the orchestra and you cannot have too many rehearsals, because it costs too much money, especially now.

For the Cantates you used a special way of notation.

How did you know that?

I read it somewhere (I actually read it in the late Nicolas Slonimsky's “Music Since 1900” where he wrote that the score was notated both acoustically and pictorially as a partition-tableau.)

It was based on letters from women inmates at an asylum for the insane and I based the music on a painting. I have always been interested in painting. Maybe I was influenced by Franju's LA TETE CONTRE LES MURS aka THE KEEPERS). And I was interested what a mad woman would paint, I used a canvas, and after that I put some lines horizontally and vertically and I designed it like a score; I had to reconstruct the music with what I did with the painting, the colors represent notes. It was after all a kind of intellectual exercise.

When I listened to the concerto for EVI yesterday, it took me back to your early career.

I loved to do that. For this concerto I worked with Nyle Steiner (I worked with him since WITNESS), the inventor of the EVI. He is a genius and I wanted to introduce him to an audience with this totally new instrument. The score is a classical one, very tonal. This instrument can imitate almost every instrument except the violins. It has an incredible scope of sound. I tried to manage with each sound a combination of instruments, and instruments from different families. For instance one sound was a combination of harpsichord, flute, bongos, harp and vibraphone. The sound is a mixture of that. In other words it creates a totally new sound, but it is still musical. It can imitate an electric saw or a drill or bells or a kind of rap music and besides that you have something very melodic.

What are your future projects?

Maybe to write more music, not necessarily for films. I did this Concerto for EVI , just seventeen minutes, in two months and I really enjoyed it. It's wonderful to write and not to have to work for these kind of jerks. I will probably do the next Peter Weir movie. He is working on a very interesting script, THE TRUMAN SHOW. It's almost science fiction. You know, at my age and at this point in my career, I don't care. I have my house, I have 3 dogs and I have a wife, not necessarily in that order (laughs). It's wonderful. I'm very happy.

Le Livre de la jungle

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 13:25:33 GMT

Label: Actes Sud
Catalogue No: AT 34101

Release Date: 2000

Total Duration: 82.58

UPN: 3-298490-341018

Orchestre Philharmonique De Montpellier conducted by Steuart Bedford

The valuable series of CDs from the enlightened French publishing house Actes Sud is beginning to makes its way beyond France. In the UK it is now distributed by Harmonia Mundi and beyond that its CDs can be tracked down via the Montpellier orchestra's website. I have already referred to other Actes-Sud discs in my recent review of their recording of Suk's Asrael - a performance that warmed up after a rather flaccid first movement.

The notes in the present case are entirely in French with no translations. The jewel box is forgotten for a change and instead, and this is becoming something of a French hallmark, we get a stiff card folder into which the booklet notes are glued and two CD mounting stems on fold-outs. The poems are printed in the booklet - again only in French. The cover and end designs are drawn from details of Henri Rousseau's 'Nègre attaqué par un jaguar'. It is bizarre to see that this set is sourced from an analogue tape - perhaps a peculiarity of Radio France tape stock or equipment in Montpellier at the time (only four years ago!).

This set is up against forbidding competition in the shape of a BMG double (two CDs for the price of one) - Radio SO, Berlin/Zinman. Segerstam's recording of the Livre (Marco Polo 8.223484, rec. 1985 - a single CD at 72.47) is not directly comparable as it excludes the three vocal movements. Zinman on BMG 74321 84596-2 is an all-digital effort (rec. 1993) which includes all seven movements of the Livre plus James Judd conducting the Seven Stars Symphony (only symphonic in the same strained pictorial sense as Rubinstean's Ocean symphony!) and two slighter works. The BMG is difficult to pass up as a bargain in face of Actes-Sud's two CD set offering only the Livre. The Zinman Livre minus the Seven Stars was previously RCA 09026 61955 2. Zinman presents the tone poems in strict opus number order while both Bedford and Segerstam seems to have given some thought to shaping the seven pieces into a cogent narrative. Of course you can programme the pieces in any order you wish. The sense of rounded cogency comes across very well with the sequence starting with the Loi and ending with the Night movement of La Course de printemps - a pattern followed by Segerstam and Bedford.

Loi de la Jungle : With the tempo of a priestly march and rough-toned brass and imposing tam-tam strokes this music calls up images of some cavernous stone temple festooned in lianas. Bedford is the quickest of the three at 6.40 compared with the 9.51 of Segerstam and 9.14 of Zinman. Bedford does not seem unduly rushed despite shaving one third of the time off the competition.

Les Bandar-Log is about the same length (16 mins) in each of the three versions. Its depiction of the gibbering chaotic monkey race is an opportunity for Koechlin to cock a snook at the then trendiness of the 12-tone school and the atonalists. The depiction of the inarticulate, dysjunct and chattering is preceded by music clearly related to the Loi movement. I was intrigued to hear, among the intimations of ‘modernism’, music that seemed to be the mine from which Messiaen drew inspiration for his Turangalila Symphony (5.15). At the close the music dissolves into a quiet niente in which the orchestra's high violins seem slightly insecure; less so with Zinman’s Berlin orchestra. By comparison with the Actes-Sud, the BMG recording is in noticeably closer perspective and hints of Stravinsky (solo winds from Le Sacre ) first caught in wispy form in Loi are now much more concrete. The Segerstam is slightly less well recorded than the Zinman and lacks its consistent animation. The music was written at a time coinciding with the invasion of France and while it lacks overtly tragic overtones I wonder whether any of this laceratingly sardonic music was aimed at the awful pomp of the Wehrmacht. I cannot imagine this music finding favour with the Vichy authorities; its lampooning of ‘degenerate’ styles is a mite too convincing..

The three poems Op. 18 are the earliest works in the cycle. The first two poems include a prominent part for mezzo soprano. Iris Vermillion seems to have cornered the market as she is the singer in both the Actes-Sud and BMG sets. Berceuse Phoque has the sort of quiet cyclical piano filigree you hear in Canteloube over which Vermillion's operatically-fit voice gently undulates in prophecy of Gershwin's Summertime . Although more closely recorded by BMG she is in better voice in the Bedford version - the digital ‘floodlighting’ did not suit her voice quite so well as the analogue treated it in Montpellier. This track has to be a natural for any Classic FM style radio station looking to freshen its playlist. Put it in a similar artlessly lovely category as Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasileira No. 5 , Rachmaninov's Vocalise , Sibelius's Luonnotar and any of the more somnolent Canteloube arrangements.

The Chanson de Nuit is a quick and hunted brevity. Here Ralf Lukas (Zinman) is to be preferred over Vincent Le Texier. Lukas is in much better voice and Vermillion seems on top of the role. The downside is that the BMG sound lacks mystery. The long Chant de Kala Nag (the tame elephant who sings from captivity his lament of yearning for the forests) is sung by Jan Botha - a dark toned tenor with a real coffee-baritonal quality and an urgency to his singing. Bedford has the pastel shaded Jacque Trussel and the quickly caught triumphs at 1.50 are better caught in the Bedford version. These three poems date from the turn of the century and are of a decidedly exotic-romantic mode not so very far removed from Delibes and Massenet. The chorus touches in the colours of these three pieces.

After the Op. 18 excursion to the opulent French Orient the Meditation brings us back to 1936. Purun-Bhagat, by the way, is a devout pilgrim once a holder of high power who now contemplates solitary serenity (is it any surprise that this music was written amid the Chamounix mountains?). The work is kith and kin to Delius's Song of the High Hills and Novak's In the Tatras (there are no avant-garde infractions this time). Those long held pp high notes again cause the Montpellier strings some slight strain which is better handled by the Berliners even though they are recorded more analytically - lacking the analogue mystery of the Radio France tape. Both versions link seamlessly back to the Loi and the introduction of Bandar-Log . Segerstam's recording team make a better job of catching the half-lit secrets and serene contemplative leanings of the piece although here too they must give place to Bedford's performance.

The Spring Running (La Course) was written between 1911 and 1929. It is the longest of all seven of the pieces and finishes the Bedford and Segerstam versions: Bedford 29.19 (about 28.12, shorn of applause), Zinman 31.54, Segerstam 31.21. Its mood range encompasses festivity found in Ravel and Markevich, as well as serenity. In this respect Segerstam is less convincing than Bedford. The pell-mell rush reads across to another headlong vernal work of the 1920s: Frank Bridge's Enter Spring (and the second of his Two Jefferies Poems ) as well as John Foulds' April-England . The score is in four segments (not separately tracked on Actes-Sud or Marco Polo): Spring in the Forest, Mowgli, The Running, Night . There are discreet parts for organ and piano. This portrayal of the irresistible rush of spring tells of Mowgli's sorrowing departure from forest childhood to manhood and his separation from Bagheera and Baloo. The Running is the last desperate and doomed attempt to drive out from Mowgli's bloodstream the stirrings of adult emotions and inhibition. Segerstam handles this all very well. The feathery analogue gauze of the Bedford set helps with the mystery and his Mowgli is preferable especially to Zinman who eludes the rapturous intensity of abandon found in Bedford and Segerstam.

The occasional cough and clatter (e.g. CD2 tr.2 23.12) and, of course, the applause mark out the Bedford set. As ever with music that speaks quietly and with serenity there are coughs and shuffles among the audience in Bedford's live version. In exchange you receive the ambience and edge-of-seat concentration of a live event without editing.

There is much Koechlin yet to be recorded. I hope that someone will record for us the host of hardly known Koechlin orchestral works including Vers La Voute Etoilée (Towards the starry skies) (1933) and The Symphony of Hymns (1938). Future projects for the Montpellier orchestra?

Allowing for the minor fallibilities of the Montpellier orchestra and of a live concert with audience participation of various sorts, this French analogue version is sensitive and mysterious and has the glorious Ms Vermillion in imperious voice. The BMG double is difficult not to prefer given its generous coupling and studio perfection. If however you are captivated by the Koechlin work you will need to have this Bedford version which is informed by the imaginative energy of a conductor whose sympathy for Kipling's ‘Jungle Book’ has already been amply demonstrated by various concert performances of Percy Grainger's own quite different Jungle Book cycle.

Originally published at MusicWeb International - Text reproduced by kind permission

The Seven Stars’ Symphony

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 13:04:04 GMT

Label: Capriccio
Catalogue No: C5449

Release Date: 03-June-2022

Total Duration: 56:00

UPN: 0-845221-054490

Basel Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ariane Matiakh

Koechlin’s reputation for eccentricity has long been enhanced by the existence of his 1933 The Seven Stars’ Symphony , a ripe example of French symphonism of a very particular kind – a suite-like nexus of two artistic mediums, musical and cinematic. In seven panels, each dedicated to a different film star of the time, Koechlin presents their essence, or their essence to him, the whole work ending in a long series of variations devoted to Charlie Chaplin. In order, the other six are Douglas Fairbanks, Lilian Harvey, Greta Garbo, Clara Bow, Marlene Dietrich and Emil Jannings.

Fairbanks was a leading man of silent cinema and Koechlin was particularly inspired by The Thief of Baghdad (1924) to which he responds in the most unlikely fashion, adjuring any swash and buckle and local scenery for piquant astral conjunctions of instrumentation, ripely orchestrated, colour-conscious – sensuous, serious and deeply evocative. He was clearly infatuated by the British-born artist Lilian Harvey, around whom a light musical comedy industry grew up in Germany. A prolific recording artist and subject of many a postcard, she drew from Koechlin a two-minute love poem of curvaceous allure. The far more austere Greta Garbo required a musical analogue with which to depict her hauteur and Koechlin found his means in the ondes martenot (pre Messaien, it should be remembered). The music’s otherworldly, Holstian element runs deep.

As can be seen – especially in the first Fairbanks panel – Koechlin’s music doesn’t necessarily conform to the public perception of the actor or the film; he remains stubbornly himself, confounding easy expectations. However, for Clara Bow, the ‘It Girl’ to beat all ‘It Girls’ he embraces the ‘joyeuse’ Californian with lively flair supported by nimble percussion and real affection. Dietrich inspires some luxuriantly arched melodic lines, once again orchestrated with both precision and an acute ear for conjunctions, though things turn rather darker when he depicts Emil Jannings who inspires an uneasy processional underpinned by percussion, before the music subsides. The final Chaplin variations occupy by far the longest panel, a full 15 minutes, and its sectional variations offer powerful opportunity for contrast, encoding reflection as well as a pawky dance and ending powerfully.

Coupled with the Symphony is Vers la voûte étoilée, an expressionist nocturne for orchestra which is languid but pointed, saturated with eloquent melody. There is a notably beautiful horn solo after which the music accelerates in excitement before finally submerging and subsiding into nocturnal and contemplative stasis. It’s a beautiful example of Koechlin’s gifts, written concurrently with the Symphony.

Ariane Matiakh directs the Basel Symphony Orchestra with imagination and control, drawing from them some excellent playing, and Capriccio’s recording is perfectly judged. With fine notes this is a splendidly realised disc.

Jonathan Woolf writes for MusicWeb-International.com and has written for Fanfare and Classic Record Collection (CRC)

Originally published at MusicWeb International - Text reproduced by kind permission

The Collector

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 09:28:13 GMT

An Analysis of the Score to the Entire Film The Collector (1965) by Kirk Henderson

Since Maurice Jarre’s score to William Wyler’s THE COLLECTOR was first released on a Mainstream LP in 1965, other Jarre works have completely overshadowed it, and when the composer’s oeuvre is discussed, rarely is THE COLLECTOR ever mentioned.

Jarre’s own DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, which made such an impact the same year, became an albatross to overcome since everyone was looking for the next ‘Lara’s theme’. Mainstream Records re-released their original LP release of THE COLLECTOR on CD with no additional music from the film. Columbia Pictures owns the masters of the actual film score; Mainstream only the masters to its original LP release.

There are other reasons the score is not better known. THE COLLECTOR is a seductively depressing story and probably perceived as not the sort of experience one wants to relive by listening to the music. This is a shame, because Jarre’s score itself is very listenable, and ranks as one of his finest, most substantial works, more complex conceptually than his scores to LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and DOCTOR ZHIVAGO.

Spoilers lie ahead so if you have not seen THE COLLECTOR (and it is highly recommended you do), please return here after having seen the film, for what follows will certainly ruin the many surprises the film has to offer.

Maurice Jarre was the perfect choice to score this film. While not necessary considered, other possible composers like Georges Delerue, Piero Piccioni or even Malcolm Arnold might have come up with something interesting, but as will become apparent, Jarre’s scoring history was an ideal precursor to this psychologically twisted social fable.

The film was based on the best-selling book by John Fowles, notable author of such works as The Magus and The French Lieutenant’s Woman , two novels also made into films. The Collector tells the story of Frederick Clegg, a repressed bank clerk, who has become obsessed with a beautiful art student, Miranda Grey. He follows her from afar, keeps tabs on her daily activities and imagines in his own mind what life would be like if they were only together. When he wins a large sum on the football pools he purchases a house in the Sussex countryside with a deep hidden cellar, fixes the cellar up with sound proofing and dead bolts, and kidnaps Miranda in the hopes that once she is there, she will get to know him and fall in love with him. This is the scheme of a lunatic, and the outcome created by thrusting these two characters together is made compelling in the hands of writer Fowles, who presents the story from two points of view. We initially get Freddie’s first-person account and then Miranda’s own version via her daily journal, which describes, with horror and frustration, the insanity of her captive situation.

The book is remembered for its two distinctive personalities not only at odds with each other on a personal level, but also from completely opposing ends of the political and social spectrum. Conflict between the British social classes has long been a staple of the literary world and the view Fowles gives us by the use of this very unusual premise highlights the differences to the point of maddening clarity. Educated Miranda, the daughter of a well-to-do physician, finds herself face to face with working class Frederick, a man to whom she normally wouldn’t give the time of day. Suddenly she is living on his terms, discovering up close and in the most frightening way, how impossible the situation between the classes really is.

Although this story has nods to Bluebeard and Beauty and the Beast , its social conscience goes deeper and has more in common with Shakespeare’s The Tempest . In Fowles’ book, Frederick is a monstrous slave Caliban to Miranda’s Shakespearean goddess, now trapped underground, not unlike the social relationship between the descendants of upper-class Eloi and working-class Morlocks in H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine . In The Collector the roles are reversed, with upper class Miranda below ground, and working-class Frederick above. The outcome of the story gives us a pessimistic view of two classes at odds, their separation so distinctive that only the insanity of a prey versus predator relationship could be the end result. Clearly, there is a cautionary element to Fowles’ story.

Although not all of Fowles’ observation of differences between the classes made it into the film, it isn’t ignored, and Jarre’s ingenious score, which focuses primarily on the state of mind of Freddie, becomes a musical metaphor for this social tyranny and mental anomaly.

Freddie plunks his net over a resting butterfly, and the melody line is developed with flute and sharp rhythmic accents of harpsichord. These accents might have been achieved by pizzicato strings, but the harpsichord carries with it notions of a very proper past and a touch of stuffiness. It is an instrument that no matter how forcefully played, feels restrained. The harpsichord is a part of Freddie’s mind, reflecting his inhibitions while maintaining a staid sense of beauty, and as the theme continues, its singsong playfulness suggests a ride on a merry-go-round.

The melody attempts to grow in orchestral color but only briefly lets loose with childhood glee before reigning in, not giving in to unbridled expression. Since this is the harmonic metaphor of Freddie’s mind, if we follow the music closely, Jarre rewards us with a good understanding of not only Freddie, but Miranda as well.

The harpsichord used in THE COLLECTOR was a double harpsichord, and according to the liner notes of the Mainstream CD release, it was difficult to keep in tune and hard to play. Jarre takes advantage of qualities unique to harpsichord and utilizes them throughout the score; under his baton, the harpsichord becomes surprisingly flexible. There are moments where the instrument is a burst of joy, a run of fresh air, a chilling coda, a delicate seduction, or the unexpected lead of a jazzy rhythm. It wasn’t the first or last time the composer made use of harpsichord in a score, but it was the one where his use of it was the most unconventional and profound. Jarre’s substantive use of it for THE COLLECTOR has no equal.

Some who follow film music sometimes complain about how few themes are explored in contemporary scores. One theme is written and beaten to death. Perhaps the same could be said of Jarre’s score, for there really is only a single theme – ‘the collector’, but by being transformed in such a myriad of ways it becomes a text book of orchestral and harmonic invention.

In conception and execution, Jarre’s collector theme and its orchestration is the musical equivalent of the end product of arrested emotional development. To Freddie, his grand scheme to kidnap Miranda is not only a dream come true, but is as cool and hip as a teenage boy on his first date with a pretty girl. With the money he won, he’s gained the power and potency to force a relationship between he and Miranda, yet his emotional maturity is stunted like that of an infatuated young boy who just got dad’s car but doesn’t know what to do with the girl once he has her.

Freddie, played with keen observation by Terence Stamp in one of his early roles, discovers a country house by accident and investigates the property. He discovers the deep cellar and his eyes grow wide with the birth of his insane scheme. Jarre underscores the shot with pipe organ, soon overtaken by ‘audio ambience’ - a tape loop created from a recording of glass harmonica, played in reverse and given an almost painful edge with a slow undulating flute. Not so much music as sound, is the representation of a sick mind festering in isolation, a theme for insanity.

After a few seconds, the rhythm of a single note of violin breaks the spell and becomes the cerebral cradle of the main theme, repeated simply and quietly on harpsichord as Freddie tells us in voice-over about the plan he thought he would never go through with. The rhythm pulls us in and gives a sense of security. We don’t really know what Freddie has in mind, but whatever it is, the soothing pulse of a single violin and delicate harpsichord suggests there is nothing to fear.

When Wyler cuts to Freddie later spying on Miranda from his van, the glass harmonica ambience returns to remind us that in spite of the serenity on the soundtrack, what is about to follow is not going to be all that pleasant.

Freddie watches Miranda from across the street as she leaves art school and innocently strolls the streets of London. Jarre’s theme, at first playfully reworked for sax and reeds, suggests the harmony and tranquility of the beautiful art student. Following a reprise of the now chilling glass harmonica ambience it becomes a jazzy rhythm with a cool edge as Freddie pulls his van into traffic and begins to stalk her.

Jarre’s use of a jazz rhythm here is effective and telling. Brushes whisk a dandy tempo on cymbal, while double harpsichord picks away a variation of the main theme, effectively giving the forward momentum a downward sense. Brushes also give the sequence a sense of excitement, but the harpsichord won’t allow us to forget the twisted logic forming the foundation of the story. Freddie has been planning this moment for some time and the music displays his giddiness. The jazz element adds a sense of “cool” to this event. In Freddie’s mind, kidnapping Miranda is the coolest, hippest thing he’s ever conceived of, and the fact that he has the money to carry out his mad plan allows him the luxury to view his act in that regard.

Unlike the book, which begins with Frederick describing how he came about his plan, and describing it all as history, the film starts with the kidnap about to take place. The concept of a jazz ensemble being led by a harpsichord is an unusual one, but Jarre has a reason for it. Placed together, these two musical worlds are out of their element, and the melody carried by sax creates a sense of a lustful preoccupation. Freddie is a driven man, with one goal in mind, to kidnap the vision of his dreams.

Unlike jazz, Jarre’s music is fully structured, making no allowances for improvisation, and the harpsichord will not allow the true nature of the freedom of jazz to take the melody and run. The jazz here is merely a stitched-together fantasy in the mind of a sick man, a tapestry with the undercurrent of a misplaced harpsichord weaving its menacing threads as a malevolent picture takes form.

Most of this music of Freddie stalking Miranda is not on the Mainstream soundtrack, and this is some of the most interesting music in the score. It works on many levels. It helps create character, set a mood, delineate opposite worlds in musical terms, build tension, and mark a major event soon to take place. The stalking music also works simply to underscore a man on the prowl.

While the jazzy rhythm sweeps us into the story and Freddie starts the engine of his van and pulls out to follow Miranda, a single clarinet renders its own version of the main theme, kept in control by the unchanging note of harpsichord. It becomes a ticking metronome ready to explode.

As Freddie holds his breath while pouring chloroform into a handkerchief the theme falls down scale as if the harpsichord was being sucked into a drain. Musically and psychologically, this works well, beautiful but unsettling.

Jarre stops the score just before the kidnapping and doesn’t bring it back until Freddie has overcome Miranda with the chloroform. After the deed has been done, an undulating low clarinet phrase develops what appears to be a new theme. Yet this quiet sense of alarm is nothing more than a variation on five notes from the main theme.

We also hear for the first time, a variation that might be called the ‘distress and excitement’ theme. We see Freddie’s van head away with his fresh catch and later pull up next to the cellar entrance of his country house. This theme, a mix of pacing reeds with added light pound of bass drum suggests a worrisome excitement. On the one hand, it reflects the excitement of Freddie’s catch, but it also embodies the distress we know the “caged animal” Miranda will soon experience. It too is a variation on the single theme, now reduced to a repetition of three notes.

Once Freddie has moved the still unconscious Miranda from the van to the inner cellar and placed her on a bed he has provided, Jarre chooses Freddie’s inner joy as the element he will follow musically. He does this with a sense of harmonic delicacy. There is no rape in mind here. Freddie carefully pulls Miranda’s skirt over her exposed knees, and gently removes a strand of hair that has gotten caught in her mouth.

An easy choice here would be to score the moment with darker tones, but Jarre chooses to play this against the most peaceful rendition yet heard of the main theme. The flute, reeds and harpsichord create a wistful sense of glee. This plays out until Freddie switches off the cellar lamp and stares down at her, his face a rim-lit black shape, a suggestion of satanic evil. All the more chilling is a reprise of the piercing throb of the audio ambience, the insanity theme come home to roost.

Yet, the joyfulness is expanded when Freddie locks up the inner cellar and runs into the big house. The main theme is reprised, but this time the lead up to it is different. As he washes his face in the kitchen, a spiraling group of woodwinds suggest the audacity of what he has just done, while an undulating downscale fragment on piccolo, gives the moment a sense of unease. When Freddie looks out the window and smiles, the score takes a dramatic turn. Accompanied by a rumble of thunder on the audio track, flute and reeds graduate from downscale to upscale, ending up in a jubilant variation of the main theme, as he runs out into the rain, laughing wildly. There will never be another moment of such bliss in the rest of the score, and the music is so pleasant, it’s a shame it wasn’t included on the soundtrack.

It should be said that Jarre’s concept for the music of The Collector has precedence in an earlier score, LES YEUX SANS VISAGE (Eyes Without a Face), a 1959 French thriller directed by Georges Franju. In that film, a physician kidnaps beautiful women to graft their faces onto the face of his daughter, who was disfigured in a car accident he caused. Like that story, the score is an insanity in itself, a fusion of jazz and the rolling rhythms of a merry-go-round theme, also performed on harpsichord. In this regard, its contrasting musical styles are very similar to THE COLLECTOR. The earlier score, while effective, lacks the depth, subtlety and variety of the later work. In LES YEUX the unique score gives the film a surreal, poetic quality, enhancing Franju’s moody visuals. Jarre’s score to THE COLLECTOR is more like the harmonic blueprint of the psyche of Freddie and Miranda.

As Freddie lies in the rain, the camera zooms into his face and director Wyler dissolves to a black and white flashback where Freddie’s aunt pays him a visit at the bank where he worked as a lowly office clerk. She announces to Freddie and his teasing co-workers that he has won the football pools and is now a rich man. The scene is accompanied by glass harmonica ambience, underlying the fate that will allow Freddie to both conceive of and realize his bizarre scheme.

After the flashback, when the score returns, we are in the cellar as Miranda awakens. The first thing we hear as she looks at the dank ceiling of what is to be her new incarcerated home, is the Dies Irae , the ancient black mass that has been used countless times to underscore the satanic. Jarre does not give it to us straight, backing the piece with a single note of searing glass harmonica, which melds the ancient horror with Freddie’s contemporary version of it.

When Miranda realizes she has been kidnapped, Jarre brings his main theme back, but only in fragments, starting with a blaring trumpet and compounding the terror with a trill of piccolo. As Miranda inspects the cellar, finding a complete wardrobe, including undergarments, all brand new, the distress theme plays in spurts as she discovers, perplexingly, that in spite of being a prisoner, she has all the ‘comforts of home’. During much of this, the harpsichord takes a back seat, only recurring as a brush of keys when she opens some drawers to inspect the contents. This altered use of harpsichord is a suggestion of how Freddie’s insanity is perceived by Miranda. The harpsichord here is not like the structured playing associated with Freddie. Miranda is still ‘in the dark’, and so the harpsichord is there but undeveloped.

Samantha Eggar, who plays Miranda, couldn’t have been a better casting decision. In 1965 she was a stunning British beauty in the classic sense with a mane of red hair, a porcelain face textured with subtle freckles, perhaps not exactly as described in Fowles’ book but certainly reflecting the sense of purity and refinement that could inspire a young man’s obsession. Eggar’s physical beauty is only part of what she had to offer. She provided a full-blooded, emotionally rich Miranda, fiery, obstinate and defiant, one of the finest performances of her career, and for which she was deservedly nominated for an Oscar as Best Actress of 1965. She was also good with comedy, appearing alongside Cary Grant in the 1966 WALK, DON’T RUN, his final film. She was equally effective in THE MOLLY MAGUIRES (1970), about coal miners in Pennsylvania, and remarkably scary in David Cronenberg’s THE BROOD (1979). It was her performance in THE COLLECTOR that made her a star.

The first meeting of Freddie and Miranda is played without score, as are most conversations in the cellar. Music in this first meeting would have been overly melodramatic. After a knock at the cellar door, Freddie enters like a butler, with a tray of food. Soon we learn along with Miranda, that he is in love with her and has kidnapped her to allow her the time to ‘get to know him’. Naturally, she is decidedly upset, and all her pleas to reason are for naught. He is resolute. She offers to stay a week, but he has a different time frame. “Can’t you see?” he tells her, “I haven’t gone to all this trouble just so you’d stay for one week more.”

Ultimately, Miranda realizes the police must be searching for her. The whole of England must be searching for her. Freddie agrees. “Well, sooner or later they’re going to find me,” she explains. “Never,” states Freddie, ”because, you see, they’re looking for you alright, but… nobody’s looking for me,” and with that Jarre brings in a chilling organ accompanied by a thump of drum and low reeds, a comment on Miranda’s realization that because Freddie understands what a nobody he is, the chances are, she will not be found. Despite Miranda’s fear, Jarre quickly shifts the harmonic point of view back to Freddie as he turns to leave, using a soft variation of the now familiar theme, played gently on clarinet, as pastoral as ever. This effectively allows the audience to feel sympathy for Freddie, who, despite his insane act, is a character to be pitied.

Next morning Freddie returns to hear Miranda groaning. Of course, she is using the ‘I’m sick and need a doctor’ ploy in an escape attempt. “I’ll get a doctor!” he exclaims, and she hears Freddie run up into the upper cellar to swing open the outer door. She can see her route to freedom and runs into to the upper cellar only to be stopped by Freddie, who had suspected her ploy. Her POV of him looking down at her with distain triggers a thumping shudder of deep brass and woodwinds momentarily paused when she slaps him across the face before returning to the lower cellar and slamming the door.

A hesitant clarinet reflects the tension between the two, and the full main theme returns after Freddie follows her back into the inner cellar. “Alright,” he says, and the music ends to allow their words to carry the scene alone, “I’ll tell you when you can leave, but only under certain conditions.”

Among the conditions, Miranda must promise not to try to escape and to start eating, since the trays of food he has brought have remained untouched. At last, when an agreement of one month is reached, he says, “It’s alright. It’s agreed!” A starved Miranda begins to inhale the breakfast, and Jarre imbues the scene with relief using an airy take of his main theme, cheerfully incorporating the harpsichord to trace the melody line taken up by flute.

Freddie leaves so she may eat in peace, and steps outside to do an imaginary tightrope walk on the low wall of the walkway that leads to the yard, an action matched by the merry-go-round interpretation of Jarre’s theme, both gleeful and childish, complete with a dashing rhythm of brushes and wooden xylophone. He comes to a balustrade end and crouches down as if ready to spring to the other side, but gives up. This cues a shift to the refrain of the melody line on harpsichord when we return to the cellar and see Miranda contemplating a month of captivity. A soothing clarinet suggests the tension and fear have subsided while the light harpsichord adds a nursery rhyme tone. This lower cellar is, in a sense, Freddie’s nursery, where he comes to play. After Miranda counts the bricks on one wall, determining 28 days, we dissolve to her a week later, painting out the bricks she has numbered that lead to a large brick that reads “Freedom Day.”

Once the story moves into the cellar and stays there, Jarre’s music is primarily used for transitions and the passage of time. Now that Miranda is counting the days, making half-hearted attempts to talk to Freddie, both of them are keeping their emotions in check. We learn much about the characters at this point. Miranda suggests Freddie do something to amuse her and Freddie is too shy to tell a joke until she threatens to tell a dirty one. “I know one that’s filthy!” she tells him. He complies with a simple joke amusing enough to make her smile.

Freddie brought Miranda to this place with the intention of her getting to know him, and so if he sits around and says nothing, she will not get to know him. It’s interesting that the way she coaxes conversation out of him betrays her snobbery. Likewise, his response to the idea that someone like Miranda might actually know a dirty joke or expect him to tell her one, reveals how little he understands about women and, for that matter, anything outside his own social orbit.

What follows when Freddie allows Miranda to come up to the main house and take a bath, is a sequence where music will dominate. Freddie ties her hands and checks to make sure it is all clear outside before he lets her come up to the front yard. Low woodwinds begin the cue, suggesting that, in spite of her thrill to get out of the cellar, an undercurrent of tension has returned, and Miranda, hands tied, is more vulnerable than before. When she steps up to ground level and takes a breath of fresh air, an arpeggio of harpsichord ignites the collector theme. This will be one of Jarre’s most intense cues, as well as an impressive display of the harpsichord’s range.

Rarely has a film score provided as much psychological structure as Maurice Jarre’s music for William Wyler’s THE COLLECTOR. If we had been paying close attention to the score we would have known all along about the film’s inevitable conclusion.

Freddie has finally allowed Miranda to come up from her ‘prison’ to take a bath in the main house. Her hands tied, she steps to ground level and takes a breath of air. “Marvelous!” she says, inhaling deeply, the harpsichord initially mirroring her exuberance with bright arpeggios. In this scene the harpsichord has the widest scope of any of its many appearances throughout the film, first with the aforementioned arpeggios reflecting Miranda’s POV, as did the brush of keys when she first awoke in the cellar. This is followed by a series of uneasy jabs until it builds to a shuddering rhythm. Both Stamp and Eggar give carefully controlled performances here, with Jarre’s score augmenting their psychological states.

Per her request, Miranda and Freddie walk through the garden, but she notices he has fixated on her and slowed his pace. Seeing Miranda outside in the warm evening light he is overcome with passion and begins rubbing her arm. Miranda’s relaxed harpsichord is overtaken by Freddie’s structured and steady style, with delineated notes adding unease. Freddie turns the terrified Miranda towards him and starts running his hands through her hair (perhaps a prelude of something darker to follow) and the harpsichord begins a pulsing rhythm with added reeds laying over ominously, imbuing the moment with fear. The cue cuts abruptly when Miranda screams and Freddie covers her mouth.

When they get back into the house Freddie is embarrassed by what just transpired and tells Miranda it won’t happen again. Jarre gives us a subdued reprise of the pulsing rhythm we just heard in the garden, which in itself is an interpolation of the collector theme, and keeps the moment on edge. Then, as Miranda says, “If it ever does happen again, and worse, don’t do it in a mean way or use chloroform,” the collector theme flows beautifully and inexplicably, yet only for a moment, abruptly ending on a downward tone. Then Miranda adds, “I shan’t struggle. I’ll let you do as you like.” Once the silence becomes unbearable for Freddie, she completes her comment with, “But, if it ever does happen again, I’ll never respect you. And I’ll never ever speak to you ever again.” The score held back exactly where it should have, allowing Eggar’s performance to pull all the punches.

A while later, Freddie sits in a chair outside the second-floor bathroom and once he hears the rippling of water as Miranda steps into the tub, he darkly recedes into deep thought. Jarre’s pulsing garden variation is now subdued, sketched out with low reeds, suggestive of the mystery that is Freddie’s mind.

Cutting outside the house, director Wyler adds a scene not in the book to add dramatic tension. We see an older man has pulled up in his car. He gets out and heads to the front door. His prowling around to find the owner is accompanied by nasal clarinet and accents of piccolo, adding a touch of nervous humor. When the doorbell rings, Freddie springs up and dashes into the bathroom to gag and bind the screaming Miranda.

The distress theme is played on reeds and flute, given a savage edge with kettledrum and fitful starts and stops to mirror the action as Freddie secures Miranda to a drainpipe. When he steps to the window to ask the man what he wants, the score subsides, allowing the tension to build on its own. The man is a neighbor, come to get acquainted.

A nervous Freddie lets the man in. Upstairs, Miranda turns on the tub faucet with her foot to draw attention. The water begins to overflow, eventually pouring down the stairs and noticed by the neighbor. Nervous Freddie scrambles into the bathroom, shuts off the water and tightens Miranda’s bonds. When he comes back out, he smiles sheepishly and tells the man, who is halfway up the stairs, “It’s my girlfriend.”

“Why didn’t she call out?”
“She was embarrassed,” Freddie tells him, and then, “you know how it is.”
The old neighbor turns, adding, “I remember how it was,” and leaves.

The lack of score allows the audience to feel the story has been put on hold while Freddie deals with a nosy neighbor. A complete fabrication by director Wyler, the scene works in Freddie’s favor. Even though we want Miranda to escape, the lack of music keeps us tense because, as in any good crime drama, we also don’t want the lead character to be found out. Both movie and plot are developed in this scene by showing Miranda’s intent to escape and Freddie’s ability to think on his feet. It also sets up their next confrontation.

When the score returns, Jarre allows the story that matters to continue. When Freddie steps into the bathroom, reeds and harpsichord sketch out the collector theme in an altered merry-go-round version of it as Freddie unties the terrified and humiliated Miranda. The cadence is determined but slower. Jarre’s harpsichord continues to form the rhythm, a variation of the garden pulse, suggesting Miranda, naked but for a towel, is her most vulnerable. The audience knows Freddie may be a dark character, but he’s not a rapist, so it’s not surprising the score maintains the nursery rhyme approach we have associated with his childish nature when Miranda’s towel accidentally drops and he merely lifts it back and looks away.

What follows is a key scene, illuminating the film’s title and the nature of the main character. It begins when we see Miranda step from the bathroom, refreshed and clean, her hair wrapped in a towel, accompanied by a quite ornamental version of the collector theme, adorned with arpeggios blended into the nursery chime harpsichord. It gives her quiet walk down the stairs towards Freddie an aura of enchantment. That he restrained himself while untying her has shown Miranda that she is safer here than she thought, but her wary focus on a waiting Freddie suggests a sense of uncertainty. What might he might think of her attempt to escape?

“I wouldn’t be a good prisoner if I didn’t try to escape,” she tells him.

Rather than taking her straight back to the cellar, he wants to show her something and leads her into an adjacent room where his butterfly collection is displayed. Thousands of colorful butterflies, pinned and framed behind glass, cover the walls and shelves. Initially, as Miranda takes in what she sees, she is a bit stunned by the enormity of it all and scans the room in silence.

“I’m an entomologist,” he tells her, now self-satisfied that he has much to impress her with. As he details the intricacies of his collection, opening drawer after drawer of captured insects, a rhythmic harpsichord lays a monotonous pattern like the tiny tolling of a small chime to correspond to the death of each butterfly. Over this, high-end harpsichord intones a variation of the collector theme. The music is unbearably sad, the high-end harpsichord cutting through Terence Stamp’s voice like the small cries of the insects he is now displaying.

When he completes his presentation, Miranda inspects his work more closely. “They’re beautiful,” she says, “but sad. How many butterflies have you killed?”

“You can see,” he says.

She lifts a specimen pinned to his work area and views it under a magnifier, studying it intently. Here the ornamental flavorings of the score recede and the tone darkens. Her face reflected over the butterflies in a glass case, she tells him, “And now you’ve collected me, haven’t you?”

Turning to him she asks, “Is that what you love? Death?” A musical sting follows, a variation of the gloomy chord we heard over the opening credits as the film’s title appeared. When Freddie leads her out of the room the sting becomes a subdued variation of the collector. Through this, Jarre has reinforced the psychological aspect of the story with music. Freddie is a collector, habitually, compulsively.

The correlation between collecting butterflies and beautiful girls is obvious but psychologically sound, the end result of a lifetime of one man’s idea that beauty can only be appreciated when captured and placed under glass.

Back in the cellar, music unusually underscores a conversation between the two. Miranda is sketching a self-portrait in charcoal, sparking both to talk. Freddie is enchanted that it’s a picture of her. This is backed by the main theme on flute. It’s peaceful, soothing, reflecting the quiet concentration often required to create a piece of artwork. As the conversation develops, the score fades away.

Miranda’s portrait is only a so-so likeness, but Freddie is willing to buy it for 200 pounds, (a lot of money at that time). Jarre continues to hold back because Freddie is distracted by Miranda’s offer to pick out another drawing to purchase. He had earlier agreed to get a note to her mother, which he dictated. While he looks for a picture to purchase, she slips a tiny note into the envelope to her mother. Unfortunately, he discovers the note.

The note says she’s been kidnapped by a madman, and suggests where to find her. Even the moment Freddie discovers the note is without score. Angry Freddie suggests she never tries to talk to him, and that’s why she hasn’t gotten to know him. Her friends would laugh at him, he tells her, but she disagrees.

He sees she has been reading J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, and asks if he would be able to discuss the book with her friends. “But of course you would!” she says. “Then I’ll read it,” says Freddie, and tears up the rescue note as he leaves, adding that she didn’t have his name or the location right anyway. This sets up the beginning of the third act, and also initiates the first of the longest remaining cues in the film.

As the ripped pieces of note drop, stabs of harpsichord are joined by high-end piccolo for an abrupt take on the collector theme. This is a painful comment on Miranda’s failed attempt to communicate to the outside world. There is an alarmist quality to the horns when Freddie readies a tray of breakfast for Miranda and leaves the main house kitchen. The camera moves towards the wall calendar and we see the 11th, Miranda’s last day, circled. Horns bleat out the collector theme and a chiming rhythm of harpsichord underlines the significance of this “final breakfast.”

The score remains tense since Jarre knows we are all waiting to see if Freddie will uphold his end of the bargain and let her go. When we see Miranda packing her things, dressed as she was when first brought to the cellar, the collector theme is given an ominous edge with deep organ as Freddie enters slowly with tray. Horns form the theme while harpsichord notes pluck an uneasy rhythm.

“You know today is the last day?” Miranda reminds him. When he tells her, “Yes, at twelve o’clock tonight,” the score drops off. It is effective to fade the score here, since the extension to midnight would suggest that perhaps things aren’t quite what they seem, but we don’t know for sure. A musical comment would telegraph what was to come, so Jarre avoids it.

What does happen is a discussion of the book The Catcher in the Rye, by Pierre Salinger. Freddie found it to be revolting, viewing its main character, a man Miranda describes as someone who doesn’t fit in anywhere, as a mirror image of himself. His resentment is obvious. Miranda admired the character’s truthfulness, but she now sees how different reality actually is with someone who also doesn’t fit in anywhere. The conversation ends with Freddie going into a rage about how both the Salinger book and even artwork by Picasso, things his working-class background did not prepare him to appreciate, is just plain rubbish. Freddie and Miranda’s attempts to cross over to each other’s world has only widened the gulf between them.

Oddly, in spite of Miranda’s despair over the disagreement, Jarre begins the next sequence, one of his longest unbroken cues, with music at first so light in tone that it seems out of place. Freddie rushes into the big house, and upstairs to his bedroom, where he removes a large box from his dresser. The up-tempo collector theme is bustling, joyful, with an uncharacteristic trumpet toying with the melody, the ever-present harpsichord chugging rhythm behind. Since its mood is gleeful, the upbeat tone of the score suggests Freddie, unfazed by their terrible fight, has something up his sleeve. What is in the box is key to understanding Jarre’s approach. On subsequent viewings the meaning of his odd scoring becomes apparent.

Back in the cellar, Miranda is a bit startled by his quick return with rising and briefly sustained reeds. It emphasizes her confusion. “For tonight,” he says, handing her the box and leaving abruptly. Only when notes of clarinet and flute fade when she opens the box to find a dress does Freddie’s mystery becomes clearer.

When Freddie returns that evening to see Miranda wearing the elegant dress Jarre continues the score in pleasant, sparkling tones. For her last night, Freddie has made a dinner upstairs and for this sequence, the composer not only returns to a variation we have only heard once before, but as the scene progresses, seduce us with his ultimate statement on harpsichord.

Piccolo and reeds etch out the collector theme as Miranda steps forward and holds out her hands to be tied. “Oh no, that’s all over,” says Freddie. Miranda cautiously smiles and heads outside. Jarre takes a light approach with high-end flute and harpsichord reprising the nursery rhyme variation. There is something classy about the dress, and something milder in Freddie’s manner that suggests things are about to take a pleasant turn.

In the living room of the big house, when Miranda sees the candlelit table he has set out, a dinner for two, harpsichord plays the jubilant variation of the collector theme we first heard when Freddie pranced ecstatically in the rain after first capturing Miranda. This is only the second time we’ve heard it. This rendition is also lovely, but its small simplicity, created by individual notes of harpsichord backed with low organ, suggests sadness. Like its previous incarnation, it’s a falling fragment, a simplification of the collector theme with some notes dropped to suggest clean delicacy. Its charm certainly reflects Miranda’s as she gazes at the beautiful place settings.

They toast. “We’ve come through, haven’t we?” says Miranda. The theme is deceptively cheerful, relaxed. Miranda is touched that he has framed the self-portrait she did. “It’ll be lonely here without you,” Freddie tells her, and for the first time, she seems genuinely concerned about his well-being. They sit down to what looks to be a lovely dinner. This is the first time a full conversation between them has received underscoring, and it oddly adds a touch of romance. The cheerful tone of Jarre’s music, however, has a betrayer, the harpsichord. An occasional jab of the instrument, a bit too pointed for its own good, keeps the mood unnerving. As well, the reeds wander over the melody quietly, as if waiting for an axe to fall.

When Miranda picks up her napkin it isn’t an axe that falls, but it may as well have been. It’s a ring, and Freddie asks her to marry him. The sad harpsichord fragment returns, and the descending notes now seems too perfect and controlled, just like the dinner date he has set up, all a sham to propose to her.

“You can have your own bedroom,” Freddie tells her, “You can lock it every night.” The music dies out, and in cold silence, she replies, “It’s horrible.” Yet, she realizes, if she wants to get free, she has to play along, so she says yes, she’ll marry him. It is here that she begins to comprehend the depth of his depravity, for after she has said yes, he merely rests back and darkly informs her, “Don’t you think I know you need witnesses to get married?”

Not only was the dinner a sham, but the proposal was too, for all Freddie wanted was to see was if she would say yes merely to placate him. “You can’t go back on your word!” she pleads, but Freddie states, “I can do what I like,” and muted brass call out a chilling rendition of Jarre’s theme, with high-pitched piccolo painfully suggesting the alarm of terror that must be going off in Miranda’s mind.

Miranda screams and runs to the door, but it’s locked. She darts to the butterfly collection room, searching for an escape. Continuing with the second in a series of long cues, drums pound a steady rhythm and reeds flutter feverishly until Miranda grabs a sharp tool and jabs at approaching Freddie. The distress theme takes over frantically, the drum rhythm intensifying, recalling the caged animal motif used when she first awakened. Repeated notes of piercing flute resonate as Miranda struggles to get free. The rhythm becomes a driving foundation over which the brass states a very sobering, dry rendition of the theme.

Those who are familiar with Jarre will recognize the almost galloping quality in the percussion. It is an approach he used in other scores of this period, namely in the ‘Rescue of Gasim’ sequence from LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. In that score the rhythm builds to a frenzied excitement of victory as Lawrence trots out of the desert on camel in a spectacular wide shot, having rescued a man from sure death. Here, the rhythms are savage, abstract, a cacophony playing against melody. To this raucous interlude Freddie overcomes and manages to chloroform Miranda again. The horns subside, putting an end to this wild melodic concoction with a few short toots as Miranda’s body goes limp.

Pulsing into the quiet as Freddie carries Miranda upstairs, Jarre gives us his collector theme on solo clarinet, a steady thump of deep bass and kettle drum suggesting the gradual calm overtaking what remains of their pounding fury. Slow, soothing flute and reeds replace the horn arrangement, ultimately dying away to nothing when Freddie enters his bedroom and places the unconscious Miranda on his bed. In silence he lays down beside her, putting his arm over her and slowly lifting his thumb to her breast. The glass harmonica ambience Jarre has used to indicate insanity returns as he pulls her body towards him.

Desperation has set in. Miranda awakens back in the cellar to find Freddie watching over her. He tells her he did not take advantage of her when she was unconscious, but he is still angry and accuses her of not trying to get to know him. Wailing flutes with a plunge of bassoon and harpsichord greets the situation when he leaves the cellar to allow her to think things over. Think she does, for the next sequence displays her most desperate act, and Jarre’s most beautiful.

It is sometime later, exactly when we aren’t certain, but Miranda has finished another bath, and is stepping downstairs in her bathrobe, eyes fixed on a waiting Freddie. She is filled with fear, but also resolve. The theme is low, hesitant, with soft flute and restrained clarinet casting a wary quality onto the scene. Something is up.

“Must I go straight back to the cellar?” Miranda asks, and then, “Is there something to drink?” In the living room Freddie pours her a glass of champagne and, like the nervous tension building within her, Jarre’s theme is now backed quietly by soft, churning rhythm in the reeds and harpsichord, single plucks of harpsichord carrying the melody. Miranda finishes the glass and then another. She removes his coat and sits on his lap. She requests he untie her hands, and he complies. “Am I too heavy?” she asks. “No,” he says, and so she unbuttons his shirt, softly kissing his neck and chest. Suddenly he becomes uncomfortable and gets up.

“What’s wrong?” she asks him.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he says, “it’s not right. You’re just pretending.”

She tells him to put out the light and come back to the couch. His flicking off the lamp cues the start of Jarre’s most elegant and simple rendition of his collector theme, lovingly delivered on double harpsichord. She drops her hair and her bathrobe. “Would I be doing this if I were only pretending?”

This is a seduction, for Miranda is now willing to do anything to be released. As she rests back on the couch and pulls him toward her, the theme unfolds beautifully but mechanically. The tempo is metronome perfect, unflinching. There is no embellishment here, just the melody, playing through completely, cleanly, almost starkly. Although Miranda is calling the shots here, it’s fitting that Jarre utilizes not only the instrument we have come to associate with Freddie, but the carefully delineated approach as well. Miranda is trying to use Freddie’s own weakness to her advantage.

This is the most captivating and sensuous version we have thus far heard of the collector theme, but it is curiously devoid of emotion. This is how it relates to Miranda, who in her last desperate bid for freedom is offering her body, an act only masquerading as genuine emotional involvement.

Now that Jarre’s soundtrack to THE COLLECTOR, is available on CD, it is worth noting that the quality of the listening experience of this cue is multiplied many fold by the use of headphones. The left and right hands of the harpsichord are separated cleanly onto left and right channels and a third counter melody line, added halfway through in the center, builds the piece to hypnotic proportions.

Although the cue is complete on the soundtrack release, in the film it is cut short when Freddie pulls away from Miranda in frustration and anger. He accuses her of doing what a common street woman would do to get what she wants, tosses her robe to her and demands she get dressed. As angry as he has ever been, he drags her to the front door, and as he unlocks it, she states the frightening truth: “I’m never getting out of here alive, am I?”

When the door opens, a particularly effective Wyler conceit is revealed. As quiet as it is inside, with a fire crackling in the fireplace, it’s pouring wet outside with a violent rainstorm underway. Of course, a storm that large would have been noticeable, but under Wyler’s direction, it becomes a shocking contrast to not only the quiet of the previous seduction, but a nice visual and aural metaphor of the cold truth of Miranda’s dire situation.

At this point Miranda tries the only option left. As Freddie pulls her across the yard through the drenching rain, she purposely drops her bath items when she spies a conspicuous shovel lying by the steps. When he bends down to pick up her things, she hits him over the head with the shovel. Blood pours from his head, and although she is aghast at the sight, she uses the opportunity to run. With her hands tied, however, she is still no match for even a dazed Freddie. He wrestles her to the muddy grass, as both of them get drenched in the downpour. He eventually overcomes her and drags her back to the cellar. Without score, this sequence plays all the more starkly and effectively with only the sound of their struggle and continuous rainfall.

Freddie locks her in the cellar and she makes one last attempt stop him from leaving, tripping on the floor heater and shorting it out. The door locks, and Miranda falls onto the steps, pleading, “Don’t die! Please don’t die!”

In the evening rain, Freddie has managed to drive himself to the hospital, but Miranda, alone and shivering in the cellar, hands still tied, wraps her wet body in a blanket and glances at the door. High-pitched aimless piccolo suggests the cool, clammy cellar air, with hits of kettledrum reinforcing the dour situation.

It is days later, and Freddie pulls his van into the front yard, the distress rhythm a pounding foundation through which brass and reeds weave the collector theme, upscale flute adding a sense of urgency. Beauty has left the orchestration. It is stark, perfunctory.

Inside the cellar, a weakened Miranda awakens to hear Freddie unlock the door, and the theme softens, the harpsichord fragile in its delivery. Freddie enters with a tray of food as before, and although Miranda is overjoyed to see him, she coughs and falls back. She thought she had killed him, and knew it would have been her end too, locked away with no one knowing. When she reaches for him, he pulls away. “Don’t touch me,” he tells her, “Don’t ever touch me.”

He leaves the tray and turns to leave. She tries to get up but collapses. He returns and helps her back to bed. Looking down at her and realizing how sick she is, he softens. “I still love you, Miranda.”

A pulsing harpsichord sets a clocklike tolling, suggesting what we already know, that Miranda has little time left. A bit delirious, she grabs his hands and confides, “Will you tell anyone about me?” He doesn’t know what she’s talking about. “I don’t want to die,” she explains. Here, the rhythm is emboldened by strumming guitar, all the while a tremolo flute wrenches even more melancholy from the already somber arrangement.

Miranda talks of a painting she wants to do, an image of a butter yellow field with a white, luminous sky, but she begins hacking and coughing. “I’ll get a doctor!” Freddie says and dashes outside. She hears his van drive away and sees that now she is free to escape. Yet, even though the door is open and Freddie is gone, she doesn’t have the strength to leave the bed.

The distress theme, alternating with the garden variation (used before with the unexpected neighbor), backs Freddie’s frantic drive to the doctor’s office. It’s fitting Jarre would bring back the variation used for the neighbor, for this is the only other time Freddie has considered the notion he might actually get caught. When he stares at the doctor’s office and hesitates, a three-note fragment cycled through trumpet, xylophone, flute, then clarinet creates a bit of edginess like it did when the neighbor was snooping around the house. Freddie cannot bring himself to knock on the door.

His drive back to the house continues with the distress theme. Accents of trumpet and reeds maintain a sense of alarm. He rushes down to the cellar and the distress theme merges into the collector, with the harpsichord finishing out the melody so delicately, so quietly, its quavering base line all telling us there is no question what has happened. All the life has drained from Jarre’s theme, barely making it to the last note.

Freddie says the doctor is on the way. “He gave me some pills.” He fills a glass with water, steps to bedside, and lifts Miranda’s head to give her the medicine. Her head falls back. “Miranda?” he asks. He says her name again, this time just to himself. His first reaction is to rub his hands through her hair. We hear the glass harmonica ambience one last time to remind us the insanity that started it all continues.

Terence Stamp, at a summer 2002 screening of THE COLLECTOR at the Rafael Theater in San Rafael, California, said after the production had wrapped that Wyler called and asked him, now that Miranda was dead, what would Freddie do? Stamp suggested he’d ‘shag’ her, to which Wyler was taken aback. Yet, some days later, Stamp was back in England and received a call from Wyler who said he agreed with Stamp, that that’s what Freddie would do. They had a piece of the wall from the cellar set brought to England and placed behind Stamp for a single shot of him talking about how he ‘shagged’ her dead body. Stamp said the shot was still in the film, however, the only shot of him in close up shows him covering his face with his hands, so perhaps the scene was shot as Stamp describes, but as the film now plays, the shot does not suggest anything more than remorse.

The glass harmonica ambience fades when Freddie covers his face. For a brief moment, Freddie can shut out even his own insanity, and this is a telling scene, considering what follows. He walks to the cellar door and is about to leave, but turns and sits. “I sat there all the rest of the afternoon,” he relates in voice over, “remembering. And all sorts of nice things came back.” Ultimately, he realizes that suddenly she was dead, and that dead means gone forever.

We see him drive away from his cottage, passing by a large tree in the front yard. “She’s in the box I made under the tall oak,” he informs. From the last appearance of the glass harmonic ambience until now, the film has played without score. This draws our attention to the few sounds we do hear, such as the engine of his van, which, under the circumstances, has a hollow, chilling effect.

Then we are in town, inside the parked van, seeing another girl approach, from Freddie’s POV. The jazzy stalking theme returns, with brushes dashing out the now compulsive rhythm, sharp hits of cymbal with single plucks of the unstoppable harpsichord emphasize a downbeat that cleverly reinforces the concept of mental fixation. As delivered by Jarre, the theme is even more determined than when Freddie first stalked Miranda at the beginning of the story.

This new girl is dressed like a nurse, and not as sophisticated in appearance as Miranda. Freddie’s thoughts about Miranda continue in voice over as he watches the nurse: “For days after she was dead, I kept thinking, perhaps it was my fault after all that she did what she did and lost my respect. But then I thought, no, it was her fault. She asked for everything she got.”

The compulsive nature of Jarre’s theme makes perfect sense now, as the harpsichord painfully tings its unchanging rhythm. As this new girl walks passed Freddie’s van his voice over gives us his final thoughts: “My only mistake was aiming too high. I ought to have seen I could never get what I wanted from someone like Miranda with all her la-di-da ideas and clever tricks. I ought to have got someone who would respect me more. Someone ordinary. Someone I could teach.” The nurse walks towards a narrow quiet street and Freddie pulls his van out after her as the stalking theme continues like a tightly wound metronome, click-clacking away as if it will never stop.

This gives way to the end credits and Jarre’s final rendition of his collector theme. This version is an anomaly in that it is fully orchestrated, the theme as we’ve never heard it, elegant and forthright, a full string section carrying the melody. The end credits appear over beautiful images of butterfly wings, and combined with Jarre’s full-blown rendition a sense of enchantment is created. Finally, here is the theme as envisioned by a sane mind, and its lack of restraint finally allows the audience to distance itself from Freddie’s peculiar brand of madness.

A suite from THE COLLECTOR is on a difficult to find 2015 CD release Notre Dame de Paris: The Music of Maurice Jarre . Aside from six cues from the non-film Notre Dame and some other Jarre film scores, THE COLLECTOR suite contains ‘Main Title’, ‘The Catch’ (including ‘The Stalking’ theme) and ‘End Credits’. The rendition of the Main Title is reasonably well recreated, ‘The Catch’ less so. The End Credits, the least successful, has none of the beautifully elegant orchestration used for the film. At least it’s nicely recorded.

Mainstream re-released their original soundtrack to THE COLLECTOR with no additional cues, this time paired with Mark Lawrence’s excellent score to the 1962 DAVID AND LISA, a fine film directed by Frank Perry. As of October, 2023, it is still available on Amazon in the U.S. The liner notes say this CD release was remastered using the original stereo tracks for the first time. This may have been true for a CD release, but THE COLLECTOR LP was originally released in both mono and stereo back in 1965. The stereo release had a higher sales price.

THE COLLECTOR has had a strange effect on people. It is one of those films that some people, primarily males, hold close to their hearts. It is a favorite of many, and has developed somewhat of a cult following. This is a rather disturbing notion, considering the subject matter, yet the film is so intelligently scripted, performed and scored, that the legacy it leaves behind is not so simply described.

Perhaps something Terence Stamp himself said about his experience shooting the film sheds light on the effect the story and its characters have on people. As previously mentioned, a technique actors use to elicit a performance out of their fellow actors was also used by Stamp and Wyler on THE COLLECTOR. Although he knew Ms. Eggar before the shoot, by a suggestion of Wyler’s, Stamp remained cold and unapproachable to her during production. This enhanced the tension between them on camera. Eggar gave arguably the best performance of her career, which may or may not have been helped by the aloof Stamp. Years later, according to Stamp, she forgave Wyler for her treatment, but apparently to this day, she has not forgiven him. Perhaps she saw a little of Freddie in Stamp.

Up to Jarre’s passing in 2009, aside from the suite released on Notre Dame de Paris: The Music of Maurice Jarre , the composer didn’t much acknowledge his work on THE COLLECTOR, but in terms of sheer psychological complexity and musical invention, it ranks as not only one of his greatest works, but certainly one of the finest scores of the 1960s. One can only hope a proper re-release happens, so it can rightfully take its place alongside other greats of the era.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 09:05:16 GMT

Scoring Session for Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome by David Stoner

 Originally published in CinemaScore #15, 1986/1987 

Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor and publisher Randall D. Larson

The English release of the soundtrack album to MAD MAX: BEYOND THUNDERDOME undoubtedly caused a few raised eyebrows amongst collectors by the sleeve’s inclusion of the mythical track, “Apocalyptic Prelude.” This music was Maurice Jarre’s cue for the main title credits and was in fact recorded for the film but later dropped in favor of the Tina Turner song, “One of the Living.” However, not only was the music changed but the whole presentation of the credits was altered.

What is now a mundane and imaginative series of titles was something once bold and brilliant. I was able to watch Maurice Jarre while he was at work on MAD MAX and, fortunately, the recording session I attended was that for the main titles as well as that for the end titles, which music was also deleted and replaced with “We Don’t Need Another Hero.”

What follows was written immediately after the recording and is an observation intended to portray something of the atmosphere of a film scoring session. [Regrettably, no photos were taken during this session. Readers will have to rely on David Stoner’s lucidly descriptive narrative to picture the environment. -ed.].

Amid general chatter and over the noise of eating and drinking, a voice rings out. “Anyone for MAD MAX?”

Standing in the doorway of the canteen of CTS Studios, Wembley, England, is the bespectacled figure of John Charles, the session manager of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. His remark causes considerable commotion since most of the people in the room are players of the RPO and they are required downstairs in Studio One. It is almost seven in the evening of May 22, 1985, and one of the final scoring sessions for MAD MAX: BEYOND THUNDERDOME is about to begin.

Tonight’s session will cover the beginning and end title music and will be conducted by the composer, Maurice Jarre. The complete score is a long one, over 90 minutes, and contains many complex and intricate pieces of music. Also, due to the nature of the film, much of the music is very loud and violent and has proved quite exhausting to play.

This evening session is to be the last of many for the score has taken over three months, on scattered day and evening sessions, to put on to the film. For many of the sessions, director George Miller has been on hand to add advice, criticism, and so forth, although his help was limited due to the fact that constant jet-lag caused him to fall asleep while much of the music was being played.

Inside the control room, the large window looks out onto the panorama of CTS’s largest studio, recently completely re-equipped with digital facilities. Separated from the bulk of the orchestra are the two Ondes Martenot players, Jeanne Loriod and Cynthia Millar. For the music at the climax of the film, already recorded, Jarre employed a third player, Dominique Kim, and then re-recorded all three so that the final effect sounds like six players.

In a sealed section directly under the control room is an exotic array of percussion. Apart from the usual timpani, there are snare drums, swiss cow-bells, tam-tams, wood blocks and a whip! There are constant jokes about the whip. Darting around the players, checking mikes and headphone hook-ups is the recording engineer, Dick Lewzey. He handles most of the film work at CTS and his recent projects have included THE BRIDE and A VIEW TO A KILL.

Standing beside the conducting podium and deep in conversation with a tall, fair-haired man, is Jarre, looking a lot younger than his 61 years and dressed in the ever-present turtleneck sweater. He is going over the orchestrations for the end title with Christopher Palmer, his musical assistant for the last ten years.

Lewzey, having finished in the studio, now comes up to the control room and confers with Tim Pennington, his assistant. Tim threads on a spool of 24-track digital tape (as opposed to the usual 2-track video cassette) and checks the recording equipment. Clutching a bundle of music manuscripts, Palmer enters the room, takes his place at one end of the recording desk and confers with his assistant, Julian. They prepare the end title score to follow along as Jarre rehearses the orchestra. There is much noise from below as they tune up.

Jarre and the orchestra are now ready for the first rehearsal. There is a large screen at the back of the studio, but for this particular cue there will be no picture, since the track is recorded “wild.” J arre raises his baton. On the downbeat, the lower strings set up a sinister tempo and the orchestra quickly swoops in with a frenzied theme that is adventurous and exciting. Percussion, synthesizers, harps as well as combined strings, brass and woodwind perform the exhilarating music. As they perform, Lewzey tests individual microphones by feeding each particular mike through the desk, producing some alarming sounds as suddenly the entire orchestra is silenced with the exception of a pianist doggedly thumping away at the lower end of his keyboard.

After about three minutes, the music comes to a rousing climax. There were one or two ragged points in the playing and Jarre takes them through it again. In the control room, Palmer follows the score, making his own notes and comments which he relays to Jarre via a phone after the first rehearsal. This is the first time that anybody has heard the music and after the second go, Jarre and Palmer confer, deciding that a cleaner result may be possible by giving more prominence to the brass and cutting out some of the strings. They try it, the orchestra performs and it works; it sounds much sharper. Lewzey is satisfied that he is getting everything from “the floor” and so it’s time to try for a take.

The piece is technically known as 12-M-2, this nomenclature identifying it as the second music cue in reel 12. Jarre signals for silence after checking with the control room that everything is set. Lewzey signals that it is and Tim sets the tape running. Operating the studio mike, Lewzey gives out the ident, “12-M-2 take 1.” There is a pause and the click track starts, which is fed through to each player via their headphones, and then the piece of played. The take is good but Palmer thinks there should be another. And so, “12-M-2 take 2.”

This one is short lived as there is a false start, but the third is much more successful. Palmer suggests to Jarre that he come up and listen, which is a good cue for the orchestra to break for coffee and generally disappear for about fifteen minutes. Jarre wanders into the control room and sits in Lewzey’s chair to get the best effect. He listens to takes 1 and 3 and agrees that the third is the best. Tim notes all this down on the tape box, since when it comes to the final mixing, they will need to know which takes are being used.

During the break, there is general discussion about the next and last piece to be done which, perversely, is 1-M-1, the first cue to be heard in the film.

The music heard over the opening credits is often a wonderful chance for the composer to assert himself, providing it is in keeping with the tone of the film, especially if the credits aren’t shown over live action, dialog or any other noise as is the case with THUNDERDOME. Miller intends to do for his audience what Spielberg did with CLOSE ENCOUNTERS – literally jolt them out of their seats with a combined visual and orchestral explosion. Jarre wants force and violence from the orchestra and this is where much of the percussion comes in. Everybody agrees that 1-M-1 will be tricky and Lewzey has a worried look on his face, possibly thinking about the sonic explosion that is about to go through the studio’s highly expensive recording desk.

One of the main problems is due to the split-second timing involved, and linked to this is the fact that part of the music was recorded weeks ago. The first few bars of the theme are performed by a boy’s choir to give an angelic choral effect and the choir in question have recorded their part, and gone.

Since there is no orchestral playing during these bars, plus there is a brief fanfare before the choir starts, the players will have to keep absolute silence after the fanfare until they come in with their explosion. The timing has to be exact because the musical explosion should arrive at the same time as its visual equivalent. The film opens with the Warner Bros. shield logo, over which is heard the fanfare. Then there are a few preliminary credits on a black background while the choir is singing and then comes the film title. The black screen is suddenly lit by a streak of lightning after which comes a brilliant, blinding flash. From behind the camera, as with the SUPERMAN credits, the words MAD MAX come forward as a solid metallic block and hit the screen. Appearing beneath that and only when the advancing words have stopped and taken center-space on screen, comes BEYOND THUNDERDOME, so that the final effect is that title logo which appears on the poster and film’s advertising. The whole thing only takes a couple of seconds, and when the orchestral crash is added fractionally after the lightning so that it hits at the same time as the flash, the effect will be startling.

After the break, the musicians reassemble and Jarre prepares to take them through 1-M-1. The fanfare is tried first and this seems to go all right, although Palmer is unhappy that the trumpets don’t have the power that was intended. After an interval comes the explosion. When it comes, it almost blows out the recording desk and Lewzey is horrified to see red lights on all 24 channels. As the crash dies out and the percussion begin their growing beat, Lewzey checks with Tim to see if any damage has been done. Down in the studio, the orchestra are now well into the theme, and it is time for the saxophone to make its appearance.

In the film, one of Tina Turner’s minions plays this instrument and Jarre has decided that it should play a featured role in the score. The player is Ron Asperey, a veteran session player, and for this, he is being closely miked so that the sound is harsh and abrasive. The music builds to a clangorous climax and ends with the synthesizer producing a low dying note. This takes the film out of the credits and into an aerial shot that swoops down and over a wagon traveling across the barren Australian landscape.

After a couple of recorded takes to a color work-print of the film, Jarre comes up to listen. The fanfare seems all right and the crash works even though Lewzey expresses his disquiet at the noise level, but there is a problem with the percussion build-up after the crash. What Jarre is seeking is a martial incisiveness; a steady thump with bite to it. At the moment, this is not what is coming through. A couple of percussionists have come into the room and make a few suggestions. Eventually, a few changes are made and the orchestra goes through it again. Once more, the fanfare, then the crash and now into the percussive build-up. This time it is much better. There is a distinct aggressiveness in this music which is what Miller requires for his opening and which Jarre will make every effort to supply. However, altogether there are six takes and none of them are completely satisfactory.

It is now fast approaching ten o’clock, the time at which the session should end. After that, the musicians will have to be paid overtime and already the costs incurred for this score are horrendous. There are no more sessions planned and so the work must be done tonight. Jarre is reluctant to try any more takes. The piece is hard work to play and the orchestra is already tired. He comes up to the control room and listens to everything that has been recorded thus far. Of the fanfares, there are two that are good and one of these will be used. The crash is more of a problem. Two of them come in too late but are musically fine, and others are accurate but with the remainder of the theme being poor. Palmer suggests that a possible way round this is by editing two or three takes together and producing one that is good in every section. Lewzey is against this because the music is of such a complex nature that good editing spots would be hard to find.

While this is going on, it has been decided to add some reverb and echo to the saxophone track and this greatly enhances the atmosphere of the piece. Also, the percussion is given a needed boost by pushing their channels up to top volume. Although, individually, none of the takes were totally satisfactory, an acceptable compromise is reached by skillful mixing and the fact that there simply is no more time. After this, the music will be mixed into the film and attempt to find its own place amongst the other sound tracks.

It is extremely disheartening to think that all this effort was ultimately wasted, although the final mix is more in Jarre’s favor than it has been in other recent films (TOP SECRET being a prime example). To add insult to injury, the album release from MAD MAX: BEYOND THUNDERDOME is a less than ideal representation of the music that is in the final print. The absence of the Thunderdome fanfare is keenly felt. However, this does serve as a testament to Jarre’s unflinching professionalism and to the very hard and conscientious work that does go on in the recording studio.

And also, to what should have been, and almost was, a very striking set of opening credits.

Gesù di Nazareth

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 08:49:11 GMT

Label: RCA Records
Catalogue No: OST 131

Release Date: 1996

Total Duration: 39:17

UPN: 0-743213-899220

It is amazing to realize how much our perception of what “Roman epic” music must sound like has changed, once we have been exposed to Miklos Rozsa. In many celebrated scores, Rozsa clearly defined this type of music, and, right or wrong, set the standards by which other similar scores have to be judged.

Not that Maurice Jarre’s JESUS OF NAZARETH does not seem appropriate, but it sounds somewhat… well, out of place, at least given the context. Written in 1977 for a television special, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, the score follows the story of Christ, from the “Annunciation,” to the visit of the “Three Kings,” His “Baptism,” the “Beatitudes,” the “Miracle of the Fish,” the “Crucifixion,” and the “Resurrection.”

At first, “Jesus of Nazareth,” the first track on the CD, evokes Rozsa and his own approach to the music. But immediately after, Jarre dispels any notion that his score might follow in the musical footsteps of his predecessor, and the introduction of Ondes Martenot in “Annunciation” takes the remainder of the score into a style that is more reminiscent of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA or DOCTOR ZHIVAGO than BEN-HUR.

In his music, Jarre utilizes several mid-Eastern instruments, like the kitara, santur, uggav, chalil, shofar, tuppim, tziltzelim and chatsotzerah, which confer to the music a touch of authenticity. Of interest also is the reading of “The Beatitudes” read by Robert Powell.

On a purely technical note, the sound quality on the CD is not always up to par, with the EQ quite muddy at times, and some distortion in the loudest passages.

Didier C. Deutsch – Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.15 / No.60 / 1996

Villa Rides!

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 08:35:53 GMT

Label: Tadlow Music
Catalogue No: TADLOW014

Release Date: 22-Aug-2011

Total Duration: 75:39

UPN: 0-626570-615279

City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Nic Raine

Although this CD follows on from Tadlow’s recent release of TARAS BULBA, it is not actually sub-titled THE CLASSIC FILMS OF YUL BRYNNER VOL 2! Not that VILLA RIDES could easily be described as a classic film anyway, because what we are presented with in this recording is yet another score which is substantially more impressive than the film for which it was composed. Producer James Fitzpatrick has described Marice Jarre’s VILLA RIDES as a personal favourite and after recording TARAS BULBA and similar large scale epic scores he welcomed the opportunity to do a smaller, gentler, score. As it turns out, smaller is something of a misnomer because some of the cues are written for an orchestra of over 100 musicians. Jarre seemed to have a natural talent for effervescent Latin American/Mexican flavoured music, albeit with a European slant, as evidenced by THE PROFESSIONALS, EL CONDOR, A WALK IN THE CLOUDS and MOON OVER PARADOR and, apart from the music being dominated by extensive use of percussion instruments, it features many of Jarre’s familiar stylistic characteristics which make his music so distinctive.

Cymbals and timpani herald the opening of the “Main Title” followed, as on the original soundtrack, with the atmospheric sound of the wind. The theme for Pancho Villa is then introduced but is at first whistled by a sole performer before being taken up by the orchestra – first with percussion and then building up towards the full orchestra. A more overtly joyous Mexican styled theme is introduced in “Much More Money” which represents the revolution in general whilst something of Jarre’s Gallic charm can be discerned in the theme for the character portrayed by Robert Mitchum in the delightful music for ”Lee and Fina at the River”. Some of the most attractive music is heard in numerous cues featuring solo or small combinations of instruments, as well as source music cues – some of which derive from traditional Mexican folk tunes. I’d single out “Hacienda Dance”, “After the Marriage”, “Love in the Boxcar”, Fina and Lee” and “Cantina Dance” as some of the especially appealing cues. As a contrast, the full array of the orchestra is summoned for such savagely action packed music as in “Colorados in the Village” and “The Battle”, which make effective use of strident brass together with some truly unusual orchestral effects. As Frank DeWald explains in his concise liner notes, Jarre makes much use of the huapango dance pattern – characterized by a complex rhythmic structure mixing alternate duple and triple meters. Overall VILLA RIDES is a hugely enjoyable score, inventive and varied, with Jarre at his most harmonically accomplished.

VILLA RIDES contains about 55 minutes of music and to round out the CD several tracks from other Jarre western film scores are included. These include the stylistically associated main titles from EL CONDOR and THE PROFESSIONALS (one of Jarre’s very best) as well as the distinctively low-key title music for THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUDGE ROY BEAN with its intriguing opening combination of percussion and cimbalom. Music from RED SUN and CIMARRON STRIP (a TV series for which Jarre did the pilot episode) complete the package. As always, the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra under Nick Raine’s direction perform with admirable gusto throughout and the quality of the recording, engineered by Smecky Studios’ Jan Holzner, is impressively bright and spacious.

The Epic Film Music of Maurice Jarre

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 08:24:18 GMT

Label: Silva Screen Records
Catalogue No: FILMCD 060

Release Date: 1990

Total Duration: 77:01

UPN: 5-014929-006024

These are refreshing recordings to come back to when one wants to escape the moribund electronic scores Maurice Jarre so often does these days. One of Jarre’s greatest strengths is the amazing facility with which he combines western forms with ethnic styles and instrumentation. No wonder Moustapha Akkad and John Huston took up his services for their epic adventures.

EPIC FILM SCORES is a wonderful package. Silva Screen did a fine thing: they could have released the two scores on separate CDs and charged more, but they’ve very generously put them together on one 77 minute CD. The 14-page booklet nearly rivals the Hammer Films release, with reproductions of the spectacular poster artwork, photos from the films, and credits in the original type styles, along with notes on both the composer and the music.

The releases of both films were attended by great controversy. THE MESSAGE raised the ire of Moslems offended by its telling the life story of Mohammed, though in accordance with tradition Mohammed himself is never shown. A history of Mussolini’s brutal attempt to conquer Libya, LION OF THE DESERT was construed by some paranoid American critics as some sort of apology for Moammar Khadhafy.

In his scores for both films, Jarre displays his respect and affection for Arab music and instruments. THE MESSAGE’s music favors panorama over drama – Jarre’s is a colorful score more about idea than personality. Quiet cues like “Hegira” and “The First Martyrs” gracefully combine Arabic instruments with the Ondes Martenot for haunting effect. Others, like “The First Mosque” and the triumphal march “Entry to Mecca” feature bold percussion patterns. “Spread of Islam” is one of many cues that feature what seems to be the score’s primary theme, which the notes reveal as being a variation of the Call of the Muezzin (who summons the Moslems to prayer at the mosque). The Ondes Martenot, backed by distant strings (together, a Jarre trademark) creates an ethereal, dreamy effect. “The Call” also ends the scores in grand fashion in “The Faith of Islam”.

In addition to the color and pageantry (“Fight” by the way, opens and concludes with a lively Arab dance, and features interesting shifts in tone and tempo), Jarre also creates a spiritual level in his score. Is it ironic that there are moments here which plainly recall another Jarre score of this period – JESUS OF NAZARETH? LION OF THE DESERT comes off as more immediately accessible. Here the music dramatizes the conflict between two strong warrior personalities: Italy’s cruel General Graziani and the noble Libyan defender Omar Mukhtar.

“Omar the Teacher” opens the score quite charmingly. His theme opens beautifully, touchingly played alternatingly by strings, muted brass and woodwinds. For three-and-a-half minutes this is a reflective, peaceful version, after which the same theme abruptly transforms itself into a martial air for brass and percussion, with some sweeping variations and striking moments. Also heard is a sort of counter-theme, which portrays Muhktar’s wisdom. “Italian Invasion” features a quote from an actual fascist anthem which is heard when we visit Mussolini in Rome. It’s followed by a dark, compassionate theme for strings that reminds me of the suffering Christ music from, yes, JESUS OF NAZARETH. The cue “Lion of the Desert” features a swirling piano hazily building with other instruments to create an effect worthy of Saint-Saens.

One of the score’s stand-out sequences is “The Concentration Camp”, a tragic lament for chorus and orchestra which reflects the somber grace of the scenes which are melted skillfully to actual documentary footage of the Libyans’ internment. The colorful, uplifting “March of Freedom“ concludes the score. Things do not end well for the hero or his people, but the music possesses a triumphant mood. The strong qualities of Omar, we know, will outlive the powers of his executioners.

Steven J. Lehti – Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.10 / No.38 / 1991

Lawrence of Arabia

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 08:18:14 GMT

Label: Tadlow Music
Catalogue No: TADLOW012

Release Date: 13-Sep-2010

Total Duration: 02:28:03

UPN: 6-2657-06096-6-7

City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Nic Raine

A long cherished project by Tadlow Records’ producer James Fitzpatrick, this recording of Maurice Jarre’s complete score for LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, as performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra conducted Nic Raine, easily outshines all previous versions of the music.

David Lean’s LAWRENCE has entered the film world lexicon as an authentic masterpiece: a film which succeeds on so many different levels, not least of which is the music score. Jarre’s majestic main theme which is used to describe the sweeping vistas of the desert, is one of the most popular and iconic of themes – one of the most instantly recognisable themes in all film history. So recognisable is the main theme, that slipping it into a desert scene in a James Bond film (The Spy who Loved Me) is all that is necessary to tap into the collective memory to have an audience laughing in recognition. Of course, the complete score is far more than that main theme. It could be said that the uncomplicated harmonies of the desert theme make it somewhat less interesting than the more complex themes which Jarre also utilises and, as Frank K. DeWald explains in his excellent booklet notes, in the way Jarre brings an unresolved tension to so much of the score – something of a trademark for the composer who had a very recognisable and unique style.

The opening of the ‘Overture’ is an electrifying attention-grabber with its exuberant timpani opening followed by the string dominated main theme. The unresolved ending leaves a sense of keen anticipation as the ‘Main Title’ begins with another timpani fanfare and the introduction of a delightful British-styled theme as, in the opening credits, Lawrence is seen in England preparing for his fateful motorcycle ride. Overall, the film is not exactly sparsely scored but at about 70 minutes (excluding ‘Overture’ etc) the film is not overly scored either. Most of the music is contained in the first part of the film, prior to the Intermission, where it carries much of the action. The second part of the film (and it has to be said the less dramatically solid) is more dialogue driven and therefore less reliant on music – following the Intermission the film contains surprisingly little music. The most sustained lengthy musical sequences are when Lawrence and his followers cross the Nefud desert in order to attack Akaba. Comprising the tracks, ‘That is the Desert’, ‘Mirage / Sun’s Anvil’, ‘Gasim Lost in the Desert’, ‘Lawrence Rescues Gasim / Lawrence Returns with Gasim’. These cues contain some of the most interesting and inventive music; from the bleak low key instrumentations of the trek through the desert to the high point of exaltation expressed by Jarre so very well as Lawrence arrives with the rescued Gasim.

Following the attack on Akaba, ‘Sinai Desert / After Quicksands / Hutments / Suez Canal is one of the most atmospheric tracks as Lawrence makes his way back to Cairo but gets lost in the desert. Here, various unusual orchestral effects make for an effectively unsettling experience. ‘Adulation’ is a short but fascinating cue where the desert theme becomes almost ethereal as, in the film, Lawrence strides across the top of train carriages but the music then becomes militaristic, giving a totally different emphasis to the scene.

Apart from two tracks from Lawrence; an alternative ‘Nocturne’ and Alford’s ‘Voice of the Guns’, disc 2 contains music from 13 other Jarre scores selected for, as the notes say, “An overview of the rich variety and originality that made Jarre’s music so distinctive”. Some of these recordings appear to have either been previously released or, for whatever reason, were recorded but not released. I confess that many of these are unfamiliar to me but they make a delightful potpourri of Jarre’s music and if I single any out, I would say the suite from ‘The Magician of Lublin’ is especially attractive.

Overall this recording of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA is exceptionally well played and recorded and remarkably authentic to the original soundtrack, making it inspirational and exciting to listen to. Presentation is well up to Tadlow’s usual high standards. Apart from Frank K. DeWald’s previously mentioned detailed notes. James Fitzpatrick provides revealing and detailed information about the project and reminiscences about Maurice Jarre – for which this is a very fine and admirable tribute.

I Dreamed of Africa

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 08:09:31 GMT

Label: Varèse Sarabande
Catalogue No: VSD 302-066-143-2

Release Date: 1-May-2000

Total Duration: 59:46

UPN: 0-3020-66143-2-9

Hot on the heels of SUNSHINE comes another grand and eloquent new Jarre score. Films about Africa always seem to inspire especially powerful music, and this is no exception. Jarre minimizes the ethnic music, although there are some percussion rumblings and some tribal stringed instrumentation here and there which add a neat texture to Jarre’s very fluid, string-driven rhythms. There’s even a neat didgideroo bass tone in the midst of “The Storm,” a powerful action cue full of raging, tumultuous percussion and horns. Jarre is scoring tonality and texture, not strict ethnic accuracy, and the placement of the Australian instrument in this African setting lends a neat grain to the music, as if suggesting that this story of multiracial connections exceeds national or continental boundaries. But the main musical sensibility of the score remains pure Jarre.

The CD mixes up five score cues with three African folk songs, which tend to merge nominally well with the music, although the purist in me would program the cues so as to hear all of Jarre’s material by itself. But the songs are only minor distractions – it’s not as if all of a sudden a Metallica cue popped up in the middle of Jarre’s gentle rhythms.

There are a lot of shadings of the Jarre of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA period in the score tracks on this CD, a pleasant reminder that the Jarre of today is just as potent and powerful as the Jarre of 1962. The CD opens with the kind of instrumentation and style reminiscent of LAWRENCE, before merging into a brief African vocal textural phrasing, and then growing into Jarre’s main theme, an effective ascension of violins overcome by a ringing tonality that keeps the theme from totally resolving its climax until later. Jarre’s main theme is a 5-note ascending motif, full of soaring violins held in order by percussion and brass.

The five score cues are quite generous, ranging from 6:06 to 11:16 in length, allowing plenty of musical development to occur within each cue. “A Different Rhythm” is a powerful and grand composition, a nearly 11 minute suite of some of Jarre’s best recent music.

Randall D. Larson – Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.19 / No.74 / 2000

The Mosquito Coast

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 08:01:24 GMT

Label: Fantasy Records
Catalogue No: FCD 21005 2

Release Date: 1986

Total Duration: 45:37

UPN: 0-2521-82105-2-2

Maurice Jarre’s score for THE MOSQUITO COAST is the latest in his series of film collaborations with Australian director Peter Weir, a relationship that has proved to be most productive.

As with WITNESS and THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY, Jarre has produced his score electronically, immersing the listener in an ethereal world of sound that has both a suggestive and descriptive quality to it. Jarre’s synthesizer atmospheres combine melodic fragments with rhythmic percussiveness – there are no developed melodies in this score, but plenty of ideas and brief motifs. This is most effectively realised in “Jeronimo”, where after sections of exotic mysticism and percussive Afro-rhythms have developed through, a recurrent melodic idea eventually transforms itself into a gradually descending chordal progression of B triads, cadencing in a dramatic, bursting electronic display.

The tracks on the album are very long, but after a while the texture of the score becomes somewhat monotonous. There is very little variety in the score, and this in addition to the lack of melodic interest hurts the over-all impact of the music. Jarre’s approach serves him well, but it worked better in WITNESS. Besides the fact that it was more of a unique film, the WITNESS score better sustained interest through shorter cues, and had the highlight of the barn raising sequence. A standout that is noticeably absent from Jarre’s MOSQUITO COAST score.

Is Jarre’s reliance on electronics of late a reflection of his desire to emulate his son Jean Michel’s commercial success, or is it in fact the other way around, with Maurice teaching Jean-Michel all he knows? Just wondering.

Kevin Mulhall – Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.6 / No.22 / 1987

Casablanca

Tue, 10 Oct 2023 11:56:59 GMT

Behind the Screen: Casablanca by Fred Karlin
Originally published in Music from the Movies Issue 22, 1999
Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Paul Place

When Max Steiner agreed to score the Warner Bros. movie CASABLANCA, he insisted on replacing Herman Hupfeld's 1931 song As Time Goes By , preferring to use one of his own. His logic was nearly irrefutable - use of this previously written song would handicap him as a composer, forcing him to score the film with a theme not nearly as customised and functional for this specific project as the new one he might write.

This solid logic has worked many times since then. When John Williams met with George Lucas to discuss the music for STAR WARS, he convinced the director that new music in the style they both agreed upon as ideal for the film would give the composer much more freedom and opportunity to develop his score appropriately for the characters as the film itself developed.

After considerable resistance, when shooting was finished the producers agreed to replace the song even though it had already been mentioned by the stars and sung on-camera by Sam (Dooley Wilson). But this meant reshooting footage with Ingrid Bergman, who had just cut her hair to star in FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, and matching her look in CASABLANCA was hopeless. Max Steiner's score for this classic film, interlaced with the tune he was consequently required to use, is a textbook example of the art of film music adaptation. But before we can really appreciate his accomplishments in Casablanca, we must consider the possibility that Steiner's film music is often an acquired taste for our current sensibilities. There are several reasons for this.

His scoring is on the nose. When the location is Casablanca in French Morocco, his music immediately helps colour that locale with the appropriately exotic hues. In fact, most of his main title music blends that exotic sound with suggestions of the intense drama to follow a device that is still used frequently in contemporary films). When the location moves to Paris, you can count on the music to deliver that information with a suggestion of La Marseillaise . In fact, there are many moments in this score that paraphrase a bit of this tune (sometimes in the minor mode), typically referencing the role of France and its sympathisers in this World War Il drama. Even when we seem to need it the least, as when the camera moves in on a pamphlet that says “Free France,” the score still plays La Marseillaise .

Similarly, his points of emphasis are often obvious. When the Germans shoot a man in the street during the opening sequence, his music highlights the shot with an accent just after the sound effect, and then another heavier accent as the man hits the ground. He frequently hits the action in this way. At the end of the film, he accents the deposit of a bottle of Vichy water in a waste basket to emphasise the dissolution of Renault’s (Claude Rains) accommodation of the Germans. In general, even when there is not such a specific hit, Steiner's music plays into the drama, strongly emphasising each dramatic moment. He never plays through the action, as we may be inclined to do today in certain kinds of films. There have been so many movies and television shows since 1942, and we have all seen and experienced so many films, that our contemporary ears don't necessarily need the music to stay consistently at this high level of emotional and dramatic involvement for the personal aspects of the story. Actions yes, but not always personal emotions and reactions. Even as this style pulls us into the story it may put us off intellectually.

The actual performance by Steiner's Warner Bros. orchestra is typically more emotional than we are now accustomed to - some would say schmaltzy. This, combined with less than full-spectrum reproduction of the sound on the old optical tracks can make us feel that we are in a time warp and that this music is no longer relevant to what we create and expect to hear today. To get past this particular problem, listen to some of the newer recordings of Steiner's music from the thirties and forties. Among others, KING KONG was released by Marco Polo in 1996 with William T. Stromberg conducting the Moscow Symphony Orchestra (an earlier re-recording by Fred Steiner with the National Philharmonic Orchestra may be a collectors’ item now), Tara's Theme from GONE WITH THE WIND is available on the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra's Hollywood Dreams with John Mauceri conducting, and Charles Gerhardt's groundbreaking series of available re-recordings for RCA in the seventies includes a CD of Steiner's cues entitled NOW, VOYAGER. Hearing these CDs for the first time can be a revelation as they place early scores into our current frame of reference.

All in all, we shouldn't ask, would I do this the same way today, half a century later? Let's ask how we can best accomplish the same thing today - that is, fulfil the same dramatic needs of the film today. In his New York Tribune review when CASABLANCA was released, Bosley Crowther said, “They have so combined sentiment, humour and pathos with taut melodrama and bristling intrigue that the result is a highly entertaining and even inspiring film.” Scores rarely play the humour in films of this sort, so the music was required to underscore sentiment, pathos, intensity, urgency, and ultimately inspiration. This was its function, to contribute these qualities to the film through music, as and where needed. The occasional suggestion of regional music contributes to the film's intensity or urgency, a technique that Steiner uses well for that purpose in the Blue Parrot scenes to underscore the bristling intrigue.

The element of sentiment is key - CASABLANCA is a profoundly romantic film. Profound because, as film critic Roger Ebert put it, “Casablanca is not about love anyway, but about nobility.” Steiner uses the melody of As Time Goes By to play both the romance and the drama. The irresistible attraction felt by Ilsa (Bergman) and Rick (Bogart) leads ultimately to their parting for a greater good. As Rick says, “The problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” By then, the romantic associations of As Time Goes By established by Steiner throughout the movie are a deeply moving emotional force. From the moment Ilsa first asks Sam to “Play it once, Sam,” that song and Rick and Ilsa are one. Steiner begins using the song theme on his first cue after Sam finishes singing, weaving its phrases here and there throughout the cue as Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) and Ilsa leave the Café.

Listen for the many subsequent uses of this theme in various forms. Steiner sometimes merely suggests the tune, duplicating its rhythmic motion or contour. Many times he develops the harmony under the theme, giving the song's melody a more sombre or dramatic flavour. Listen also to the following moment when you may expect to hear the theme, but won't. Ilsa has secretly left her hotel to talk to Rick about the Letters of Transit in his possession - her only hope for Victor's escape from Casablanca. Music starts as Rick sees Ilsa in his room, but it is not the theme we hear. She's on a mission. The theme doesn't start until she aims a gun at Rick, and then it is used dramatically, not romantically. Perhaps the most stunning example of Steiner's thematic adaptation is the metamorphosis of the tune as Rick walks toward her and they hug. The first bar is not As Time Goes By but the score moves into the second bar of the melody as he hugs her, before modulating and developing further.

Throughout all his uses of the song theme, Max Steiner himself must have been identifying the function of the score and therefore adapting the tune to serve the immediate dramatic needs of the film. In Henry Mancini's words, this adaptation “is masterful.” For an interesting comparison, listen to Hugo Friedhofer's outstanding adaptation of John Green's BODY AND SOUL in the 1947 song-titled film about boxing - another effective use of a pop standard. Friedhofer, Steiner’s favourite orchestrator, orchestrated CASABLANCA.

Both the New York Tribune and New York Times reviews mention the powerful scene at Rick's Café in which the Gestapo soldiers, singing the German song Die Wacht Am Rhein , are drowned out by the entire crowd, led by Victor, singing La Marseillaise . One of the most emotional moments in the film, this is a remarkable example of source music written into the screenplay to be performed on screen by the actors. The singers and their songs become symbolic for the universal forces of good and evil, and when the good prevail, we cry with empathy and compassion. La Marseillaise adds some extra emotional clout to the score through Steiner's integration of it in subsequent scenes.

CASABLANCA started out as another 'B' film on the Warner Bros. 1942 release schedule - one of fifty or so. It won the Academy Award for Best Picture and ended up a classic, deeply rooted in our western culture. If we filmed it now it would be a period piece, a look back at the early days of World War II. But at the time it was a contemporary drama driven with the immediacy of current events. Although not an exact quote from the film, why not “Play it again, Sam,” listening this time for Max Steiner's enormous contribution to this film.

Fred Karlin (1936-2004), an Oscar and Emmy winning composer, author of ‘Listening to Movies’, and co-author of ‘On the Track’ with Rayburn Wright, created and hosted his 'Fred Karlin Film Scoring Workshop' at ASCAP (1988-96).

The Horror Film Music of Les Baxter

Tue, 10 Oct 2023 11:06:35 GMT

An Interview with Les Baxter by Randall D. Larson
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.15 / No.58 / 1996
Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

The death of Les Baxter on January 15, 1996, at the age of 73, closes a unique era in film scoring. A virtuoso master of low-budget scoring, Baxter worked for fifteen years in the music department of American International Pictures, scoring a variety of films from biker movies to bikini movies. But he made the greatest mark in horror films, providing inventive and effective scores for pictures with minuscule budgets - many of those films have mercifully faded from memory. But plenty of them remain classics of a kind - AIP's Poe films like THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER.

The low-budget horror films produced by Roger Corman and American International Pictures in the 1950's and 60's, despite their low budgets and cheap effects, often maintained an effectiveness through moody set design, noteworthy direction, memorable performances by actors such as Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff, and through a highly effective musical scoring, more often than not penned by Les Baxter. Baxter's music, calculatingly quirky, brooding, ominous or terrifying, provided the final ingredient that gave these films life, and in some cases was the only memorable element of some of these forgotten features.

Les Baxter was born in Texas in 1922, and gained an interest in the piano at an early age. He studied at the Detroit Conservatory of Music and later at Los Angeles’ Pepperdine College before working as an arranger for famous bandleaders in the 40's, and ultimately in radio and films. Baxter's career has been as varied as the films on which he has worked. In addition to scoring movies, Baxter recorded a series of exotic and easy-listening albums for Capitol Records and arranged the recordings of many other artists. He has also written show music for theme parks and sea worlds, all of which has provided him with an arena for his penchant toward musical experimentalism. This inclination was particularly suited to science fiction and horror films, and it is with these films that Baxter's reputation is linked the strongest.

The following interview was originally conducted in 1984 and published in the third issue of my horror film fanzine CineFan. Portions also appeared in my book on horror films, Musique Fantastique. Baxter told me it was the most comprehensive interview he'd ever done. It is reprinted here in his memory - and in remembrance of some of horror film’s most terrific music.

Your first horror score was for THE BLACK SLEEP in 1956. Do you have any recollection of your approach to this first horror film, not having done that type of thing previously?

I don't specifically remember that film, although I think I did enjoy doing the score very much. But it isn't that one comes upon a film like that unprepared. A composer can write any kind of music. I was a concert composer, not just someone coming into composing fresh, and one looks forward to writing a different kind of music. One wouldn't worry about the difference any more than a legit composer would worry about whether it was a comic opera or a tragedy. You're prepared to write both.

You've said elsewhere that horror films present fewer restrictions to a composer than a drama, because of the orchestral colors available…

Or than a comedy, which is very limiting. But with a horror score, the melodies can go much farther out. You can write what would technically be called atonal music or linear music - the notes can be extremely strange. That gives you a lot of leeway, you can be as far out or as weird as you want to, musically. The orchestration and the colors have to be more unusual and that of course is a pleasure for any composer.

Can you explain the various types of range available in a horror film which, at first glance, might seem to be little other than brooding buildups and “scare” crescendos?

In the last picture that I did (THE BEAST WITHIN, 1982), I used a lot of electronic music as well as strings; but the strings, for example, don't play a straight melody as they must in a comedy or a straight dramatic film. Going back to the famous scores of Victor Young and Miklos Rozsa and so forth, you play a melody that people hear and understand, such as AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, the melody stays with you. But in a horror film the melody is much more elusive. The composer can use any notes that he wishes to without staying in the realm of something that is pretty or that is melodically restricting. Also, the sounds that you can get out of the orchestra, instead of a well-balanced orchestra where everyone has to play something that sounds good, the instruments can play where they do not usually play, and they can flutter or growl or slide and do strange things. You have a wider range at your command. Electronic instruments, also, have a limitless range of sound; you can get some unearthly sounds that you really can't get any other way.

How do you create musical terror while at the same time writing music instead of just shrill noise?

I'm glad you asked that question. It's not an easy one to answer, but a composer looks forward to the opportunity of writing a composition of some importance. Let's say the uninitiated or the inexperienced might fake it and simply shriek or whatever, but it's far better to write an important series of notes that create the same effect. I not only like to write thematic material, but new orchestral sounds to accomplish what might be done with just an easy shrieking sound. I like to tie the thing together so that the whole piece makes some sense; so the cue itself will stand as an important piece of music as well as tying in with the rest of the score. On THE BEAST WITHIN, it builds from one end of the picture to the other, and makes very logical sense when tied together. It is not repetitious in terms of repeating a theme; rather it develops and builds.

How do you go about creating tension, suspense and fear through your music?

You're asking me something that is very technical and, again, difficult to answer. How does Maurice Ravel write such sensual and lush music with the same old instruments that were used for the early symphonies? There are tricks, there are orchestral sounds that one gets to know, and after one hears them a lot one can develop on them. In other words, after you do the tried and true once, then you say, “oh, it would be nice if I added a low harp and a flute to that” or some other such combination. Then you create your own diversions, and each time you do that it gives you a new idea to create another orchestral sound.

Suspense or terror in terms of, let's say, a creature attacking is one kind of terror, and for attack usually the instruments are more active, busier, more pounding, or the tempo might be faster. For a monster not attacking, the movement would not be there; it would simply be ominous, without the pounding or movement characteristic. And for simple suspense - the animal is not lurking or attacking, he's just suspected - then the music would be quite sparse. I write much thinner than many composers do, because I think most people overwrite. They write too many things going on at once, which in turn makes something more comfortable, with all these things piled together. I think it can be much more stunning or stark with fewer parts and fewer instruments, and more frightening.

You've said that some of your scores, such as CRY OF THE BANSHEE, have passages unlike anything being used for films. Can you elaborate on this?

Well, you see I've done so many scores that sometimes I forget which music goes with which film! CRY OF THE BANSHEE came to my attention again and I put the tape on and I could not believe that I had scored a motion picture with that kind of music. It is not what anyone would normally do, but having done so many for these producers and knowing that they had faith in me meant that I could vary from one picture to the other. I wouldn't want all the movies to sound alike; if you do five horror films in a row, you don't want them all to have the same kind of music, and each of my scores is vastly different. In some cases I used percussion and voices, in others I used brass and strings or a legit orchestra, others had synthesizers. They were all very different, and for CRY OF THE BANSHEE I used strings, percussion and piano, which is not ordinary. Sometimes a person would use, let's say, woodwinds or a synthesizer, but this was strings and percussion and piano doing rhythmic attack accents, in an unusual tempo (a lot of it was 6/8) and it was somewhat in the Bartok / Stravinsky vein, although not a copy of anything that they had ever done. It would stand as a concert piece.

Was there any sort of musical continuity used in your approach to the Edgar Allan Poe films, or was each taken as a completely separate entity.

They were each vastly different but there was an overall brooding continuity between the films. THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER was full orchestra and choir - I used choir to represent the ancient souls coming out of the castle, and so forth. It had a brooding-and-then-going-into-flames kind of sound. In THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM I used some stark atonal writing - which is, to simplify somewhat, one or two or three lines, say in the manner of a fugue, each playing very unmelodic and unrelated notes, one to the other, which makes for very strange music. Then, at the end of the film, I had the enormous, swinging pendulum sound done with the orchestra and the huge walls, which were supposedly heating up and gradually moving in, for which I wanted to have a massive sound of metal or stone grating on stone; I did that with the orchestra, a very slow, massive, undulating dissonance that seemed to move slowly but massively, that’s what I thought fit the scene and it was certainly different than any of the others.

THE RAVEN was greatly comic. Vincent Price does some things that are very tongue-in-cheek; he did a funny kind of side-step around the telescope on his way to see why the raven was pecking on the window, and I simply could not resist playing it cartoon style. I introduced comedy into a horror film for I think the first time, and it surprised the producers somewhat but pleased them. I did that in two films [THE RAVEN, TALES OF TERROR] and then they decided to make a complete comedy called A COMEDY OF TERRORS.

Since then, some of the best horror films have used comedy in the writing, because laughter releases the tension and it also helps the fright - I mean, to be afraid and then relieved and afraid again, it's very effective, and of course one can do that in the music. Mel Tormé called me one day and he said “I just saw BARON BLOOD and I want to tell you that the music was chilling, that was the most frightening score I've ever heard.” So you can, with music, actually frighten, regardless of the film: one thinks, well, it must be connected with something grisly happening on screen, but it is possible to frighten with the sound.

What was your approach to science fiction pictures, such as BATTLE BEYOND THE SUN and the BUCK ROGERS TV series?

In the science fiction category I'm more linear, more stark, more synthesizers, more echoplex, which is similar to tape reverb. They are mechanical, spacey sounding things. The BUCK ROGERS was somewhat tongue-in cheek and yet very spacey and fun, and I wrote futuristic melodies and did some of the effects I had done on a futuristic episode of the CLIFFHANGER series. As a matter of fact, that series also had Dracula, so I could use brooding and expressive string passages for Dracula, and then the science fiction thing for the other segment, and a third section which was a James Bondish kind of adventure had a little jazz suspense feel to it. They were all very different.

When you were called in to re-score a foreign film for American release, did you hear any part of the original music, and if so did it at all influence your approach in re-scoring the movie?

I wouldn't mind hearing the original scores because there would be no way it could influence me. A composer is influenced by everyone in history when he writes music, but I think we're able to distinguish between the two and not follow what someone else has already done. But I don't remember whether I saw these films with or without the original music.

Your music has been in so many films over the years; were all of them original scores or did you find your music sometimes re-used by the studio?

In a few cases they did. I can't say whether or not I object to that because I did so many films that it's possible I had some strong themes orchestrated in such a manner that they would fit in another film. I don't believe concert music has to conjure up exactly one picture; I think a good piece of concert music could be used for two vastly different films and tell very well what was happening. In FANTASIA, for instance, The Rite of Spring was originally written for a ballet and certainly there were no dinosaurs, yet it fit beautifully the dinosaur concept in the movie, as did the Beethoven Pastoral Symphony with the flying horses and all of that. I think that the same music could fit in many different instances.

What was your view of the rock and roll horror films you scored, such as the DR GOLDFOOT pair and THE GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI?

I thought they were a lot of fun. I loved doing that. I think the idea of science fiction rock is wonderful, and I think there ought to be more done in that area.

Can you describe how you used recorded frog sounds to achieve a musical effect in the movie FROGS, and how the use of the recorded sound was combined with the melodic line from the synthesizer?

It's very interesting that the year I did FROGS, the Academy was checking to be sure that all of the orchestrators and arrangers and composers who helped the major composers to write their films, got credit - which I heartily agree with. But in the case of FROGS they kept asking who orchestrated, who can we give credit to? And I said, “If you must give co-credit on the screen give it to the frogs!” Because I used actual frog sounds, slowed down, speeded up, whatever, to combine them with the synthesizer (which I played myself, so the entire score was a one-man job there was no other live human being connected with it! I simply programmed a moog synthesizer and I played the scenes as I had written them for that instrument, and then on a second track, in synchronization, I used the frog sounds, in all of the varieties that I described, to fit the scene.

BORN AGAIN was a very different picture…

It was a very difficult film to score in the sense that, as in the Vincent Price pictures, there were no castles falling apart or burning, or strange diseases, no earthquakes, no crashes, there were no shoot-em-ups. It was all within the people themselves, it was all human interest, people talking and delving into their own beliefs. Not one chase in the entire film! So it meant that the music had to be introspective, it had to deal with the inner thoughts and the beliefs of people. I wrote for large orchestra, a very heavily string score, full of themes (there are more themes in BORN AGAIN than in any other picture I've written) and lots of counter-point, very heavily developed, very Brahmsian in a sense. And the engineer at the studio, one of the best in the business, told me that it was the best score that had been recorded there, and people came out and said many flattering things about the music, for which I'm very grateful.

What is your view of current styles of scoring horror films, such as the oft-imitated synthesizer music of HALLOWEEN, the squeaks and gasps on FRIDAY THE 13TH, and so on?

In some cases, when the budget is very low or very cheap, the music is very cheap. The music is the skimpiest that can be written on the least amount of money. So the music would have to suffer as a result of that. It’s hard to make a sound on a synthesizer, if you work with it long enough, that for a moment or two is not effective; the problem with it is in being too repetitious, or not having enough imagination to have enough variety of sound. You can make an interesting sound in a film, but you can only take it so many times, and for so long. The sounds are also very naïve in many of these films; the color is its least common denominator. The people who write them have usually never heard of counterpoint, and so you get one barren sound; it reminds me of eating a vanilla ice cream cone!

In the case of another score, done by a rock group, they had the synthesizers, the electric guitars and the organ all on the same note, all cancelling each other out. They just made one fat, solid note of indistinguishable color, they put it through the phaser, which made it go in and out of highs and lows, but that was about the extent of what they did, and I found it juvenile in the extreme. Most horror scores are dreich, in contrast to a score like ALTERED STATES where the producer was wise enough to go to a Professor of music who, I've heard, had never scored a film before but who is vastly talented and imaginative, and he did one of the most varied and vividly colored, imaginative scores I've ever heard.

It's been almost ten years since you’ve scored a horror film. What brought you back to do THE BEAST WITHIN?

I either retired, or was retired by Hollywood, and took a house in Hawaii. I lived there for a time, and then I got some work in television and was flying back and forth so much that I just decided to move back and return to work. The reaction to THE BEAST WITHIN was something that had never happened at this particular studio. There were actual cheers after the cues when we recorded them, to a degree that the mixer had never heard before. I myself attended a session at this same studio, and forgive my immodesty on this, but one of the major composers was doing his score, and it was very quiet, there was no reaction, so I know the reaction I got was unusual. The orchestra themselves applauded numerous times during the recording, they came to me and said that it was one of the most unusual and best scores they had ever heard, and people all over the studio were very excited, and the producer was rather pleased, too.

It was a tremendously long score, highly developed, non-repetitious. The synthesizers would do things that sounded like the spirit souls of animals from another world moaning. There was more variety of sound from synthesizers than I think have ever been used before, combined with a big orchestra. The music is quite violent and I think interesting; I think it contributes some solid and new sounds to music. I was also asked to write six country and western songs for source-music background when they were going through the little country town, and those were uniquely country and western, they weren't studio country western. I was very fortunate to get the top country western band to do it, and our star in the film is very much a country singer and did the vocals as well as co-writing the songs with me.

Back to the score itself, one thing that most people in the audience do not realize, is that there's a world of difference between stereo music in a film and monaural. With the Academy roll-off, which takes the top and bottom off of the music [in order to be compatible with theater speaker systems], the difference in the music is just vast. I don't know how composers over a period of years have tolerated this, because the sound of the music, if it is not stereo, loses, I would say, a third of its quality. Sometimes instruments even disappear because of the roll-off.

I was just devastated when I heard the music for THE BEAST WITHIN in the monaural version after hearing it being dubbed in the studio. We re-did it in stereo and then the whole thing came back to life and all of the instruments came back in and played with their full force, and it's a vast difference. I think all pictures should eventually be on tape and the music should be in stereo. Composers spend weeks in the studio doing a score, and then it comes out in the theater on the old type of soundtrack, which is still being used, and often with a “wow” if the projector is not that good, and one wonders why he even bothered.

Finally, what's your personal view of the horror film, since you've been involved in so many of them?

I don't like the brutality; a good horror film does not necessarily have to do that. For instance, the Edgar Allan Poe films were quite remarkable; THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER was an extremely mysterious film, but there was no blood anywhere in the picture, it was all mystery. Gore for gore's sake, to me, is a poor substitute for a good story. A good ghost story can be very frightening without anything terrible happening to anyone, so I'd prefer it. I like mystery, I've always liked horror films and science fiction because they are so imaginative; science fiction particularly has delved into new thoughts, and I think anyone with any intelligence would find it fascinating, because they’re based on science and fact, and things which very possibly will happen in the future. I like the whole field, but I might add that I prefer Agatha Christie, for example, to simply dismembering people for shock value.

A Conversation with Maurice Jarre

Mon, 09 Oct 2023 15:32:02 GMT

A Conversation with Maurice Jarre by James Fitzpatrick
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.3 / No.12 / 1984 and Vol.4 /No.13 / 1985
Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven and James Fitzpatrick

This interview with Maurice Jarre took place at his apartment in London on April 12th 1984, just after he had finished writing and recording the score for TOP SECRET. I had first met Jarre a few years earlier on the recording sessions for LION OF THE DESERT and had kept in touch over the years. He is now (mid-September 1984) starting to write the score for the new David Lean film, PASSAGE TO INDIA, and later this year will score the new Peter Weir picture WITNESS. Maurice Jarre is an extremely modest man, without ego, and is genuinely surprised and pleased when people take an interest in his music, or in film music in general. After thirty years of writing for film he is still very passionate about music, while being cynical about parts of the movie business, although resigned to the fact that he has very little control over his music once it has been recorded and left in the hands of the producer or director. He likes to produce his own soundtrack albums, after many unhappy experiences with different record producers on LPs like SHOUT AT THE DEVIL and NIGHT OF THE GENERALS and prefers to remix and edit into longer tracks or continuous pieces of music (as with CIRCLE OF DECEIT, THE TIN DRUM and LION OF THE DESERT).

At which stage do you prefer being brought into the production of a film? 

As early as possible, because if you have read the script, even if the director and producer make changes, there is still the basic idea. You have the tine to think about the film, and if it is a period piece or a picture involving ethnic music there is plenty of time to do your own research.

Does that often happen? 

Well, when you work with a director more than once, when he prepares his next film he can at least give you the script even if no contracts are signed, and so you know that he wants you. But it is true it is quite rare that this happens; I am bemused especially if it is a ‘serious’ director who has thought carefully about the music he wants in a film, yet he can give the composer only three weeks, although the director night have been involved with the picture for 2 years. The music is always left right to the last minute!

So with PASSAGE TO INDIA you have been brought in at a very early stage?

Yes, but with LAWRENCE OF ARABIA it was a different story – really crazy! I don’t want to bore you with the story, but I barely survived this experience from the physical point of view, having to do everything in six weeks. I was only sleeping about two or three hours a night. I don’t want to have this kind of experience too often.

Would you say that film composers are treated any better by producers or directors now as they were thirty or forty years ago? 

That is a very interesting question. I don’t want to be pessimistic, but I think the situation will get worse and worse. Many directors have a music complex and find it hard to communicate with the composer. I prefer directors who tell me things like “It should feel very romantic,” or “Very soft sound,” that is easier to understand, rather than directors who make comparisons with classical pieces, so they can go too far and request things like an oboe solo when they really mean a clarinet or bassoon solo. Some directors are very insecure about music and don’t really know what they want, so we can mess about for weeks trying different instruments, and finally it ends up with the director not trusting the composer. The composer has a certain talent and training and should always be treated as a trusted collaborator. The main problem is that a director can explain better technically to the cameraman or art director than to the composer – the music is an abstraction for them.

I was lucky to meet Dimitri Tiomkin and had long talks with him. In his day they had problems with the studio bosses like Jack Warner or Louis B. Mayer, they were dictators, absolute tyrants who could stop composers from working in Hollywood for the rest of their lives. During the 30’s and 40’s the big studios like Warners had five to ten composers in residence, who knew exactly what they were doing. These days, the problem is that any rock singer can have a hit song so the director says. “Let’s use this guy, he’s really great.” So they ask him to write a full score and what happens? The producers have to provide a good arranger, orchestrator, conductor and music editor, because this guy knows nothing and it finally becomes a totally dishonest work.

It sounds very much like the type of thing Michael Winner did for THE WICKED LADY, where he used the keyboard player from Genesis. Tony Banks, as well as Christopher Palmer to orchestrate, and Stanley Black to conduct.
Exactly. It is totally immoral. How often do we see film credits with music by so – and – so, when in fact he has written three notes and had help from so many other people to finish a complete score? I think that serious directors like David Lean or Volker Schlöndorff would not do this.

In a book on John Frankenheimer he was quoted as saying that he was totally at sea with composers and did not know how to communicate with them, until he worked with you on THE TRAIN.
 I must say that even during filming of THE TRAIN he was helped very much by Burt Lancaster. He was very reluctant to even tell me what his feelings were about a scene, in fact I practically spotted the film with Burt Lancaster.

One of my favorite scores is for Frankenheimer’s THE FIXER, scored for solo violin and percussion.
THE FIXER with John was very interesting, because he liked the idea of the violin solo but didn’t really take good care of the post-production of this film because he was already involved with another picture. It’s a pity, because it should have been much better, especially the final dubbing and mixing. It was a very unusual idea to ask for only one violin to be the main score in Hollywood at that time. We were destroyed by the Hollywood critics, but I still think that it was a very interesting film. I remember the movie MOURIR A MADRID had the same kind of concept for the music, basically scored for one guitar. It is more difficult to write this type of score because you have to have a strong theme which also has to be interesting, so you are limited with the color of orchestration. It can be very effective, and I love this kind of thing.

So for PASSAGE TO INDIA you are going to score it for solo sitar?
I think that is exactly what David Lean does not want. I don’t think he is too keen about Indian music. This is an example of where I received the script before they started shooting and I was thrilled by David’s script, I think it is the best screenplay for his films. When you read the script you almost see the aura of the picture, everything is there in the script. I was thinking about it the other day and it is such a story that could only happen in India at that period in history, so I think we should have some Indian flavor, at least from the instrumentation side, although the sitar has been so exploited.

Does David Lean ever fit a temporary music track to the film, or does he let you see it absolutely ‘cold’?
No, usually he does not use a temporary track, although with the source music he records it for the actual shooting, as in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA: the military band was really playing and not faking – maybe not played very well, so that we re-record that music for the final score. Thinking about your question, David did use a temp track for DOCTOR ZHIVAGO. He fell in love with a supposedly old Russian folk song, a very nice piece of music. When I viewed the rushes, he said that he wanted this theme to be incorporated into the score. However, when MGM tried to clarify the copyright situation, it turned out not to be a traditional folk tune, but an original piece of music for which MGM could not get worldwide clearance; so they did not want the theme used.

When I heard about this decision, I had to start to write something completely new with only a few weeks to go to the recording sessions. Up until then, I had been relaxed because I knew that I was going to use this folk song as the main theme. So when writing a new theme, subconsciously or not, I tried to go around this melody that I had heard so many times before to get the same kind of feel and phrasing. Every time I presented a new theme to David, he rejected it and said that I could do better. I wrote four different themes in this time, but none of them was quite right. By this stage I was not only getting depressed, but also panicking because time was running out. Then, one Friday, David told me to stop work, to stop thinking about the film or the music and go away for the weekend to the beach or mountains, to clear my brain and start afresh on Monday. So I did this, which was very hard because of the pressure and with the days running out. Anyway, Monday arrived and I realized that the stupidity was this temporary track. I should try to write something totally different, and I wrote a kind of waltz. After those 2 days of clearing the brain, in one hour on Monday morning I had found “Lara’s Theme“, which was the opposite of the original temp track.

What was it like working with Alfred Hitchcock on TOPAZ?
It was very interesting, with Hitchcock it was power and not ego you had to deal with. Power is different, ego is very negative and destructive. Hitchcock was very open and didn’t give me many instructions; he left me alone, which in a way was quite frightening because of his reputation. I liked working with him, although I was slightly disappointed because I thought he would be very precise; I like precision, as this means fewer problems arise at the last minute. When people are not precise it means that they do not know what they really want.

Do you have any particular directors you enjoy working with?

I liked David Lean of course, plus Schlöndorff, a very interesting man. I really like these 3 directors on TOP SECRET, they are probably the youngest people I have worked with; they are very intelligent and passionate about movies and without any egos. It is incredible, how can three people direct a film without any fighting? They argue of course. I was a little uneasy at first having to work with three directors, in fact four as Jan Davison (the producer) is also very creative, so sometimes you have to deal with four different views, which is fascinating. I enjoyed the experience immensely. They are full of ideas and know exactly what they want.

Are there any types of films which you prefer scoring? Is it any easier to score a western for example?
Everything is difficult. I love change, I like variety. It is not a good idea to score too many of the same kind of film, science fiction films for example. Jerry Goldsmith at one time was doing too many S.F. films, and it’s even worse for John Williams. They always ask him to do the type of big orchestral score. This was fabulous for STAR WARS, but after that he has become very repetitious. The big problem in Hollywood is that they classify you too much. They would never ask John Williams to do TOP SECRET, or vice versa, they would not ask me to do a STAR WARS sequel, not that I would do it anyway. You are classified as a composer who can only score certain types of films like westerns, as in Elmer Bernstein’s case, or are only able to write songs or score epics. It is embedded in the minds of producers that you can only write certain types of music. After LAWRENCE OF ARABIA they thought I was only able to write desert music, then after ZHIVAGO I could only write snow music. Now I am very lucky to have the opportunity to try different film subjects. The last few pictures I have scored have varied from THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY to DREAMSCAPE, both with electronic scores, to FOR THOSE I LOVED and TOP SECRET with large orchestral scores.

Recent years has seen the growth of T.V. films, are there any added restrictions when scoring this type of film?

To tell you the truth I don’t like T.V., unless you have the chance to work with someone like Zeffirelli on JESUS OF NAZARETH. Generally in T.V. everything is too hurried, without caring about wrong notes, and with poor sound. I do have great hopes for cable television, in that it seems to be attracting some good, talented directors. Commercial T.V. is under too much pressure from the ratings. I wrote a T.V. score for a friend just before I came to Britain, SAMSON AND DELILAH, it was not a very good film but at least because I was working with a friend more time was given over to achieve better sound and music recording.

What was it like working with Zeffirelli?
It was fabulous. Zeffirelli is an artist. He has this Italian way to work, which is that time has no meaning; he is very careful and precise about what he wants. He is very knowledgeable about music, we can talk easily because he is able to tell you things like, “I would like to have the atmosphere of the first part of the second movement of Mahler’s 2nd Symphony.” He can give you an exact idea of what he wants. This is very rare.

Were you ever tempted with JESUS OF NAZARETH to write a Hollywood type epic score, with heavenly choirs as in BEN-HUR?
The answer is yes. I did talk with Franco Zeffirelli about having a choir, but he was afraid of having too much of a religious choir feeling, giving the music too much drama. I would like to write a score with a choir, I have many ideas about this but never have had the right opportunity. The problem is that there is never the time to try out new ideas. I don’t mean crazy experimentation like writing a score for two typewriters, but at least having the time to rehearse. On TOP SECRET we had a very tight schedule – one rehearsal, maybe an extra rehearsal for longer pieces and sometimes more than one take, but that was all.

What is it like working with actors who have become directors, as you have worked with Clint Eastwood on FIREFOX and Paul Newman on GAMMA RAYS?
I was a little afraid that Paul Newman might be a star with an inflated ego, but he was a charming man, a very good director, very professional, with a great eye for editing. It was a fabulous experience, I loved the film although it did not require much music. FIREFOX was a slightly different story. Clint is also a really charming man, absolutely adorable, the only thing is that he does not trust the music. There are some interesting things in the film, but it was not a very good picture. I like to have a basic concept for any score. The idea for FIREFOX, and Clint loved this idea, was to have the first part of the film (up until the plane is stolen) with an electronic score; then, when the plane is stolen, the music should stress the adventure aspect with a big, orchestral score. He loved this idea, but loved the sound effects even more, so most of the music was lost at the cutting stage.

So it is almost as if you were writing two separate scores for one film? 

Exactly. The first part was very difficult. We did a lot of things with synthesizers and electronic machines. For instance, all the sounds of the helicopter at the start of the movie are all electronic and part of the score.

Are there any films that you have seen which you would liked to have scored or thought would be an interesting challenge?
There are many, of recent films I would like to have done GANDHI. I recently saw NEVER CRY WOLF and THE BLACK STALLION, two beautiful pictures. This type of film I would love to score, whether a film is commercial or not does not enter my thinking.

When we last met 3 years ago, you were recording LION OF THE DESERT, and at that time you were hoping to score the new Bounty film to be directed by David Lean as you had already read the script. Now everything has changed, with a different director and a Vangelis score.
I am happy in a way not to have done this picture, as it was a script written for David Lean: I would have considered it a betrayal of his friendship.

Are there any recent films that have been offered to you that you have turned down?
There were 2 films for TV, one was about Sadat, I was probably asked because of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, and the other was PRINCESS DAISY. I was very tempted to do DAISY as I liked the director, Waris Hussein, and had worked with him on another telefilm COMING OUT OF THE ICE. That was a marvelous film which even the bad taste of the TV people could not destroy.

Have you ever been in the situation when you have been asked to score a film which has already been scored by another composer, but whose music has been rejected? For example, THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN had three composers – first Alex North, then Johnny Mandel – and finally yourself…
Usually when it is a situation like that I would say no. I don’t like being put in that kind of situation. Richard Lester asked me to do a very interesting film, ROBIN AND MARIAN. Michel Legrand had written the original score in the form of a concerto. I could not understand Lester not liking Michel Legrand’s score, as he had worked with him before and knew his style. Richard Lester was really nice, but I had to say no as I would only be given about two weeks in which to complete the score. I believe that if you hire a composer, you should be able to ask him to do anything, unless that composer is a real diva, a prima donna who will not let anyone touch or alter their music.

Have you ever had any of your scores rejected?
I’ve never had any rejected, apart from music for CHU AND THE PHILLY FLASH. I knew the director, David Lowell Rich, and had worked with him on ENOLA GAY. He asked me as a favor to write the score, as I thought the film was really awful; I said I would write some light background music. Anyway, after recording the music everyone was happy with the score. Then later on Alan Arkin and his wife (being co-producers) changed the score, as they had not been consulted about using my score; David Lowell had been fired and was threatening to sue, so Pete Rugolo wrote another score which was used in the theatrical release. Still, I presume that David must have won his case, because when shown on TV my score was reinstated. I had the same kind of problems in France in that if you are friends with the director and he makes a bad movie, it is very difficult to refuse to write the music because of that friendship. It happened even with John Frankenheimer when he made THE EXTRAORDINARY SEAMAN starring Faye Dunaway, Alan Alda, David Niven and Mickey Rooney – a very good cast, but a dreadful movie!

Have you composed any music for the concert hall since your ballet “Notre Dame de Paris” in 1965?

I wrote a little piano concerto for a friend in California when we toured Japan. It was a homage to Kurosawa. Again due to lack of time, this was the last concert hall piece I wrote. Fortunately I manage to keep very busy and if I have an odd week or two off, I am usually too exhausted (not from the actual composing, but more from the pressure of schedules) to write anything else. TOP SECRET was very tiring, for many reasons: because there were a lot of notes, much pressure and 3 directors to keep happy. After finishing a score, you suffer from a kind of jet-lag for a few days before getting back to normal. I get much more tired spending all day writing than spending 2 whole days conducting a 70-piece orchestra! Conducting is very exciting, I love it. It’s so marvelous, the feeling you get from members of the orchestra. That’s why I enjoyed so much the recent concerts I did in Rome: you have time to rehearse more than the actual written score. Then suddenly the music can take off rather than staying technical and clinical. For instance, the main title of VILLA RIDES! was played well on the record, but in concert when you know that the musicians trust you, everything can come together and take off – it’s an incredible feeling.

So you obviously feel that film music should be played much more often in the concert hall?

Certainly. Even if with film music there is a good deal of padding, there is also a large amount of really great music which not only helps the film but is an entertaining piece of music in its own right. There are pieces of avant-garde music which are called serious music and which maybe will only be heard once in concert and then never again. The film composer has to be far more disciplined and flexible, because he has to satisfy directors, producers, etc., while remaining true to himself – this is most interesting.

The recording sessions for PASSAGE TO INDIA took place at CTS studios, Wembley, over a 5-week period starting from the first week of October. Although recording was over such a protracted period, in fact there were probably, no more than two complete days of recording per week, partly due to the availability of studio space, availability of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and mostly because during October the film was still in the editing stages: so it was really a case of waiting for finished segments of film to become available before the music could be written and recorded. Many a time there would be a large group of copyists at the studios getting the actual notes down on manuscript for recording in the same day!

David Lean was editing the film himself, but unlike his reputation for absolute perfection this time it was being done very quickly to have a completed film for American release in early December. David Lean was very good at describing the emotion and thrust of each scene and exactly what he wanted the music to do. Film is often described as a director’s medium, with the director being in total command. The most surprising thing about David Lean was that although in charge to a certain extent, he was also very mindful of not upsetting the producers by not wanting too much ‘weird’ (Indian) music and being very careful of what music would play over the opening credits for the American Home Box Office. However, Lean is very open to ideas and with Maurice writing the score it becomes more of a collaboration and exchange of views – with David Lean having the final word.

Jarre was obviously under a great deal of pressure, but as always with his wealth of experience remained calm and totally professional. The Royal Philharmonic responded very well to his conducting, despite the long intervals and delays for alterations and sometimes complete re-scoring. Christopher Palmer was Maurice’s assistant and showed great attention to detail while always aware of the overall ambience of each cue. It was impossible to make an objective review of the music from the recording stage due to the very disjointed nature of the recording process, but the general impression of the music was of a very melodious score with moments of symphonic grandeur and touches of 1920’s dance band music, plus some authentic Indian music without being overdone.

The music was scored for differing sizes of orchestra and instrumentation, with a large percussion section and soloing two Ondes Martenot, and Indian instruments played by Ram Narayam. The recording was in digital, engineered by Richard Lewzey.

Maurice seemed pleased with the score and the performance of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and promised to use the same orchestra when next in London, although the choice was very tough as all the orchestras were so good. Maurice in fact insisted that the orchestra receive a credit on the opening titles of the film. He was also very excited about the prospect of doing the forthcoming concert at the Barbican Centre on April 14th with the Royal Philharmonic, where he will conduct his own film music with the emphasis being on the David Lean films.

Finally, there are plans to do a digital recording of the Maurice Jarre music for the three previous David Lean films.

Interesting footnote: Jarre just received the Golden Globe award for his score to A PASSAGE TO INDIA in Hollywood.

The Lord of the Rings

Mon, 09 Oct 2023 14:36:28 GMT

Label: Intrada
Catalogue No: FMT 8003D

Release Date: 1991

Total Duration: 76:22

UPN: 7-2025-88003-2-9

This must be one of the more unusual CD re-releases of an older score. Leonard Rosenman’s lengthy, hard working score for LORD OF THE RINGS has been lavishly reproduced, transfigured, on CD. Thirteen years have elapsed since the score first made its appearance on a double album. As the composer notes in his rather self-serving liner notes, the audio quality wasn't too hot. Back in 1978, the orchestrations seemed thin and primitive, as though Rosenman was trying to match primeval orchestration with the fantasy images on screen. The entire score has now been remixed, as well as re-sequenced to follow the action of Ralf Bakshi's misguided film. Now, themes (particularly the main theme) are allowed to begin as fragments and then develop, most of them culminating in the final tracks of the CD. So what we have here is a sense of progression. Early listeners of his score were not allowed to appreciate how truly well thought-out Rosenman's score is.

The two bulky LP's have been condensed down to a single tiny CD, with a bonus of some 12 minutes and four tracks of previously unreleased music. That minuscule CD holds an amazing 77 minutes of music! The remixing allows us to hear instruments and voices we've not heard before. This particularly comes across in the “Mordor” chanting passages, the enchanting lullaby “Mithrandir” and the impressive “Helm's Deep” battle sequences. The sound and the orchestral writing can be spectacular. Be sure to “pump up the volume” for “Helm's Deep”, which presents some of the weirdiest battle music ever.

If there's a drawback for the score, it's a predictable one for those of us who have followed Rosenman's music. After all, we’re talking about the Bomp-Bomp-Bomp-Bomp Guy Himself. It's all over the score, pulling it down from the fantasy world it works so hard to create, down to the level of his many pedestrian TV movie scores.

On a similar scale, the same happened on his score for STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME. Both scores show that Rosenman is at his best when he sticks to leitmotifs, and extricates himself from the bomp-bompy morass of stuttery writing. So though the score is of generous length, much of it could be dispensed with. Though Rosenman’s liner notes are helpful (jarring the memory of a film seen 13 years ago and deservedly buried), one must quibble with the immense amount of ego that shows through his text. As for LORD OF THE RINGS, Intrada has truly revealed it for the first time, and film music enthusiasts should be grateful.

Steven J. Lehti – Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol. 10 / No.40 / 1991

The View from Pompey’s Head

Mon, 09 Oct 2023 12:06:24 GMT

Label: Film Score Monthly
Catalogue No: FSMCD Vol. 4 No. 15

Release Date: 2001

Total Duration: 74:34

UPN: 0638558003824

Also contains music from: Blue Denim

If anyone neeads proof that Elmer Bernstein and Bernard Herrmann are among the greatest film music masters, then this disc should provide it. It contains the scores for two lesser-known films from the 1950s. Both scores have more to offer than the films themselves, yet the scores don’t call attention to themselves in any overindulgent way. They also have something else in common: both films were directed by Philip Dunne. He had been an admirer of Herrmann ever since working with him on THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR.

Dunne first asked Herrmann to compose the score for THE VIEW FROM POMPEY’S HEAD; however, because he was busy working on THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, Herrmann wasn’t available and suggested Elmer Bernstein instead. In his notes, Lukas Kendall mentions that when Bernstein called to thank the irascible Herrmann, he just blurted out, “Well, if I didn’t think you were talented, why would I have recommended you?”.

THE VIEW FROM POMPEY’S HEAD is a term used for social prejudice in a small town in the American South. The 1955 film starred Richard Egan, Dana Wynter, Cameron Mitchell, and Sidney Blackmer. Bernstein’s score provides a perfect background to the drama. It’s brimming over with lush, romantic music. This is apparent in the opening “Main Title”, which begins with a broad and sweeping theme for strings and brass, like Alfred Newman might have composed, evoking the locales of Tamburlaine island (mostly dark and moody woodwinds) to New York City (a bright brassy Gershwin-like orchestration). The second track, “Dinah’s Theme,” is a lovely nostalgic combination of woodwinds and strings to depict Anson Page (Egan) upon his return to Pompey’s Head and his reminiscences of saying good-bye to Dinah Bradford (Wynter).

Bernstein has admitted that he wrote this theme in admiration for Dana Wynter’s beauty and talent “Mulberry” depicts Page’s reflections on his hometown and sets up a variation to the opening Pompey theme. Following a few more tracks of soft reflective music, Bernstein breaks forth with a folksy theme for “Homecoming” when Page returns to his hometown, and “On the Road to Tamburlaine,” with its Coplandesque rhythmic vitality in the horns, woodwinds and strings. Perhaps the best of all the cues, “Forever Dinah,” begins with a rather snappy quote of the Pompey theme that is slowed down to a melancholy statement of the theme, particularly in clarinets and strings. This is pure unadulterated music of great beauty.

Some may complain that the Pompey theme appears too often, but I didn’t find it tiring because it’s developed in such a way that it highlights the situations of the drama. In “Revelation,” where Garvin Wales (Blackmer) reveals that his mother was “a colored person”; this dramatic scene is accompanied by darker instruments, the oboe and violas, which are also used in the next cue, “Twilight,” when Dinah tells her husband, Mickey (Mitchell), that she wants a divorce. That leads to the “Finale,” where first the Mulberry and then the “Main Title” themes are heard. This ends on a mood of quiet resignation as Page leaves Dinah and her town of Mulberry.

BLUE DENIM is from 1959 and might easily be termed VERTIGO II, since it carries so many of the same Herrmann techniques over from that Hitchcock classic. In his album notes, Kendall describes it this way: “As in much of his other film work, the score relies on sequential patterns to generate its lyrical melodies, and draws on many of the Wagnerisms that distinguish his score to VERTIGO…Many moments anticipate his score for the TWILIGHT ZONE episode ‘Walking Distance,’ which has become one of Herrmann’s most admired creations.” If he means Herrmann’s use of leitmotifs for “The Boy” (Brandon DeWilde) and “The Girl” (Carol Lynley), and also the lush orchestration, then I would agree about the “Wagnerisms”.

Despite the strong similarities to VERTIGO, this is an outstanding score on its own. As in the Hitchcock film, Herrmann leads off BLUE DENIM with a swirling orchestral “Prelude,” which then moves on to a slower and darker sounding waltz for the theme associated with “The Boy,“ an appropriately playful theme for “The Playroom,” and then finally the “The Girl,” a slow lush theme relying heavily on the strings and woodwinds. In “Adoration,” the similarity to VERTIGO is especially apparent, with a yearning theme for strings and a few woodwinds.

This is a disc with two master film composers, who not only admired each other’s work. but also brought great distinction to what they wrote for these somewhat obscure films from the 1950s and the album is recommended to any listener who wants to hear what was going on in the glory days of Hollywood film scoring.

Roger Hall – Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol. 21 / No.81 / 2002

The Story on Page One

Mon, 09 Oct 2023 11:58:04 GMT

Label: Intrada Special Collection
Catalogue No: Volume 6

Release Date: 2002

Total Duration: 42:26

Also contains music from: The Reward

Volume 6 of Intrada’s limited edition collector’s issues proffers two little known Elmer Bernstein scores, restored from master tracks stored at 20th Century Fox. The two films are vintage Bernstein, composed during his heyday of the late ’50s and early ’60s. THE STORY ON PAGE ONE (1959) is a Rita Hayworth / Tony Franciosa / Gig Young courtroom drama about a wrongly accused couple’s day in court, directed by noted playwright Clifford Odets. Bernstein described the director’s desires for the score as being “an angular, muscular score.” The composer complied in his best fashion. The music is dramatic and assertive, brass intoning harshly over timpani and hard-fingered piano (“Main Title / Freeway”) in a very strident statement of force, against which a soaring violin melody plays. The mix of the melodic strings and the harsh, percussive measures of the brass and piano emphasize the dichotomy of tension and passion found in the film. It’s a thrilling opener. “Jo’s Indifference” is a cool dramatic piece built around a jazzy saxophone; “Night Rendezvous” is a compelling mysterioso for flutes over pulses of timpani, segueing into the soaring violin love theme, and then back again.

THE REWARD (1965) was an obscure Western starring Max Von Sydow, Yvette Mimieux and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. But this is hardly the soaring, heroic Western music of MAGNIFICENT SEVEN or THE SCALPHUNTERS. The score is even more sparse than the occasionally melodic PAGE ONE, emphasizing acoustic guitar (the film is set in Mexico), very subdued (director Serge Bourguignon had it in mind to make a nearly silent film, so he desired very little music from Bernstein) and often quite atonal (“The Desert / The Camp / Ruins of Hacienda”). Only in “Lopez Goes After the Horse” does Bernstein let loose with the rhythm he is known for, but even this is held in check by the cheerless atonality of the surrounding ambience. In this approach, Bernstein creates a splendidly oppressive atmosphere of bleak desperation, mirroring the desolate, discordant style with which the story is told.

Source cues and alternate tracks are included from both scores. The CD is nicely packaged by Intrada with characteristically thorough liner notes by the perceptive Jon Burlingame and a note about the restoration by Douglass Fake. Sound quality is passable for its age – the fidelity has lost some of its luster and there is some wow noticeable in the sustained string passages of “Maybe Violets” and, as noted by Fake, in “End Title”- but it’s still a wonderful composition from one of the masters of its day.

Randall D. Larson – Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.21 / No.83 / 2002

Rambling Rose

Mon, 09 Oct 2023 11:50:41 GMT

Label: Virgin Records
Catalogue No: 2-91717

Release Date: 1991

Total Duration: 45:21

UPN: 0-7567-91717-2-6

While critics raved about this film, I was disappointed by the dramatic contrivances of what was essentially character study. True, the acting was uniformly brilliant, but why did reviewers love it so much? I suspect Elmer Bernstein’s score a had a lot to do with it. The atmosphere, nostalgic sense, and even the acting were all elevated by the extraordinary score that graced this picture. As in vintage Hollywood films, the music was featured prominently in the soundtrack, taking on a role as strong as any character.

Scored primarily for woodwinds, gentle strings, harp and subdued horns, the score is lyrical, playful and wistful. Bernstein’s main theme is one of his loveliest, and even on disc it retains its impact after repeated listening. Though the first few tracks on the CD emphasize this melody, RAMBLING ROSE is by no means a mono-thematic work. There are jazzy touches, but they are unlike Bernstein’s more boisterous cues of the 1950’s and 1960’s. While jauntily energetic, they seldom stray far from the warm emotional core that is at the heart of the character of Rose.

Whenever Bernstein writes in a chamber mode, his work is bound to be compared to 1962’s TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. This score does not reach that level of greatness, few works by any composer do. But this is easily one of the finest achievements of his distinguished career. Highlights of the score are many, but “Rose and Buddy” and “Goodbyes” perfectly capture a mixture of joy and sadness, much in the manner of the extraordinary Boo Radley revelation scene at the end of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.

Two cues of Louis Armstrong playing “Dixie” were inappropriate in the film, and were unfortunately included on this compact disc. First used to highlight Rose’s visit to town, it pulled you out of the film by not meshing with the rest of the score, and used as end title music, it practically destroyed the emotional payoff. The music has the same effect on disc, breaking the album’s intimate flow. Whether it was the director’s or composer’s decision, it wasn’t a good one. Also included is one of those forgettable songs you don’t even recall hearing during the movie.

Bernstein has undergone much typecasting in his career. Let’s just hope he continues to be typecast as composer of mature, adult pictures (DA, MY LEFT FOOT, THE FIELD). This wonderful music will probably be passed over at Oscar time, but in my mind it’s the best score of the year.

David N. Schecter – Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.11 / No.41 / 1992

Zulu

Sun, 08 Oct 2023 12:54:58 GMT

Label: Silva Screen
Catalogue No: FILMXCD 305

Release Date: 1999

Total Duration: 51:37

UPN: 5-014929-030524
City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Nic Raine

It seems that James Fitzpatrick has something of a passion for ZULU, one of John Barry's very earliest scores. Silva Screen released the original tracks back in the days before re-recordings, when the label was better known for re-issuing cult deletions such as this and DAMIEN: OMEN II. Even on that release, the notes expressed some dissatisfaction at the non-existence of a true stereo recording. Now, on Silva's third release of re-constructed John Barry scores with Nic Raine and the City of Prague Philharmonic, James has put this demon to bed.

ZULU is, to be sure, an impressive and memorably bombastic work, but it's not normally one to be named as anyone's singular favorite. This recording is complete, although in practice that only means an extra minute-and-a-half or so of additional material. But although this album seems to be about a premiere complete and stereo ZULU, I think what will draw the collector's attention more than this will be the recordings of previously unreleased scores - THE TAMARIND SEED, LOVE AMONG THE RUINS, MY SISTER'S KEEPER, HAMMETT and MISTER MOSES.

This album is better than the two previous Barry ones in their reconstruction, although I think there's still some way to go before they match the note perfectness of Varèse Sarabande’s reconstructions. I feel that these versions of THE COTTON CLUB (which contain a little of the score's unreleased music) and the film version of DANCES' "The Buffalo Hunt" stand up pretty well against the originals, although it's hard to tell if the latter is accurate because the rhythm of the music is buried in the film underneath the sound effects. As for LOVE AMONG THE RUINS, this is a superb suite which is unquestionably my own favorite part of the album. John Barry's remarkably warm themes amount to much more than the interpolated theme that premiered on "Play It Again", and this suite contains a superb harpsichord performance.

THE SPECIALIST, and KING KONG's "The End Is At Hand" don't come over with the authority of the real McCoy. Maybe, like ZULU, it's partly the studio, which does seem to lack the re-assuring echo found in the original recordings. As to THE TAMARIND SEED, in Barry's original the piano and percussion are bright and sharp, but they seem faded here. Perhaps the original was recorded according to Barry's technique of placing extra mikes over these instruments to promote their sound.

Of the new suites, MY SISTER'S KEEPER and MISTER MOSES will be new to many listeners. The former is the more interesting; not one of the “great” scores, but it creates some nice textures with strings, piano and harmonica, and has a wonderful phrase picked up by both harmonica and flute just before the suite's ending. The latter is definitely a sibling of the percussion writing in BORN FREE.

Stephen Woolston - Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.18 / No.70 / 1999

Out of Africa

Sun, 08 Oct 2023 08:52:16 GMT

Label: Varèse Sarabande
Catalogue No: VSD 5816

Release Date: 1997

Total Duration: 38:40

UPN: 4005939581626

At first one wonders why we need a new recording of OUT OF AFRICA. True, it is one of the great masterpieces of contemporary film music, a phenomenon far ahead of its film. It is a wonderfully lyrical and romantic score whose majestic themes and colorful orchestral moods make it a champion of romantic film scores for all time.

But it is not as if John Barry’s own authorative recording is rare or unavailable, nor is it like so many other Barry albums, slight compared to the score content of the film. In fact, OUT OF AFRICA is one of the most widely pressed John Barry albums. To this end I wish Varese had tackled Barry’s overlooked masterpiece THE LAST VALLEY, or his utterly lush WALKABOUT. Even if the commercial mandates are unavoidable, then DANCES WITH WOLVES at least offers a whole album’s worth of rich, previously unreleased music to choose from.

But OUT OF AFRICA is what we have, and if it wasn’t necessary that doesn’t overshadow the magnificence of the score, which is perhaps Barry’s latter day WALKABOUT. As it happens Joel McNeely’s recording is everything that John Barry’s is – inevitably there are discernible differences to which purists like myself will point to Barry’s original as the definitive, and McNeely chooses interpretation rather than carbon copy at a few points (his “Karen’s Journey” is softer than Barry’s heavier rendition and his “Flight Over Africa” lays on a more distinctly choral, ethereal mood).

But whilst not all the score is puritanically the same, most of it is uncannily authentic. Unlike the weak Nic Raine recordings for Silva’s Classic series, you could believe John Barry is at the podium; McNeely remarkably reproduces the exact sheen and depth of the original sound, and his few moments of interpretive licence are perhaps not better, but are certainly not worse than the originals. Just different, different in a way that offers alternative rather than inferior enjoyment of this, one of the last words in truly great film scoring.

Stephen Woolston – Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.16 / No.64 / 1997

Born Free

Sun, 08 Oct 2023 08:45:31 GMT

Label: Varèse Sarabande
Catalogue No: 302-066-084

Release Date: 2000

Total Duration: 52:44

UPN: 0-3020-66084-2-7

One of cinema’s most instantly recognisable songs forms the skeleton of John Barry’s 1966 double Oscar winning effort. What John Barry proved, no doubt to the chagrin of Jerry Goldsmith and the Hollywood pack, is that a great song sells. Not just records, but films and recognition. For Barry, already tarred with the brush of a pop background and a reputation for Bond films and comedies like THE KNACK, it may have set back his recognition as a serious film composer for years. But commercially minded or not, BORN FREE is one of those compelling, instantly inviting, complete listening experiences that is normally only found in the musical. It’s a show score with some laughs, some drama, and some tears, albeit rather Disneyesque in their superficiality. As standard easy listening it is perhaps less dramatically biting than so many other scores in Barry’s repertoire. But it worked.

Varèse Sarabande’s reputation for fine new recordings is only strengthened by this effort. Wisely not taking an option on a vocal, the body and texture of the music is wholly true to the original. In fact it is uncannily indiscernible in parts, proving that total textural fidelity can be achieved. (The recording was made from fully orchestrated original scores. No reconstruction needed to be done, although the individual orchestral parts had been lost and had to be re-copied by Vic Fraser). The only problem in Frederic Talgorn’s direction is the pace, which often slips into gears below the original – not necessarily to the detriment of the music, though in at least one case (and sadly it’s the highlight cue “Holiday with Elsa”), the slow pace is a complete miss.

One faulted cue isn’t enough to slate the recording though, which stands up on so many occasions. Some of the previously unreleased music add extra spice to what will be a familiar listening experience to many, whilst the fact that Varèse’s “Killing At Kiunga” is a completely different piece of music to Barry’s original LP will create the delight of a mystery to be solved.

Stephen Woolston – Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.19 / No.74 / 2000

Enigma

Sun, 08 Oct 2023 08:38:15 GMT

Label: Decca
Catalogue No: 289 467 864-2

Release Date: 16-Apr-2002

Total Duration: 55:47

UPN: 028946786420

John Barry’s score for the anticipated world war two thriller is far more appreciable than the ill-received MERCURY RISING. But then this film is a quality British drama, not a Bruce Willis lowbrower. Noticed and praised in many of the film’s domestic reviews, the score essentially has three elements: a triad of warm, simple themes for piano and strings; a small array of chase themes; and a substantial amount of music for suspense.

The first two elements have earned the score a warm reception. Both have an old-fashioned sense of the 1940s. The two love themes (one for Tom Jericho’s mysterious lost love Claire and one for his new love with Hester) glow warmly in the film and make a memorable end title. Indeed, at the film’s premiere, the audience raised their applause when Barry’s title card appeared at the end of the film. Barry also introduces a piano-led motif for the Enigma itself that functions in the same way that the Sicilian Defence motif worked in RAISE THE TITANIC, or the jewels motif of DEADFALL. It has much promise on album, but the film fails to make the Enigma so mysterious and therefore, sadly, the cue never really flourishes on screen.

By contrast the chase themes, of which there are really only two (‘Police Chase’ and ‘The Train’), function well in the picture and add a brisk stir to the score. It is the third element that, if any, will disappoint – the suspense cues. Those who remember the defection scenes of THE TAMARIND SEED, the climax of MONTE WALSH, or even the race against time at the end of MASQUERADE, will recall Barry’s brilliantly constructed crescendos, Here, the suspense cues billow and swirl but don’t really go anywhere. The highlights of the album are ‘Is That What Happened’ in which the love themes really take off, and ‘The Convoy’, the one outstanding suspense cue which adds great drama to the scenes in which the Bletchley codebreakers race against time to save a North Atlantic convoy from a U-boat ambush. The cues ‘London 1946’ and the end credits, in which the love themes and the Enigma motif enjoy a kind of ‘looking back’ swell, also enthrall.

Stephen Woolston – Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.11 / No.43 / 1992

John Barry on Scoring the Enigma

Sun, 08 Oct 2023 07:16:06 GMT

An Interview with John Barry by Ford A. Thaxton / Transcribed & Edited by Randall D. Larson
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.20 /No.79 / 2001
Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

With the advent of the 21st Century, John Barry has entered his fifth decade of film scoring, having begun in 1959 in England. With more than 120 film scores to his credit, John Barry remains one of the most distinctive and distinguished film composers of the modern era. This year will see the release of a new mystery / action score for ENIGMA, director Michael Apted’s story of how the British (not the Americans, as U-571 had it) came into possession of the machine that broke the German radio code during World War II. The film, shown at this year’s Sundance Festival, has been pushed back for general release until this Fall, with a soundtrack CD due from Decca.

When you became involved with ENIGMA, had you worked with any of the people on that project before?

No. Michael Apted directed the last Bond movie, and I don’t know whether he had some conversations with Barbara Broccoli or not, but anyway he called me on this, and sent me the script, which was excellent.

What were they looking for you to bring to the film? Was there anything in particular that they had in mind when they were spotting the film with you?

No, I don’t think so. I think a director has knowledge of scores you’ve done, not just of one aspect but of many aspects; you read the script, and then sit down and see a rough cut and then get into discussions. They spring out of your reaction to the footage and where you think the score lies, and what the score should do for the movie. Those are the kinds of discussions you have. The working relationship springs out of that discussion.

A lot of directors want to hear and approve synth mock-ups of the score. How do you work on that level?

After spotting the movie, I pitch out, say, two or three essential main themes that are obviously going to be repeated to a greater or a lesser degree throughout the movie, and the director and I come to an understanding on what the music is about. But I don’t do synth demos. I would hope I’ve passed that sort of thing now.

How long did you have to work on ENIGMA?

I had a good while. They got me involved early, but I can’t remember the exact time. It was a very comfortable time. There are two relationships the hero has in the movie, one is a genuine thing and one is an infatuation he has with this femme fatale. So there were these two very different forms of romantic themes that we had, as well as the Enigma theme. Having the two romantic themes, I thought, was quite interesting to work with.

On this particular film, did you choose any particular solo instruments?

Not really. There are solo moments, such as a piano solo, which I think is very effective, but essentially it is a full orchestral piece.

You didn’t record the score in your usual places, like New York or Los Angeles or England, you actually went to Amsterdam. What was the experience like working in Amsterdam?
 I had the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, so right there you’ve got a world-class orchestra. A lot of people think it’s the finest orchestra in the world. It’s most certainly one of the finest concert orchestras. They’d never done a movie, and evidently someone with the movie company got in touch with their management and asked if they would be interested. And they said yes. We went into the main concert hall where they always record – it’s an extraordinary hall. John Richards, my engineer, came over, and we’d shipped in all the equipment, and it was just really great, they loved doing it. You go into a situation like that with a certain guarded feeling, but they were absolutely extraordinary.

So if the opportunity came to record with them again you’d certainly do so.

Oh, absolutely. They were the most charming gentlemen. There was none of the attitude they sometimes have, “Oh, we’re just doing a movie score.” They really got into it in a major way, and on our last day, when we finished, I was very flattered to receive a very genuine applause from them. The movie was made in Holland, so that’s why we could go to Amsterdam to record. Not a lot of movies get made over there, you know, not with American money or English money.

Have you prepared the album for this film yet?

John (Richards) is working on the album. We had to do one more pick-up session, but unfortunately at that time we couldn’t get the Concertgebouw again, they were on tour or something during that time frame, and so we went to England and worked with my favorite English Chamber Orchestra, and we recorded them. They’re the same size orchestra, and are just magnificent.

About that same time, you’re going to have a non-film score album coming out, kind of a Celtic flavoured composition called ‘Eternal Echoes’?

It’s very loosely based on John O’Donahue’s book, Anam Cara. I loved the book; it’s the thoughts coming out of the book set into a musical concept. But it’s not necessarily Celtic.

Another CD, which was released on Prometheus Records last May, is of a score you did in 1993, RUBY CAIRO. This is a film that was directed by Graeme Clifford, who you’d worked previously with on FRANCES. The film was a thriller set in the Middle East with Andie MacDowell and Liam Neeson. What are your recollections on that project?

It wasn’t the happiest movie of my life! I worked with Graeme, I liked Graeme very much. But getting involved in it, there were a lot of things that left much to be desired.

You and Graeme wrote a song together – well, he took your theme and put a lyric to it.

Right, that’s what he did. He obviously wasn’t my first choice to do it, and he did it without my knowledge! That gives you an idea of what was going on there.

There was a Japanese CD of the score released a few years ago, but they reversed the channels the violins were on the right!

Oh my God!

Don’t worry – the reissue fixed that.

I don’t recall the Japanese CD. You know, when you have a certain kind of experience on a movie that leaves much to be desired, I don’t know what other composers do, and I tend to kind of emotionally and physically run away from it. It’s like, “Oh, I did that? Oh, yeah, right, sure…” and you see my dust!

Have you ever come across a film you had not really had the best experience on, and maybe caught it on TV, and thought, “Hey, that score wasn’t too bad?”

I don’t know. I’m usually happy with what I write. If I get into a situation like that I don’t say, “Oh, I’m going to have to just brush this off.” I always do my best, and maybe giving it what I thought was originally intended in the script, so I put my input into it in terms of what I think the score really should have been like. I think often the score on an album winds up better than the score in a movie.

In the last few years there has been quite a renaissance of interest in some of your earlier efforts. Varèse Sarabande Records, Silva Screen Records, and other companies have recorded numerous albums, not only of your complete scores but also suites and compilations. Joel McNeely did the recording of BODY HEAT, Nic Raine did RAISE THE TITANIC… What is your take on that, seeing all this music of yours now suddenly being newly recorded and released?

It’s very consoling. I think what it indicates is that fundamentally you wrote something that stands up; however you want to determine what “stand up” means! It must be something that’s standing the test of time, as music, or otherwise I don’t think record companies would be expending this money on the actual recording, artwork, and promotion. You know it costs a bundle to put an album out. But they don’t phone me on these things – I just get informed or sometimes I walk into a shop and there it is on the rack.

The last thing in the world you must have been expecting was someone to do an entire new recording of RAISE THE TITANIC!

That was kind of surprising. I did enjoy doing that score, although the movie didn’t get the audience they thought they were going to get. But there was some interesting stuff in that movie. Take the idea of that story, forget about the movie – just the idea of going down there and bringing this historic thing back up to the world, that alone is fascinating! You could write a musical suite on the emotions of that, without a movie. It’s an interesting, haunting theme of a past generation, of something that happened in the world, in the history books. The mind jumps all over those very fertile thoughts of what that would be like, before you actually get into the movie. So I think that’s the kind of weight, hopefully, you bring to the movie. Those are the thought processes that go behind the composition. There’s a point of view there that hopefully is intelligent and uplifting and has a certain mysterioso ambiance about it, about the history of the whole piece.

Are there anyone of your scores that you, personally, would like to do a new recording about or you’d like to see released?

Perhaps some of the early scores. I’d love to see SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON but it would never sell! That and THE WHISPERERS are the first two movies I did for Bryan Forbes. THE WHISPERERS did come out on CD, but I’d love to see a mixture of those two Bryan Forbes movies – SEANCE and THE WHISPERERS would make an interesting album.

There are so many scores you’ve done that are so fascinating, whether off the wall things, like THE BLACK HOLE – and there are a lot of people who want that, believe it or not!

Well, that came out.

Yeah, but not on CD unfortunately.

Yeah, well, that’s Disney.

Yes, they have their clutches on that and they’re not about to let that go anywhere.

That’s something I don’t understand. They have the tapes, there are really no production expenses they’ve got everything there, you know. I mean it’s not going to cost them a fortune; they just have to put that back into the machine, as it were.

It’s a matter of disinterest.

Yeah, total disinterest. But for very little effort they could produce it. Maybe there is a market out there.

A project that I did, along those lines, was your score for HAMMETT, which was something I really fought hard to do as a CD. Something about that movie you really responded to. What I find interesting is that everyone knows you for your big orchestral efforts, but HAMMETT is such a wonderful, delicate chamber score. I think the main title and the end title cues are just a clarinet and a piano.

I loved doing HAMMETT. That was a terrific movie. I wasn’t the director’s first choice, but a friend said why don’t you just go along and do something, so I went into a studio and I recorded a demo of it, with a clarinet, and sent it to the director. I went to London and came back, and he called me at, like, 3 in the morning, very enthusiastic, and we just got on like a house on fire after that!

I guess the thing that struck me about HAMMETT was that it was a very intimate score. I think people tend to forget that the early English films that you did, were so intimate…

You can’t be more intimate than SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON! But I loved those things. If the director’s got it correctly onto the screen and that intimacy is up there, it’s just great to be able to write that simply and orchestrate that sparsely.

There are a few legends that have arisen about you over the years. One goes that you wrote demos for THE RIGHT STUFF and CLASH OF THE TITANS, neither of which were used.

That’s not quite true. On THE RIGHT STUFF, I wrote several things and Phil Kaufman was very up on all the rest of it and everything. It was going very well, and then there were certain problems on the movie down the line, and he needed an excuse for delaying the production. The details are a little foggy now, but I’ve always remembered my association with Kaufman was also one of the most dishonest pieces of behavior I’ve ever encountered in the movie industry. I’ll leave it at that.

Do you have any recollections of CLASH OF THE TITANS at all? You’re actually named on some of the early posters.

I can’t remember for sure. I don’t think I got too involved. I think I may have done some demos on that and they didn’t like the way I was going with it and that was probably it.

Was that also the case with a more recent project from 1999, GOODBYE LOVER? Reportedly you wrote a score that was withdrawn.

I remember vaguely doing that, but it’s amazing how you remember the good ones and…

And the bad ones just go away!

Yeah, you put them so far on the back burner!

I’ll close this out by saying: it’s 2001, you’ve got this record coming up, you’ve got ENIGMA coming up, what are you looking forward to doing next?

If it’s a good movie and I read the script and I think the working relationship will be terrific, then I’m delighted to do it. I’ve got a wonderful recording contract so I’ll be doing more albums. I’m not looking to do a lot of films. If I do one terrific movie a year, I’ll be really, really happy.

Raise the Titanic

Sat, 07 Oct 2023 10:13:49 GMT

Label: Silva Screen
Catalogue No: FILMCD 319

Release Date: 28-Jul-1998

Total Duration: 50:22

UPN: 5-014929-031927

City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Nic Raine

RAISE THE TITANIC is often misleadingly referred to as a film of the disaster genre, when in fact the only incident of fatal jeopardy in the entire movie occurs when a single submersible implodes while searching for the sunken liner. Sad for the crew, yes – but hardly a major disaster. There is no doubting, of course, the disastrous nature of the tale that inspired this 1980 film, which is in reality a silly Cold War drama with the great and tragic ship relegated to a cheap plot device about carrying a rare mineral to power a secret US defence system. It is perhaps a mark of how ludicrous this basic notion is that the film still remains one of cinema’s most critically reviled and least commercially successful — at its time of release, producer Lew Grade solemnly declared that “it would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic”.

One aspect where praise has been almost universal is for John Barry’s score – released at last. Perhaps the almost legendary nature of the RAISE THE TITANIC score stems from the fact that the film has one of the finest main themes of any film I can remember. Barry’s depiction of Titanic is always one of opulence and majesty, his layers of brassy fanfares and lush, sweeping strings eschewing her tragic story to reflect her grandeur and artistry. The film’s opening montage of photographs set to this theme can’t help but move all but the hardest of hearts. Even when the vessel finally surfaces, rusted and decaying, Barry lends a level of triumph that helps the audience forget some especially unconvincing effects work. This is one instance where film music does make the mundane transcend to brilliance.

However, this theme is hardly the only notable thing about the score, the larger part of which has Barry return to his 007 roots. His eerie, low-key strains aptly evoke the metaphorical murkiness of the politicians behind the scheme, and then later the more literal murkiness of the Atlantic. Most of his music in RAISE THE TITANIC is quite dark and disturbing, albeit still very melodic (a Barry speciality). Some minor devices add little bits of color here and there – a sprightly hornpipe for Cornwall, an ominous clicking motif for the Sicilian Defence weapon, and an aggressively defiant march for the arrival of the US submarine sent to defend the newly raised ship. Perhaps the most significant secondary motif is Barry’s lament to those souls lost when Titanic sank, an introspective and sorrowful tune for piano and saxophone which links the memories of a survivor with a later scene where the White Star banner is flown on the ship one last time. Beautiful.

As for this particular recording, both sound and performance are first rate – simple as that. As we’ve come to expect from Silva, the orchestra’s sound is especially rich and clear. Sometimes rerecordings can be hit and miss, but in this instance Mc Raine (Barry’s former orchestrator, who also painstakingly restored the score) rarely misses a trick. In the case of nearly all tracks, you could just as easily be listening to the real thing. David Wishart provides detailed track by track notes, and mention has to be made of Cohn Parker’s elegant and restrained design too, with a superb use of typography and colour. Without a doubt this is one of Silva screen’s finest releases to date.

Gary Kester – Originally published in Soundtrack magazine Vol.18 / No.71 /1999

Body Heat

Sat, 07 Oct 2023 10:05:00 GMT

Label: Varèse Sarabande
Catalogue No: VSD 5951

Release Date: 28-Jul-1998

Total Duration: 37:49

UPN: 0-3020-65951-2-3
London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Joel McNeely

BODY HEAT is a well-judged score evoking the sex, passion, and intrigue of the film’s brilliantly drawn murder plot. Barry’s sexy synth chords, sizzling jazz, and soulful ambience make this the perfect music for the sleepy alcoholic haze of those hot Florida nights. From the stylish title designs to lawyer-in-heat Ned Racine’s calculated entrapment in Mary Ann’s grand design, Barry is irreplaceably intertwined with the narrative of Lawrence Kasdan’s slick film noir revival. BODY HEAT is an American film classic which owes a lot to the character-focused score of John Barry. BODY HEAT is evidently something of a film music icon which appeals to circles much wider than the Barry fandom. Given the rarity of the original CD, this then is a good candidate for the Varèse treatment.

Unfortunately this edition of BODY HEAT is a minor disappointment in the Varèse Classics series. The artwork is stylish but vague. The liner notes (by Royal S. Brown) are more appreciative of Goldsmith’s CHINATOWN than the score in question. And the performance is, whilst largely faithful, a less impressive interpretation than were VERTIGO, PSYCHO or OUT OF AFRICA: the synth is mechanical not seductive; the sax solos rough not silky. Duetic themes and counterpoints such as that in “Chapeau Gratis” are muddied, and the effect of the xylo-string doubles of “I’m Frightened” is killed by an excess of violins. Each of these complaints can be prefixed with the word “slightly”, however. This recording may not hit the spot quite well enough, but it is close, and over the original album it does have two commendable features: its affordable availability and that previously omitted, brilliant one-minute jazz piece for Ned.

Stephen Woolston – Originally Published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.17 / No.67 /1 998

The Beyondness of Things

Sat, 07 Oct 2023 09:58:08 GMT

Label: Decca London
Catalogue No: 289 460 009-2

Release Date: 23-Feb-1999

Total Duration: 55:17

UPN: 0-2894-60009-2-2

Fans of John Barry have faced a number of disappointments recently with respect to aborted projects. However, with Barry’s sell-out London concert, the high profile release of his album of “tone poems”, THE BEYONDNESS OF THINGS, a major London record signing, and a number of highly desirable re-issues (including his sixties jazz classic, THE KNACK, and expanded editions of BODY HEAT and THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS), John Barry fandom is right back in euphoria. At the outset, THE BEYONDNESS OF THINGS seems that it will be a familiar listening experience which, in parts, is inevitably post DANCES in its use of slow tempi, lush strings and brass/woodwind chords. The themes in BEYONDNESS are made of particularly strong Barry melodies and are thus warm, sentimental and powerful. However, the album departs into light jazz à la AMERICANS (Barry’s 1976 non-soundtrack album) as early as the second track, “Kissably Close”. In between, “The Heartlands”, “A Childhood Memory” and “Dawn Chorus” deliver music which is identifiably Barry, but distinct from the rich, creamy theme writing which has already been served by the title track, treading instead into filmic realms of bombast, broodiness, and dreaminess.

In BEYONDNESS Barry demonstrates versatility in collecting a number of his personal musical genres together. One can hear the summation of a number of Barry’s favorite musical icons in the album; the use of solo harmonica for example, and haunting reminders of such scores as FRANCES, ACROSS THE SEA OF TIME, SWEPT BY THE SEA, MY LIFE and of course DANCES WITH WOLVES. One can even hear ghosts of KING RAT (in “The Fictionist”) and BOOM!, and, though it never quite reflects HAMMETT, there is some nice clarinet work. There is no suggestion in the album notes that THE BEYONDNESS OF THINGS contains cues rescued from the removed score for Robert Redford’s THE HORSE WHISPERER. However, with cue titles such as “Meadow of Delight and Sadness”, evocative of dewy meadows and triumphant horse-riding, this is certainly conceivable. If true then it was a stunning and potentially award winning score that would have been Robert Redford’s loss.

Stephen Woolston – Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol. 17 / No. 66 /1998

An Interview with John Barry

Sat, 07 Oct 2023 09:43:55 GMT

An Interview with John Barry by Daniel Mangodt
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.15 / No.58 / 1996
Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

You have scored 11 out of the 18 James Bond films. Looking back on that period in your career, how do you feel about it?

 I enjoyed doing it. If you do one movie you get one shot at it. It’s like having 11 shots at the same movie. So it was interesting, developing the style over a period of time. I think by the third movie, by the time I was doing GOLDFINGER, the style was consolidated; not only from the musical point of view, but also from the directorial point of view: the pre-title sequence, the main title sequence, the song idea, Ken Adam’s design… I think by GOLDFINGER everything fell into place. It was an exciting time, you know, the sixties. It was a hugely successful series; the most successful series in the history of the cinema. So it was very exciting to be associated with it.

You relied on several themes: the James Bond theme and the 007 theme, but each time you had to add something new. 

Each movie had its new song theme, apart from the James Bond and the 007 theme, which we repeated down the line. We always had a new song and that song was developed throughout the movie, plus new material for the action sequences or whatever.

Parts of each score were based on a song for thematic material…

 I always liked to have a song that one could develop and use throughout the score, rather than having a song stuck at the beginning of the movie that hadn’t any relationship really to the rest of the thematic material. I like the song to be an integral part of the whole picture. It must have a function; it must have a musical content.

The song is usually introduced over the main title sequence with the Maurice Binder graphics. What was your working relationship like with Mr. Binder?
 It was to and fro. He used to show me rough cuts that he had done or rough footage of each shot and I would play him some of the music and we would settle on the idea of tempo. It was a back and forth thing and so finally the whole thing came together.

Each time there was a different singer, except in three cases: GOLDFINGER, DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER and MOONRAKER were all sung by Shirley Bassey.
 At the time of GOLDFINGER, Shirley was the number one singer in London – she hadn’t reached an international audience, but she certainly was big in England. She did such a great job on GOLDFINGER, so when DIAMONDS came up, we decided to use her again. MOONRAKER was an accident actually. We had someone, very big, an American male singer, who sang the song first, but for some reason, it just didn’t work out and we were in a rush. We had a time problem. We recorded MOONRAKER in Paris and we were back in L.A. The following day when we decided this American singer was not working for us – through no fault of his, it’s just one of those things – I was having lunch in a Beverly Hills hotel and who should walk into the lounge? Shirley Bassey. I didn’t even know she was in town. I invited her and had Cubby Broccoli on the phone and we were in a studio within a week. It was virtually the same arrangement, everything the same and we were very pleased.

You worked with Lulu, Tom Jones and Nancy Sinatra. Did you adapt the song to the singing qualities of the performer?
 When Leslie Bricusse and I worked on YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, we didn’t have any idea who was going to sing it. I went to L.A., because Leslie was working there and we worked on the song. Nancy had that big hit: “These Boots are made for Walking” and we asked her to do it. We sent her a tape with the melody and she agreed to do it and she came to London. I remember – I’m sure she won’t mind me saying – there were quite a few edits. I think we used about 23 different takes. Through the miracles of technology we were able to put a song together and it worked out fine.

On the last couple of films you were not so pleased with the results…?
 I was pleased with the Duran Duran, situation. It was the first time I worked that way, with a group. I usually would write the melody, and then bring in the lyricist. People would say: What comes first, the music or the lyrics? With Duran Duran it was the drums. That’s the way they work. They put the drum track down and then we worked in the studio together and we concocted the melody and Simon Le Bon wrote the lyric. Their way of working was unusual for me, but they were really a terrific group of guys and we were very happy with the result.

With a-ha that was really a difficult situation. They were doing concerts in London and we went to see them. They were just shrieking kids, but they were very successful and we met with them and they seemed very fine. But I found them very difficult. They refused to go to Pinewood to see the movie. I said to them: “Look, when we did” ‘We Have All the Time in the World’, Louis Armstrong had been in hospital for a year, he came out and we showed him the movie in New York. Everybody who had ever done a song has been willing to do that.” They had an attitude which I really didn’t like at all. It was not a pleasant experience.

My personal James Bond favourite is ON HIS MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE.

The action sequences were terrific. Peter Hunt (the former editor and second unit director) did a great job on it. They had a terrific drive. I like the score very much. If Mr. Lazenby could have been better…

You worked with Louis Armstrong on this movie.
 It was wonderful to work with him. It was a line out of the book. Hal David wrote the lyric and when we were thinking who should do it, I proposed Louis Armstrong. It seemed a crazy idea, because we had always been working with younger artists. There is an irony about this song: ‘We have all the time in the world’ and it’s like when Walter Huston sang ‘September Song’. That kind of feeling, a different kind of reflection by an older person: We have all the time in the world when actually time is running out. So that was the thought behind that and we went to New York and recorded that with Louis Armstrong. It’s one of the most precious experiences I have ever had.

You didn’t score all the James Bond movies, some you didn’t want to work on, like NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN.

I was asked to do that, but that was out of the camp.

What happened when GOLDENEYE came along?
 That I didn’t do because I had commitments this past year: CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY and ACROSS THE SEA OF TIME, an IMAX 3D movie. Those were two projects I was really keen on and I just had a newly born son. So, I wanted to have time with him and enjoy that side of my life. I’ve been asked to do the next one, which I shall probably do.

Eric Serra’s score has been heavily criticized.
 I saw the movie. They didn’t know who to go with. The producers talked to me about different composers. They mentioned Eric. I told them if they wanted to go in a different direction, they should do so. I had been away from the Bond movies about 5 years. So I said, try it. It might be fresh, but it’s a difficult thing when a certain style has been stamped on it.

On FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE you worked with Lionel Bart…
 Lionel wrote the song. Lionel had just finished OLIVER, the stage musical, which was a huge success. My credentials at the time had been mostly as a musical director plus my instrumental hits, but nothing of a major nature. Saltzman and Broccoli wanted to have Lionel and I was happy with it. So Lionel wrote both words and music and I arranged and orchestrated it and we put the song into the orchestration, into the Bond vein.

You worked with Lionel Bart on several occasions: MAN IN THE MIDDLE and NEVER LET GO.
 On MAN IN THE MIDDLE, he wrote a song and I wrote the rest of the score and on NEVER LET GO he wrote it under another name, John Maitland. It was a non-copyright version of ‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home’, which we adapted.

You worked with Bryan Forbes on six movies. What’s it like, working with him?

Working with Bryan was wonderful. It was nice to work with Bryan at the time I was doing the Bond movies. They were intertwined with Bryan’s movies which were totally in another area. I met Bryan when I did the jazz club sequences for THE L-SHAPED ROOM and used Brahms’s piano concerto as the main score and when I had finished that, he said he was planning a new movie next year with a strange kind of orchestration, SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON. I didn’t hear from him for a long time and then he sent me the script for SEANCE and I came up with this strange orchestra: four alto flutes, 4 cellos, I can’t remember how many basses I used, and percussion and vibraphones and just by that mix alone we got a very unique kind of sound; a very strange orchestra which worked very well for the movie.

KING RAT was the next, which was the first time I worked in Los Angeles. Bryan took me over there, much to Columbia’s dismay: “Why do you take this Limey composer to Hollywood, where we have so many good composers.” Bryan wanted to work with me. The difficulty was that I used an instrument called the cymbalom, a Hungarian gypsy instrument. It had a strange tone that I found appropriate for the movie; that with a string orchestra and woodwinds and we had this extraordinary player in London, John Leech, who was a wizard on the cymbalom and many other instruments. I remember asking the orchestral manager in Los Angeles if he had a good cymbalom player. Oh, yes. He had. Anyway, believe it or not, he was dreadful. I remember the first session we had, we didn’t get one minute of music in the can. It was very frustrating. We finally brought in a guitarist who gave us through the miracle of technology something bordering on the cymbalom sound. So don’t take anybody’s word for it. Always check it out.

You also did THE WHISPERERS…
 That was an interesting project. I had a series of very successful records now and I went to see Mike Stewart, head of United Artists Music in New York and I asked him if he was going to put out this record. They would have to pay the re-use fees. I said: “Why don’t you put the re-use fees up front. Let me make the album of the music for the movie. Bryan would like to do that; he would like to have a score worked off the script.” So, we recorded the album before the film and we just made one or two adjustments in nature of the movie. The same happened on DEADFALL, with the romance for guitar and orchestra.

You also worked with Anthony Harvey on several occasions.
 He was an editor. He edited some of Bryan’s movies and some of the Boulting brothers’ movies and he worked with Kubrick. He did a small film DUTCHMAN. He didn’t want any music in the movie at all and when he had finished it there were 3 areas where he wanted music: the beginning, an interlude and a closing section. It was virtually the same piece of music used 3 times.

THE LAST VALLEY and THE LION IN WINTER are two of my favourite Barry scores.
 I’m sure I got THE LAST VALLEY because I had done THE LION IN WINTER. I love THE LION IN WINTER. That took me right back to my roots. I had studied harmony and counterpoint with the Master of Music at York Minster. People said: that’s strange, that’s different. Actually I went back to my roots.

You did the beautiful ‘Children’s Songs’ in THE LAST VALLEY.
 Those were German texts. I had this gentleman in England called Edgar Fleet, who worked with various orchestras and on LION IN WINTER I asked him for various Latin texts. They were all old texts and I just set the music to them.

You worked with Richard Lester on THE KNACK, PETULIA and ROBIN AND MARIAN…
 I had a strange relation with Richard Lester. I remember when I did THE KNACK, he said to me after I had done it: “You have done everything that I wouldn’t have done, but it works!”, which I thought was a nice kind of compliment. PETULIA was an interesting project. Nic Roeg was the lighting cameraman on that. I enjoyed PETULIA.

ROBIN AND MARIAN: Richard Lester had two scores by Michel Legrand: one was a double string concerto. I don’t know why, but under pressure from Columbia it was not the right score for this movie. Richard could not stay in Los Angeles, he had another movie he had started in London, and so it was telephone conversations. It was one of those rush jobs: I had literally (no time) from seeing the movie to recording it, because they had release dates. I had about four weeks to write it. I wrote it in the Beverly Hills Hotel, Bungalow 15 and I think Richard was happy with some of it and unhappy with other parts. It’s very difficult when you’re doing a movie and the director sits 6,000 miles away. Columbia were delighted with the score I did, a romantic adventure score.

The same happened with THE SCARLET LETTER.
 I had 4 weeks for about one hour of music. One doesn’t like working like that. I happen to like THE SCARLET LETTER; I thought it was a good movie. Being a European I never read the book, but it’s an American classic and Americans have very strong feelings about the book, as I suppose the English do about Dickens. The happy ending shook a lot of Americans. The film had bad reviews, I think much unwarranted, and Demi Moore made some statement that nobody read the book anymore.

Some of your scores are sadly enough not available on record or CD, for example RAISE THE TITANIC, HAMMETT and HANOVER STREET.
 If you look at that period of time, all those movies were done in the same period, the mid-seventies. It was a bad period for orchestral film music. The record companies were just not paying those kind of re-use fees for 80-piece orchestras. HAMMETT was a small orchestra, but RAISE THE TITANIC was a big orchestra and HANOVER STREET was done in England with a pretty large string orchestra.

Would you consider releasing them on disc yourself?
 The company that did RAISE THE TITANIC no longer exists. HAMMETT I put together as an album. I really like that score, but it was done by Zoetrope, Coppola’s company. As for HANOVER STREET, I don’t think there would be a demand for the whole score.

Do you always conduct your own music?
 Always, that’s all the fun of it. When you write, you write to specific timings, but when you finally get on the floor and you start to conduct and you have a 70-80 piece orchestra, certain things start to change, the orchestra breathes in a different way. Conducting your own music is so important. You can make all kinds of adjustments. I’m not talking about vast adjustments, but slight adjustments. You can move a moment a little forward or a little back. You have written the whole thing and feel that and know the picture backwards, you’re quick on your feet and do all those changes.

You wrote music for several commercials in the sixties.
 I did. All the big directors were doing commercials in England. I did a commercial for toilet paper; Lester did one for Black Magic Chocolate. I learnt a lot in being given 30 seconds or one minute to make a statement. It really makes you tighten up. I found it a very interesting experience.

Can you tell us something about CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY?
 Anant Singh, the producer, called me. It’s the first South-African movie since Apartheid ended and I knew the story, a terrifically powerful story. He came into New York and he said: “We don’t have a lot of money, but see if you like it. We can probably do some deal.” He brought the movie to New York and I saw it and I liked it very much. James Earl Jones was fantastic in it and so was Richard Harris. I said I would do it and I love very much what I have done for this movie.

The trailer has music by Enya. This song is not on the CD.

The song is at the end of the movie, but Enya’s company would not allow it to be on the CD.

In a few tracks you used a theme from ZULU.
 It’s based on a Zulu hunting song. When I did ZULU, the director Cy Enfield brought back a lot of tapes with Zulu music and one of them is this chant (John Barry’s chanting) and then I did variations on that. So both these themes are based on a traditional Zulu hunting song, which is probably 200 years old.

Last question. What is the function of film music?
 Oh, my God! It has different functions in different movies. I don’t think there is one overall function. You can have a movie like THE WISPERERS, which has a lot of dialogue and where the music is supportive or you can have a movie like OUT OF AFRICA where Sidney said, “You got to carry this movie. I have to step back and photograph these wonderful vistas and where the music has to carry the story.” With a lot of action movies today you cannot tell the difference between the sound effects and the music.

The Name is Barry, John Barry

Sat, 07 Oct 2023 09:06:15 GMT

The Name is Barry, John Barry by Claudio Fuiano
Originally published in Il Giaguaro in Lounge No. 8, 2002
Text reproduced by kind permission of the author Claudio Fuiano

Act I: Origins of a musical genius. In inaugurating a gallery of famous musicians, one couldn’t pick a better candidate than John Barry. His name is intricately tied to Lounge Music, thanks mainly to his memorable themes and musical atmospheres created for the James Bond movies, which exploded internationally in the early Sixties. John Barry (whose full name is John Barry Prendergast) was born in York on the third of November, 1933. As a child his parents provided him two things that would be crucial to his career choice; classical piano studies and his father’s movie theater chain. John Barry developed his musical talent by playing the piano and the trumpet, and his love for film was already obvious during his childhood years: his biggest dream was to become a composer for cinema. At the age of 14 his favorite song was ‘The Sheikh of Araby’, which he loved listening to while he worked in his father’s movie theaters as projectionist. During that same period he had seen A SONG TO REMEMBER, a film featuring Paul Muni on the life of Chopin: it was this movie that inspired his future as a composer.

The young John was an avid fan of films like THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE and its soundtrack by Max Steiner, and THE THIRD MAN, which John Barry found fascinating for its innovative score, the bare sound of a zither. Barry passed a two-year military service in a regiment based in Malta and Cyprus. There, he was fortunate enough to join a group of musicians with whom he experimented in all sorts of arrangements, besides taking a composition course through correspondence. After leaving the army, John Barry started a Rock ‘n’ Roll band called ‘The John Barry Seven’. After several concerts and TV appearances, he signed a contract with the EMI Parlophone label, with which he made records and played concerts. In 1960, he was signed for the first time as composer for the movie BEAT GIRL, characterized by Rock ‘n’ Roll songs. His next effort was to write ‘The Amorous Prawn’, and he also released one of his best albums, ‘Stringbeat’. The last time John Barry and his band, The John Barry Seven, worked together was during the recording of The James Bond Theme , in 1962, the year in which what was to become one of film’s greatest musicians met the world’s top secret agent.

Act II: How John Barry became James Bond’s best friend for twenty five years. John Barry’s destiny changed forever one evening when he received an unexpected call from Noel Rogers, head of United Artists Music, in London. Rogers asked Barry if he would be interested in arranging the theme for a new film titled DR. NO. According to reliable sources, producers Broccoli and Saltzman weren’t happy at all with the version arranged by composer Monty Norman. Unfortunately, there was very little time to redo everything, including the recording. That same weekend, Barry worked on the theme after having heard the version by Monty Norman (who was recording the film’s orchestral score, dominated by symphonic variations on ‘The James Bond Theme’). To this tune, he would add a Henry Mancini of ‘Peter Gunn’-style sound, especially regarding the use of the bass guitar. The team used for the recording was made up of five saxophones, nine horns, an electric guitar and a rhythm section, with no string section. Had things gone differently, nowadays the Bond saga would have had ‘Underneath the Mango Tree’ as its leitmotif, as this was also in DR. NO and Monty Norman wanted to use it as James Bond’s theme. The recording took place in the Abbey Road studios, where a nervously meticulous John Barry prepared the entire arrangement before the session itself. Legendary guitarist Vic Flick played the Clifford Essex acoustic guitar through a Fender Vibrolux amplifier, and created the hard sound which has characterized ‘The James Bond Theme’ for forty years. The single was pressed in Great Britain and quickly shot up the charts: it was initially released in mono, but a stereo version was later recorded, too.

Even though the DR. NO orchestra score had been commissioned to Monty Norman, in 1963 Barry was hired to compose and direct the symphonic score for the second James Bond movie, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. Initially, some people wanted Lionel Bart to compose the music, but Albert Broccoli himself demanded John Barry write the score, although the young musician had no experience in film scoring. Lionel Bart was a well-known song writer, and his fame would have made the second James Bond movie producers feel more at ease, but since an instrumental version of the song was chosen for the opening credits, John Barry was forced to come up with one of his amazing arrangements. FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE also marked the birth of another famous tune, this time written by John Barry: ‘The 007 Theme’, the driving, open and epic track which the composer later used for other Bond movies. Barry felt the need to create this track so as to have his own identity on the screen, next to the typical credit “The James Bond Theme written by Monty Norman.” The album includes the film’s most important themes (although over half an hour of music is missing), such as the vocal version of the ‘Main Theme’, performed by Matt Monro. Also present is a wonderful theme titled ‘The Golden Horn’, which was never included in the movie, and there are several tracks featuring the guitar sound of Vic Flick, who, after having left The John Barry Seven, became one of Barry’s faithful collaborators on several James Bond sessions.

In 1964, the third James Bond movie, GOLDFINGER, was released. The score for GOLDFINGER is among John Barry’s personal favorites and, of course, includes the most famous of 007 title songs. Sung by twenty seven year-old Shirley Bassey, ‘Goldfinger’ reached number 21 for nine weeks even hit number one in the Japanese hit parade (note that the single version is different from the ones on the album and film), Three people wrote the title song: music by Barry and lyrics by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse. In a peculiar event: every Friday, John Barry would dine at Leslie Bricusse’s The Pickwick Club restaurant, together with his close friends Michael Caine and Terence Stamp. In a recent biography, actor Michael Caine said that one night he had stayed up listening to John Barry compose a tune on the piano… the tune which would later become ‘Goldfinger’. The sales of the album, on United Artists Records, went well in the UK, but in the United States it was an unprecedented success. The figures speak for themselves, if we consider that this soundtrack album was even able to top The Beatles’ ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ in the charts! In 1965, John Barry won the gold record for the one million dollars obtained through the record’s sales, which then became two million in six weeks. The score even earned a Grammy nomination. The US and British editions are different, since on the British one there are four selections missing, which only appeared on the US album, while the UK record includes the instrumental version exclusively, not present on the American one.

In 1965, THUNDERBALL was released. With the help of lyricist Leslie Bricusse, Barry wrote a song called ‘Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ for which the producers decided to hire another top vocalist Dionne Warwick, after having discarded the version sung by Shirley Bassey. Not even this second performance was deemed fit (the lucky owners of the rare THUNDERBALL twentieth anniversary Laser Disc box set can see the opening titles with the alternative version of Warwick’s version of the theme song, recorded on a secondary audio track)! Finally, production decided it wanted a song titled ‘Thunderball’ and the lyrics were assigned to twenty-seven year-old Don Black, with whom Barry worked for a very long time. Tom Jones sung the track with vigor and energy, and to this day this song is among the ones preferred by James Bond fans. Based on the main thence, Barry wrote a symphonic score which was then proposed with variations in the score. Barry composed a sort of “marine music.” It was magical, mysterious and rarefied, and relied on strings, a celeste and a harp. And even though it was eliminated from the opening credits. ‘Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ appears in various arrangements in the score. In 1992, for the 30th anniversary, a “Best of James Bond” double CD was released featuring several rarities, including the unused ‘Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ versions by Shirley Bassey and Dionne Warwick and approximately half an hour of unreleased music, which hadn’t been included on the original version of the album. Another rarity is the alternative instrumental version of ‘Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ which had been included on certain mono copies of the American album, and is totally different from the better known, more orchestral version.

In 1967, John Barry wrote the title song and the symphonic score for YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, a sort of swan song for Sean Connery, who would leave the series after five, highly successful movies. For Barry, keenly studious of international musical traditions, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE represented the opportunity to create an oriental-style score since the film was set in Japan. According to Barry, the film’s leitmotif, sung by Nancy Sinatra, had to be softer, more romantic and less aggressive compared to THUNDERBALL. Leslie Bricusse had written the words but, according to recent news, a song had been recorded to be included in the film’s final cut (the track was mistakenly taken for a demo, and is available on the double CD The James Bond 30th Anniversary Limited Edition) as opening credits performed by Julie Rogers (famous in Italy for Piero Piccioni’s ‘You Never Told Mei from the film FUMO DI LONDRA), but the version featuring Nancy Sinatra was chosen. The score was recorded in the CTS studios, where the London Philharmonic Orchestra performed all the musical takes (only half of the music is available on the original record). John Barry composed calm, romantic and sometimes moving tunes, all of which were tied to the leitmotif of the titles, and used Japanese instruments to create the atmosphere, although there also are ‘James Bond Theme’ variations, performed in a dramatic and aggressive way.

1969 was the year of ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE, considered John Barry’s musical masterpiece by many James Bond fans. Sean Connery had left his position vacant and George Lazenby, a thirty year-old Australian model who had worked in TV commercials, was chosen for the Bond part. This 007 adventure is adored by fans as the only movie which reveals James Bond’s human side; he gets married only to lose his wife Teresa. John Barry wrote a beautiful love theme called ‘We Have All the Time in the World’, a title taken directly from a phrase by Ian Fleming. Hal David wrote the lyrics and its success was decreed by the famous voice of Louis Armstrong, at the suggestion of Barry himself to producers Broccoli and Saltzman. Armstrong had just recently left the hospital after a long illness but, nevertheless, he agreed to sing the song. Not being able to travel to Europe for the recording session, John Barry and Hal David flew to America, to record the track in New York. The song was a huge success: in Italy, it was number one for nine months. The orchestra score was recorded in the CTS Studios, as usual, and the original album includes the score’s highlights. Unfortunately, some important selections are missing which may be published someday on CD. Apparently, John Barry became angry with producer Harry Saltzman due to artistic differences regarding the main theme to DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, the seventh 007 movie with music by Barry, which also saw the return of Sean Connery as James Bond, Shirley Bassey recorded the title song during a midnight recording session at CTS. Barry’s anger was due to Saltzman’s scores on the lyrics, which he considered scandalously “dirty.” Barry’s score for DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, besides the variations on the main theme, was characterized by some very violent and dramatic passages to describe the action scenes. The original album also features several Lounge-type tracks to describe life in the Las Vegas casinos (and several symphonic tracks were not included on the album, at the time).

Perhaps due to his engagements and his anger towards Saltzman, in 1973 John Barry didn’t write the music to LIVE AND LET DIE, which started the Roger Moore era as James Bond. In his place, George Martin, former arranger and producer for the Beatles, wrote and conducted the score, while the title song was composed and sung by Paul McCartney and Wings.

In only three weeks, John Barry wrote, directed and recorded the music to 1974s second movie featuring Roger Moore, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN. The score was one of Barry’s most interesting works, and was tied to the title song sung by Lulu (reliable sources later revealed how much John Barry hated this track). Also included was a wild Jazz version of the main theme, recorded specifically for the album, which didn’t appear in the movie.

John Barry dismissed himself from James Bond for five years, being busy with other soundtracks and perhaps tired of accompanying musically the adventures of the tireless secret agent. Only in 1979 did he return to the world of Bond, by writing the music for MOONRAKER. (It had been preceded in 1977 by THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, with music by Marvin Hamlisch, who wrote its theme song, ‘Nobody Does it Better’, a huge hit by Carly Simon.) For MOONRAKER, Shirley Bassey interpreted the romantic title song for the third time, and the music included some of the most beautiful melodies ever written by Barry, such as the space music for orchestra and chorus. Due to a strange anomaly in Bond’s record history, the album doesn’t include a note of the ‘James Bond Theme’ although it was used as background in action scenes such the pre-titles sequence and the gondola chase in Venice.

Bill Conti was recommended by Barry himself for the soundtrack to 1981’s FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, the fifth movie with Roger Moore as James Bond, but eventually Barry returned to the 007 franchise with OCTOPUSSY in 1985, in 1985 on A VIEW TO A KILL 1985, and THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS in 1987; the titles songs were performed, respectively, by Rita Coolidge, Duran Duran and A-Ha.

For the past fifteen years now, John Barry and James Bond haven’t met, but the memory of twenty-five years spent together as old friends remains. John Barry’s sound for James Bond is immortal and unforgettable, and it is in honor of this alliance that Il Giaguaro pays tribute to the only man who truly possesses the License To Compose for 007 .

A Conversation with William Rosar

Sat, 07 Oct 2023 07:49:29 GMT

The Society for the Preservation of Film Music - Fred Steiner (left) and William Rosar
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.11 / No.43 / 1992
Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

Would you relate what led to the formation of the Society for the Preservation of Film Music?

Around 1970 some of the film composers, notably Fred Steiner, caught wind of the alarming fact that the movie studios had been discarding their music. In particular, news had gotten out that MGM had thrown away most of their music during a studio “house cleaning” which took place in 1969, or thereabouts. The order came down from the front office that all the departments at the studio were to clear out all material up to 1964 (supposedly for economic reasons), which they did. Harold Gelman, who was then assistant music librarian at MGM, told me that he almost lost his job trying to stop the music from being thrown out and the terrible loss that this would mean. Subsequently this tragedy came to light when Maurice Jarre called Metro to get the performance materials for his music from DR. ZHIVAGO, because he had received a request to perform it in concert, only to be told that it no longer existed. You can imagine how shocked he must have been to hear this! So word of this got around among his colleagues and caused quite an uproar among them. I believe this event was one of the principal causes for the anti-trust suit which the composers filed against the studios some years ago, in an attempt to gain more control over their own music. When people such as myself, who were involved in film music research, learned that this had happened we were also really dismayed because here was our source material being discarded!

Anyway, I met Fred Steiner in 1975 in connection with my research, and I can remember an evening back in 1977 when he called a number of us to his home in Encino, with the idea of forming an organization to save film music from destruction. As you can read in the history of the Society which has appeared in each issue of The Cue Sheet for some time now, you'll know who was there besides Fred and myself: David Raksin, George Korngold, Jon Newsom, Jay Alan Quantrill, Jon Hall, Rudy Behlmer, and Clifford McCarty. The meeting didn't result in any definite plan as I remember, other than to try to encourage the studios not to throw anything away, and if they were going to throw something away, or if they thought that disposal was imminent, to please let us know and we would find a home for it. There was discussion about designing a fancy letterhead and getting a lot of “window dressing” - important names - on it, and I remember David Raksin thought that maybe he could get Saul Bass to design a fancy logo for us. And that’s as far as it got, in 1977. In any case, the credit for the idea of the Society really belongs to Fred Steiner alone. As the years passed, nothing happened, because no one, for whatever reasons, took the initiative to form the Society as had been planned. By 1983 I was working for Miles Krueger at the Institute of the American Musical in Los Angeles and I was very, very impressed by what he had done to preserve the historical heritage of musical theater, and I thought that this really was what we needed for film music. I can remember Miles saying to me, “You need a non-profit organization,” repeating advice once given to him before he created the Institute. Miles, Fred, and I even talked at one point about expanding the Institute to include film music, in as much as the Institute's collection already included a lot of material on film musicals. Wisely, we agreed that this would mean the Institute taking on too much, and abandoned that idea. But because of my experience with Miles Krueger, who was a real inspiration, I went ahead and founded the Society for the Preservation of Film Music in 1983.

Now, the object of this was, I think, to take a fairly aggressive initiative to prevent - in some way - more film music from being destroyed and perhaps also increase access to it and related documents. I originally envisioned it along the lines of the National Geographic Society, with a magazine like National Geographic that would be the mouthpiece of the organization to the general public, especially to the soundtrack collector. For an annual fee, one could join the Society and would receive the magazine.

How did the group actually form? How were some of the Advisory Board people and the film music composers brought in?

The nucleus of the Society was a group of friends with a common interest - or, perhaps I should say, a common passion - namely, film music. This was now 1983; six years had elapsed since Fred Steiner had talked about forming a Society and nothing had happened, and so I had some time on my hands and I said: LET'S DO IT! And I started writing letters and calling up people and telling them about the Society, and really what finally transpired is that I sold Henry Adams, a soundtrack collector friend of mine, to put up seed money to pay for a consultant, Christopher Dirks, an M.B.A. from U.C.L.A. with a background in arts administration, who had also worked for Miles Krueger, to assist me in filing as a non-profit educational corporation in California, and formulating a mission statement, a charter, constitution, by-laws and so forth. I brought these people together and I remember the first meeting we had was at the home of Linda Mehr, head of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences library, and I think you were there.

What were the group's primary goals at the time of its incorporation, and how have they been changed or modified over the years?
I think that we had this idea that we wanted to preserve film music, we wanted to save it from destruction, but of course the $64,000 Question was: HOW? How can we do that? I mean, here this material is the property of the movie companies, who were we to tell them what to do with it? As they themselves have often enough said, it's their's to do with what they want, because it belongs to them - they paid for it. I can only give you one anecdote off the top of my head about how it finally worked out - one of our “success stories,” if you will - and that's when we got a call from CBS one day, from Robert Drasnin, head of music there, telling us that they had a lot of old music in the attic above one of the scoring stages on their Studio City lot, and the Fire Department had told them that they better clear it out because it was a fire hazard. Well it turned out that the CBS/MGM lot in Studio City was originally Republic Studios, and there was a lot of old Republic music that had been left behind, and had been sitting there all these years. So, heroically, we came in, boxed up the music, and off it went to Brigham Young University where, as it happened, most of the Republic music had ended up from a previous donation. This is the kind of idealistic scenario that we had envisioned.

Also, I think we wanted to, generally, increase the consciousness of the American public, sort of “film music appreciation” through publications. We wanted to put out not only a newsletter but a journal and an encyclopaedia, and of course, you know about Film Music 1 [Clifford McCarty, Editor, New York: Garland, 1989]. We wanted to encourage serious research in film music history and scholarship and so on, as part of this, with hopes of elevating the status of this music somewhat in the eyes of the music world and academia, try to get more serious interest in it. Naturally, we also thought a lot about possibly issuing recordings because that's what most of the fans were interested in, but as you well know, all this music is so tied up in legal and contractual red tape.

How have the Society's goals changed or been developed over the years?
I don't think the goals changed; rather, the priorities changed. The one thing that we did consistently was to publish the newsletter, The Cue Sheet, which gradually grew into a journal - at least in name, if not in content. It was originally supposed to be a newsletter to report what was going on in the Society and in the world of film music preservation, and we tried to spice it up with some articles, some of them topical, some of them historical. But, again, what does that have to do with film music preservation? I think that, in a way, we feel like we've been putting out fires. A few years ago we got a call from Hugo Friedhofer's widow, and she had come across a whole raft of old acetate recordings in her closet. For an entirely different reason, she had wanted Cliff McCarty, who is in the book business, to make an appraisal of a number of books that she had gotten rid of from Hugo's estate, and she just happened to mention these records and wondered if anyone would want to buy them, and I said to her, “Well, you probably don't want to sell them, but I'd encourage you to donate them to Brigham Young University,” where Friedhofer's music is housed. And she was quite happy to do that, and of course B.Y.U. wanted to be able to play these things. They were for the most part great big platters, requiring a special stylus and a big turntable to play them. So we had a specialist, Chris Lembesis, who was at that time very involved with SPERDVAC - the Society for the Preservation & Encouragement of Radio Drama, Variety and Comedy. Anyway, he was a specialist in transferring acetates, and B.Y.U. commissioned us to transfer the entire collection of disks to tape, which we did, cleaning them up with noise reduction, and it sounded great. So that's another project. We did the same with Herbert Stothart’s personal collection of acetates for his family.

So it's really just been on a case-by-case basis, until recently, when I finally had a brainstorm. I thought to myself, the movie companies have made a lot of money on this music. Why not encourage them to pay to preserve it? After all, it's their property! And that was my strategy with Disney, and they seemed quite receptive to it - the idea, one, of preserving it, paying to preserve it by microfilming their paper music - we didn’t talk about plans for the recorded stuff - and two, donating it to a university library for safekeeping, and then paying to catalog it, so that they would have a catalog of the material should they have any need to access any of it.

What's the current status of the group and has it continued along the lines that it was initially envisioned?
There have been some very strong disagreements on the Board of Trustees about priorities, not only about the work of the Society but how to run it, its modus operandi. While I was President, my time was gradually being eaten up more and more, so that it was practically taking over my whole life (my wife divorced me), and as organizations do, the Society was growing and really needed the attention of a qualified staff person, somebody to handle it on a daily basis, because it was impacting my ability to make a living. As things worked out, I ended up stepping down as President after six years when the Board decided to create a paid staff position for me as Executive Director, and I was succeeded as president by Herschel Burke Gilbert, a retired film and TV composer, who is best known for his theme for the TV show, Rifleman . Initially everything seemed hunky-dory until Herschel and I started butting heads. He had his own ideas of how things should be done. Thinking of the Society as one might think of a business, he thought the highest priority was to amass capital first, and then pay people to do the work of the Society. He seemed to think that my job was to do nothing but raise money, though I had not agreed to any such terms. Things don't work like a business in the non-profit world, where it is just the reverse of the business world: you raise money to do work, not do work to raise money, as in the for-profit sector. His instincts were therefore, in my opinion, all wrong for the Society, and are responsible for a great deal of senseless argumentation which all but destroyed the Society. I told him that my job was, first and foremost, to get the work done, to make headway on our projects. So when I didn't raise a whole bunch of money, he ex officio pulled the proverbial rug out from under me by making it appear to the Board that I hadn't been doing my job properly. That heralded the beginning of a long, bitter feud between those who saw things Herschel's way, and those who saw them my way. This in-fighting must have gone on for a year and a half, during which time really nothing was accomplished. Very little transpired other than publishing The Cue Sheet .

I'd like to talk a little about the achievement awards. How did those begin?
We thought it would be nice to honor the composers whose music was the “raison d’être” for the Society. It was never intended to be a “career achievement” award, like AFI's award, or others. I don't know how it came to be called “career achievement award” - personally, I've always thought that was a rather pretentious, pompous name for it. In any event, we wanted to honor the composers and their work. The first honoree was Miklós Rózsa because Leslie Zador, the former Secretary of the Society, was very fond of his music. Zador's father, Eugene Zador, orchestrated most of Rósa's scores. This then became an annual affair, and the dinners got bigger and fancier. Then a few years ago we thought these things were getting so big and expensive, why not turn it into a fund raiser for the society? So that's what we did, the first time with George Duning Award Dinner. We priced the tickets up and we made a little money - I don't remember how much off hand. And each one was progressively more successful after that. The Elmer Bernstein Award Dinner I think must have earned us about $20,000, though the Ernest Gold Dinner actually was a little less successful, and I think this year, the John Williams Award Dinner brought in $30,000 or more. But I don’t think that we were ever trying to compete with the likes of the American Society of Music Arrangers or the American Film Institute, and that's why I always felt we should avoid pretention - but of course in Hollywood that's very difficult, because people seem to expect it!

What can you tell me about the Union Catalog of Film Music, one of the major projects of your tenure?

Let me explain first what a union catalog is, for starters. Probably the most well-known union catalog is the National Union Catalog, a library catalog compiled by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Now, first of all, what I mean by catalog is what you use at the library, like a card catalog, to find material. A Union Catalog is different, in that it lists all these items and tells you what libraries across the United States have them. So if I were to look up, say, your book, Musique Fantastique, I would find a listing under that title of, a cross section - basically a survey - of the libraries across the countries which have that book. So, as you also know, there are a number of repositories across the country where the studios have donated film music material, composers have donated them - I mentioned Brigham Young University already earlier, the University of Wyoming, Library of Congress has a lot of stuff. So, Fred Steiner had the idea to create a central data base that you could look up any film title and find out where the music was, whether it was in a University library or whether it was in a studio library, because we intended to catalog the contents of the studio music libraries. So, basically, this would be an invaluable reference tool, a research tool, for anybody doing research on a given score, and we intended to include - along with just listing the music - any documents that were filed, correspondence and so on.

Now, what happened, ultimately, with the executive director position was that the job was given to somebody else, a woman named Jeannie Pool, who has been very active in the women-in-music movement. She has a lot of experience as a fund-raiser - which was what Herschel and his supporters wanted most - a lot of experience with music promotion, but unfortunately, she's “not into film music,” to quote something she said to me when I initially invited her to join the Board of Trustees. She certainly didn't feel competent to continue the work on the Union Catalog, and, since it was a paid job, the Union Catalog basically came to a standstill in 1990. Now I have to add that the preparation for a union catalog is enormous. Library cataloging on the whole, which the lay person probably has no understanding of at all, is a specialized, technical skill. People go to library science school for, among other things, to learn how to do library cataloging. So, the groundwork required to create a union catalog that would encompass all of these selections, and how to organize this information, in itself required a tremendous amount of preparation.

You've recently been removed from the Board. Can you indicate how this transpired and how this will affect the direction of the society?
Herschel Gilbert's supporters had come to dominate the Board of Trustees of the Society, and we had really reached an impasse: either Herschel was going to prevail, or I would resume presiding over the Society, and things would get back to normal. I would have no part of it otherwise. The Board made their choice, and on the basis of several trumped up allegations against me as an excuse, they ousted me. I can't predict how it's going to affect the future of the Society. In January of 1990, I was supposed to be full-time executive director, the L. J. Skaggs and Mary C. Skaggs foundation had made a grant to the Society to pay one third of a full-time salary for two years for an executive director, a full-time staff person. And the purpose of this staff position, one, would be to provide editorial support for the Union Catalog of Film Music, the writing and implementation of a three-year plan, basically public representation, project development, the usual things that an administrator does. I wrote the grant proposal for that and submitted it and they funded it, they were all for it. And, basically, when it came time for me to assume that position, in January of 1990, Herschel and a few other Board members, became opposed to it, because they felt that my primary responsibility was to raise funds.

Now, this was not something that I ever agreed to because, for an interim period for about eight months prior to that, I had been working half-time as executive director. I stepped down in March of 1989 as President, to become a half-time executive director. Somewhere in all of this, even though it was pretty well clarified to the best of my understanding, that one of several functions that I was to perform on a half-time basis, was fund-raising. And, of course, fund-raising is not a sure-fire thing. You can spend a lot of time writing grant proposals and hitting people up for money, and not raise a dime. And that doesn't mean that you haven't done your job, it just means that people aren't interested in giving money or that you haven't found the right people, or the right approach. I finally came up with the idea of approaching Disney to underwrite the cataloging and preservation of their music library, which I thought was a splendid idea. Unfortunately, this was towards the end of the year, in 1989, and as you know studios get backed up with production at that time, and so it had to be put on hold, but Disney was very interested and we had some very promising discussions with Andy Hill, who is second in command of their music department over there, and that's where it stood. Well, I brought this to the Board, early in 1990, and they weren't satisfied that this was pending and they offered to continue my half-time employment, not the full-time employment, for three months, in which time I brought in this project, as well as a project which was to catalog all of Alfred Newman’s music (something to be funded by the Newman family, spearheaded by David Newman) and which was, again, in the talking stages - these things can't be rushed. And they just felt that somehow I hadn't “closed the deal,” as they put it.

What do you see for the future of the Society? Do you have any association with it at this point?
I don't know. I'm starting a new Society which will try to do everything that S.P.F.M. was originally intended to do, but wasn't able to. It's to be called the International Film Music Society.

What plans do you have for this new Society? How will it differ from the S.P.F.M.?
One thing is that I think we will start with the first scholarly journal of film music, and I think I'm going to call it The Journal of Film Music* or something like that, and really have in-depth, well-researched articles and, this might sound a little, high-brow, but there is no such magazine or journal at the present time, most journals as you know are aimed at the fan, there is no scholarly journal devoted to film music, at present. I've already talked to U.C. Press about possibly publishing it, and they did express some interest.

What would be an example of what you'd be doing there?

Oh, I think probably it would be like a musicology journal, maybe you could compare it to Popular Music , which is published by Cambridge University Press, something like that, or the Journal of Jazz Studies , something along those lines. We're also interested in making a central, sort of little research library, where we will have a xeroxed copy of every article ever written on film music, and we want to issue a kind of ongoing bibliography of what's published, an international bibliography of film music articles. Again, with the intent of encouraging research and writing about film music. Since S.P.F.M. seems to have abandoned the project, we're going ahead with a union catalog of our own.** Besides that we are going to publish an International Encyclopedia of Film Music, which will have biographical entries on virtually every film and TV composer living and dead, definitions of terms and subject entries on everything from “Mickey-Mousing” to click-tracks, and brief histories of the movie studio music departments. We want it to be the reference book for film music. We also have some ideas about issuing selected historical recordings and are working with Dave Fuller of Screen Archives Entertainment of Texas in this regard.

As far as the Society of Preservation of Film Music itself is concerned, where do you think that might be going in the future?

Who knows? Who can say? I can’t predict the future other than to just say that unless they can do something more than stage these dinner parties which they have once a year, I see it turning into a professional fraternity, just another public relations entity for the careers of film composers - something it was never supposed to be. Ironic as it may sound to you, this is why I had - and still have - very strong reservations about a film composer heading it.

I can't emphasize enough that the composers should not be running the organization, because it then tends to have the appearance of a self-serving, private interest group. The composers already have their own professional associations for that purpose - the Composers and Lyricists Guild of America, ASCAP, BMI, the American Society of Music Arrangers, and of course, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, which has a music branch run by film composers. All of these organizations already put on award shows and dinner parties. The Society for the Preservation of Film Music should be run by persons outside the film industry: in my opinion, the film music aficionados.

* Rosar founded and is editor of The Journal of Film Music published by Equinox Publishing. Volume 1 No. 1 was published June 19 2009. In September 1997 the SPFM organization was renamed The Film Music Society with Marilee Bradford as Producing Director since 2005.

** William H. Rosar, and Leslie N. Andersen (Editors), Union Catalog of Motion Picture Music, The International Film Music Society, 1992.

John Barry is Swept from the Sea

Sat, 07 Oct 2023 07:36:41 GMT

An Interview with John Barry by Daniel Schweiger
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.17 / No.65 / 1998
Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

There’s a common fact known among soundtrack fans, and it’s that women dig John Barry. I can’t pretend to guess the unknown reason that mostly puts soundtrack collecting into the boys clubs of baseball cards, comic books and video games. Yet it seems that women who would never dream of buying a movie score usually have John Barry’s soundtracks to OUT OF AFRICA and SOMEWHERE IN TIME stacked amidst their Sinead O’Connor and Fleetwood Mac CDs.

Perhaps it’s the fact that film scores are essentially “program” music, their rhythms designed to jump along with specific physical actions. The movie music that captures the general public has more in common with song structure than anything resembling film music. A theme is played with a lush orchestral backing, its melodic “hook” delicately repeated without doing anything too obtrusive.

John Barry is the master of this type of style. Whether it’s his scores for MIDNIGHT COWBOY, CHAPLIN, BORN FREE, THE LION IN WINTER or THE SPECIALIST, Barry’s distinctive string sound repeats the melody over and over, his themes washing over the listener like a soothing breeze, until the effect is almost hypnotic. This isn’t to say that John Barry composes beautiful music, or isn’t capable of writing “to picture”. The growling electronics of THE JAGGED EDGE, KING RAT’s mournful strings, and WALKABOUT’s ghostly chorus more than attest to his versatility. Yet there’s something infinitely listenable about his work, a rich, melodically repetitive sound that plays across more than 100 soundtracks. It encompasses the sensual film noir of BODY HEAT and the sweeping period adventure of THE LAST VALLEY and HIGH ROAD TO CHINA, not to mention the jazzy action of his classic James Bond scores to GOLDFINGER and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE – themes that also play a large part in David Arnold’s latest 007 score to TOMORROW NEVER DIES.

John Barry’s scores are more memorable for their themes than the music that’s playing for Sean Connery drinking a martini or Kevin Costner riding amidst the buffalo. Indeed, they aren’t so much film soundtracks as they are tone poems. It’s this quality that romantics the world over find so enchanting. Barry truly shines with the public when he ventures into the realm of historical romance, films about “simpler” times where the imagery and emotions match the richness of his music. Think African savannas, Victorian hotels, doomed lovers embracing against the sunset, and you’ll get the idea. Some people like to call them “Chick flicks”, but there’s a sentimental beauty about stuff like SOMEWHERE IN TIME, OUT OF AFRICA and DANCES WITH WOLVES. They’re scores that really let loose with the orchestral music s ability to dig into our emotions, and make us reach for the handkerchiefs.

John Barry’s latest score is no exception, and in many respects, among his most affecting. Based on a novella by Joseph Conrad, SWEPT FROM THE SEA is a tragic and beautiful romance between two outcasts – one literally thrown from a boat, and the other cast off by village simpletons. Yanko (Vincent Perez) is the sole survivor of a disaster at sea, a Russian immigrant who’s bound for America, but lands on the rocky shores of Cornwall. Not understanding a word of English, Yanko is treated as a madman by the villagers. Even when he picks up a smattering of the language, Yanko is still treated to harsh prejudice. However, he finds a kindred sole in Amy Foster (Rachel Weisz), a farm girl whose silence hides a deep well of intelligence and emotion.

SWEPT FROM THE SEA is the kind of romance where tortured souls exchange heartfelt and furtive touches. It’s not that Yanko and Amy can’t find the words; its that they can barely speak at all. SWEPT FROM THE SEA offers its composer the chance to express their emotion in melodic form, and John Barry has run with the opportunity to do the talking. As Yanko and Amy struggle against prejudice and their language barrier, SWEPT FROM THE SEA draws the lovers together with rousing orchestrations, ethnic dances, a haunting chorus and a gorgeous theme that plays itself with infinite variety. If the fine performances and Beeban Kidron’s direction weren’t enough, John Barry’s lush romanticism does the four handkerchief trick. When SWEPT FROM THE SEA is over, you walk out with that theme playing over and over in your head, a musical aphrodisiac if there ever was one.

I imagine you were always the studio’s first choice to score SWEPT FROM THE SEA. Yet Beeban Kidron has always used Rachel Portman to do the music for her films. What was it like for you as the “new” composer?

Mike Medavoy, who runs Phoenix Pictures, was the head of Orion when I did DANCES WITH WOLVES. He’s always been a big fan of mine, and wanted me to score the film from the beginning. I’d never met Beeban before SWEPT FROM THE SEA. As a composer, one of my main functions is to try and figure out how much the director knows about music. A lot of them will come at you, think that they know everything. But when you start to work with them, you realize that they don’t know too much. It was totally the opposite with Beeban. She didn’t pretend that she knew anything. But the more I got to work with her; I realized that she knew a hell of a lot. I had the least complicated time with her than I’ve ever had with a filmmaker. Our collaboration was clean and direct, which is not usually the case. Beeban’s an extraordinarily talented director, and it was a joy to work with her.

How did you and Beeban decide on a musical approach?

The script was sent to me by slow camel, and I got rather impatient. So I went to a local bookshop in Oyster Bay, (New York) and got Conrad’s short story. I ended up reading ‘Amy Foster’ before I ever saw the script. Usually, you’ll wait until you see the picture before you compose any music. But Conrad’s characters are so well-defined that you can do that. I’ve always been a big admirer of his, and the essence of what Conrad writes is spectacular. Even though I knew some things were going to get lost in the translation to film, I knew two things wouldn’t. One was the character of Yanko, and the love story between him and Amy. So I sat down and wrote Yanko’s theme, as well as the love theme. He can’t speak the English language, and Amy is very slow at communicating. These are two people who have total silence between them at first. Their only connection comes from looking at each other. So the romantic theme was hesitant, unlike the kind of positive, “in your face” love theme that OUT OF AFRICA had.

There’s almost a question mark after each musical phrase in SWEPT FROM THE SEA. The music says “What is this? Who are we? We don’t know each other.” After writing the themes for Yanko and the love story, I went to George Martin’s studio in London and recorded them with a piano and synthesizer. I played them to Beeban, and she loved them. She hadn’t filmed the scene in the barn where Amy washes Yanko’s wounds, and ended up playing that music while she was directing the scene. The whole visual rhythm of it was shot to themes I’d written on the piano. It’s the first time something has happened on that level for me, and it can only happen when you’re working with material like Joseph Conrad’s.

Is there a certain melodic approach that you take for a film that’s based on classic literature?

There’s a clarity to the classic writers, which is why we label them as such. They got there through their brilliance and clarity of thought. There’s no confusion. So as a composer, their ideas are relatively easy things to embrace. It also comes down to the integrity, dignity and poetry of the adapted screenplay. The very word “classic” embraces all of that.

How did Yanko’s Russian background fit into the score?

Yanko is from Western Russia, and his folk theme is first heard when he does a little dance. It’s a Jewish derivation of a Russian cha-cha. Beeban needed the dance as an original piece of source music that could be used as playback on the set. But I knew it was going to become a big theme with Yanko’s journey. So I wrote the broad melody first, and then “crunched” it down into a dance tune. I recorded that for playback with a cymbalom, a bass, an accordion and a drum. Then that theme grows with Yanko’s train trip to Hamburg.

The Sea is like a third partner in the love affair between Amy and Yanko. How did the film’s setting affect your score?

I’ve always tried to live by water. In London, I lived on the river. In Spain, I overlooked a bay. There’s something about water that is very comforting to me. I come from a long line of seafarers. My mother’s father was a sea captain, and my great-grandfather died at sea at the Bay of Biscay. So there were sea captains on her side, as far back as I could remember.

Most of your scores are usually based on one or two themes, which keep repeating themselves. In that sense, do you think you’re a minimalist composer?

I hate movies where every piece of music is different. I call it “cuey” writing. It’s like “We have this scene, let’s do that. We have another scene, let’s do that!” I love it when the score is like an opera, where the whole thing is pulled together with thematic material. The great operas work because they have terrific themes. They cross-fertilize the emotions, and give the whole piece strength. It’s a Wagnerian thing, and a good melody is the key to capturing the essence of the characters and their relationships. I love getting a thematic idea that I can bend in different ways. In OUT OF AFRICA, there are two themes that wrap Meryl Streep and Robert Redford together. While other things happen in the score, those two themes are the predominant elements of the music. They act as the score’s uniting force. You can also use a theme in four or five different ways, all of which connect emotionally for the audience. I don’t think they pick up on that as they’re watching the movie, but there’s a subconscious, emotionally binding force that carries through on all these different levels. I think that’s very important when you’re scoring a movie like SWEPT FROM THE SEA.

There are composers who work in different genres, but always have a unified “sound”. How would you describe yours?

Even though I’m a movie composer, I don’t do everything “to picture.” All of the films that have been successful for me are films like OUT OF AFRICA and DANCES WITH WOLVES, where I can find an emotional light that’s above and beyond where the script and acting are. Because I try to get beyond the celluloid and enlighten the audience, I relate to my scores on a very personal level. The man is the music, and I can’t separate myself from it. 

MIDNIGHT COWBOY is the story of a fucked-up dreamer, and the music captures that. This guy from Texas is walking around New York to Harry Nillson’s wonderful song ‘Everybody’s Talking’. It captures the whole gusto of this kid who’s going to kill the city. And then when things turn around, there’s a harmonica theme that tells us that his plans aren’t going to work. THE LION IN WINTER was about the English royal families, who had the Church of Rome dominating their decisions. The music carries that weight. So it’s lovely to get a story that has a “beyondness” in terms of where the music can go, a place that’s more spiritual and uplifting - rather than doing something that’s scene-by-scene. The Bond movies are like that. They’re million-dollar Mickey Mouse films where you go with the action.

Are romantic films like SWEPT FROM THE SEA the kind of movies that you enjoy doing the most?

Absolutely. The opportunity to define romance in a movie is what I gravitate to. The dramatic thrust, and the accuracy of your dramatic sensibilities are the most important considerations when you’re writing. But once you’ve dealt with them, you’ve got to figure out how to rise above what’s on the screen and give the film another spiritual dimension. I’ll say, “Oh my God, there’s an extraordinary thought here that I can really use.”

Your scores for OUT OF AFRICA and SOMEWHERE IN TIME have transcended the arena of film scoring. They seem to have touched everyone’s romantic consciousness.

I’ve had more letters from SOMEWHERE IN TIME than any other movie I’ve scored. I’ve got letters that say “I was married to this,” “I gave birth to this” and “My father died to this.” It’s amazing. People don’t write about how they liked the music. It’s usually connected with a marriage, a death, a birth, a loss or a sense of gain. It’s amazing that all these letters culminate on that level.

Recently, I saw an ABC television program about the Pope. An interviewer wanted to know what music he listened to. So I’m thinking that the answer’s going to be Beethoven’s Ninth. But it turned out to be DANCES WITH WOLVES! Well, being of Irish-Catholic descent, that totally creased me. I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. It was a thrill for me, because the whole score was about the soul of John Dunbar. He’s a guy who’s fascinated with the west. Even with everything that’s out there to threaten him, Dunbar still gets on a horse, and takes that voyage. I asked what that must have been like for him, and it was the equivalent of landing on the moon. While the script and acting tell us that to a certain degree, it’s the score that tells the audience what’s happening on a spiritual level. Music is the only element of movie-making that can do that.

In SWEPT FROM THE SEA, your music plays at an unusually high volume. On the whole, I’d say you have better luck in the final mix than most composers.

I always take great notice of sound effects. I’m lucky that SWEPT FROM THE SEA has a horse and carriage instead of a motorcar. You’re in Cornwall instead of the city, so the film isn’t loaded with sound effects that can screw up your score. It’s the same thing with OUT OF AFRICA and DANCES WITH WOLVES. Those movies have nothing in terms of sound effects to get in your way. There’s a purity to these classic stories that let your score really sing.

Before you composed for films, you were a popular jazz player in England. How difficult was it for you to make the transition to orchestral scoring?

My musical interests didn’t start with jazz. I was a classical music snob until I was fifteen. I didn’t like anything else. My older brother Patrick was a total jazz freak. He particularly loved the big bands like Duke Ellington and Harry James.

Where do you think composers like Mark Isham and Mike Figgis have taken jazz scoring?

I love all of the west coast jazz from the 50’s and 60’s. When I want to listen to jazz, I put on people like the Stan Kenton Band, the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, Chico Hamilton and Miles Davis. Wynton Marsalis is also a fantastic musician. But in terms of contemporary jazz, nobody gets me like those guys. I don’t think it’s a question of age, because no one kills me today like these bands do. When I listen to Chet Baker and Bob Brookmeyer, I say “Oh my God, did they know how to do it!” I think there was a compositional value in the way these people played that’s missing today.

What instruments do you play?

Nothing terribly well, I started off on the piano and trumpet, and then went into the military when I was 19. You were drafted for two years, which meant they could put you anywhere. But if you signed on for another year, you could choose your profession. So I signed up for the extra time, which let me join a military band. This was the end of the British Empire, and the experience was quite amazing. I felt like I was on the set of Gunga Din when I was in Egypt for a year. Then I was positioned in Cyprus for eighteen months. I had nothing to do but learn, and wrote some music for the band. Even though I never learned to play the clarinet, I learned the fingering techniques for it. Being in a band wasn’t something I loved, but when I look back on it, I’m damn glad I did it.

What had the greatest impact on you as a film composer?

I originally wanted to be a concert pianist, until I realized that I had no memory and I still don’t! There are some musicians who can’t wait to blow in front of a live audience. They’re real hams. I remember talking to Sammy Davis Jr., who said he couldn’t wait to get on the stage. I told him that I couldn’t stand going in front of an audience. Yet composing for some people is agony. They don’t want to look at a blank page on a piano. But I love being alone, or working in a studio where you can get your music right with an orchestra. There’s something about the science of writing and recording music that fascinates me. It’s very private and very personal.

But you’re one of the few composers who’s actually appeared as “himself” in a film. DEADFALL in your case.

That was an easy thing to do. I’m talking about going in front of the Royal Albert Hall and The Hollywood Bowl. You’ve got limited rehearsal time, and you’re out there with an orchestra and an audience. That’s not what I was built for. Some people like Henry Mancini love to get up there. But it kills me. Kills me! I can’t stand it.

Even though you didn’t write the music for TOMORROW NEVER DIES, David Arnold’s score certainly pays homage to you with its use of the 007 theme and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. What do you think of that?

I think David Arnold’s terrific. I was out doing demos for SWEPT FROM THE SEA when George Martin came in and told me that David wanted to meet me. He was in the next studio, doing a compilation of my Bond themes. Dave and I went out for lunch, and we’ve been close friends ever since. He told me that his father took him to a screening of YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE when he was 11 years old. And after that, Dave decided that he wanted to be a movie composer. I phoned Barbara Broccoli and told her that this was the guy to do the next Bond movie. I’m flattered by the way that he’s retained my themes. David’s smart enough to know what works, and is generous enough to use my music. I think he’s the heir apparent.

What is it like for you to deal with studio politics, especially producers and directors who think they know more about music than you do?

I wish the studios knew as much as they think they do. There’s an old saying in Yorkshire, which is “You don’t buy a dog, then bark yourself.” You shouldn’t hire a composer who’s done over 100 movies and has five Academy Awards, then tell him what to do. I’ll say “Don’t hire me for Christ’s sake! I’d love to bring something to this movie, which I think I really can do. But if you’re going to step on my feet, then goodbye! Please, let’s not get involved together on this thing. It’s not worth it for you, because you’ve got other ideas. You go off and get someone who's going to kiss your butt and deliver what you want. Don’t ask me to get involved in this unless you respect me enough to think that I can make a true contribution to this movie.

Do you think the collaboration has to end at a certain point so you can go into the studio and actually write the score?
 If you have a good collaboration, then there’s no “cut off” point. I like to work at my home in Oyster Bay, but if I have any doubts on a scene, then I’ll contact the director. A good collaboration is when you have a constant rapport on every cue, and I had a great time working with Kevin Costner on DANCES WITH WOLVES and Sydney Pollack on OUT OF AFRICA. It’s only annoying when you get certain people who say “This is what I’m hearing, and I want to tell you how to score my movie.” Then I’ll just say “If you know the way you want to go, I can do that.” Or I’ll say “I’m sorry, but I’m not a lackey here. We obviously shouldn’t be in the same room together, because we’re not doing the same movie. “

How do you think temp tracks have affected your work, especially after you left THE HORSE WHISPERER before you even started writing the score?

There’s a whole other story about THE HORSE WHISPERER that hasn’t been written yet, so I don’t want to comment on it. It will be interesting to see how the film turns out. There have been other stories like that, especially when I was briefly on THE PRINCE OF TIDES with Barbara Streisand.

In a way, do you think an experience like THE PRINCE OF TIDES is humorous in an ironic way for you, whereas it might be crushing for a less accomplished composer to leave a project?

A young composer today can become suicidal when he’s trying to deal with studio politics. I went through those states in my early career. James Hill, God rest his soul, hated the score for BORN FREE. He said “This is the worst music I’ve ever heard; I didn’t want you as the composer, blah, blah, blah…” That was the most unhappy movie I’ve ever worked on in my life, and it wound up winning two Academy Awards! I remember getting a call from Michael Crawford, who was doing a play in New York. He woke me up to say “John, you’ve won! I’m watching the Oscars on TV and you’ve won the best song! Wait a minute… you’ve also won for Best Score!” So here I am, lying on a bed in London, having just found out that I’ve won two Academy Awards for a movie that I couldn’t wait to get off. I thought “What the hell kind of business am I in? This is crazy!” So when you’ve been through those changes and switches, your whole attitude is really tempered by that. Harry Saltzman hated GOLDFINGER. He yelled “That fuckin song!” And then it topped the Beatles’ White Album, which was number one in America. So who are you going to listen to? You just have to go through that kind of stuff with a smile on your face.

You almost perished from an unusual esophagus accident a while back. Do you think that near-death experience changed your career?

That was ten years ago this March, and it was probably one of the most extraordinarily awful things that could happen to someone. But at the same time, it made me re-assess my whole life. I had four operations over fourteen months. Not one of them took less than thirteen hours, and some of them were as long as sixteen hours. I wasn’t supposed to have lived through them. But I did, which was quite a nice thing to happen. It perks you up at the end of the day when you can say “Hey! I’m still here!” I love reading, so I thought I’d at least be able to get through a lot of books while I was lying there. But the strange thing is that you can’t. I’d pick up a book and read half a chapter, but my concentration wasn’t there.

What you really have to do is concentrate on getting yourself well your whole body, soul and mind. It’s like going into some unbelievable period of darkness, and then coming out of it after fourteen months with all of this magnificent help. The science of modern medicine is quite extraordinary. But you have to have the spirit to go along with it. Dr. Slanet, Dr. Skinner and Dr. Cooper were the most extraordinary physicians, and I’m friends with all of them now. They helped me to pull through, but I also had to give back to them. Talk about collaboration! That’s the real collaboration in life, that doctor-patient collaboration. You trust them with your life. They say “I’m going to do this to you. You’re not going to like it, and you’re going to go through hell for the next week.” And you say “If that’s what I’ve got to do, then I’m going to do it.” And you do it. I came out the other side as an entirely different person, and the first movie I scored after my recovery was DANCES WITH WOLVES.

Would you eventually like all of your scores to be released?

There are some things that I wish wouldn’t turn up. I don’t want a re-issue of HOWARD THE DUCK! For the most part, I’m very happy with 75% of the stuff I’ve done, and extremely happy with 25% of it. Then there’s that “middle area”.

What would you say to the people who want HOWARD THE DUCK out?

Well, I’m not going to run and buy it.

Do you have any concluding thoughts on SWEPT FROM THE SEA?

I think it’s a wonderful movie. I was so happy to have a great story, director and performances. They gave me a lot of room to move into unfamiliar grounds. The film was a terrific experience for me, and it shows on the screen.

When you see this kind of tragic romance, do you find yourself reaching for the Kleenex?

The emotions get a little deeper than Kleenex. It’s a thing in your heart and soul. There are certain Scores that you turn over, and say “God, I nailed that. That’s pretty powerful stuff, and I like it.” That’s a more forceful emotion than tears.

Preserving the Legacy of John Barry

Fri, 06 Oct 2023 14:10:10 GMT

An Interview with James Fitzpatrick by Stephen Woolston
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.19 / No.76 / 2000
Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

“It might interest you to know,” says James Fitzpatrick of Silva Screen records, “that over the last six years Silva Screen has recorded over 560 minutes of John Barry’s music.”

In that time, Fitzpatrick has produced a glut of John Barry re-recordings, including themes from HANOVER STREET and ELEANOR AND FRANKLIN, suites from THE TAMARIND SEED and MY SISTER’S KEEPER, and full scores from ZULU, RAISE THE TITANIC and WALKABOUT. The common denominator in these titles is their relative rarity and appeal to the more seasoned John Barry fan. Whilst Varèse Sarabande serves Barry’s fans with safer, more mainstream recordings such as BORN FREE, BODY HEAT, OUT OF AFRICA and SOMEWHERE IN TIME, Silva Screen have taken what appears to be a commercial risk to delve into the less commercial titles of Barry’s repertoire.

“Any specialist recording is always a risk,” explains Fitzpatrick, “but we try to minimise this by keeping to a tight-(ish) budget, where we feel we stand at least some chance of recouping the costs. In the past there have been certain projects that I have done for both the love of the music and in order to preserve the music for posterity as in the case of THE BRIDE Of FRANKENSTEIN, THE BIG COUNTRY and THE VALLEY OF GWANGI. Our compilations often include rarities that just wouldn’t be recorded by anyone else, such as the seventeen minute suite from THE RARE BREED by John Williams and THE FIXER by Maurice Jarre. Still, Silva Screen is not a charity, so we often have to record music which the collectors might already have, but which will appeal to our distributors and customers all around the world, in such far flung places as Taiwan, Japan, Australia, Malaysia, South Africa, Brazil, etc. We do not just rely on UK and North American sales.”

Fitzpatrick continues, “In the particular case of John Barry, we have found from past experience that even for relatively rare titles there will be enough international sales to justify the cost. These costs are always on the increase, while sales always seem to be decreasing,” he comments. Is Prague a cheap place to record? “Just because most of these albums are recorded in Prague does not mean that they are cheap. It means that they are affordable and that we can record ten albums a year for the cost of two or three in London. That way each project stands some chance of paying for itself. After some false starts, we have an orchestra of world class musicians in Prague that after just eight years of recording film music are beginning to rival the more experienced orchestras of the UK and America. Just image how good the orchestra will be in another eight years!”

So why did Silva Screen choose WALKABOUT for their next project? Fitzpatrick explains, “I’ve always loved this film and loved the score. Over the years there have been numerous requests for us to record this music and after the success of RAISE THE TITANIC, now seemed to be the right time.” It is well known that Silva Screen often work on their Barry recordings without the leisure of an original score. Enter Nic Raine, Barry’s regular orchestrator. According to Fitzpatrick, “Nic is also a great fan of this score although he might not have been too familiar with it until I brought it to his attention. In this case, Nic had to work from the DVD to work the cues out. Once we knew that the score and parts were as we wanted them, however, then the actual recording was fairly straightforward and we were able to devote plenty of time to get the atmosphere of each cue correct.”

That’s not always a problem, as sometimes original scores can be found. But even then it is not always clear cut. “Often you’ll find that these are uncorrected scores, or you might find that the parts have been corrected but the score hasn’t. You can end up, as other labels have found, having to correct things in the studio. When we did Tiomkin’s THE THING we got the original score and a massive orchestra, but there were no notes of what Tiomkin did on the day, so we had to record it as per the score we had been given. At least with Barry, who is relatively easy to reconstruct (at least compared to Tiomkin), if you work from the film with someone like Nic who knows what Barry would do, you know how the final thing is meant to sound.”

What about original tapes for WALKABOUT, were they a possibility? “There are tapes. After we finished recording we finally got in touch with the lawyer of the film’s producer, Max L. Raab, and there are mono tapes available, but they’re in really shocking condition. We’re in talks to get hold of them to preserve them, but they are only in mono and there are sound effects elements on them as well. When we knew they were only mono we decided to go ahead anyway. The same may be true of RAISE THE TITANIC, we would have probably found mono tapes, but judging by the quality of the sound on the laser disc, I would imagine they distort all over the place, because it’s one of the worst sounds I’ve ever heard. Often the stereo is reversed and you can’t always tell if it’s in stereo anyway.”

“The main problem lay in recording the choir,” says Fitzpatrick, turning his attention to the difficulties beyond the absence of a written score. “We had to get the right balance between untrained kids, trained choristers and full adult choir. WALKABOUT might not be a terribly complex score musically but as film music, both with and without the images, it is exceptional. Once again Barry shows that the sparing use of music is far more effective than having wall-to-wall score.”

Silva Screen’s new recording of WALKABOUT is supplemented with a number of other themes and suites, including THE CORN IS GREEN, THE BETSY and THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS. An unexpected choice, however, was to re-record Barry’s Moviola . Fitzpatrick explains why. “As WALKABOUT is a short score, I wanted some extra music in order to make the CD sixty minutes long. I simply chose themes that I personally love, and Moviola is right up there as, in my opinion, one of Barry’s finest themes. Having recorded both Moviola and James Newton Howard’s eventual theme for PRINCE OF TIDES, I know which I prefer.” Fitzpatrick refers to the fact that Barry’s Moviola theme was withdrawn from that film. “Also, THE CHASE has always been one of my favorites and although Pendulum reissued the original soundtrack for a short time, I felt that it was worthwhile recording some selections for our album.”

An inclusion that will leave no one puzzled is, however, SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON, a haunting score in which a potpourri of musical styles meet to provide one of the most imaginative and infectious scores of Barry’s early 1960s period. Fitzpatrick says, “Again, I’ve always loved SEANCE and in a way, along with the historical dramas like ROBIN AND MARIAN and THE LAST VALLEY, this is the type of Barry score I’ve always had a great regard for. This is where he was able to combine his mastery of orchestral colors, using a small ensemble, with his knowledge of jazz rhythms and pop music of the 60s. With scores like this, THE WHISPERERS, NEVER LET GO and THE IPCRESS FILE, I felt that Barry created a unique sound. Some of his most interesting and inventive scores are from this period. It is this style that I grew up with, and a style which I often wish Barry had experimented more with over the last few decades.”

The jazz rhythm of SEANCE posed a challenge. “With the jazzy rhythms we had to spend some time getting the band right, especially the timing of the percussion and jazz stand-up bass, who are generally used to playing on the beat, and the more traditional classical instruments who are used to playing slightly behind. There was also the interesting problem of recreating the reverb used on the original score. For this we recorded the xylophones relatively close and dry, while we cranked up the reverb for the piccolos. We recorded a piano with excessive reverb and overlaid just the piano reverb (not the actual piano notes) onto the xylophone in the first section of the piece.”

Such a 1960s technique calls for Silva Screen’s returning engineer John Timperley, who, Fitzpatrick explains, has been recording every type of music imaginable since the 1950s. “He had to record this type of music all the time in that era when he was working with just about every major British and American pop and jazz star, including Shirley Bassey, Sandie Shaw, Dusty Springfield, Bing Crosby and Tony Bennett. What he did here was fine-tuned by our brilliant editor Gareth Williams, who manages, on his SADIE 3 hard-drive system, to achieve results above and beyond the call of duty.”

Of UNTIL SEPTEMBER, Fitzpatrick simply recalls, “I drooled over Karen Allen in the film!” Of THE BETSY, he recalls that it was a nightmare to record. “The opening section is so quiet that the smallest studio noise sounded like gunfire.” Although their title selections might make you think that Silva Screen would be taken to be the Barry fan’s best friend, the team have come under fire from some hard core fans with complaints that their re-recordings are not true to the originals. Not from all fans, it has to be said, but there is nonetheless a party of dissatisfaction in the crowd. What does Fitzpatrick have to say about this? “It is very difficult to answer critics who, no matter what we do, whether good or bad, will always believe that John Barry would have done it better.

Well, my basic answer is as John has shown no interest in recording these works or even satisfying the requests of his fans, then the fans will have to make do with our albums. This might sound rather arrogant but after myself, Nic, John and the rest of the team have sweated blood in recording an album, it is rather a backhanded compliment from one to two hardened Barry fans to say that our recordings are fine but not as good as John’s would have been. To counter this criticism I take solace in the hundreds of congratulatory letters from both fans, the general public and the various composers I work with. This is not to say that I ignore criticism. In fact I take it very much to heart, but when a composer like David Arnold takes the trouble to immediately listen to both Bond Back in Action CDs, and phone through with his praise “how do you make the orchestra sound so good?” then I know we are on the right track.”

“As to faults on our recordings, I know these only too well. After all I have to listen to each edit about fifty times. Certainly our first few albums in Prague in the early 90s were not as slick as they could be or would be now. In the case of John Barry, there were a few things on ‘The Classic John Barry volume 1’ (FlLMCD 141) which I was not happy with – the lack of choir on THE LION IN WINTER, which we have since corrected, or the performance of the RAISE THE TITANIC suite, which we have also corrected. The symphonic version of THE PERSUADERS was certainly a mistake, but the blame is not to be laid at Nic Raine’s door, as it was I who insisted that he do an orchestral version. It was not a piece that would ever work orchestrally. I am, though, more than happy with things like OUT OF AFRICA.” This didn’t stop one German critic complaining that the Silva Screen version was three seconds longer than the soundtrack, a review recalled by Fitzpatrick as an example of the pettiness with which he perceives some of the criticism to be loaded.

Continuing his retort, James Fitzpatrick says, “With ‘The Classic John Barry volume 2’ (FILMCD 169) I am generally happy with most things, although I would have liked more time in the studio to get DEADFALL as I would like. Recording concerto type works is always far more time-consuming than tutti pieces and I probably didn’t allow enough time on this.”

Since those first two efforts James Fitzpatrick has been pleased with many things in his recordings. “I would be less than economic with the truth if I said I was happy with everything. No record producer is ever completely happy, but the whole recording business is a compromise between artistic endeavor and budgetary limitations. On the two Bond albums there are things that might not satisfy the demands of every fan, but as enjoyable listening experiences I believe they work. I am not interested in trying to recreate the original soundtrack exactly. Otherwise what is the point in a new and fresh recording? But I am interested in presenting film music in the best possible modern sound, and interpreting the music with a certain amount of artistic freedom whilst hopefully remaining faithful to the composer’s wishes. Not every original soundtrack is recorded or edited as the composer might have wanted.”

Citing another Silva Screen title, ‘The Greatest Themes From The Films Of Arnold Schwarzenegger’, Fitzpatrick says, “This might be greeted by the hard core fans with bemusement but will sell in very decent numbers all around the world.” Fitzpatrick didn’t have the exact sales numbers for RAISE THE TITANIC, but knowing the number of re-pressings that have occurred, he estimates 13,000 copies sold in the UK and Northern America. “That’s more than paid for itself, which we can’t always say these days,” he comments, “neither for new soundtracks nor re-recordings.”

I wonder what John Barry himself makes of Silva Screen’s recordings, Fitzpatrick says, “I don’t believe that John is particularly aware of our recordings. He knows of them because I’ve heard that he’s very happy with RAISE THE TITANIC. We had lunch with Barry a few years ago to talk to him about doing them, but he didn’t really seem that bothered. But once WALKABOUT is released I will certainly send copies to him, in case he might like to perform these works in concert. One of the major expenses in these recordings is preparing new scores and parts. These days most of this work is done on computer programs like Sibelius 7, but it is still very time consuming and expensive. It would be nice if some of this hard work found its way into the concert hall, especially as Silva Screen now has a vast library of orchestral scores and parts just waiting to be performed live.”

For the album notes, one of Fitzpatrick’s initiatives was to contact WALKABOUT’s main actress, Jenny Agutter, for an introduction. “She’s a lovely person and we’ve had long chats on the telephone.” But does she have much awareness of the music? “Oh yes, she knew straight away that it was John Barry. Many film stars have no idea who the composer assigned to their film might be.”

Another Barry-dominated album of re-recordings is ‘Bond Back in Action 2’, Silva Screen’s follow up to their earlier disc focusing on the post-Connery years. In this case, however, there does not appear to be a great deal of previously unreleased music. “For both Bond albums the basic research was done by Geoff Leonard of Play It Again records. For the first volume there was a good deal of unreleased music to choose from, but for the later films we were both very surprised at how little new material there was. There was less than twenty minutes of worthwhile material across all the selected films. For this reason I largely had to choose cues that would stand by themselves as complete pieces of music, or at least work in the context of a suite. It is very difficult making these sort of decisions, but at the end of the day I trust we have chosen the strongest music cues.”

For any new recording Silva Screen seek the permission of the publishers. “In this case it was EMI music, with whom we have a very strong relationship. In fact, they handle Silva Screen Music Publishing world wide. The publishers will then often run our request by the composer, but I believe that it is not always necessary. John’s permission was certainly sought and given for HANOVER STREET. In the recording world the publishers are all-powerful, so they are always the point of contact for securing first recording rights.”

An added member to the Silva team for this latest Bond album is Chris Tin. “As Nic was extremely busy in April and May this year with film work, preparing scores for the WALKABOUT album, and conducting five concerts of John Barry’s music in Scotland and Northern Ireland, we had a new addition to our regular team in the shape of the young American composer Christopher Tin. Chris lent great assistance to both Nic and myself in preparing the Bond scores, being something of an expert on the Bond music, having taking his doctorate in Spy film music!”

Regarding the aforementioned concerts, Fitzpatrick adds, “I went to the first concert at the Caird Hall in Dundee, and it was one of the most enjoyable film music concerts I’ve ever been to.”

On the topic of keeping in touch with fans, James Fitzpatrick adds “I take a great interest of the views of fans, and even get involved when time allows in the John Barry discussion group, even though I will see comments which I might not agree with or information which might be wrong or misleading.” Fitzpatrick goes on to cite an irksome example, “There was a rumor put around this year that we had recorded WALKABOUT in February but the results were so poor that we didn’t dare release the CD. As this rumor was spread a few months before the actual sessions in June/July, I was not best pleased.” And he adds, “I think that by and large we have satisfied the fans’ demand for both popular and, more importantly, rare John Barry titles.”

Is there another album in the pipeline? “I think that at the moment I am going to retire from recording John’s music for Silva Screen Records, as we have probably recorded all the titles we need. However, I am working on a complete recording of a Barry score with the great Geoff Leonard, hopefully for recording next year.” Fitzpatrick uses the word “hopefully” because legalities and permissions are still outstanding. I can reveal, however, that the score is ROBIN AND MARIAN. Not only that, it will not be a reconstruction but a recording from the original scores. “If any Barry fan wants to sponsor a Barry recording of their choice and can fund the entire project, then I would be only too happy to produce or ‘ruin’, (depending on your point of view) the album for free.”

Well, there’s an invitation. How much? “For a full orchestral score from existing score sheets you are probably talking between £15,000 ($21.000) and £20,000 ($29,000). If it was something like a small orchestra with not much music, it would obviously be much less. If new scores are required, it would be closer to £25,000 ($36,000).”

A Conversation with James Bernard

Thu, 05 Oct 2023 17:13:38 GMT

A Conversation with James Bernard by John Mansell
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.11 / No.43 / 1992
Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

For any fan of Hammer movies, the name of James Bernard is a familiar one. His music has added another dimension to the genre of the horror film, and his Dracula theme is as familiar to film music enthusiasts as John Williams' JAWS or Bernard Herrmann’s PSYCHO. Mr. Bernard now lives abroad. He was in England recently when he was doing further work with Silva Screen Records, as well as catching up with some theatre-going. I would like to thank Mr. Bernard for his very kind hospitality in London, and also for consenting to do this interview. Thanks also to Silva Screen, in particular David Stoner, for helping me to arrange this meeting.

When and where did you study music?
I studied at the Royal College of Music from 1947 to 1949; this was after 4 years in the RAF, which I had joined when I left school in 1943. I had met Benjamin Britten during my last term at school, and he had taken an interest in my wild attempts at composing; while I was in the air force, I kept in touch with him. As my time for demobilisation approached, I wrote and asked his advice about further musical training. He advised me to go to one of the music colleges and get a proper grounding in musical discipline. As an ex-serviceman, I managed to get a government grant, and then studied for 2 years at the Royal College of Music in Kensington.

I studied composition with Herbert Howells. He was a gentle and charming man, not in the least severe as a teacher; incidentally, he is nowadays, I think, a much underestimated composer. I also studied piano with Kendall Taylor, but I was definitely not cut out to be a concert pianist! I continued to see Benjamin Britten from time to time, and when I left college I only wanted to compose. Before I left, I was summoned to see the Registrar of the college, a composer called Hugo Anson. (The director of the college was another composer. Sir George Dyson, who, oddly enough, was also the author of the official Manual of Grenade Fighting used by the War Office in World War I). But I am digressing. I went to see the registrar, Hugo Anson. When he asked me what I intended to do on leaving, I replied, “I’m going to compose music and make a living out of it,” - at which he laughed and said, “Oh no, you can't do that; that’s only for people like Vaughan-Williams and William Walton and Benjamin Britten. You'll have to do something else.” Anyway, I kept quiet and said goodbye.

There followed a slightly empty period while I was trying to find my way into some kind of composing work, though I didn't know what. This continued for about a year, during which time I was greatly encouraged and supported by my friend Paul Dehn, who was already a successful writer, and through whom I was moving, somewhat starry-eyed, in the world of literature, theatre and film.

Then, one happy day, Benjamin Britten rang me from Aldebrugh in Suffolk, where he lived. He was writing his opera BILLY BUDD. He said, “Jim, (he always called me Jim), I'm writing an opera and I need someone to copy the vocal score as I write it; it would mean being here with me much of the time, and then taking completed sections up to London to the publishers, Boosey & Hawkes. Will you come and do it?” Of course I leapt at it.

So I went and lived, on and off, for about a year with Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears. In my view, Ben was a great composer; he also had a virtuoso piano technique and, just to cap it all, was an extremely good tennis player! His company was stimulating: he had a bright, boyish quality, and a tendency to moodiness which went with his overall brilliance. Peter, on the other hand, had a great serenity and a calming presence; his high tenor singing voice had a memorable quality all of its own, informed by supreme musicianship and great histrionic power.

My time with these two musical giants came as an amazing bonus after my two academic years at the Royal College. Quite apart from many exhilarating evenings when Ben played and Peter sang, it provided an invaluable practical training which taught me the sheer hard work involved in composing. E.M. Forster often came to stay. Another frequent visitor was Imogen Holst. She lived in Aldeburgh, and later, I think, worked full-time for Ben. She was the daughter of Gustav Holst, and was herself a remarkable composer, conductor and teacher. She felt that Ben had continued where her father left off. She was another totally modest and unaffected person - no make-up, and hair parted down the middle with a bun at the back. But her personality positively shone.

So I spent an exciting year. It taught me, as I've said, a great deal about the practicalities of composing. I would have liked to stay with Ben as a personal assistant, but when the opera was finished he made me leave. He said, “Now Jim, if you want to make your own career you must go; if you stay with me you'll be swamped.” He was right of course. However, I wanted to continue to study composition, so Ben suggested that I go to Imogen Holst. She kindly took me on and gave me great help and encouragement. I still went to her when I was starting to work for the BBC.

What sort of work did you do at the BBC?
I composed music for radio plays (television then being very much a newcomer). At that time, Paul (Dehn) was writing plays and features for the BBC; through him I met various other people connected with broadcasting, and so was eventually given my first chance. It was music for a play called The Death of Hector , based on a episode from Homer's Iliad . It was written by the poet, Patric Dickinson, and directed by Val Gielgud, the brother of Sir John. Patric had met me through Paul Dehn and, to my eternal gratitude, decided to risk all and try me out. Fortunately Val Gielgud, who was the head of BBC radio drama, agreed. To my relief he liked my music and sent word around the drama department that I could be employed. After that, I got quite a lot of work and wrote music for new plays and for classical plays, among them Marlowe's Dr. Faustus and Webster's The Duchess of Malfi , both of which have elements of fantasy and horror. Incidentally, I enjoyed composing music for comedies (Molière's Tartuffe , for example) but my film career was clearly not destined to go in that direction!

Are there any composers in particular that have influenced your style of composing?
I have a wide taste in music, and presumably I have been influenced by an equally wide range of composers. The obvious ones to me are Benjamin Britten, Stravinsky, Liszt, Debussy, Ravel, Mahler, Tchaikovsky and Verdi. I love Verdi's operas. Apart from his unforgettable tunes, he invents such wonderful accompaniments - dramatic motifs and strong rhythms which catch a mood and then build it; this is, after all, the essence of film music.

How did you become involved with Hammer Films?
It happened through the conductor John Hollingsworth, who was Hammer's music director from early days until he died, much too young, in about 1963. He had tuberculosis. It was supposed to have been cured but apparently it wasn't. I had known John from when I was in the air force and he was the conductor of the RAF Band. Later, he had become a popular conductor at the Albert Hall prom concerts, and one of the chief conductors of the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden. He conducted several of my scores for the BBC, including The Duchess of Malfi , which is a kind of 17th century horror play, full of macabre and magnificent poetry. It was an all-star production led by Peggy Ashcroft and Paul Schofield, so I was able to let fly with the music. Soon after that, Hammer made THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT. This was to have been scored by a composer called John Hotchkiss, but he was taken ill and had to withdraw. The producer, Anthony Hinds, needed a substitute urgently. John played him the Malfi tapes, Tony approved - and that is how I started with Hammer films (and a happy association with Tony).

For my first 3 Hammer scores (THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT, X, THE UNKNOWN, and QUATERMASS II) I used only strings and percussion. For the BBC, I had used either smallish chamber groups or strings only, so I guess John thought, “we won't trust him with a full orchestra yet - let's see how he gets on with strings and percussion first.” I was very grateful for this. It was agitating enough learning how to work out timings synchronised exactly with the action on the screen, and to get the score finished by that looming deadline! It was not until THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN that I graduated to the full orchestra with brass and woodwind.

Your scores for Hammer productions have a unique and distinct sound. Did you use session musicians or one particular orchestra?
The distinctive sound is, I suppose, due to one’s own particular quirks of orchestration, which is all part of the composition – but I will come to that later. Hammer always used players from the leading symphony orchestras, depending on who was free at any given date. The budget normally limited the orchestra to about 35 players, so one couldn't use an entire particular orchestra, as is often the case with high-budget films. Fortunately, these marvellous players have always seemed to enjoy a break from the concert hall - and, of course, they are brilliant sight-readers which, for film work, is essential. So, even in those early days, I was terribly spoilt and felt humbled by the eminence of the musicians who were playing my music. The leader would often be Hugh Bean (or some equally distinguished violinist), the first oboe Leon Goossens, the first clarinet Jack Brymer - and so on through the orchestra. For my first few films, John Hollingsworth often drew players from the Covent Garden Opera House orchestra.

Your scores for Hammer have been supervised by Philip Martell. Does he also conduct them?
After John died, Philip Martell took over as Hammer's music director, and from then on he conducted all my scores. Between John and Phil, there was a period when Hammer didn't have a regular music director, so Marcus Dodds conducted two of my scores - THE SECRET OF BLOOD ISLAND and, I think, THE GORGON.

Did Philip Martell ever compose any film scores?
He always said that it wasn't his thing. I think he did score a few films, probably before I knew him, and I couldn't tell you what they were. He's an excellent conductor, and is marvellous at knowing and deciding exactly where on a film the music should be placed. Apart from his profound musicianship, he is also expert at hitting (and holding) an exact tempo; this is essential in many film sequences where the points of synchronisation are mathematically planned by the composer, and are absolutely dependent upon the music being played at the marked tempo. When time is pressing, and tension is mounting in the studio, you can understand the iron control demanded of the conductor.

So was he there with you and the director when you were spotting the film?
Absolutely. It was the same with John Hollingsworth. We would go through the film reel by reel, planning the music after each reel. Terence Fisher, who over the years was Hammer's star director, never came to the music breakdowns or the recording sessions. He said, “I'm very happy with what you music boys do. I don't know anything about music so I'll leave it to you.” He was charming. Other directors (though not all of them) liked very much to be at the sessions. Joseph Losey had an extra-ordinary and arresting personality, as one might guess from his films. He was much involved with the music for THE DAMNED. I liked him immensely, though he could be difficult.

Do you orchestrate your own scores?
Yes, I have always done my own orchestrations, with a few brief exceptions which I will come to. I know that in the United States it is quite normal to use orchestrators, and obviously if a film requires a great deal of music, there are situations where the composer couldn't meet his deadline without the help of an orchestrator. I have occasionally used an orchestrator for a specific reason. I'll give you an example: in THE KISS OF THE VAMPIRE, do you remember the scene where there is a sort of Vampires' Convention and vampires from everywhere assemble in Dr. Ravna's castle for a masked ball? For this we needed a sequence of waltzes in the Viennese style. I composed the waltzes before the rest of the score so that they could be played on a piano for the actual filming. I then needed to press on with the main score, so I asked John Hollingsworth whether we could get someone to orchestrate the waltzes. Douglas Gamley, who is of course himself a composer, came to my rescue and orchestrated them perfectly. He also played the solo piano music which I composed for the film. As far as I can remember, the only other time I used an orchestrator was for the rock music in THE DAMNED.

I must add that every time I do a score I am full of doubt, and spend hours dithering and pondering whether, for example, a certain phrase should be played by the bass clarinet or the bassoon, or even the double-bassoon - or would a solo cello be better after all? When possible, I like to sketch out the entire score first, working out the timings and making notes of probable orchestration. At this stage, the music is written on just two or three staves, or sometimes more if the music is complicated. Then I embark on the orchestration, when I sit down with the 24-stave manuscript paper in front of me and start to fill it up. While I do this, I still have second thoughts and alter things - so you can understand why, to me, it is all part of the composing.

When do you prefer to come in on a film?

As early as possible. It's helpful if I can get a script, because then I know what the film is about and can start to think of possible themes. I am delighted if there's the chance of a romantic theme to make a break from the tense dramatic stuff. Of course, one has to wait for the final cut of the film before one can get exact timings and start on the detailed score. Even then there are occasions when one has planned out a section absolutely brilliantly, with all the timings just right (or so one thinks), and then the editor rings up and says. “I'm awfully sorry, we've had to cut 19 feet out of that scene.” Out of the window go all those precious timings and one wants to scream - or rush for the vodka!

Have you a particular favorite film score of your own?
Let me see. I was quite pleased with SHE; it was a different sort of score and gave me a chance to be romantic. I love that fantasy element, which is not necessarily horror. I also quite like some of the music for THE DEVIL RIDES OUT and obviously I'm delighted with the success that the Dracula scores have had. In each score there are certain bits that I'm pleased with, and other bits with which I'm not so pleased. There is always something that later you think you could have done better, but I think overall I would choose SHE and THE DEVIL RIDES OUT, perhaps followed by THE GORGON and THE DAMNED, and possibly THE KISS OF THE VAMPIRE. Just recently I saw THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN on television. I thought the film was excellent and was unexpectedly impressed by some of the music!

You like opera and go to the theatre. Do you collect on buy any soundtrack albums?

No, I must confess I don’t. Perhaps I should, but I have never been a dedicated record collector and, when I do buy a record, it tends to be classical music or one of my favorite jazz performers such as Nat King Cole or Ella Fitzgerald.

Other composers who work in films who have been asked if they go to the cinema have said that they do not go in case they are influenced by other film scores. What do you think about that?
I love going to the cinema. I don't go often enough, and I am always very interested in the soundtrack; after all, if you admire something and it influences you, there's nothing wrong with that. Each composer has to be influenced by something or someone, unless he or she is a total original genius like Beethoven, and I'm sure that even he must have been influenced by somebody. I agree one does not want to find one has written the exact tune that someone else has written! That’s something to guard against. I'm not talking about horror stuff now, but about trying to compose a simple tune with immediate appeal. For this, one needs to use a more or less normal diatonic scale, which consists of only seven different notes, with a possible five extra chromatic notes. So it's not surprising that lots of tunes remind one of other tunes. Many times I have written a tune and thought, “I'm rather pleased with this,” and then thought, “Oh Lord, no, - this is something out of Puccini”. Then I have had to rush to somebody to ask them. In the days when I shared a house with Paul Dehn, who was highly musical, I'd say, “Paul, come quickly. Is this the love duet out of Madame Butterfly?” - and he would say either yes or no. So one has to watch out, but, for me, that’s no reason for not collecting soundtrack albums or for not going to the cinema.

Were there any scores that you found difficult to compose?

Nothing leaps to mind, although every score seems difficult at first. You think to yourself, “I'm never going to be able to do this,” but then, slowly, you get into it. I have on occasion been stuck, particularly if I have been working very much against time. I know I had a hard time on SHE. One thing I have always admired in the Hammer films is that they never, in my opinion, use too much music. But in SHE there was quite a lot of it. I remember working more or less through the night towards the end of that score and getting very stuck at one particular point. But then I compelled myself to have a few hours' sleep, and when I came back the problem was quickly solved. I think sleep is the answer. One must let the subconscious take over.

When you write music for a film, do you do it in any particular order? Do you start at the main credits and work through to the end titles or do you score it in no particular order at all?

I much prefer to start at the beginning and work through to the end. Then I can try to develop my score symphonically - or maybe that sounds too grand! Of course, music is sometimes needed for use during the actual filming; for instance, the waltzes in THE KISS OF THE VAMPIRE, or the music for the belly-dancers in SHE (the scene in the Cairo night-club towards the start of the film). But these are usually separate pieces, so they don't disrupt the build-up of the main music.

Are you working on anything at the moment?
Encouraged by David Stoner of Silva Screen Records, I have been going through music from past scores, and preparing pieces for a possible second volume of “Music from the Hammer Films”. There have been quite a few requests for this, so I think Silva Screen have it in mind. I am superstitious about counting chickens before they are hatched, so I'll say no more at present - except that I have now orchestrated the aforementioned waltz from THE KISS OF THE VAMPIRE myself (so as not to cheat).

Do you still get scripts sent to you?
I have usually only been sent scripts of films which I have already agreed to do. However, some months ago I was sent a script from America which I read with interest. But it was to be an independent production, and so far I have heard no more.

If an offer came your way and you thought it was a good film, would you do it?
Yes, I hope so. Having been browsing in tropical sunshine for some years, I feel I've stored up quite a bit of energy.

Have you ever pulled out of a project?
No, never. I have always liked to be asked to work, so I've never pulled out of anything - nor, touch wood, have I had a score thrown out. I mean, that has happened to the very best composers - far better than me.

It happened to Sir William Walton.
Yes. I knew him quite well and he was terribly upset over the rejection of his BATTLE OF BRITAIN score.

I personally prefer the Walton score.
It's brilliant.

In 1951 you won an Oscar…
Yes, but it wasn't for music; I had hardly started my composing career. I won it with Paul Dehn for the year's best original film story - SEVEN DAYS TO NOON. I'm not sure whether that category of Oscar still exists. Paul and I thought it up together, Paul committed it to paper and we sold it to the Boulting Brothers. It was before Paul had started writing screenplays himself, though he was already a well-known film critic. We got an Oscar each, but no question in those days of flying to Hollywood and taking part in all those glittering proceedings! The first we heard about it was in the Evening Standard; then, a week or two later, a representative of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences arrived at our Chelsea house with a cardboard box containing our Oscars - not even a ribbon! Three large gin-and-tonics, and that was our Oscar ceremony!

On the LP of SEVEN GOLDEN VAMPIRES there is a march theme that I cannot remember hearing in the film...
You're right. I wrote it for the LP. I think it was Philip Martell's idea to have something to start the record, like an overture; it's derived from some of my “Chinese” music in the film. If I remember rightly, it is repeated at the end of the record.

What is your opinion of the use of synthesizers as opposed to orchestral scores?
I think they can be very effective. I've never used one but that is not because I wouldn't, if the director particularly wanted one. Hammer have always preferred orchestral scores, which are more emotional and, in my opinion, much more suitable for gothic horror, such as the Dracula and Frankenstein stories. I did use a type of electric keyboard in THE GORGON. It was a Novachord, it was played in unison with the soprano voice to produce the call of the Gorgon, which lured victims to their stony doom.

I have always wondered why the scores that you wrote for Hammer, in particular DRACULA, were never released on record at the time of the film release.

I think that at that time soundtrack albums had scarcely been introduced in England, except perhaps for American musicals, or epics like BEN-HUR.

I have also wondered why Hammer didn’t have their own record label...
For the same reason. When Hammer made their first great success back in the 50's, I doubt whether anyone in England (except filmmakers) ever thought about soundtracks, let alone records of them. I remember in those early days I would sometimes be talking to someone at a cocktail party and they would ask me what I did. I would reply, “I'm a composer and I write music for films” - to which the answer would be, “Oh you mean background music; I'm afraid I never listen to it.” End of conversation! Since then, film composers have definitely gone up in the world.

John Barry: A Sixties Theme

Wed, 04 Oct 2023 08:04:25 GMT

John Barry: A Sixties Theme

Author: Eddi Fiegel

Publisher: Constable, 1998

John Barry´s career reflects the evolution of post-war British music from big band to rock and roll and the birth of pop. In the cultural foment of ´Swinging Sixties´ London he became an iconic figure and an inspiration to countless musicians. Written with Barry´s cooperation and including insights from close friends, Eddi Fiegel's John Barry: A Sixties Theme celebrates a life of stunning creativity, and reveals how John Barry came to write his music and why.

It’s been like waiting for a bus: You wait for oh-so long and then two come along at once. At the time of writing, Geoff Leonard’s book John Barry – A Life in Music is not yet out. Consequently, comparison between Leonard’s book and researcher-journalist Eddi Fiegel’s tome, John Barry – A Sixties Theme, is impossible – though extracts from Leonard’s transcript, released on the internet, reveal the two books are in different directions. Leonard’s appears to offer itself as the encyclopaedia of John Barry in a definitive chronology. Fiegel’s book on the other hand is, as she explains in her introduction, “not a catalogue of events and line-ups” but an attempt to gain insight into the combination of a dynamic musician and the phenomenon of the sixties vogue in which he lived. Fiegel brings together her interviews with some fifty colleagues, collaborators, friends and observers: the eye-witnesses who were actually there around Barry in that time, people like Michael Caine, Bryan Forbes aid Peter Hunt. Indeed this book is not so much what Fiegel knows or feels about John Barry but what “they” have to say, and the greatest collaborator is John Barry himself. He gives many personal reflections such as the dominance of his father and memories such as the outbreak of war, the emotionally devastating loss of life at his school, and what it felt like to direct Nina and Frederick the night Kennedy died. Money simply can’t buy personal reflections like that.

Fiegel smartly avoids any personal comments on the emotional repression of Barry’s childhood, but she does offer her insightful observations of the 60s and 90s cultures for whom Barry is fashionable in an understated kind of way. Through her interviews she paints a man who is Mr. Dynamism, a successful and versatile breakaway who might have been none of these things had he not happened at the same time that the sixties vogue did. She also paints a man with a glittering social life, as suave as a poet, a man who enjoyed parties with Michael Caine, and was not shy of sex. But this is no scandal sheet; if this book touches on the briskness of Barry’s private life, it is to understand a man who philosophizes “it was the sixties.” Discussion of work is foremost and what is particularly interesting is the best discussion of the famous Bond theme debate yet. Barry also shares the agony and ecstasy of GOLDFINGER, when on his first really big-time assignment he faced self doubt at the hands of a disliking producer, before realising that he had very truly succeeded.

If this book has any faults, it is that it is unable to expend more wordage on less discussed films such as PETULIA and BOOM, which are mentioned only in passing, and that many of Barry’s quotes are familiar from the BBC Radio 2 “Music by…” interviews, hosted by Brian Matthews in 1992. But what the hell, no one asked Fiegel to write a book on obscura. The fact is she has written an entertaining, observant book getting to the heart of how the great and diverse Barry music catalogue of the sixties came to be, and she does it combining journalistic factualism with a readable up-tempo style. Her writing about how Barry bounced from one exciting film to another, from experiments with cymbaloms and jazz to moogs and Egyptian kantele, simply leaves one anxious to re-watch and re-listen to MIDNIGHT COWBOY and THE PERSUADERS – and hope that Barry will be so dynamic and exotic again.

Stephen Woolston – Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.17/No.68/1998/99

The Art of Writing Music

Wed, 04 Oct 2023 07:46:57 GMT

The Art of Writing Music

Author: John Cacavas

Publisher: Alfred Publishing Co., Inc., 1993

John Cacavas has written an extensive book on the techniques of composing, orchestrating and arranging. Includes chapters on each section of the band and orchestra, voicing techniques as well as special chapters on concert band writing, choral writing, electronic applications and writing for film and television.

Film composer John Cacavas, who has composed the music for 15 feature films, 70 TV-movies and more than 600 one-hour TV episodes, contributes a career’s worth of experience and knowledge in this excellent book on music writing. This is not a step-by-step guide to music composition, but an effective supplemental work full of some very practical and useful guidance. This is not “meant to be the definitive word on the subject,” Cacavas says of his book, “nor is it the intent to compete with the many other fine books that address these matters. The French have a word, amusegueules, which is a small morsel that precedes the first course after dinner. I hope you enjoy my little tidbit and get some satisfaction from it.”

Cacavas provides numerous valuable tidbits from his own experience. Unlike the amusegueules, however, the book is best viewed as a dessert course. The book presupposes a great deal of musical knowledge, without which some of his terminology and anecdotes will be difficult to grasp. The book is valuable for someone who is already fairly well along in their musical education and can use the wealth of advice Cacavas provides. Cacavas takes the reader through commentary on music construction, orchestra sections and their use (and misuse), discusses choral and electronic music, and provides in Chapter 10 an invaluable guide to various tricks of the trade, the kind of nuts and bolts knowledge of music writing that you gain only through experience. The text is supplemented by numerous anecdotes, quotations from other film composers, and music examples from Cacavas’ film and television scores.

Of particular interest for film music fans is a 40-page chapter on writing music for motion pictures, documentaries and industrial films. Cacavas provides a lot of good, practical advice on composition, synchronization and the use of source music. It is supplemented with an interview with Morton Gould, with whom Cacavas worked early in his career. An illustrated glossary of notational terms, symbols and abbreviations completes the work.

This book is not only a valuable supplemental text for the music student; it is also worthwhile to the film music fan, to those of us with only an appreciative interest in music. Understanding breeds awareness; which breeds heightened appreciation. Cacavas helps us open our eyes ¬and ears; by allowing us to better understand the fundamentals of composition we can better appreciate the music that composers like Cacavas write.

Randall D. Larson – Originally published in Soundtrack No.52/1994

The Composer in Hollywood

Wed, 04 Oct 2023 07:35:42 GMT

The Composer in Hollywood

Author: Christopher Palmer

Publisher: London; New York : Marion Boyars, 1990

Christopher Palmer discusses the life and work of eleven great Hollywood composers-Steiner, Korngold, Newman, Waxman, Tiomkin, Webb, Rozsa, Herrmann, North, Bernstein and Rosenman - analyzing the scores of many well-known or remarkable films, almost scene by scene. Each chapter is written in clear non-technical language for the general as well as film and music enthusiasts.

Christopher Palmer’s book is very much a paean to the music from the Golden Age of Hollywood and, as such, is highly recommended. It is aimed at the general reader as well as the enthusiast and is mercifully free of technicalities. It covers similar ground to Tony Thomas’ Music for the Movies, which remains the definitive book on the subject. Palmer is more analytical and scholarly than Thomas although he does not impart to the reader quite the same infectious enthusiasm for the subject that Thomas did.

The book concentrates on the life and work of the seven most talented composers to have worked in Hollywood – Miklos Rozsa, Alfred Newman, Bernard Herrmann, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Dimitri Tiomkin, Franz Waxman and Max Steiner. Included amongst this august body is a chapter on Roy Webb whom Palmer obviously considers to have been unjustly neglected. As a coda he touches on the work of Alex North, Elmer Bernstein and Leonard Rosenman as instigators of a new wave which spread into Hollywood film music in the fifties – breaking away from the nineteenth century influenced romantic tradition.

The book is particularly valuable in its detailed analysis of specific scores. No less than seven pages for example are given to discussing the music of CITIZEN KANE alone. Palmer is fortunate in having known some of the composers featured and he is able, particularly in the case of Bernard Herrmann, to provide much anecdotal information.

Palmer makes few observations about modern film scores but he obviously has little regard for those created artificially by means of electronics. Of composers working today he praises John Williams for having carried on the Korngold tradition of swashbuckling, romantic adventure scores such as STAR WARS. Palmer makes the point that the Golden Age composers thrived in the conditions of the time. The studio system and the type of films being made in the thirties and forties ensured that their work was in demand. The studio system created composers such as Max Steiner and Alfred Newman as surely as it created stars such as James Stewart or Gary Grant. In today’s film industry there is no place for a Max Steiner or James Stewart. We are all the poorer for that.

Doug Raynes – Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.9/No.36/1990

A Heart at Fire’s Center

Wed, 04 Oct 2023 07:26:31 GMT

A Heart at Fire’s Center

Author: Steven C. Smith

Publisher: Berkeley & Los Angeles : California University Press, 1991, 2002

No composer contributed more to film than Bernard Herrmann, who in over 40 scores enriched the work of such directors as Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, François Truffaut, and Martin Scorsese. In this first major biography of the composer, Steven C. Smith explores the interrelationships between Herrmann's music and his turbulent personal life, using much previously unpublished information to illustrate Herrmann's often outrageous behavior.

Steven Smith deserves the highest praise for having written such an absorbing biography of Bernard Herrmann – the screen’s foremost musical dramatist. The work which has gone into this book is formidable. Meticulously researched (Smith has had access to Herrmann’s letters and papers, whilst every quote is given acknowledgment as to its source) it presents a fascinating portrait of the composer. Although the book touches on his private life, it is essentially Herrmann’s professional life which interests the author.

Too many recent books about film music have concentrated on analysing specific scores. Smith keeps analysis to a minimum and concentrates on giving us a wealth of anecdotes and details of Herrmann’s working habits from those who knew and/or worked with him.

What the book illustrates above all else is Herrmann’s cantankerous personality: his remarkable propensity for arguing with all and sundry, be it a studio executive or a cab driver. Page after page details his irascibility, his falling out with colleagues and friends, his inability to meet people without aggressively disagreeing with them about something. Yet the book’s title is apt for Herrmann was a man of contradictions. Many people bear testimony to his kindness and warmth. His letters certainly show that beneath the gruff exterior was someone of great sensitivity.

His film scores tended to reflect the volatile side of his personality. His fondness for low brooding notes and a keen sense of what sounds could strike tenor in an audience. But the obverse side of his nature brought forth such romantic scores as THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR and VERTIGO.

Alfred Hitchcock’s disagreement with Herrmann over TORN CURTAIN is given considerable attention. Herrmann obviously deeply regretted the break-up but why Hitchcock, in particular, took the attitude he did in dismissing his composer from the film remains obscure. Certainly a series of letters between the two prior to the start of the film shed some light, in that Hitchcock was perhaps intimidated by Herrmann. Unfortunately the director never made any public comment on the matter.

Ultimately the picture of Bernard Herrmann which emerges after reading this book is of a rather frustrated man who could never find contentment. His constant anger and dissatisfaction certainly contributed to his early death. Many lesser composers have tried copy Herrmann’s style and the word Herrmannesque has become a cliché – but none have succeeded in coming close to the unique talent that he possessed and whose music enriched so many films.

Doug Raynes – Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.10/No.40/1991

An Interview with Russell Garcia

Fri, 29 Sep 2023 12:27:26 GMT

A Conversation with Russell Garcia by Matthias Büdinger
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.11/No.44/1992
Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

Let’s start from the very beginning. Where were you born?
I was born in Oakland, California. That’s the San Francisco Bay area. I studied music at the San Francisco State University, classical and symphonic composition all the time. I went on the road with big bands for about 3 years – that was the era of the big bands. I was writing music and I used to play trumpet. However I decided that I wasn’t earning or progressing. So I went to Hollywood and studied with the first teachers I could find there. I learnt a lot more that way. Edmund Moross was a known teacher, Ernst Toch, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco and…

All of them immigrants…
Yes, and I studied conducting privately with Sir Albert Coates. It was a wonderful opportunity because we had a rehearsal orchestra every Wednesday afternoon. The studio musicians sometimes just liked to come and play the symphonic repertoire after always playing studio music. So I got to conduct a tone poem and a movement from a symphony – every week for a couple years, which gave me great conducting experience. In fact Stravinsky brought his Circus Book to us and we played it for him, the first time he ever heard it. He lived up in the Hollywood hills and had a great sense of humor. I’ve been fortunate meeting a few famous composers, for instance Shostakovich. I had a 3-hour lunch with him. He was a wonderful man. If you want to read an interesting book, read his autobiography, which wasn’t to be published until after he was gone.

He passed away in 1975 I think.
Has it been that long? He made a wonderful statement. He said to me, “We get along so wonderfully on a personal level. It’s a shame the countries in the world don’t get along as well as little children. They could solve their problems.”

You mentioned Stravinsky’s sense of humor. Can you recall any particular event?
We were recording some Stockhausen music in a studio in Hollywood. The tuba player – it was an upright tuba – had to put a big mute in, about 2 or 3 feet long. But he had only a couple of bars to put the mute in and out. To do it himself he would have to put the tuba down and he couldn’t do it in two bars. So Arthur Morton, who is also a composer from way back, stood on a chair behind the tuba, reading the music. He put the mute in and out at the proper times. Stravinsky and I were in the recording booth. He put a dollar bill down there and he said to Arthur Morton, “75 cents for putting mute in and 25 cents for putting mute out.”

You have taught seminars at universities…
Yes. Sam Spence was actually a student of mine when he was a young boy. I had a lot of people who came to me because they got the ivory-tower type of music at university. They would write tone-row string quartets and all these wonderful things, but to work in the music business you have to use all these devices and you have to know how to use them in practice. So a lot of people came to me for a quick course and we went through everything they had learned. But I just showed them the practical application of it.

Did you teach film music as well?
No, what I taught was every type of music n composition, techniques, harmony, counterpoint, all these things, but in a more practical and modern way… They’ve always taught harmony here starting way back in the 16th, 17th century or whatever, and then they taught counterpoint separately. I can’t separate them. These things have to be taught together. I wrote two books on writing music, and they’ve been selling very, very well all over the world. One book is in five languages and it’s everywhere. I met music writers in Russia and even they had it. The books are actually used in universities around the world. Quincy Jones once wrote in my book, “When Russ takes the time to share his knowledge with you, you better listen.”

Were there any prominent film composers who came to your courses?
Of course. Johnny Williams was a student of mine and when Quincy Jones did his first two film scores I worked with him all through them because he hadn’t had any film experience. I even did parts of the composing.

But you didn’t get any credit?
No, I didn’t. I’ve done a tremendous amount of work without credit. I worked with Universal Studios steadily for over 15 years, just working all the time. I didn’t often get credit but on some films I would.

What was it like working more or less in the shadows? That must have been awful.
Well, I got very well paid.

Ah, that changes everything. Very often the men behind the scenes are the ones who do everything, whereas only the “big” names in the foreground get the credit.
Occasionally. My first job at Universal Studios was THE GLENN MILLER STORY. Henry Mancini wasn’t doing it. Glenn Miller’s widow had most of the arrangements they needed, the original Miller ones. There were 3 or 4 numbers they wanted to use in the film, but they didn’t know where the music was. So they asked Hank Mancini, “Who can take these off of the record, note for note, exactly like they are?” Hank said, “Call Russ”. I worked with him on that film and a couple of other pictures. If Universal wasn’t too busy at any time I would work for Disney, MGM, Fox or whoever happened to need my services.

But you never had a contract with MGM?
I always free-lance. If I did a TV series at any studio, I’d have a contract for that series. If I did a feature film I’d sign a contract specifically for that film. But you have an agent who does that. The agent never got me any work. I have to get work myself, but the agent can talk money for it. He gets me three times as much as I could. Composers don’t like to talk money or be involved in the business.

Back to your Universal days. You must have met every composer we can think of. You just mentioned Henry Mancini who worked there for six years…
We’re still very close friends. We have dinner often when I go to Hollywood. He is a wonderful person as well as a very talented composer.

I think he is one of a handful of composers who is gifted with melody.
That’s true. Well, a lot of the old film composers aren’t doing so much anymore.

But Mancini is still very busy.
Always. But the film business now is in the hands of young people. Charles Walker and I went together to Hugo Friedhofer’s funeral in Westward, California. All the film composers from our era were there and David Raksin gave a little talk about Hugo. He said, “All of us here are from the era where film composers could read music.” He got a big laugh for it, because nowadays they bring in a lot of inexperienced kids with guitars and such. An awful lot of scores are done with one person and all of the machines, emulators and such that imitate instruments. They can save a lot of money on a score if they don’t have to hire live musicians. A lot of recordings are being done in Europe because it’s expensive in Hollywood. The Unions got prices so high. A lot of composers even go to Bulgaria.

And Jerry Goldsmith himself went to Hungary for HOOSIERS, for instance.
They raised a big fuss because people wanted to give him an Academy Award, but the Unions were screaming because the music was recorded in a communist country.

Jerry Goldsmith went back to the roots of Miklos Rozsa, so to speak. What about Joe Gershenson and Frank Skinner? They worked for Universal as well.
Joe was the music director for feature films.

He was the one who always got the credits.
Yes, for he did a lot of conducting. We would compose the score. On films sometimes I do the composing, sometimes composing and arranging, sometimes the conducting. For TV I did all my own conducting, but Joe Gershenson wanted to conduct almost every feature film. One day I decided to go away with our sailboat and to sail across the Pacific Ocean, just leaving all of this. Joe Gershenson called me the day before I left and said, “Come in, I want you to see and do a feature film, Russ.” I said, “Joe, I told you, I’m going on my sailing trip.” He said, “Oh, put it off for 6 weeks. Do the film.” I replied that if I put it off for this I’ll put it off for something else and pretty soon my health won’t be good enough and I maybe too old to take a sailing trip.

What kind of man was Frank Skinner?
We were very good friends. I worked with Frank a lot, especially when I first went to Universal. If he had a film to compose he would make a sketch and then I would do the arranging. He was very talented. He always wrote very simple, clean, pure music and it always fit the film beautifully.

You also worked with Henry Mancini on TOUCH OF EVIL…
That’s true. Hank got a big check when they sold the rights for that film to TV. He sent me a good part of it. That was very nice of him. He could have just kept it and I would never have known the difference.

You must have been befriended by all the composers in Hollywood. Do you remember any funny episodes with some of them?
Very often a producer or director from Universal Studios would go back to New York. They would have a few drinks and perhaps be in a nice restaurant or bar in New York City. They would hear some pianist who may have written a nice tune. They’d say, “Oh, beautiful. We want you to score our next picture.” Of course this pianist would have no idea about setting music to film, with the timings and the moods. They have no idea how to orchestrate. So they would hire them and Joe Gershenson would call me and say, “Russ, they’ve done it again.” I’d come in and I’d have to take their themes. Even for persons like Bobby Darin, I did 2 films for him. He thought he wrote the scores because he gave me a two-bar little phrase and another eight-bar phrase. That’s what he made up and I wrote the whole film score. But I would be paid very well for these types of things. So it’s all right. I’m not in this business really for money, but…

… but you need it.
Yeah, money is not everything. It just buys everything.

“Money Makes the World Go Round,” as it is sung in CABARET. What’s your impression of the contemporary film music scene when you come from the “Golden Age” of Hollywood film music?
Some of it’s good and some of it’s just terrible. I even like some of the pop music, but some of it is so amateurish and so monotonous that I don’t like it at all. I don’t go to too many movies. I very carefully pick the ones I want to see because I get headaches from screaming pop music going all through a film.

Are there any contemporary film composers you like?
Well, Jerry Goldsmith writes some very nice things. But most of the music is done in a pop idiom now.

That sells better than symphonic film scores. It’s more exploitable.
I suppose. A lot of the 12-year-old kids go to the movies and they attract them with this type of music.

Working steadily against deadlines, was that a problem for you?
I never missed a deadline in my life. I can write very quickly. I was forever helping other people who couldn’t make the deadline. Every once in a while I got a phone call at midnight from Billy May, Johnny Mandel or whoever saying, “Russ, I got a recording session at nine in the morning. I’m not gonna make it. Can you help me out?” So maybe I’d stay up all night and write a few arrangements. Disney’s would only call me when they were in trouble with the deadline. The orchestra was coming in the next day or the day after and they weren’t going to make it, because Disney always kept all their composers and arrangers on a weekly salary and they didn’t have to pay them very much. But they had to pay me so much a page. So it cost them a lot more when they had to use me, but they knew I could work fast and well. So if they were in trouble they would call me and I worked over there if I wasn’t busy at Universal. Usually at Universal I had to write 30 or 40 minutes of music for a big orchestra each week. I had the Universal Orchestra almost every Friday afternoon right after lunch for as long as I needed to finish it.

I think one of your greatest gifts is versatility. You can write in any style.
Well, at Universal one week it was a big love story with strings, the next week it would be a detective story with jazz, the next week a science-fiction film and who-knows-what. Because of my name being Garcia, in the beginning a lot of studios would call me for big Latin productions. They thought I must be an expert in this but I’m no more Spanish or Mexican than you are.

You are no longer in the film business, are you?
I work here and there, but not a tremendous amount, because I live in New Zealand and I’m there 5 or 6 months a year.

The rest of the year you spend in Hollywood?
Well, wherever there’s work for me. I work in New Zealand. I conduct pop symphony concerts and I do radio shows with orchestra and choir, whatever they want and need. Sometimes I work in California. Pop singers make their tracks for their guitars, bass, keyboards, drums and their voices. Then they want strings, French horns, flutes or whatever. They call me and give me a cassette of what they’ve done. Most of them don’t read a note of music. I listen to what they’ve done and then I write string parts. Occasionally, if I’m in Hollywood and somebody needs something for a film and they know I’m there, they call me. For instance, two years ago they had a very brutal thing in a Sofia Loren film. They decided they wanted music coming out of a hifi set in this apartment instead of scoring the brutality. They wanted “just source music”. They called me and told me they wanted something in a Glenn Miller – Benny Goodman – Tommy Dorsey style, because the film was set in the forties. So I did 3 or 4 pieces in that style. I do little jobs like that. But you have to be in Hollywood all the time to be working. I left that. I write a lot of symphonic music now and I do albums in the jazz field quite often.

You just mentioned your symphonic works…
Oh yes. It’s like Miklos Rozsa. I don’t think he does too much film work any more, does he? He would like to become known more as a symphonic composer, which he does quite well. I guess we would all like to get into that field, I’ve written many symphonies.

Are there albums with your symphonic works?
Not really. I recorded a lot for radio but there are a few things on recordings of classical compositions. I did ‘Theme and Variations for Ten French Horns’. That’s recorded on Capitol Records. I got tapes of compositions with the Hamburg Radio Orchestra and orchestras in New Zealand of course, but no big albums. I did a couple of films in Berlin, for instance a Francis Durbridge “Krimi” called NULL UHR ZWÖLF (12 MINUTES AFTER MIDNIGHT). I recorded that in Berlin many years ago. Then I did some short things in German films. I also worked in Vienna. They used to give me a symphony orchestra together with a big band. I used to do big productions for the Austrian Broadcasting Station.

Your career has included arranging and conducting with Judy Garland, Andy Williams, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald and many others, no important names are left out…
The list goes on and on, Sammy Davis, Mel Torme, everybody. I acted as their arranger and conductor for record albums.

And concerts as well?
Yes, some of them. I conducted Louis Armstrong at the Hollywood Bowl. He had his little jazz group and we had the Hollywood Bowl Symphony which is the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Wasn’t Henry Mancini’s wife one of Mel Torme’s singers?
Yes, she also worked for me. Recently she said that she met me before she met Henry.

So you could have been Henry Mancini. That’s the same story Henry once told when he met Blake Edwards; he came out of a barber shop. Hank wondered if Nelson Riddle had come out…
We’re recalling the old days. A lot of us in Hollywood had these little offices in this big old building – a big cement building that used to be the first film studio in Hollywood. These were all dressing-rooms but then the studio grew all around it. In all these dressing-rooms we had offices. Nelson Riddle had one. Dick Hazard and a lot of the writers. Nelson was starving then. We’d go buy a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter and have to eat this for a couple of days.

Yes, another one who could have lived much longer. And someone like Irving Berlin got 99 years old! Did you know him?
I met him once. We did a show of his in Los Angeles. I did all the orchestration and arranging on this show. They needed a ballet sequence and had me write the ballet. When Irving Berlin came up a week or so before the show, he said, “I never heard of this guy. You can’t have somebody write a ballet in a show of mine.” They played it for him and he loved it. That’s the only time I’ve met him.

Do you know Leo Arnaud? The ‘Composer Arranger Society’ had a dinner honoring him. He was very talented and did an awful lot of ghost-writing, like I did. In fact there are a few well-known composers that would have been nothing if he hadn’t been behind them. He was a so-called arranger, but he went on doing more composing.

Like yourself. It’s a shame you didn’t get credit. What do you think of the film business now?
Films are such a great media. They can be so artistic, so wonderful. But they put out so much junk now. It’s a shame. You really have to search for the good ones now. I get to busy that most of the films we see are on airplanes. Once in a while we go to a movie.

With special thanks to Joanna Jenkins and Monica Barber.

Did They Mention the Music?

Fri, 29 Sep 2023 07:48:06 GMT

Did They Mention the Music?

Author: Henry Mancini and Gene Lees

Publisher: Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1989

Best known for the "dead-ant" theme to the Pink Panther films, Henry Mancini also composed the music to Peter Gunn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Orson Welles' Touch of Evil, and the Academy Award winning soundtracks to Victor/Victoria and The Days of Wine and Roses. In a career that lasted over thirty years, Mancini amassed twenty Grammy awards and more nominations than any other composer.

Film music autobiographies are few are far between. Tiomkin’s Please Don’t Hate Me and Rozsa’s Double Life are the only two that come to mind, both excellent, multi-faceted portraits of their authors and their experiences in the film music arena. Henry Mancini’s Did They Mention the Music? – written in collaboration with lyricist and music writer Gene Lees – is sure to join their ranks as a highly readable and fascinating look at Mancini’s life and music.

It’s a very warm book. Like Miklos Rozsa’s Double Life , it’s a gentle fireside chat with the composer, who takes an honest look back at his life and career, avoiding both false modesty and self-serving braggadocio. For a show business autobiography, Mancini’s book is refreshing in its humility and fascinating in its behind-the-scenes tales – fans of Mancini and of Hollywood, students of moviemaking and film music will find much of Interest here. Like Rozsa, Mancini is a gentleman first, artist second and celebrity third – his book avoids much of the pretentious flap of many show business auto bio’s and is refreshing in its respectful storytelling.

After a somewhat rambling first chapter, which oscillates in time as Mancini remembers his early youth, we trace Mancini’s life from his early days as a musician during the Big Band era, his experiences as a soldier in World War II (he was among those who liberated one of the Nazi concentration camps, and has some especially haunting recollections of this), his brief acquaintances with Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman, through his years in the Universal Pictures music factory, scoring segments of B-movies like TARANTULA, IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE and THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, and culminating with the success of his famous film music of the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s.

It’s fascinating to get a look behind the scenes at the creation of such scores as BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S and its famous song, ‘Moon River’, and the PINK PANTHER themes. Mancini also points out how he re-recorded most of the soundtrack albums for these films, which aren’t the actual soundtrack recordings – the reason was to get a better stereo sound for LP release; though Mancini admits he’s made a few goofs, one of the bigger ones he regrets is having a choir perform ‘Moon River’ on the album instead of the wistful Audrey Hepburn solo heard in the film.

Even though he is best known for his light, pop melodies, Mancini describes his preference for dramatic film music, and regrets more of it isn’t available on his records: “The albums were made up of the most melodic material from the films,” Mancini writes in Chapter 9. “A lot of the dramatic music – which is what I really loved to do and really thought I had a feeling for – was left out… I used the source music that was the common denominator for my record-buying audience. It may have hurt my reputation as a writer of serious film music. To this day, I would love to have an album of some of those scores as they were heard in the film.” [Varese Sarabande, Silva Screen, Telarc – are you listening?] “The albums gave me a reputation, even among producers, as a writer of light comedy and light suspense, and at that time it was not easy for them to think of me for the more dramatic assignments. I did that to myself.” (p. 101-102)

Chapter 11 offers a very good look at the nuts-and-bolts aspects of soundtrack record production and royalties; and observes the sobering truths of the way film music has been treated by the studios who commissioned it: “From the earliest days of talking pictures, the movie industry has displayed a contradictory attitude toward music. It hires gifted, highly trained composers… and then treats some of their music like piles of old clothes… The studios, not the composers, own the scores. A movie industry lawyer has gone into court and argued that in commissioning a film score, a studio is like a man ordering a suit from a tailor. Once it is made, he can do anything he likes with it.” (p. 114)

Mancini goes on to point out how he has managed to avoid the clothes pile in a fair number of cases – he was able to secure full ownership of many scores himself, or at least half ownership through a publishing company he owns. This shrewd arrangement not only rewarded Mancini with financial wealth but gave him considerable control over his artistic creations, an unfortunate rarity in the film music world.

Other chapters provide a fascinating look behind the scenes of THE PINK PANTHER, and how Mancini came up with one of his most memorable themes; his association with Alfred Hitchcock and the score he wrote for FRENZY – which Hitchcock subsequently rejected as unsuitable; and his ongoing relation with Blake Edwards. In Chapter 16, Mancini describes the basics of creating movie music and the process of composing music for films. A look at the many rewards Mancini’s career has given him follows – visits to the White House, acquaintanceships with several Presidents and other noteworthy associations, and the book is appended with a list of film and disc and award credits.

Throughout the book, Mancini exhibits a great deal of humility and honesty in his appraisal of his accomplishments and his personal life (Chapter 11) “I seemed to myself such an unlikely person for all this to be happening to… I had broken out of the anonymity that is the lot of most film composers – and which I fully expected to last all my life” (p. 120). Chapter 12 contains a heartfelt evaluation of his relationship with his son – elsewhere Mancini describes his often strained relationship with his father. All of this is remarkable in its honesty and helps to create a well-rounded picture of Mancini the musician and Mancini the man.

Other Chapters illustrate Mancini the Weirdo – he relates several pranks that earned him the nickname he carried from his Big Band days – “Weirdo” – due to his sense of humor and his irreverence for authority.

Did They Mention the Music? is both an informative look at film scoring from the perspective of one of its most successful practitioners, and a friendly fireside chat with Mr. Mancini who tells us stories about his life. Each story is told openly and modestly, with an occasional smirk or two, but its author remains unassumingly honest throughout. It’s a very welcome read, effectively told, and gives one a renewed admiration for Henry Mancini and his music. Indeed – perhaps the book’s most important benefit is in making one eager to go back and re-listen to all these memorable scores and hear them with a new appreciation.

A conversation with Les Baxter

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 07:32:06 GMT

A conversation with Les Baxter by David Kraft and Ronald Bohn / Transcribed by James Marshall
Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine No.26, 1981
Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

How did you first get into film scoring?
I was offered a film through an agent who was interested in my music. It was a sailboat travelogue, but it initially gave me the chance to do my first picture TANGA TIKA, 1953. I had done a number of albums and I’d studied composing at the Detroit Conservatory of Music and then at Pepperdine College who gave me a Doctor degree… and so I was really a serious concert composer at the time I got waylaid into popular music. If you know any of my albums – ‘Le Sacre du Sauvage’, ‘Tamboo!’, ‘Ports of Pleasure’ or ‘La Femme’ – they are not like popular music. I really did not know what popular music was at the time, but they were my attempts being a concert composer to do little suites of music for the pop field. Mysteriously, they started hitting and then I had a lot of pop singles, and that waylaid me off the serious composing which I’m able to do more of now. So… films enabled me to compose the sort of serious music I wanted to do. I gradually got into film scoring from that first little movie and went on from there.

People often regarded American International as a much commercialised exploitation studio, although they provided a wonderful range of subjects for film composers to tackle. Were they always sympathetic towards the musical aspects of each picture? Did you consider them a studio where a composer could really develop his art? Did you enjoy working for AIP?
Indeed they did provide a wonderful range of subjects to score, although at that time I was very happy to be offered any sort of film, quite frankly. You see, Hollywood is made up of a number of cliques: the Academy has a clique, the major studios have their cliques, and anyone connected with records is even more of an outsider than most people. As a matter of fact, record artists are suspect. It’s assumed that anyone who has hit records cannot compose, and I could only get work from independent producers of small pictures. I would very much like to have done large pictures with large orchestras. Some of my scores, CRY OF THE BANSHEE for instance, have passages I think that are really unlike anything being used for films. A major film might have given me the opportunity to come out with a really respectable suite of music. But the only films I was offered were small pictures. It’s a fact that I was respected far more in Europe and South America than I was here, but I could only get B-pictures, always with a very, very small budget, and I learned to perform miracles with small orchestras. Most of the orchestras were 30 musicians or under. We went in a hurry, monaurally, recording directly to the soundtrack, and nobody really thought of or took much interest in running off a quarter-inch protection. Neither did anyone think of preserving the original tapes for any sort of purpose. As soon as the film was recorded and the music tracks dubbed in, then they were erased or dumped into the garbage can. The fact that now people think some of those scores were valuable is unfortunate, but didn’t seem to matter at the time. Of the 100 or more films I have scored, only a handful of the original tapes have survived.

How long did AIP normally give you to score a picture?
Two weeks! And we did the actual recording of each score in 4 to 6 hours. The major studios were taking weeks to record, some of my friends were taking all day to do a main title, but of course I would finish an entire score in half a day. I move more quickly than a lot of people because I trust the orchestra and I’m not as concerned with perfection as a lot of other people are. I have rarely found that the orchestra makes mistakes and I find one balance as interesting as another. My things are written to balance in the Stravinsky style. I like emotion in a performance and I think you lose that if you go over it and over it. The musicians that I used were outstanding, I had the best musicians’ in the world and I always insisted on certain people. I had 4 to 6 concertmasters in my orchestra – Felix Slatkin was one. A lot of the Los Angeles Philharmonic concertmasters and top men from all the major studios were there, and the orchestra was never a problem, although the fidelity in those days was not so hot. But the orchestra always played beautifully, they played very well for me, they liked me and responded to my music. I use humor, which helps keep a pleasant atmosphere.

Were all AIP movies scored in 2 weeks, even MASTER OF THE WORLD?
Officially I was supposed to get 4 weeks, but the way things ran at AIP I barely got half that time, except in a few instances. The way it works… I see a script, the film is run for me, the producer does the ‘spotting’ and the music editor very quickly breaks down the cues and starts sending them out to me. I start composing immediately because I never know whether I’m going to have 4 days or 2 weeks or whatever. (If it’s television it goes on the air Tuesday night whether you’re ready or not!). So you have to work fast. I ask them to please not cut me down to less than 3 weeks, but they keep cutting, the cue sheets still aren’t coming out, and finally I get 2 weeks or less. I learned how to work very fast.

Did you work well together with Ronald Stein, the other composer at AIP? You’re co-credited together on WARRIORS FIVE. Which sequences did you score, also what additional scoring without credit on Stein’s PREMATURE BURIAL did you do?
AIP was a totally different set-up from, say, Warner Brothers where Korngold and Steiner were friends, or MGM with Rozsa and Kaper, etc. Things were done at great speed there and the fact is I never even met Ronald Stein! I was there 15 years, so was he, and I spoke to him perhaps once on the telephone. Offhand I don’t recall working on WARRIORS FIVE or PREMATURE BURIAL, although the studio sometimes used my left-over cues or took my cues illicitly from other pictures. I don’t think I worked on SAMSON AND THE SLAVE QUEEN, but if you watch the film you can hear practically half the music from GOLIATH AND THE BARBARIANS. Actually, some of the titles in my filmography are things I could never dream of scoring… DAGMAR’S HOT PANTS, INC… what on earth’s that? Presumably they used my cues from another film and played them in the picture. And maybe another reason I don’t recognise some of my film titles is they get re-titled. I did TAMBOURINE for Nicholas Ray, but some genius decided to call it HOT BLOOD, which sounds more like a vampire picture.

A film composer must presumably have to plunge himself into the mood of each movie he scores. Did all those Poe exercises ever begin to have a morbid effect on you?
Not in the least! It depends on one’s attitude whether one considers them morbid. I found them stimulating and I loved the Poe stories. Today they do much bloodier and more terrible things which I would not find morbid, but I would probably not enjoy scoring. Really it’s my profession. People ask do I have to be in a mood to compose or when do I do it. I do it in the daytime in a very businesslike manner because I know how to do what I’m doing. I have an enormous “bag of tricks” like most composers. Going back to Beethoven and others of that period, I don’t believe he waited for lightning to strike. I think Beethoven knew symphony form so thoroughly that he could in a very businesslike manner put together an exquisite work based on his skill. Certainly, the themes we would hope come from some kind of marvellous or mysterious inspiration; but I do think composers, if they are quite knowledgeable or skilled at what they do, can create themes and compositions of much greater quality through their ability and their knowledge than people who are not as skilled and well-trained who are, shall we say, waiting for lightning to strike.

Do you feel you scored too many films in the horror genre? Or in the western genre?
Not at all. The more you do in one genre, the more opportunity you have to be different and experiment. Bach wrote a lot of fugues, but after he’d done a few, people didn’t ask if he was a spent force. No, he carried on and wrote lots of others, brilliantly. The reason I did a lot of westerns is they were very big in the 50s. But horror films, in actual fact, present far less restrictions to a composer because of the extreme range or orchestral color at your disposal. The hardest films to score are those like BORN AGAIN where nobody turns into a monster or develops X-ray vision, where there are no ghostly houses sinking into the swamp, etc. Straight movies are more exacting, one cannot be too indulgent in the instrumentation, and the drama and the situation have to be scored very accurately. One cannot have all storm or all loud. Loud is only loud if preceded by calm; soft is only soft if it follows loud. That’s a very basis principle that some of the newcomers are missing.

Do you find working with the same director over a period of years (like, say, with Roger Corman) has a particular benefit on the end product?
Roger Corman never took any interest in the music, never attended a recording session. I think he was more of a businessman than anything else. Roger and I were hired separately and we worked separately. He would make a picture at breakneck speed; I would score it quickly while he went on to the next one. Even so, I do like to feel that I take a serious interest in every work I do, even though pictures I’ve done were quickie pictures. Every note that I write I’m very serious about. I feel that it represents me and it’s an original composition. So I took every movie no matter how small very seriously and tried to write a very good and original musical work.

How do you please a producer and retain your integrity?
A legitimate composer doesn’t complain about restrictions. Perhaps an inexperienced, concert composer with an enormous ego who only wants to shoot off his lilted fireworks might complain about restrictions, but I don’t. Sometimes I would pretend to give a producer what he thought he wanted, but in actual fact would work in a better idea or treatment. Once James Nicholson (executive producer, AIP) called me into the dubbing room and said, “You know, Les, this isn’t what I asked for… it’s better!” He was an extremely kind and useful producer, and always said nice things about my work. But I was always sufficiently confident in myself to never be intimidated by any producer.

Do you like to research the music before composing the score?
Yes, absolutely. I would never want to be guilty of errors of authenticity. Fortunately, I have had a very wide musical training (I even studied Chinese music in my teens), and I know a lot about music of other countries. In the exotic album series, for example, I brought in actual African or South American or Cuban source music, and ‘La Femme’ was mainly French melodies. But it would be appalling to tackle something and not know what you’re doing.

Why did AIP go to all the expense of having those Italian epics rescored? Your scores were excellent, but the original Italian scores were good also.
The feeling of James Nicholson was that the Italian scores were dreadful. The ones that I heard were really quite terrible and the ones I rescored almost unacceptable, both from a fidelity standpoint and a picture standpoint. I don’t know how much improvement I made because I had such small orchestras, but at least we improved the fidelity.

The performing credit on GOLIATH AND THE BARBARIANS – Sinfonia of London conducted by Muir Mathieson – is a little surprising. Was that one of those dummy credits? (In 1953 Miklos Rozsa scored KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE in Hollywood, but the credits gave “London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Muir Mathieson” to get round a union restriction.)
I was sent to London to do GOLIATH AND THE BARBARIANS, and there was a union problem. Things that were done in London had to be conducted by an English conductor. It was very difficult in some of the foreign countries, Italy as well, to bring in a composer from the States to conduct his own work, owing to union restrictions. I was delighted to have Muir do it, he conducted the music beautifully and I enjoyed working with him. He was a very strong-willed person and even changed the tempo of certain things in GOLIATH, which was startling because I wrote the music to fit the picture. But we had many wonderful conversations together as he was Scottish and I am Scottish.

Do you prefer to conduct your scores? It’s noticeable that Al Simms was credited as “musical supervisor” or “musical co-ordinator” – whatever that means – on all your 57 scores for AIP.
I’m trained to conduct, I studied it for many years, and I think I’m best qualified to conduct my own work. In Hollywood I conducted all my scores. Al Simms sat in the booth and did his musical supervising from there. Meanwhile, outside, I conducted… quickly. The only places I wasn’t allowed to conduct were England and Italy. I did THE GLASS SPHINX in Rome, for example, but they made me sit in the booth while an Italian conductor (Franco Ferrara) conducted the music.

What about Mexico? Were there any problems there?
When I went there to score THE SACRED IDOL in 1959, I was flown in, ensconced in a hotel room and, without a piano or any instrument whatsoever, I sat down and wrote the whole score just sitting at a desk. Sounds difficult, but a composer if he’s a composer can do that. Anyway, then we had trouble recording the music. We found we could hire a Mexican orchestra and a Mexican recording studio, but never both together at the same time. Finally I had to bring the movie back to the States and score it here. But I do love the Mexican people and would never decline an offer to score a Mexican movie.

Do you still conduct your own orchestra or has it been disbanded?
Well, here’s what happened. I was going great guns until rock’n’roll came along. Then, when they discovered they could sell a lot of records with just four or five guys in a rock group, they became disinterested in strings. Then, after a while, strings became more acceptable again, but rock was still king. So more and more, composers and orchestra leaders made use of session players. These days I work a lot with the 101 Strings in England. They’re a large and beautiful orchestra, we do a lot of both commercial and non-commercial albums together, and so where in the past you had ‘Les Baxter and his Orchestra’, now you have ‘Les Baxter and the 101 Strings’. I’m mostly a composer now; only occasionally am I the artist.

Why did you score ALL THE LOVING COUPLES under the pseudonym ‘Casanova’?
I simply never turn down anything. Once I made the mistake of turning down FANCY FREE for Jerome Robbins and recommended Leonard Bernstein to do it… It was the first great success of his career and since then I’ve never turned down anything. However, if the picture is of the nature of ALL THE LOVING COUPLES, I may use a pseudonym.

We’re sorry to hear there has been a disgraceful rumour going around – needless to say, believed by none of your fans – that you had some of your better scores “ghost-written” for you. Can you tell us how such a rumour could have started?
I’m so pleased none of my fans believe this thing. It’s something believed only in Hollywood by members of the Academy’s music branch, and by some of those cliques going around in the major studios. It was very easy to pick on Les Baxter because I was a “lone wolf”, I was hired from outside the business, from records, and I was not a member of or had any friends in those cliques. And so I was under attack. A disgruntled orchestrator, who emulated my style note for note, started spreading the rumour. He wanted more credit for himself, he wanted more jobs, and in the end he got more jobs. But the rumour, which started in a small way, gradually snowballed into a truly infamous scandal. The music departments at the major studios – the cliques – they really loved the story and for years I became the pet whipping boy in film music. If my name came up at MGM, for Instance, it was always with the greatest disdain. They delighted in dismissing me as some sort of cafe orchestra leader with a violin under one arm, his back to the musicians and smiling at the customers. And the fact that – horror of horrors – I had hit records merely aggravated the situation. Suddenly, Les Baxter is the worst of those guys not doing his own stuff… he can’t hold a pencil, he can’t write a note, he can’t read the scale, he knows nothing about music (but I had an honorary L. L. D. !). Once, I was selected by MGM to do a big picture, GREEN MANSIONS, which they thought I was perfect for. But the staff there said, “No, no, don’t use him.” Bronie Kaper, a good friend to me over the years, had to do it and told me personally he would rather I had taken the commission. But MGM would not give me any of their big pictures, only THE INVISIBLE BOY.

I have handed out work to an orchestrator. It’s common practice even by those composers in the major studios who have criticised me and supported the rumour. In such cases I have been uniquely fair and never taken due credit away from anyone. THE BIG DOLL HOUSE is credited solely to my orchestrator Hall Daniels. But, one cannot just hand out some cue sheets to an orchestrator, a copyist, and say, “Go away and write me the whole score for GOLIATH AND THE BARBARIANS!” If an orchestrator could do that he’d be selling himself short to ridiculous lengths. No-one in the business sounds like I do. My friends say they can always recognise my music even though I’ve done so many styles. CRY OF THE BANSHEE, for instance, is so vastly different from MASTER OF THE WORLD. I think too I’m unique in the business in that I have orchestrated more of my scores myself than any other composer. In 1972 I worked entirely on my own and did both FROGS and BARON BLOOD single-handed. The orchestrator I’ve used most often is someone I’ve known from childhood whom I taught to orchestrate; he knows that my work is completely original. He’s never “ghost-written” for me.

(Tony Thomas, a Les Baxter admirer and the man behind the recent Les Baxter revival on disc, says: “I dismiss the rumour. Les Baxter has done so much and there’s a definite style running throughout. This is a rather bitchy business, I’m afraid.” And Hall Daniels, Baxter’s leading orchestrator for over 25 years, confirms: “It’s just sour grapes! All too often here people who are envious of the success of others try to undermine it. But no one, try as they may, can ever sound like Les.”)

Isn’t there a sort of hierarchy at work where classical composers all look down on those who compose film music? And, by the same token, many film composers look down on those in the pop field…
Don’t forget that a number of film composers have become concert composers and vice versa, and that there is no longer such a strong distinction. Some of the great masters such as Wagner and Mahler occasionally sounded like movie music, even lesser movie music. People generally conclude all of Beethoven’s works – I happen to believe Beethoven was the great composer of all time – were without exception brilliant. But the truth is like all composers he had great works and lesser works and sometimes composed inferior stuff. It’s not all good. Some of Mahler’s lesser works sound like very bad film music, in my view. My own music is distinctly my own and in my own style, and there’s no difference in style between my film scores and concert works. That’s why, for instance, the TV-score AN EVENING WITH EDGAR ALLAN POE was so easily adapted into The Edgar Allan Poe Suite. The subject matter writes the music and dictates the form, irrespective of whether it will be heard in the concert hall, in the cinema or on television. Coming back to why concert composers look down on film music… I do feel that many so-called concert composers would dearly like to pick up the revenue from films, but in truth their avant-garde music is totally unacceptable in any field: unlistenable, evasive, and unpalatable. I’m especially proud of the concert commission I did for the Wilmington Symphony (The Movies: A Satirical Essay for Orchestra, 1973). It was commissioned to open an opera house there and was a half-hour work, the last piece of the evening. They put on a very distinguished programme: Beethoven, Rodriguez and Baxter! The audience loved it and the critics loved it, but all that’s left is the critical reviews, unfortunately. Nobody thought of recording it.

Of all your musical activities (films, records, concert works, theme parks, etc), which medium do you most like to work in?
I like to write music, never mind the medium. Fortunately, most of the films, records, theme parks, concert commissions I’ve done have given me “carte blanche” so I’ve done pretty much what I want to do. I like to work in all media, and I like to write for any size orchestra. The Vincent Price TV-special, for example, used only a very small orchestra, a double string quartet. But like I said, I never turn anything down. I have to make a living. I wouldn’t say I’d be happy to starve in an attic and just write what I believe in. It would be very self-indulgent to do that, to say I’m too good for this or that, or pretend I don’t have to work like everyone else does. I have to work and I do work, but I try to do the best I can. Even the rock music I’ve written I think has a certain elegance. I think it is foolish to compose for one’s contemporaries out of embarrassment music that is safe and beyond criticism or is so weird that if a person criticises it, they supposedly don’t understand it. I think there is new music that is accessible to the ear and which people will recognise as good music and like.

Can you explain to us your musical approach to FROGS?
We thought it would be a very interesting experiment (and I’ve always been daring in my scores or tried to be) to score the film entirely with synthesised sounds, in this case recorded frog sounds. I taped frog sounds, slowed them down and used them I think intelligently and effectively. It was a one-man score all the way through – I composed it, arranged it and I played it on the synthesiser with no assistance from anyone. So it was marvellous later on when the Academy, who were always keen to get down all the music credits on each picture, asked me who collaborated on the score. I was delighted to be able to reply, “It was just me and the frogs!”

Does the effects dubbing by the sound department ever spoil your music?
Dubbing can ruin a score. When I did the gang picture series like HELL’S BELLES I would usually say if a cue included motor cycles revving away… forget it. I don’t see any reason for composing music to get buried by things like that. Unfortunately, in my experience, the sound effects man and the composer have rarely got together to work things out. Both want to do their own thing.

What can you tell us about the row over A WOMAN’S DEVOTION?
In all these years I’ve never known anything about a row over A WOMAN’S DEVOTION. The director was very polite to me and no-one ever hinted that there was a problem. I think I read something in the Soundtrack! articles (prior source Media Montage) that the director objected to the use of a guitar. I did use an unamplified guitar as a solo instrument behind some of the scenes, but the director never at any time discussed with me what he wanted or did not want. I had a great deal of respect shown to me at the time I scored the picture, anything I wanted to do I was allowed to do and no-one questioned it. For once I used a very large orchestra and I thought it was quite a good score. If anyone was displeased, I wish they’d have mentioned it.

Do you like having other people do the songs for pictures you’re scoring?
I did a lot of successful rock movies and the BEACH series made a lot of money, but I always felt capable of writing a rock song myself if I was asked. I’m only sorry more of my music didn’t get on the albums. In WILD IN THE STREETS – a fine, futuristic movie – I wrote a for then ‘current’ piece of music for the Sunset Strip sequence, which was a prediction of disco, progressive jazz and so on. But they left it off the LP which is a pity… Sometimes a producer of a non-musical picture would try to persuade me to use somebody else’s theme song, but I generally fought against that.

Coming now to television work, why are so many composers brought in to score TV-series these days?
Time limitations.

Gerald Fried said he was usually given 2 weeks to score a STAR TREK episode. What sort of time is allotted on the current BUCK ROGERS series per episode?
2 weeks is still about average, but I must tell you there is a lot of “weekend scoring” going on. See it on Friday, write it over the weekend and it’s on the air Monday. I must say I can tell and don’t like what I hear when people work too quickly. AIP was a very economy-conscious studio, and I learned how to work very fast. However, I never write faster than I can work. And I don’t believe in repeating cues over and over like some. I know my own style of music so well, I’m uninhibited, so I can do things quickly, but not all composers can… and not all TV-producers are obsessed with speed. I once did an episode of something in 2 weeks, the next composer took 4 weeks over his, but he still got re-hired. On CLIFFHANGER last year, a series that had a lot of music, about 40 or 50 minutes music per week, they needed 3 composers working on alternate weeks. I wrote a new score every other episode by myself. On the second to last episode, I did the score and the producer came to see me and asked if I was tired after such a tough schedule. I said, “Not at all. What’s on your mind?” He asked if I could do the last show as well, since all the others seemed to be sick. This would mean two hourly shows in a row, a week apart. I said I’d be delighted. In the last segment we got to kill off Dracula, and I must tell you the orchestra really loved playing that last score. I was staying in the Universal hotel, to be nearby if needed, when one of the executive producers called me from the dubbing room and said there were 10 people in the dubbing room, including the mixer who was very blasé, and that all 10 people were in tears and with cold chills. She said it had never happened before and it was my music. At the end of the recording session, the orchestra had stood up and applauded, which is exceptionally rare in TV-scoring, to say the least. What I did, I simply threw in everything from my “bag of tricks” (including a little Tannhäuser!) into that last episode. I just pulled out all the stops and let the orchestra go. Happily for me, something like that happened the previous year too. I did BORN AGAIN at Warner Brothers studios, using a good-sized orchestra. And people came out of the booth, the recording engineers and so on, to applaud the music, and ask me why this music isn’t being heard more. The session players get very blasé too, usually, and even fall asleep during sessions because it’s so boring playing synthesised Ravel and Stravinsky every day. But one of the violinists stood up and said it was like a breath of fresh air. What more can a composer ask? On the darker side, I suppose one must say that your concert works tend to stay in the piano bench, your hit records get all the attention, your movie scores get some attention sometimes, but your TV-scores just fly by one day in a week and nobody ever hears them again. It’s like throwing music down the drain.

Are there any other film composers you particularly admire?
I love Jerry Goldsmith’s score for THE OMEN. And David Raksin I think is wonderful, although I don’t think he knows my work. Very few of them know my work… they haven’t taken the time to listen. All they do is just say nasty things. If they went through the bulk of my work they’d realise it has to be the output of someone pretty serious. Unfortunately, I have been what might be called a “lone wolf” or “loner” most of my career, even “outcast” might be appropriate, although I have acquired a number of friends in recent years, mostly in the concert field. Almost all the unpleasantness is forgotten now. There are certainly some megalomaniacs among film composers, but there are many sincere people also. Now I find many orchestras giving me a great deal of respect, and so do the composers I meet.

Are any of your closer friends noted film composers?
John Williams and I have been friends since our record days. He’s really something special. Pete Rugolo has been a friend for years too, and André Previn and I were quite close in our teens before we went off in opposite directions.

Which would you say was your best film score?
I like MASTER OF THE WORLD, and I like the first long cue in CRY OF THE BANSHEE. I think HOUSE OF USHER has some certainly innovative sounds for a motion picture score, and I’m fond of THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM by the way. There’s some atonal music and experimentation on the main title that people are doing today and thinking they’re doing something vastly new, but PIT AND THE PENDULUM was early sixties. It was a modern score for the time and I think I did some very interesting writing on that one. Playing against the picture was unusual then and came in very much later. The Japanese feature cartoon ALAKAZAM THE GREAT was a real wall-to-wall score, almost like a full-length ballet. The orchestra played really well for me that day, but don’t ask me how I managed to fit new songs to Japanese lips mouthing Japanese melodies! Unfortunately, the ALAKAZAM album had little to do with the movie proper. It was really just a little pop spin-off, and you have to see the picture itself to get the full effect. Howard Koch, a respected producer in the business, told me he thought my first score for him, YELLOW TOMAHAWK, was the best score he’d ever heard. It was Stravinsky-esque, but with voices, so rather bold for a B-western in 1954. It was a very good injun picture and I wrote an unusually modern score. A lot of people seem to like my end-titles, and I’m delighted. However one of the best I wrote was for a, rarely seen little movie called MACABRE.

Do you recall your Capitol albums with equal satisfaction?
Yes, there are a number of “original suites” I find particular satisfaction in recalling. I used colors that the average arranger was not using at the time; also I introduced Latin rhythms, African drums or Afro-Cuban drums to concert composing. When I went into a studio, everyone would say, “Well, it’s Les’s usual combination – a cello and 12 drummers!” And sometimes that was true… my combinations were unusual at the time. People were used to just one drummer sitting at one drum-set, but I would come in with 4 drummers or maybe 12 Africans, and that was a little bit of a Puzzle to the people at Capitol Records, at first. Yma Sumac was an unusual phenomenon too. It was during the Elvis Presley heyday, but who would have thought an Inca Soprano would have hit number one? There were at least 4 Peruvian folk albums out with Yma doing her thing before I did “Voice of the Xtabay”, but those albums sold absolutely zero. Subsequently, she took on another musical director and her sales went back to zero.

Are there any recent films you would have liked to score?
My friend John Williams gets all the prize commissions these days… STAR WARS, SUPERMAN, etc. I would like to have scored ALTERED STATES as I admire Ken Russell and love his films. And I could do some interesting scores for any of the current crop of horror films. It’s a matter of luck very often whether one scores a successful film. The luckiest guy in town is the one who happens to score the movie nominated as Best Picture. So often he gets the award.

Can you tell us about your most recent activities, also what your plans are for the future?
I’m moving back closer to Los Angeles and perhaps then I’ll do more films and television. The recent musicians’ strike caused a lengthy lay-off for most of us in that field. I’m intently studying Beethoven, primarily to get the clarity of symphony form as he used it. Also, I’m going through the Bach fugues again, continually studying counterpoint (fugue-writing). It’s the counterpoint, by the way, that helps make the scores I’ve done recently, like BORN AGAIN, a little stronger. Right now I’m doing yet another show for Sea World which will be recorded at the end of this month (February 1981). Actually, they’ve taken quite a liking to my songs there, so much so that last year they commissioned me to do an entire musical. It’s a light and amusing work, the same kind of musical they would open on Broadway, and I would give anything if it were on Broadway instead of playing for whales and dolphins down at the park!

Dimitri Tiomkin’s Golden Decade

Tue, 29 Aug 2023 13:08:17 GMT

Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.21/No.84, 2002

Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven and Roger Hall

Today Dimitri Tiomkin is remembered primarily for his later scores such as THE ALAMO and THE GUNS OF NAVARONE. As enjoyable as these scores are, there is so much more to enjoy in his earlier work. In fact, Tiomkin composed some of the most enthralling music ever to come out of Hollywood. During the 1950s he was the highest paid Hollywood film composer. Why was he so popular? I believe it was the combination of his incredible energy and his gift for writing memorable melodies. He apparently composed with great ease. How did he manage it?

Writing one of the most perceptive contemporary articles about Tiomkin’s craft, published in Etude music magazine in 1953, Dave Epstein describes how Tiomkin worked, explaining that after he reads a script, he begins to write out major themes and movements, “some of which he knows he will never be able to perform for the soundtrack due to the inevitable cutting and editing that goes into the final film job.” Epstein further explains, “After the picture is completed, Tiomkin makes a detailed study of it and of its timing, sometimes spending days running scenes over and over in order to correlate the countless factors that go into the score.” Next he uses a stopwatch to arrange “his more-or-Iess final score, collects his musicians and assembles his orchestra, and after rehearsing, records the sound track, synchronizing it directly with the screening of the picture.”

Epstein also describes Tiomkin’s “staggering productivity,” noting the composer sometimes “averages a picture a month, a pace most Hollywood composer-conductors consider killing.” He attributes this incredible output to Tiomkin’s “thoroughly experienced musicianship and very substantial musical background.” Tiomkin was trained at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in Russia before going first to Paris as a concert pianist and then eventually to Hollywood in 1929. His first film score was for Universal’s RESURRECTION in 1931. That was the beginning of his film score career, although it would take many years before he became famous in the 1950s and ‘60s.

I believe Tiomkin’s film music can be divided into four general periods:

1931-1941 – Early
1942-1947 – War and Postwar Years
1948-1958 – Golden Decade 
1959-1971 – Late

His first Oscar nomination was for LOST HORIZON in 1937 and his last one was for TCHAIKOVSKY in 1971. Among his well received scores during the early and wartime years were Frank Capra’s MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON and his first western score for David O. Selznick’s lusty but flawed film, DUEL IN THE SUN. These scores set the stage for what would become his greatest successes.

The Golden Decade . Few Hollywood film composers achieved what Tiomkin did during what I call his golden decade. Between 1948 and 1958 he composed 57 film scores. In 1952 alone – the year he won two Oscars for his landmark score to HIGH NOON – he composed 9 film scores. Other years he averaged over 5 scores a year. That’s an amazing achievement for any film composer, past or present. During the space of only a few years he received 4 Oscars for his film music and was nominated 9 times. Max Steiner and Miklos Rozsa accomplished similar feats but over a longer span of time. But Tiomkin had a greater impact on the later film music scene because of two key elements – the western score and the title song.

Western Film Scores . Many film critics and movie buffs would pick 1948s RED RIVER, directed by Howard Hawks, as one of the greatest of all western films. Besides the impressive acting talents of John Wayne and Montgomery Clift, there’s Tiomkin’s monumental score. As Christopher Palmer describes it in his outstanding book, Dimitri Tiomkin: A Portrait, “the title-music immediately sets the epic, heroic tone. The unison horn-call is indeed an invocation: the gates of history are flung wide and the main theme, high and wide as the huge vault of the sky, rides forth in full choral-orchestral splendour.” The robust male chorus was directed by his assistant, Jester Hairston, a former member of the Hall Johnson Choir who first worked with Tiomkin on LOST HORIZON. Up until now RED RIVER has only been heard in excerpts such as the Unicorn-Kanchana compilation conducted by Laurie Johnson. It has never received a full soundtrack recording. That’s due to change with a planned Marco Polo CD release in the excellent film score series by the team of John Morgan and William Stromberg.

The Song Scores . Tiomkin was really the first composer to become popular for both the title song and its score. During his golden decade he became known for using the title song as the main ingredient of the score. This technique is demonstrated in his two best-known western scores of the 1950s: HIGH NOON and GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL. Both use the opening ballad as the main theme, which is sung like a common thread woven throughout the film. Thus these scores are monothematic. Both songs also have lyrics by the gifted Ned Washington, who had won an earlier Oscar for his lyrics to ‘When You Wish upon a Star.’ Even though ‘Do Not Forsake Me’ was sung in the film by country & western singer Tex Ritter, the biggest hit recording was by Frankie Laine, who also sang ‘Gunfight at the O.K. Corral’ in that film. To demonstrate the incredible popularity of the title song from HIGH NOON, there is a German CD (Bear Family Records) with 25 different artists performing it. They range from the best-known versions by Tex Ritter and Frankie Laine to jazzy instrumentals by Ray Conniff and Henry Mancini. What other movie title song has received this kind of tribute?

Tiomkin loved to make ample use of source music in his scores. One example is the folk song ‘Buffalo Gals’ in the saloon scenes in HIGH NOON. Another Tiomkin success was the delightful title song for THE ADVENTURES OF HAJJI BABA from 1954, sung by the silky smooth Nat King Cole in a sultry arrangement by the great Nelson Riddle. This song, oddly subtitled a ‘Persian Lament,’ became a huge hit. These Tiomkin hits created what Irwin Bazelon called a “title song mania,” as mentioned in Matthias Büdinger’s thoughtful Tiomkin tribute in the Winter 1999 issue of this magazine. Thanks to Tiomkin’s success, every studio was looking for hit movie songs during the 1950s. Is it any different today after Horner’s hit song from TITANIC?

One other Tiomkin song score that isn’t really a traditional western but does take place in Texas is GIANT, directed by George Stevens and starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean. The score of this film is similar to RED RIVER with its broad, sweeping landscape title theme. Both also make prominent use of chorus. But rather than the majestic title theme in GIANT, many film goers probably remember the folk song, ‘The Yellow Rose of Texas,’ which was not composed by Tiomkin.

Sci-Fi and Suspense . As with most film composers of his era, Tiomkin didn’t just do western scores. Among the others was a science fiction score for 1951’s THE THING, credited to Christian Nyby as director but some say it was actually directed by producer Howard Hawks. For this score, Tiomkin composed a creepy, highly evocative score using a heavily accented title theme to symbolize the massive size of the alien creature. As conductor Charles Gerhardt explained it in an interview with Christopher Palmer: “It’s certainly Tiomkin’s strangest and most experimental score with strong contemporary elements…” He then describes the unusual orchestra used: “a very large group of woodwinds and brass, no strings except for double basses, five percussion groups including two sets of timpani, flexatone, wind-machine, two pianos, three harps, Yamaha organ, pipe organ, and to replace the theremin, the Ondes Martenot.” Gerhardt employed this orchestra when recording a suite for his excellent RCA film score series. He also mentions that Tiomkin was working on this film at the same time as Bernard Herrmann’s THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. Gerhardt mentions that both use a similar orchestra configuration but “Herrmann’s concept is basically a simple one, whereas Tiomkin’s is complex, and from the technical standpoint Tiomkin’s idiom is more advanced.” Both the Herrmann and Tiomkin scores are now considered among the greatest of all sci-fi scores.

Besides his western and experimental scores, Tiomkin also composed more conventional works, including several for Alfred Hitchcock. His first one was for SHADOW OF A DOUBT in 1942, skilfully arranging Lehar’s ‘Merry Widow Waltz’ as it figures to be a key element in the suspense tale. Later came STRANGERS ON A TRAIN in 1951, I CONFESS in 1953, and DIAL ‘M’ FOR MURDER in 1954. All these scores show that Tiomkin could compose in a style other than the rhythmically robust western or sci-fi style. His music for the Hitchcock films is in a lush romantic style, using solo violin and muted trumpet rather than the horns and brass as in his western fanfares. His music was more subdued to underscore the emotional nature of the Hitchcock suspense films.

Tiomkin Speaks . In the aforementioned Etude magazine article, Dave Epstein describes an often overlooked device in film scoring when he writes: “Tiomkin has found that in addition to the timbre of the voice, the pitch of the speaking voice must be very carefully considered and reckoned with in his scoring. Tiomkin finds that certain stars’ voices rule out dominant brasses, for instance, in the background music. Tiomkin goes to the set and listens to the players doing their lines. He talks to them conversationally, noting the pitch and color of their voice.” Epstein then turns to the film composer himself to give an explanation of how he composes for different characters in a film. “The music has the function of helping describe the characters,” Tiomkin stated. “It helps paint the portraits.” He then gives an example: “A couple years back I scored a picture in which the feminine lead was supposed to be a delicately featured Continental. The star playing the role, although a fine actress, didn’t really have that kind of face. It was my job to soften her face, to make her look more Continental, more refined. We did it with the music which accompanied her every appearance on the screen, by developing a delicate, graceful theme. To appreciate the effect of the movie and to realize how much it adds, one should see the average movie before and after the music is added.”

His last sentence is very much the same remark made to me by Aaron Copland about his film music (see the Fall 2000 issue of Soundtrack). I’ve tried it with HIGH NOON and sure enough, the film is not as effective without Tiomkin’s music. One example is the suspenseful ticking motif in the orchestra whenever a clock is shown in the film. This clock motif reaches its climax when the clock reaches noontime and the music stops suddenly as the train whistle is heard. In his book, ‘Film Music: A Neglected Art’, Roy M. Prendergast called this cue “one of the finest, most unnoticed moments in film music.” This cue is included on the Unicorn-Kanchana CD of Tiomkin’s western film music.

After the popularity of the HIGH NOON song, Tiomkin said he was asked to write just hit songs. “I followed the changes in progressive jazz, when calypso came along, I wrote in the West Indian vein. I could write rock n’ roll if necessary.”

He was known for his ability to write memorable title songs. But also he was famous for an acceptance speech he gave after he won his third Oscar for THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY in 1955. This film also featured another hit title song, which this time was just whistled in the film. Tiomkin explained his acceptance speech in his autobiography: “The television audience at the presentation and the newspapers gave me credit for getting off the big joke of the occasion. I was hailed as a wit. Upon receiving my Oscar for the best motion picture score of the year, I expressed my thanks to Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, Strauss, Rimsky-Korsakov, and other great composers. A howl went up all over the country. A prize-winning Hollywood composer kidding Hollywood, poking fun at motion picture music. What could be funnier?”

And it turned out he admitted it was “unconscious humor” and the joke was on him. “I must tell the truth. I gained more fame in those two mistaken minutes than in forty years of music.” By thanking the classical masters who inspired him, he endeared himself to his audience. But more importantly, he was explaining why he had produced so many successful scores and title songs.

Tiomkin on Disc . Unlike other Golden Age film composers like Herrmann or Rozsa, Tiomkin hasn’t been well served on CD. I have an old LP with Tiomkin and his orchestra from 1955 that includes such rare items as ‘Jamie’s Theme’ from A BULLET FOR JOEY and the title theme from THE ADVENTURES OF HAJJI BABA. Even though he frequently conducted his own scores, there have been only a few CDs released. His 1958 Oscar-winning score THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA was available on a PEG CD but that is now out-of-print. Tiomkin and his orchestra are heard on a Unicorn-Kanchana CD from 1985, and another one on Columbia from 1988. There are also a few compilations with Tiomkin-conducted tracks. One of these is ‘Alfred Hitchcock – Signatures in Suspense’ on Hip-O, which includes rare recordings of themes from I CONFESS and DIAL ‘M’ FOR MURDER. Another CD compilation is Music from Hollywood on Columbia Legacy, with Tiomkin conducting an unreleased track of his theme from HIGH NOON.

With all his successes, it’s surprising the only commercial release of his Great Western Scores is on Unicorn-Kanchana, Laurie Johnson conducting the London Studio Symphony Orchestra with the John McCarthy Singers. While the orchestra and chorus do the music up in grand fashion, the weak-voiced Bob Saker is a big letdown.

Two of the best compilations are Lost Horizon: The Classic Film Scores of Dimitri Tiomkin and The Spectacular World of Classic Film Scores , both featuring The National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Charles Gerhardt. The first one includes a suite of Tiomkin’s beautiful music for THE BIG SKY, and a scene in the barn from the enormously popular film FRIENDLY PERSUASION. The second CD includes a ten-minute suite from THE THING (FROM ANOTHER WORLD), which is not entirely successful at duplicating the original but is much better than the shorter version on the Silva compilation, Alien Invasion: Space and Beyond II .

Since Tiomkin’s music is so hard to duplicate convincingly by others, the best way to hear his music is on video or DVD releases for his films, like the excellent 50th anniversary edition of HIGH NOON with its superb sound and picture. For those who are willing to investigate, Tiomkin’s music has much to offer. This is especially true during his golden decade when he was the best-known composer working in Hollywood.

He summed up his popularity best when he wrote in his book: “In Hollywood vernacular, I could write commercial.”

2008 Addendum. Since I first wrote my Tiomkin article in 2002, there have been many CDs of his music. Rather than try to list them all I have chosen ten scores, including some that may be hard-to-find, that were mentioned in my article about Tiomkin’s “Golden Decade” from 1948 to 1958.

1948: RED RIVER – score restored by John Morgan. Moscow Symphony Orchestra and Choir, conducted by William Stromberg. Recorded in Moscow, Russia, February – March 2002. Available on Marco Polo CD 8.225217, 2003. Reissued on a Naxos CD 8.557699, 2005.

1950: D.O.A. – original soundtrack release. Music conducted by Dimitri Tiomkin. Produced by Ray Faiola and Craig Spaulding. Screen Archives Entertainment CD SAE-CDS-017, 2007.

1951: THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD – original soundtrack release. Music conducted by Dimitri Tiomkin. Produced by Lukas Kendall. CD also includes soundtrack to TAKE THE HIGH GROUND (1953). Film Score Monthly CD Vol. 8, No. 1.

1952: THE BIG SKY – original soundtrack release. Music conducted by Dimitri Tiomkin. Produced by James D’Arc and Craig Spaulding. Brigham Young University Film Music Archives CD FMA-DT111, 2003.

1952: HIGH NOON – original soundtrack release. Music conducted by Dimitri Tiomkin. The complete soundtrack including the title song sung by Tex Ritter. Produced by Ray Faiola and Craig Spaulding. Screen Archives Entertainment CD SAE-CRS-018, 2007. Also available is a CD with 25 different artists performing the title song on Bear Family Records BCD 16395 AR.

1954: THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY – Suite – London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Richard Kaufman. Compilation CD: “The High and the Mighty: A Century of Flight,” Varese Sarabande CD 302 066 704 2, 2005. Produced by Paul Stilwell and Robert Townson.

1954: THE ADVENTURES OF HAJJI BABA – Title Song – sung by Nat King Cole, arranged by Nelson Riddle. Compilation CD: “Nat King Cole At The Movies” Capitol Records CD CDP 7 99373 2, 1992.

1956: FRIENDLY PERSUASION – original soundtrack release. Music conducted by Dimitri Tiomkin. Title song sung by Pat Boone. Produced by Bruce Kimmel. Varese Sarabande CD VSD-5858, 1997.

1956: GIANT – studio recording. Music conducted by Dimitri Tiomkin. Originally issued on a Capitol Records LP album in 1963 and reissued many times since then. Latest release: DRG/EMI CD 19080, 2006.

1958: THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA – original soundtrack release. Music conducted by Dimitri Tiomkin. Sony Music Special Products. PEG CD 028 A34281.

The Ladykillers

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 14:49:54 GMT

Label: Screen Archives Entertainment
Catalogue No: FILMCD 177

Release Date: 2002

Total Duration: 60:36

UPN: 0738572108021

The Ealing comedies, with their controlled anarchy, have long been a treasured part of Britain's cinematic heritage - so much so that the term “Ealing comedy” has almost become generic, synonymous in peoples minds with other British comedies of the period, not actually made by the studio. This CD brings together themes and suites from the best loved and best remembered comedies (and some of their fine dramas), composed by an impressive array of names who were among the most important of their generation, both in the film world and the concert hall.

One of the first things one listens out for in a release such as this, is the degree of success with which the music on offer makes the transition from its filmic origins to the more abstract format of a commercial recording. These days, its fair to say, producers and composers have any eye out for the inevitable soundtrack album, with the result that complete and coherent sequences and suites are composed and recorded, even when they may not be fully required for use in the films themselves. But in the heyday of Ealing and other studios, composers wrote entirely to order, often creating musical segments lasting just a few seconds (so- called 'Mickey-Mousing'), in order to capture the mood of specific events as the screenplays unfolded. This would mean that the title and end sequences, along with the odd extended action sequence, for example, afforded composers their only opportunities to write complete and inherently logical music statements. As it turns out, this CD proves to be an entertaining, self sufficient, compilation of scores, discerningly chosen and assembled.

The background to this release deserve a mention, for it took Silva Screen's mastermind, David Wishart, just over three years to bring this, his long- cherished brainchild, to fruition, given the attendant problems: the inevitable, largely futile search for extant music material (often missing or long since destroyed); the need for costly and time-consuming reconstruction of the remaining selections desired (undertaken here by the stalwart CO- producer Phillip Lane); the routine problems of engaging orchestra and conductor, and scheduling the sessions. So what of the final outcome.

Well, the engagement of the Royal Ballet Sinfonia produces far more assured and polished results than were achieved in some of Silva Screen's earlier releases, in which the playing of the Westminster Philharmonic (a non- professional body) made up in enthusiastic commitment what it may have lacked in technical finesse. Once again, the seasoned hand of conductor Kenneth Alwyn is at the helm and his association with Silva Screen has proved highly fruitful. Sound - engineered once again by Mike Ross-Trevor - is characteristically clean and spacious and the accompanying sixteen-page booklet with the, by now, familiarly literate and informative notes by David Wishart, is nicely presented. And so to the music itself.

The CD kicks off with Benjamin Frankel's ingenious theme for THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT, depicting the mechanical looms of the northern textile factory where the story takes place. Like the screenplay itself, Frankel's music here has a dark and unsettling side to it. This is one of the many sequences that Phillip Lane had to reconstruct and, declaring my own specialist knowledge of Frankel's music, I noticed a number of details which vary from the composer's original, although the essential spirit of the music is preserved.

In the case of the French composer Georges Auric - three of those scores are featured here. Phillip Lane was able to obtain some of the original sketches from the composer's widow, thus enabling faithful reconstruction of PASSPORT TO PIMLICO, THE TITFIELD THUNDERBOLT, and THE LAVENDER HILL MOB to be made. As a Frenchman, Auric might appear to have been odd-man-out in the quintessentially British world of Ealing comedies but the first and last of the aforementioned titles have distinctly French plot connections. Auric, who also composed the score for the French classic LA BELLE ET LA BÊTE and the celebrated British horror film DEAD OF NIGHT, was a member of 'Les Six' - a group of French composers, including Poulenc and Milhaud, who were associated during the twenties and noted for their spirited musical humour.

By way of contrast, Alan Rawsthorne (Benjamin Frankel's near exact contemporary) is featured here is three scores he composed for Ealing dramas - THE CRUEL SEA, THE CAPTIVE HEART, and SARABAND FOR DEAD LOVERS, providing a welcome change of mood. The influence of Prokofiev and Shostakovich seems to surface here and one looks forward to the projected release of an all-Rawsthorne album in the near future. Until then, this fine selection should create an appetite.

Ernest Irving who, as Ealing's music director, was responsible for recruiting the talents of so many notable British composers to the studio was himself a capable composer, as illustrated here by his score for WHISKY GALORE.

The underrated Gerard Schumann who produced a number of interesting film scores, alongside his concert works, specially arranged his overture to MAN IN THE SKY for this release, to dramatic effect. Similarly Tristram Cary created a coherent three-movement suite from his score for THE LADYKILLERS, wittily juxtaposing memorable themes from string quartets by Haydn and Boccherini (the much loved Minuet from Op. 13, No.5), amid more sinister music from this blackest of Ealing comedies. The fact that the quintet of crooks poses as a string 'quartet' adds considerably to the fun. One should not overlook Phillip Lane's skilful arrangement of music by Mozart, taken from the famous KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS.

The final offering here is John Ireland's 'Stampede for Water' from his only film score THE OVERLANDERS. This music, in an arrangement by the composer Geoffrey Bush, forms the second of Ireland's Two Symphonic Studies' and was not, in fact, incorporated into the familiar concert suite of the score.

Overall, this is a fine release which film fans in general, and Ealing buffs in particular, will surely want to add to their collections. No doubt material reconstructed by repeated auditioning iS of soundtracks is not as ideal as the original music on which it is based - as iS the case with some of these selections - but, without it, and the sterling efforts of all concerned, this project could not have become a reality.

Originally published in Music from the Movies Issue 17, 1997

The Cobweb / Edge of the City

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 13:15:54 GMT

Label: Film Score Monthly
Catalogue No: FSMCD Vol. 6, No. 14

Release Date: 2003

Total Duration: 50:37

UPN: 0638558016329

Leonard Rosenman pounced on film scoring like a roaring lion, savaging the concept of Late Romanticism which had hitherto grazed happily across the Hollywood musical pastures. Invited to compose the music for EAST OF EDEN in 1955, Rosenman was initially insistent that the film be scored throughout with atonal music – a mode of composition almost totally alien to an industry which by now had an historical investment in providing modal melodic invention, not only as an attractive means of scoring films, but also as a way of promoting the movies themselves - via winning themes issued on commercial discs. Rosenman was persuaded to temper his ambitions, and EAST OF EDEN emerged with a score where serial composition was only utilised in part - to illustrate the complexity of the tale’s more youthful characters - but nevertheless eyebrows were raised, feathers were ruffled, and batons were twitching. Rosenman had heralded his own entrance into Hollywood with what was essentially "new" music.

Of course Rosenman compounded his position as the creator of this fresh and vibrant musical landscape for movies with REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, and established his credentials as a major composing talent for film. And to this day it is mainly his music for these two films which upholds his (considerable) reputation. There have been those who suggest a decline in Rosenman’s compositional ability over the ensuing years - but this may merely be a reflection of the fact that the scores for films like THE BRAMBLE BUSH, SHADOW OVER ELVERON and HELLFIGHTERS were less demonstrative than their auspicious predecessors, and probably needed to be. And it has to be realised that the impact of those early Rosenman film scores was not something to be easily sustained – and in time the element of surprise, of shock, of outrage even, was going to diminish. But it also has to be recognised that down through the decades Rosenman has nevertheless composed scores of awesome modernistic power and diversity – from FANTASTIC VOYAGE to A MAN CALLED HORSE, from BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES to the animated LORD OF THE RINGS. Of course a certain antipathy by some to Rosenman’s sterling work may be prompted by its very mode – his neoteric, often acerbic, and almost always uncompromising approach to composition is just not everyone’s idea of a cosy musical soiree.

With THE COBWEB, scored soon after EAST OF EDEN, Rosenman did get to score a film the way he wanted – with wall to wall atonal music. Perhaps the movie’s subject matter – psychological disturbance – lent itself to the type of music conservative Hollywood moguls might have viewed as "unhinged" in itself. Certainly Rosenman weighs in from the off with music at once urgently dramatic and stylistically challenging. The sheer rhythmic complexity of the scoring alone immediately sets new Hollywood musical precedents. Much of the music for the earlier EAST OF EDEN was groundbreaking – in a seismic sort of way – and here the tremors still reverberate. For THE COBWEB the various problems and neuroses besetting patients and staff alike at the story’s mental institution are detailed in complex music which searingly reflects trauma and dramatic incident – and although there are moments of repose, often etched via engaging woodwind – the cogent scoring is in the main determinedly terse and stunning in its rhythmic audacity.

THE COBWEB was a major enterprise for MGM – as witnessed by its powerhouse cast – Richard Widmark, Lauren Bacall, Charles Boyer, Gloria Grahame. Lillian Gish, John Kerr, Susan Strasberg, Oscar Levant and Lillian Gish – and helmed by the studio’s ace director, Vincente Minnelli – which makes the film all the more fascinating for being the first to be scored with twelve-tone music. Someone here – most probably producer John Houseman – must have really stuck his neck out to secure Leonard Rosenman for this project. But the gamble certainly paid dividends. This is extraordinary music of estimable quality, whether or not these compositions might have originally been intended for a film or for the concert hall. The term "classical" should be applied here in its purist sense.

A selection of music from THE COBWEB was released on album a couple of years after the film’s release in tandem with a suite from Rosenman’s score for EDGE OF THE CITY, and this was reissued in Japan on LP in the Seventies – but for this first CD incarnation Film Score Golden Age Classics have seized the opportunity to provide the full score taken from the original MGM masters – including alternate versions for the End Title music - and in glorious stereo too – the previous truncated LP issues being in mono only. These extended selections – doubling the amount of music on the original commercial disc - are a wonderful revelation – and a very important milestone in the history of film composition has finally been brought to the public arena.

The suite from EDGE OF THE CITY has been transferred from the original album masters to retake its place alongside THE COBWEB. Although no additional material has been made available, this was always a completely satisfying "concert" suite. The terms "dynamic" and "dramatic" seem hardly adequate vocabulary here – this is music so arresting, so cogent, so vital, that the impact of the listening experience is often akin to being boffed by a prizefighter - and "heavyweight" Rosenman has taken his gloves off too! And indeed the suite sports a musical fight sequence every bit as punchy as that in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. But the composer is not completely "unforgiving" on this occasion – and amidst the modernistic musical mayhem there are resting some splendidly melodic motifs. EDGE OF THE CITY, starring John Cassavetes and Sidney Poitier, was the first feature film to be directed Martin Ritt, and dealt with the brutal realities of dubious work practices and blind prejudice among New York dock workers – with Rosenman’s alternately feisty and reflective music perfectly complementing the film’s bruising action, gritty realism and aura of social crusading.

For anyone who holds Rosenman’s scores for EAST OF EDEN and REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE in high regard, even if they have not subscribed to many of the composer’s later works, the music for THE COBWEB and EDGE OF THE City should really be explored. These are essentially stylistic companion pieces to the two early feted scores for the James Dean movies. The cues have been transferred to CD with remarkable care. The stereo tracks for THE COBWEB might have recorded yesterday, and whilst the mono sound for EDGE OF THE CITY betrays the cues’ age, the dynamics are resonant and full-bodied. And needless to say, from these producers, the accompanying bulging booklet is laden with background information on the films, the composer, a detailed track by track analysis of the music, and a legion of stills and poster artwork.

Battle for the Planet of the Apes

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 08:31:37 GMT

Label: Film Score Monthly
Catalogue No: FSMCD Vol. 4, No. 1

Release Date: 2001

Total Duration: 73:43

UPN: 0638558002421

The percussive acousticality of the PLANET OF THE APES series may have never matched, musically, the originally and impact of Jerry Goldsmith’s score for the original 1968 feature. That said, though, the succeeding quartet of sequels nonetheless sustained an interesting development of the primitive nuances that Goldsmith launched. Rosenman’s score for BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES (released on FSM last year) took a darker and more feral edge, providing a suitable backdrop for the sequel’s mix of mutant humanity, simian malevolency, primitive awakenings, and leftover technology. Goldsmith returned for the third film, ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES (a 16-min OST suite appeared on Varese’s 1997 PLANET OF THE APES CD; a full score bootleg was also circulated a few years before that); echoing the film’s contemporary setting, Goldsmith’s music was more modern, instrumentally, while staying within the sparse musical conceptualization of the first film.

With FSM’s latest archival release, the cycle is brought to a satisfying close with complete soundtracks to the series’ last two films. An added bonus is Lalo Schifrin’s raging, pulsing theme from the short-lived TV series. CONQUEST was scored by jazz saxophonist Tom Scott in one of his first film scores. In the film’s booklet, Scott recalls how he consulted with Lalo Schifrin on his rushed attempt to do justice to the film score. Most of Scott’s efforts, however, were sabotaged by post-production recutting as the studio attempted to imbibe the film with more political relevancy. As a result, many cues were dropped and shuffled around and replaced with tracked-in music from the original film. The full score presented on this CD, therefore, marks the first time much of this music has ever been heard since it’s original recording.

Scott’s opening title music is quite appealing, a percussive rhythm that blends a myriad of acoustic elements with a steady riff of piano and drums – at one point even echoing Goldsmith’s pitch-blending effect from the first score. It’s a very evocative opening which is not really sustained throughout the rest of the score. Many cues, like “Ape Servitude” are fairly bland, effective perhaps in underscoring brooding visual sequences, but not too much to listen to on our home stereos. A percussive rhythm is predominant throughout, but the orchestration and diversity of the instrumentation leaves much to be desired. “Civil Disobedience” is a likable exception, with inventive use of “jungle sounds” throughout Scott’s well-stocked percussion section. “Caeser Sneaks Off” incorporates a pleasing flute melody, associated with the character. “Simian Servant School” is a clever, tongue-in-cheek motif for electric guitar over snare drums, with an occasional comic tuba thrown in. “Ape Auction” bristles with energy and restrained power, musically associating the “magnificence” of the “specimen” displayed on the slavery auction block, but the cue quickly wanders into atonality. Many of the other cues are fairly interchangeable suspense music with little appeal apart from the film. But the CONQUEST score closes with a pair of terrific long cues, “Ape Revolt Begins” (5 min.) and the very stimulating “Revolution” (7 min), neither of which were heard in their proper form in the film. Both cues are energetic, thrilling, almost improvisational. “Revolution” in particular is a bold, miasmic evocation of primal persistence. Fierce brass intonations and repetitions of the “Ape March” from the Main Title link each cue’s various interpolations and instrumental frenzy. “Revolution” alone makes the whole score – turn the volume up and let these cues rattle you into submission.

Leonard Rosenman returned to score BATTLE. Transcending the blandness of the film, his music is rich and energetic from the outset, avoiding the lackluster pitfalls of much of Scott’s score. Rosenman’s winds up the orchestra from the first cue and doesn’t relinquish control until the end. Unlike the percussion-dominated music of CONQUEST, Rosenman takes advantage of the complete orchestra, emphasizing brass and woodwinds as much as drums and keyboards, but little strings. BATTLE builds a tremendous aggression around a repeated 4-note phrase which will run throughout the film, occasionally playing off a softer family motif (“Ricky’s Theme”). “Teacher Teacher” contains some tremendous interplay between the piano and orchestra in one of the series’ best chase cues. A minor melody for woodwinds is associated with Caeser. Echoes of the Forbidden Zone from his BENEATH score are heard in “March to the Dead City,” an ominous, stark, oppresive, and bleak musical territory very befitting the Dead City. Even in its more atonal and ambient suspense material, the BATTLE score sustains interest where most of CONQUEST, until its musical climax, did not. “Mutants Move Out” features plenty of assertive brass phrasing, while “Through the Binnoculars” sustains interest through its low, ominous piano and brass beats. The climactic battle scenes are scored vigorously, with effective orchestration and a relentless forward motion.

The CD booklet is nicely analytical, including a track-by-track analysis of the music and a pleasing bit of background data on these two scores. Nicely done, providing a fitting closure to the recorded collection of APES music.

Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.17/No.66/1998 - With permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

An Interview with Leonard Rosenman

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 07:59:23 GMT

An Interview with Leonard Rosenman by Wolfgang Br eyer

First published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.14 / No.55 / 1995

Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

Maybe it would be best if you briefly discussed your early life as a musician… 

My early life as a musician did not exist: I was a painter originally, and I started piano lessons at the age of 15 just as a hobby. And then I began to win prizes for my piano playing at the age of sixteen. I went into the army, where I started to become interested in composition. When I came back, I went to the University of California; I studied with Roger Sessions and with Arnold Schoenberg in Los Angeles. Later on I won a scholarship; I went to Italy and studied with Dallapiccola. Then I became a composer and while trying to get a job as a professor in some large institute, a university or something like that, I was teaching piano on the side. One of my piano students was James Dean! He became a roommate, he moved in with us, and we became very dear friends.

 I had a big concert in New York. James Dean took Elia Kazan to the concert. Kazan asked me if I’d be interested in writing the music for Jimmy’s first film, which was EAST OF EDEN. I refused, because I wasn’t interested in films. The more I refused, the more they wanted me. Finally everyone talked me into it – Steinbeck, Kazan, James Dean, Aaron Copland, Lenny Bernstein. That’s how I got into films. 

The EAST OF EDEN score is considered by many (along with Bernard Herrmann and Alex North), to be the score that really brought music in films into the twentieth century. My great admirer was Benny Herrmann at the time. I had written a great deal, I had conducted, I was a pianist, and so on. I was a twelve-tone composer at the time, and I wanted to really write that kind of score. The director agreed with me, but he said, “Can you also write a beautiful tune?” And I said, “We’ll, I’ll try. You have a stop watch?” “No, but I have a second hand on my watch.” I said, “Start it.” I wrote the tune in 7 minutes. And that became the theme of EAST OF EDEN!

With COBWEB you became a kind of innovator in Hollywood film music circles. Weren’t you taking a great risk, as a young film composer?

 If I wanted to be a film composer, it would have been an outstanding kind of threat. But since I didn’t take film seriously for many, many years, I thought they’d buy me the kind of money to give me the leisure to write my own work. I was totally trained for the concert field and just by luck I had gotten into films. I didn’t care. André Previn said to me at the time, “They are going to throw out your score,” I said, “I bet they won’t, there’s no frame of reference between this and any other score, it’s all atonal.” I didn’t care; I lived in New York at the time. Not that I didn’t try to do the best I can, my name was on it, but at the same time I just didn’t take films very seriously. In the concert field, everything is related to form. In the film field, the form is that of the film. At any rate, they just loved the score, because there was no frame of reference. That became one of the basic scores that influenced an enormous amount of composers in film.

Then you did REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, the second film with James Dean. There is a very exciting main title.

 I did some research in pop music at the time, I knew nothing about pop music, I had the same kind of concept that I had in EAST OF EDEN except that it was a little less complex. I had motifs for people that little by little came in counterpoint with each other.

One cue is called ‘The Planetarium’, and it is very similar to Bernard Herrmann’s score for PSYCHO. Were you aware of this at the time?

 No, I didn’t know it then. I didn’t know Benny Herrmann’s music because I didn’t go to movies and I didn’t listen to film music at the time. A lot of people felt the score sounded like WEST SIDE STORY by Leonard Bernstein. I found that rather interesting, because WEST SIDE STORY came three years later! I remember I used to go to Lenny’s house with Aaron Copland and Aaron would say, “Well, he’s listening to REBEL again.” I’m not saying for a second that Lenny stole anything from me, but he was very inspired by it, like a great many people in Hollywood, probably Benny too. Benny at one time asked me to coach him in areas that he was writing in, in terms of his concert works. I liked Benny, we were good friends. At any rate, REBEL and I’d say COBWEB were the 3 very important scores in terms of how they influenced the other writers. I can’t say that I copied it from Benny, because PSYCHO came later, and Benny knew my work very well, but again he didn’t steal anything, I think he was probably very inspired by the style, and the style fit that film wonderfully.

I read that when you arrived in Hollywood, you were a newcomer, you went to a little guy at a desk in the music building at Warner Brothers and you asked him if he knew what a click track is…

 It was Max Steiner. We were both waiting to see Ray Heindorf, who at that time was the head of music at Warner Brothers; he became one of my closest friends in the world. A wonderful man. And Max Steiner said, “A click-track? Yes, I can tell you about it, I invented it!” And we introduced ourselves, and I didn’t know who he was! I knew every avant-garde composer in the world practically, but I didn’t know any film composers!

You’ve said that your music was influenced by one of your teachers, Arnold Schoenberg, the founder of the Viennese school and you also composed in the twelve-tone idiom…

 I don’t anymore. I think that my work is now much more accessible but it’s rather interesting. For years I didn’t get any performances of my own work because I did films. In 1954 I did EAST OF EDEN, my first film. That year I had 5 major performances in New York, where I lived. The minute I did EAST OF EDEN I didn’t have any performances in New York for 20 years! That’s because suddenly I was a “film composer”. I didn’t get performances and since people didn’t hear my music for a long time, they’d say “Oh, he’s not writing any more.” And I had a whole pile of stuff.  So I got very bitter and very upset by it, and thought to myself, “Maybe they think my music is commercial.” So I started to write music that was a bit more accessible than 12-tone music. And I began to like it much better, but I still had the schizophrenic idea of film music and then concert music. Well, about 5 or 6 years ago, a whole bunch of friends of mine said, “For god’s sake, stop being a schizophrenic, you have great passion and great technique, you write wonderful concert music, why don’t you combine them?” And I said, “You’re absolutely right, I’m tired of doing two things at once.” My work in the last 4 or 5 years is quite different now, much more accessible, although it’s not like film music generally.

FANTASTIC VOYAGE in 1966 had a very avant-garde score… 

Today it’s still considered to be the most avant-garde score in films. It was interesting, I hadn’t done a film score in 4 years, I was living in Italy at the time, and I was conducting there. That’s what I do between films. Unlike the other composers, I will take off anywhere from one to 4 years and do my own work. FANTASTIC VOYAGE I did after 4 years in Italy. Richard Fleischer was the director. The sets were fantastic. I went there and I read the script and I thought it would be fabulous. I played some of my concert music, and Dick said, “That’s exactly the kind of music that I want.” That’s why I wrote this very wild kind of music and orchestrated everything myself. A lot of people in Hollywood were very jealous; they couldn’t understand what I had done because they had no tradition in that.

Living in Hollywood sounds like an adventure…

 Actually, it’s not an adventure at all. Hollywood has no tradition, it has no identity. Los Angeles is a series of small cities, connected by freeways as opposed to New York or Chicago, or Vienna, for that matter.

Do you see yourself as specializing in sequels? You did STAR TREK IV, ROBOCOP II, and 3 of the PLANET OF THE APES films. BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES has a very effective march, the main title… 

The reason why I didn’t do the first ones was that very often when the first ones were done, I was not available. I was either doing my own work or I wasn’t in the city, or living in New York, or teaching at the university, and so on. When I came back, the directors would say, we’ve got the second one, would you like to do it? And I’d say, sure. That is why I did a lot of the sequels but not the originals. 

The march in BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES was based on some of the music that I wrote for the second APES film, BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES, which is the real science-fiction one. That was also a very, very avant-garde score at the time. But again, it had nothing to do with the theory of the 12-tone music; it had to do with something that fit the film. My favorite film scores are usually ones that may have even stolen things from other people, but they worked beautifully for the film, and that’s the important thing.

You won an Academy Award nomination for STAR TREK IV. I particularly like a cue called ‘Crash-Whale Fugue’ – it has a very baroque style trumpet motif…

 It’s interesting, because that whole film was kind of fascinating. I thought it was the best of the STAR TREK films. It was very well directed by Leonard Nimoy, who was a friend of mine at that time. Unfortunately, in the script it stated that I use the original theme of STAR TREK in the main title, which I didn’t like. I did an arrangement of that and Leonard Nimoy said, “From then on you do your own music, anything you want that fits the film.” So I did the end title, which was very big, but was not based on the STAR TREK theme, it was my own theme. One of the parts of it was this fugue based on the whale; I thought the whale was so noble that I decided to do a baroque kind of thing on it to celebrate the living of the whale. When we heard all the music, Leonard Nimoy said, “You know, I must say, I really like your music so much better than the theme, let’s have another session and let’s re-do the main title and do your own music.”

There’s also an interesting cue called ‘Hospital Chase’… It’s an unusual chase theme, it’s like a polka. 

It’s like a more classical version of Charlie Chaplin. I told Leonard Nimoy that’s what I wanted to do. He just loved it. With my technique of music they always asked me to do dramas, fantasies and so on, I wanted to show that I can do humor also. In ROBOCOP II there’s a cue called ‘Robocop Memories’. It has an interesting instrumentation with voices and bassoon or bass clarinet…  The interesting thing in that score was that I was writing a violin concerto that had been commissioned, I was starting to sketch it, and I wanted to put 4 female singers in the violin concerto, but not like a chorus. They were sitting with the woodwinds, the flutes and clarinets. And they would not sing solos. They would sing in such a way that you would wonder, “It sounds like a human voice.” So I thought, “I may as well try it out”, and that’s when I started to use 4 female singers. I thought it worked wonderfully for the film, and it worked really well in the violin concerto!

For KEEPER OF THE CITY you used a very strange sound…

 Yes, I tried to use a kind of church chant, so I’d be able to distort it, because that I was dealing with a crazy character, he was a kind of killer in the film. That was a television show.

The cue ‘Donetti Dies’ is a very effective 54-second cue. Is it a challenge for you to do such a short cue?

 Always, yes. I wanted to say everything in 54 seconds. Sometimes you have to say it in 10 seconds! You don’t get that in classical music and that’s the kind of beauty of the process in film music.

You won a Golden Globe award for THE LORD OF THE RINGS. There is a cue called ‘Helm’s Deep’, it’s seven minutes long, I call it orchestra furioso. 

I’m sorry that you did not hear it on the CD because we remixed it completely. It’s just wonderful now. I played it recently for an audience at Yale University. They just went crazy, they loved it, and they said it would be wonderful if you made it into a concert. I’m making a concert suite out of it. The male chorus sang a strange alien tune, in alien words. I made the words up. They also sang “Dranoel Namnesor,” which is my name spelled backwards! 

I used just one or two electronic effects in the entire score. To me, electronic music is wonderful only because it can give you sounds that you can’t get with an orchestra. I don’t like electronic music in most Hollywood films, because they try to imitate an orchestra. But I did some very odd kind of sounds that you couldn’t possibly get with an orchestra. The film wasn’t very good, which was too bad, because the script was just wonderful. Also, when they put out the LP of the score, the LP could not take the aesthetics of the way the music was performed. That is why the CD is quite extraordinary.

You won two Academy Awards for adapting BARRY LYNDON and BOUND FOR GLORY. What makes it so interesting for a composer to adapt music to a film, and what was your working relationship like with Stanley Kubrick? 

Stanley Kubrick called me and said, “I’ve completed a rather interesting film and I’d like you to arrange the music for me. Have you ever done arrangements for a film?” I said no. He said, “I’ve picked out all the music, but you’ll be able to conduct it with the London Symphony, and we’ll have some fun”, because we hadn’t seen each other since New York, we practically grew up together. So I said sure.

I came to London, I looked at the film, and I didn’t like a lot of the things that he had picked, although there were some that I did like. We argued and we talked and we argued, and so on. I won about 50% and he won about 50%. I did for example an arrangement of the main theme, the harpsichord, into this big kind of thing. Originally he had picked the theme in harpsichord. And I said, “It doesn’t fit that sequence.” He said, “It’s only harpsichord.” And I said, “Let me make an arrangement for it.” We argued. And finally he said, “Hah! It’s gorgeous!” We kind of liked each other, but we won’t work with each other again…

BOUND FOR GLORY was even more complex, because it involved music that I had had no experience in at all. Pop music from the thirties, folk music, but at the same time the score was rather interesting and different. The score had nothing to do with the songs whatsoever, except one or two themes. They had to do with the drama of the picture, with the relationships…

Now it’s interesting because I couldn’t get a nomination for the Oscar on the grounds that this was an original score, because there were 40 songs in the film! Despite the fact that there were 40 minutes of original music in that film! So I got the adaptation nomination and I got the Oscar for it, which is kind of funny because most of it was really original.

What is your working relationship like with your orchestrator, Ralph Ferraro? 

Ralph Ferraro was a student of mine in Rome when I lived there. He was a percussionist at that time; I taught him all about music. I met him in rather an odd way. It was the first time I was conducting there, I had a little book with Italian, and I didn’t speak Italian at the time. I began to tell him, “Play so-and-so,” I was turning the pages of the book to find the translation that I wanted, and he looked at me and said, “I’m from Connecticut, I’ve been living here for 14 years!” 

   We became good friends, I became his teacher, and then I had him come over (to the States) and he became my orchestrator. My orchestrator in Hollywood is different from most orchestrators, in the sense that I do everything with such detail, that even if the orchestrator is sick or can’t do it, I just send my sketches to the copyist and the copyist can copy the whole thing. And now of course he knows my style in films so well, so when I say “brass”, he knows exactly how I do brass. He is superb.

Can you tell us how you feel about film music and classical music? 

Well, as I said earlier, film music cannot be compared to concert music. It’s not that it’s not as good, it’s entirely different. Its function is entirely different. The process is entirely different. The process of film music involves drama, what fits the film. I did a South African film once which was never released. It’s called CIRCLES IN THE FOREST. It was done many, many years ago. A wonderful film. I recorded the music in Munich with the Philharmonic. The score was one of the best scores I’ve ever done. But it’s also a series of sketches for several works that I was writing at the time, although I wouldn’t sacrifice the Hollywood score for the sketches that I’m doing…

What are your favorite scores and what directors did you like working with the most? 

Well, Kazan of course. Fleischer and FANTASTIC VOYAGE. My favorite scores – not including mine – are Benny Hernnann’s score for PSYCHO… JAWS… I think GONE WITH THE WIND is fabulous, even though these scores have entirely different styles, they really are sensational scores. Jerry Goldsmith’s score for PATTON – I think he’s one of the best composers in Hollywood. And I like EDEN too, I must say! (Laughs).

It’s funny, because I did several first films with directors – I did the first film for Robert Altman, it was called COUNTDOWN. But Jack Warner was the head of Warner Bros., he didn’t like the film, it was much too modern for him, people talked at the same time and he didn’t like that. They just buried the film. It was a masterpiece. I did the first film for John Frankenheimer, I did the first film for Martin Ritt, directors like that.

An Interview with Leonard Rosenman

Mon, 31 Jul 2023 12:22:07 GMT

An Interview with Leonard Rosenman by Daniel Mangodt

First published in Soundtrack Magazine Vol.14 / No.56 / 1995

Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

What does it feel like to be a member of the jury in a major film festival?
 I adore it. We get along very well. The films are terrific and I’m having a lot of fun.

Are some of your concert works based on your film music? 
No. A lot of film music is based on the concert pieces. They never come together, they are entirely opposite. When I lecture in the universities, I never teach films, I always teach concert music.

You scored the first two James Dean films, but you didn’t score GIANT…

 I was busy doing another film, and I think the director George Stevens also wanted another composer. I didn’t really care about it. At that time I used to do the score for a film and go home to New York. I didn’t even live in Los Angeles. It was very alien to me. Most people who write film music had ambitions to be in film music. I had no ambition. It was an accident.

Scoring more than 100 films and television movies is rather more than an accident… 

Right. That’s true, except it’s much less than most of the people who work in films. I’ve done 30 films. John Williams has done a hundred. I’m not interested. Sometimes I take off for 2 years, go to Italy or conduct, teach or write my own work. That’s what I do. But then it’s hard to come back, because they ask what I have been doing the last five years. I say; I wrote a violin concerto, a string quartet. “Oh, you have been unemployed”, they reply (laughs). It’s amusing and stupid at the same time.

People like to put a label on a composer. 

They don’t know anything about music, or films. There are experts that are doing the job in secret. There are many people who have 30 people writing music for them. They can’t read or write music.

You mean ghost writers? 

Yes. They don’t call themselves ghost writers; they call themselves orchestrators, because it’s illegal in the union to be a ghost writer.

Because it’s bad for the image of film music? 

But the films themselves are awful. Today you have studios that are only doing these kinds of action films. They’re paying 20,000,000 dollars to an actor. It’s insanity. Films are going downhill. The only good films today are either independent films or foreign films. We’ve been seeing them here. Much better than anything that comes out of Hollywood.

You scored a film called SEPTEMBER 30, 1955… 

Yes, about Jimmy (Dean). It was very weird. It was like going back in a time machine. It was done by a dear friend of mine, James Bridges. It was a true story based upon his experiences in college the day James Dean died. He wanted me to do an adaptation of my own music. It was very strange. I began to do EDEN and REBEL in counterpoint at the same time. I used the whole last scene of EAST OF EDEN; that began the film. We had to rerecord it. It was a lovely film, but the casting wasn’t good.

For PORK CHOP HILL you used a Chinese folk tune… 

It was my idea from the beginning. I wanted to use a folk tune. I looked it up and I picked this one. It was free. I formed a kind of a march based on that. I haven’t heard that score in years, but they tell me it’s good (laughs).

Between 1962 and 1966 you stayed in Italy… 

I lived in Italy, conducted mostly (the Santa Cecilia Orchestra) and I did all the music for the World War II series COMBAT. I just loved it and I wanted to stay there, but then my friend Dick Fleischer, who was my next door neighbor, called me and said he wanted me to do FANTASTIC VOYAGE.

It’s one of your favorite scores.

 It’s one of the most interesting ones. I used Klangfarben. Not only was it avant-garde in terms of music, but it was also very different dramatically. In the film people went into the body in reel 5 and I didn’t want to use music until reel 5. Everybody said: “What are we going to do?” And I said, “Just use special effects and no music”. They tried it out and they loved it.

Using music in the first part would have been wrong.

 Absolutely, but most people in Hollywood wouldn’t have known the difference. But it worked very well.

Nowadays there is too much wall-to-wall music in films. 

I absolutely agree with you. I was the first one to start silence in films. At the time of EAST OF EDEN, Warner insisted every film had music from the first frame till the last. Just boring. The score was very revolutionary, because it had a lot of silence. You must respect what is going on in the film.

In EAST OF EDEN the father hums his theme before it is later heard in the music… 

We arranged that. I wanted the music to be inaccessible from the dramatic framework, in other words, you couldn’t extract it from the film. That’s why it wasn’t played anywhere in the concert, because I didn’t make any concert version of it. Now that EAST OF EDEN is back, I’ve made a concert version of it that will be recorded later this year.

What about the dramatic use of the music you wrote for the Planetarium scene in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE?

I played it as a drama, because the end of the world was a kind of symbolic end of the world and later on became the end of the world for the kid, because he died. That’s why I didn’t want the thing to stand out as a different scene.

You’ve written music for a lot of ‘second-rate’ films. 

That’s because, when I’ve finished working on my own work, I want to get back and sometimes the only thing that’s open is a film that I know is not even good, but I need the money to pay my leisure, to do my own stuff.

You did HELLFIGHTERS.

 John Williams was supposed to do that, but he got appendicitis and I was asked to step in. It had a good ‘western’ theme.

In one case you didn’t do the sequel, but the first movie: A MAN CALLED HORSE. You used a lot of ethnic music. 

I collected a lot of original music for a museum from the Sioux Indians. I lived with them for a while. I wanted to make a real combination of drama and their music. Everyone was fascinated, because they had never heard a score like this. It sounded very simple, but it was very complicated.

You didn’t score the sequel. 

My best friend Irwin Kershner, who directed the sequel, asked me to score it. But Kershner was never able to make up his mind about what kind of score he wanted. One moment he wanted oriental music, very heavenly, slight and spiritual; two minutes later he wanted violent music with drums and so on. “What about violent spiritual music” I asked (laughs).

You also did CROSS CREEK. 

I present 2 scenes from this film in my speech later this week (at the seminar). These two scenes are really extraordinary. We planned them for film and music the way music really tells a story and if there is no music in those scenes, you don’t know what is going on. It was a wonderful film, but the merchandising was so terrible that nobody saw it.

You once called television the ‘schlock’ medium… 

I don’t do television any more. I used to do a lot. It’s the most idiotic medium in the world. If I was starving to death I wouldn’t do it. There were some wonderful things (FRIENDLY FIRE, SYBIL), but today they couldn’t be done anymore. You have no idea how illiterate those people are. It’s just dreadful. If they do a drama for 2 hours, they have to have 7 acts to fit the commercials. I don’t even watch it. I just watch the news, and that’s no good (laughs).

You did MARCUS WELBY… 

Yes, but the most revolutionary music for television was COMBAT.

You did a show called HOLMES AND YOYO… 

I did? When did I do that?

(Checking my papers) In 1976. It was a show about a policeman who had a robot as partner. 

Oh! Dreadful! It was a pilot. I thought it was a wonderful idea, but it was not done well.

What happened on the film THE LAST HARD MEN? 

They threw out the score. The director Andrew V. McLaglen asked me to score it. I thought the film was dreadful and he showed it with temporary avant-garde music. It was crazy. I finally did it and it was the wildest way-out music and they threw it out and put in a guitar thing (track music by Jerry Goldsmith). He asked me to write avant-garde music and then threw it out!

There are very few CD’s with your film music.

 This coming year you will have a lot of them: EDEN, REBEL, FANTASTIC VOYAGE and BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES. Also several concert pieces: a violin concerto, a string quartet, a double concerto and, I hope, Foci II.

Leonard Rosenman on Scoring Star Trek IV

Sun, 30 Jul 2023 08:24:41 GMT

An Interview with Leonard Rosenman by Randall D. Larson

Introduction by Ford A. Thaxton – Originally published in CinemaScore #15, 1987

Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor and publisher, Randall D. Larson

It’s hard to believe that it’s been twenty years since STAR TREK first appeared on our TV screens, and it’s only appropriate that Paramount Studios has released the latest installment in the film series this same year. STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME stars most of the original cast and is once again directed by Leonard Nimoy himself. However, one crewmember who isn’t returning is composer James Horner, who had scored the last two films. At Nimoy’s choice, a new composer beams aboard to try his hand at going “where no man has gone before,” and that new composer is Leonard Rosenman.

Rosenman is a long-time veteran, having scored such films over the last 30 years as EAST OF EDEN, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, A MAN CALLED HORSE and CROSS CREEK. He is also one of the few composers who write for film who has also maintained a career as a Concert Hall composer with works performed all over the world. Rosenman has been honored by Hollywood with two Oscars for his work on BARRY LYNDON and BOUND FOR GLORY. He comes to STAR TREK IV as no stranger to fantastic films, having written memorable music for such things as the classic TWILIGHT ZONE episode, “And When The Sky Was Opened”, COUNTDOWN, THE CAT CREATURE, LORD OF THE RINGS and BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES.

How did you receive the assignment to work on STAR TREK IV? 

I’ve been a friend of Leonard Nimoy for years, and this was the one that he felt would be best for me, because it was an original one, different than all the rest, and would utilize my particular abilities. I’ve always wanted to score a hardware film, because I’ve been a so-called “modern composer” off the screen, and it gave me a chance to really utilize a lot of the techniques and dramaturgic abilities that I’ve accumulated over 34 years.

You haven’t really scored that many science fiction films. The ones that come to mind are BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES, LORD OF THE RINGS and FANTASTIC VOYAGE… 

FANTASTIC VOYAGE was a kind of trail blazer in many ways, and has become a kind of cult film.

That’s one of my favorite genre scores, it has some groundbreaking uses of interesting and new sounds. 
Yeah, without electronics!

How do you feel about scoring these kinds of films? Are there any particular approaches that are especially useful in these films?

I’ve scored mostly intimate films dealing with human relations, all the way from my first film, EAST OF EDEN. It’s always been films of that kind, and I’ve had very little opportunity to do so-called large genre films, giant blockbuster films. Of course, I haven’t really been on the film scene that much, I do take off and do concerts and write concert music, which actually occupies most of my time, and so I do an average of about one film a year. The result is, is that my career is not, let’s say, as visible, as some of the other people.

Coming in to STAR TREK IV, you’re kind of following on the heels of these large, bombastic William-esque kind of things, what with Goldsmith’s original, and the two James Horner things. Did that cause any problems or challenges for you in scoring this film? 

The greatest challenge that it posed was that you’re dealing not with something new but with 20 years of habit with Sandy Courage’s theme. The idea of trying to create, as Jerry did, and I think even Jamie tried to do it, a new Star Trek theme is shoveling sand against the waves. My original idea, and as a matter of fact even the script, called for Sandy Courage’s theme at the beginning. I thought, “Well, if I have to do it, I’ll make a fantastic arrangement of it, the kind they’ve never heard before.” I took it a bit slower and very sweeping, and then for the rest of the film I had my own music. As a matter of fact, this time I utilized motifs for the various characters, which has never been done in STAR TREK before. There is a main Star Trek motif, which I repeated throughout the entire film, and also in the end title credits. Well, suddenly Leonard Nimoy ran the film, and he put the end credits music against the main title, and thought that it had so much energy and was so much better that he said “let’s forget Sandy’s theme, let’s use your own.” So, except for the fanfare, which is Sandy’s, the rest is all mine.

How would you describe your approach to scoring this particular film?

First of all, there’s less music in this film than in any other science fiction film. Most science fiction films are wall-to-wall music. There are several reasons for this. First of all, I think this is one of the first science fiction films in which the relationships are much more important than the special effects. It’s a film that doesn’t depend on hardware. We loved the film just as much when we saw the rough cut without any special effects as we do seeing the film totally finished. For those of us who know the film, it doesn’t make it any realer for us, because the real thing is in there already, which is the relationship between the people.  So it’s a very warm film, and it’s also a comedy. There are very, very funny lines and the thing is incredibly rich in situation, and the result was that these lines had to come through and you really didn’t need that much music.

 Most of the music, oddly enough, turns out to be lumped together in the last 5 reels of the film, and then, of course, it’s almost wall-to-wall, because there’s a lot of action. That’s where I think the score will really be remembered. Aside from the main and end credits, which are quite thick, almost symphonic, there’s a giant whale fugue that I use, which is a real cap off to a large scale cue that lasts eight minutes. That came off so well that I reprised it in a slightly different form in the end credits, which gave it almost another movement. It is quite long.

You mentioned earlier than a lot of your background has been in films that dealt with relationships, with people, with the inner side of things rather than the more bombastic surface level. It’s appropriate, in that sense, that you are scoring this particular film which emphasizes that aspect. 

The strange thing about it is that these parts that really deal with human relations in the film don’t need any music! They’re that good. This is the kind of film where, ordinarily, one would think “they hired me because they want me to write some very warm, feeling kind of music.” But most of it is very heroic, which is kind of odd.

You mentioned earlier, and obviously in your other work you are considered something of a “modern” composer. Would you consider this to be a modern score, or a throwback to the Korngold romanticism?

It’s got “modernity,” whatever that means, but basically it’s certainly in this kind of heroic Korngold tradition, although it is orchestrated in a much more contemporary way. It also has jazz in it, which I did with the Yellowjackets…

When is that music used?

That’s used in a big scene, the first scene in San Francisco. I felt that they wanted something like AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, and I felt that listening to this, it’s a real shock, after all this really symphonic stuff. I mean, it seems something we know, but it’s something they don’t know. In a preview, it literally brought people out of their seats.

How would you describe the thematic structure?

It’s a straight eight-bar phrase, which is a very strong handle, because it’s memorable, it’s repeatable, and it is repeated in the film. And it’s a kind of a thing that I use in very much the same way that I would use it in a much more intimate film. There’s a scene where the girl, in a disconsolate way, runs to a truck, sits down and thinks for a while of what she wants to do. And I have this theme suddenly come in, and you know she’s thinking of going to see Captain Kirk. I mean, you simply know it. The theme reads her mind, which is a kind of thing I would do in a much more intimate film.

At what point during production were you brought in?

I was brought in when the script was only half-written. Leonard and I talked about the music a long, long time. He has a very intelligent approach to it, which is mainly that where there are an inordinate amount of special effects, the special effects should be there and let’s not have any music. And when music is there, let’s really have the music come out.

That sounds like a marvelous opportunity for a composer. So often, especially in a special effects film, the music tends to get drowned out by the sound effects… 

It doesn’t matter. If you have a film that lasts two hours, and you’ve got two hours or an hour and a quarter of music, diminishing return sets in and eventually you don’t hear it. I don’t mean to disparage John Williams, because I think he’s wonderful, but I think that the thing that really gave John Williams this enormous reputation from STAR WARS was the main and end title. That’s about the only thing you can really hear. When I first saw it, my hat was off to John just for the herculean task of writing that much music.

Well, this score is about 31 minutes long, and that’s probably the shortest big-picture sci-fi score on record. It’s also got much more humorous music than any other sci-fi score, or anything I’ve written. It’s got two fantastic chases, and it’s a tribute to Leonard too. He is, basically, a beginner director, he’s wet his whistle on one film, and this is the first time he’s been totally on his own. Of course you’d know that Leonard would be wonderful with the actors, because he knows them, he’s worked with them for years, and he’s a good actor himself. So you’d know he knows how to direct actors. But then you think, well, what about the action? Well, it’s just as good. He’s a natural director, and I think, after this, he will be one of the really big directors.

Would you be able to say overall how much time you spent in composing and scoring? 
There were a lot of problems with the composition itself, because I was writing for the film as the special effects were coming in, and very often the special effects came in different lengths than what they ordered. The result was that they had to fix preceding and succeeding scenes in order to fit those things, so I was constantly re-writing cues. One cue I wrote about eight times! But that’s the racket. I probably would have been really frustrated if I wasn’t working for someone like Leonard.

What kind of instrumentation did you use in the score? 

98 men.

Which orchestra was that?

Mostly people from the L.A. Philharmonic. And then, of course, I used a lot of electronic instruments for the jazz stuff. I worked with the Yellowjackets, who are just marvelous, Russ Ferrante and Jimmy Haslip and the rest of us went into Russ’s electronic lab and we ground out something that was really quite good.

Was there any merging of electronic and orchestra, as is prevalent these days? 

No. Just in the jazz we used a live synth player and a live bass player.

Do you think this particular job here might benefit any larger assignments in the future?

I would think so. You know, as Leonard said, “relax, you’re riding a hit.” To be connected with a successful film is the key, because very few people know anything about music. They simply want somebody that’s connected with a big hit. Then, of course, you form a team. Although I can’t speak for him, I’m sure that Leonard feels good luck with a team like that and I’m sure, if he made another film, he’d want to go with as many members of his team as possible, because they work. And I’d much rather work for one or two or three people than totally freelance, because after a while it becomes almost telepathic, you don’t have to debate things.

You’d think that when you work with a group of people that you know you would avoid some of the things that some other composers are having, and that’s scores being thrown our three-four times over… 

Oh, well listen, there’s an old saying here, that you’re not a man until you’ve had a score thrown out. I’ve had two of them thrown out. But two in 34 years is not too bad.

Can you say anything about any future projects that are coming up? 

None in films. I’m working on three different commissions now, which takes me up to next summer. I’m doing a string quartet; I’m doing a concerto for viola and orchestra, and a song cycle for soprano and chamber group that has a premiere the 23rd of March in Pittsburgh.

Do you enjoy this diversity – a little bit of film work, little bit of concert work and all that? 

Yeah, and also teaching. I’ve taught at Cal Arts and USC. I’m going down to Australia to lecture there, and then I go the next year to New Zealand and take the New Zealand Symphony on tour.

That gives you a good variety of various musical pursuits…

I love the idea of keeping my options open and I love the idea of participating in all aspects of music. I don’t participate in pop music, I mean films are the closest thing I do to that. But, if I’m going to do one film a year, I’d really like to do a big film. I’m a little tired of doing small films that deal with individual problems, although some of them are simply marvelous. I scored a film three years ago, CROSS CREEK, a wonderful film that nobody saw, and I got an Oscar nomination out of it. If you do a good job, people know.

It’s great to see you having worked on and being connected with STAR TREK IV, both not only for the film’s benefit but for your own benefit, and hopefully we’ll be seeing you getting some of the recognition you deserve, publically. 

Thank you. A lot of people have simply said that. I have several biographers who, referring to my career, say that I have an “unaccountably low profile.” But we’ll see if that’s remedied. It’s actually been my choice, I absented myself from films totally for four years by moving to Rome and conducting there. Now I kind of like it. What happens, like in any other business, there are a lot of idiots and there are a few really top people, and what I’d like to do, if I have to do a film to make my livelihood, not that I don’t do the best job I can, I may as well do it with people who are interesting and alive.

An Interview with James Fitzpatrick

Sat, 22 Jul 2023 12:43:46 GMT

 Originally published @ Film Music Review – An online e-zine since 1998

 Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor and publisher Roger Hall

Over the past four years, you have many Sammy Awards for “ Excellence ” with your outstanding work with the Tadlow Music label. How did that record label get started and how did you decide which film soundtracks to record first?

Because of the success of the contracting business, I decided to set up my own small label, to record every once in a while a score that I particularly loved… profits allowing. And, as being brought up in the 60’s, my choices very much centered around childhood favourites like THE GUNS OF NAVARONE, EXODUS, EL CID, TRUE GRIT and THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. And this year I fulfilled dual ambitions of recording THE ALAMO (for Prometheus Records) and the complete LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, which had always been a lifetime ambition as LAWRENCE was the very first film I ever saw in the cinema!

 You are a highly respected and prolific album producer of numerous CD releases. Please tell about your beginning years as a producer at Silva Screen Records and how it developed from then on.

 I started in the “music business” in 1973, straight after college, basically by mistake as I should have gone on to read Law at university, but took a year “off” exams by working in a record store. One thing led to another and I found myself managing a specialist Film and Show music shop in Soho in London in the late 70’s, that was 58 DEAN STREET RECORDS.

Then around 1983 I formed SILVA SCREEN RECORDS with Reynold D’Silva. Our goal was to release soundtrack albums that were not available in Europe. This proved successful especially with albums like CROCODILE DUNDEE that we decided to also record some of our favourite classic scores. Early recordings that I was “executive producer” on were THE BIG COUNTRY, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and MUSIC FROM HAMMER HORROR FILMS, all performed by The Philharmonia Orchestra and recorded in London. However I was not too happy with some of these recordings, as certain production decisions were made at the sessions that I did not agree with, plus in London there are 2 recording rates. The first being the “Album Rate” in which the fee paid to musicians just covers the use of the recording in that particular album. In other words you do not own the recording 100%. In order to own the master rights you have to pay the much higher “Buyout Rate”. As a small record label this is something that we simply could not afford but we needed a buyout rate as actual album sales could not justify the recording costs , and we needed to be able to license the music for other usages like in commercials, film trailers, etc…

So I started to look around Europe for an orchestra that would be more economical to record but who also had the quality of London musicians, and with whom I could have greater artistic control and freedom (It is only really in USA and UK that they have this difference in recording rates… most other countries just have one simple buyout fee). Composer friend Carl Davis had just come back from recording his score for THE TRIAL in 1988 in Prague and raved about the musicians. So in February 1989 I set off to Prague with conductor Derek Wadsworth and music associate Nic Raine, to record an album of the Nino Rota music from all the Fellini films. Apart from the cold we had such a great time at the recording that I have been recording in Prague ever since.

From 1989 to 2000 I spent most of my time in Prague recording albums for Silva Screen Records: some were out and out commercial titles like BOND BACK IN ACTION, MUSIC FROM THE FILMS OF ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, GREATEST WESTERN THEMES etc., while other titles were of the “labour of love” variety like THE LAST VALLEY, THE LION IN WINTER, THE FILM MUSIC OF JEROME MOROSS.

Then around 2000 I decided to get out of the mainstream record industry as I saw the way business is going downhill, and set up my own music contracting company TADLOW MUSIC. The term Music Contractor can seem a little vague, in England a contractor is called a Fixer. This is a more accurate description as I “fix” orchestral recording sessions for clients in both London and Prague. So, basically, if a client or a composer or a producer needs to record an orchestra for either an album, film score, TV score or Video Game then I handle the booking of the musicians, studio, engineer etc., and often produce the recording sessions. In this capacity I have been fortunate to work with many wonderful composers including Rachel Portman,Kevin Kiner, Carl Davis, Guy Farley, Mark  Thomas, Elmer Bernstein and Maurice Jarre.

You mentioned in your CD sleeve notes that you knew Maurice Jarre for many years. Did he ever tell you how he was hired to work with David Lean on LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and anything unusual about how the score was composed or first recorded?

 Maurice told me many stories about the recording of LAWRENCE... mostly far too long to go into now as they would fill a small book, but Maurice did tell me the way that producer Sam Spiegel liked to approach different composers and make promises that he knew would never be fulfilled.

David Lean's original choices were of course Malcolm Arnold and his great friend William Walton. The rough cut of movie was screened to Malcolm Arnold and William Walton... but apparently they were both a little tiddly from too much wine at lunch, and thought the movie was just one long travelogue and David Lean overheard their comments and, depending upon whose account of the matter you read, they either declined to score the movie or were not even offered it. So then Sam started approaching many other composers including Benjamin Britten (he felt he needed a year to compose the music) Aram Khachaturian (he wasn’t able to leave Russia) and even musical composer Richard Rodgers, who even composed a “Love Theme from Lawrence of Arabia“... so it was obvious that he hadn’t quite got the idea of the movie!

In the meantime Spiegel also approached the little known French composer, Maurice Jarre to write some of the ethnic music cues because Maurice had recently scored SUNDAYS AND CYBELE which utilized Tibetan music... although this was library music that Maurice hadn’t even composed. In Maurice’s own words : “When I arrived in London there was still great uncertainly as to who was going to score the movie as Spiegel was still “negotiating“ with bigger name composers, so in my first few weeks there I just sketched out a small amount of music as nobody really knew which sections of the movie I would be scoring. At that point David Lean hadn’t spoken to me apart from “Hello“ and “How are you?“ etc. One day Sam suddenly called me into his office and asked if I had actually written anything for the film. I said “sure“ and started to play a theme, which later became the music of the main LAWRENCE theme, on the piano. David Lean was there and suddenly jumped up, came over to me and put his hand on my shoulder and said to Sam “This chap seems to know exactly what I want and understands the music for LAWRENCE OF ARABIA... maybe he should do all the score?“ Sam turned to me and said “Well, Maurice, you have six weeks to write and record the music!“

But even after Maurice had been asked to compose the score it appears that Spiegel was still negotiating with other composers as he was obviously worried that such an inexperienced composer might not be able to complete the task in time for the premiere of the movie. It seems that one of the other composers approached at this time was Gerard Schurmann... who was in fact offered co-composing. Gerard’s account published in The Cue Sheet in 1990 is very detailed about the whole affair and differs quite dramatically from Maurice’s own account, also featured in The Cue Sheet in April 1990. I certainly would not be the person to question either account, as I was not there. So maybe it is best to leave this chapter alone except to say that obviously Maurice and Gerard did not “hit it off“ and Maurice was not happy with the orchestrations and Gerard was less than pleased with the standard and detail of the compositional sketches he was being given.

Maurice also told me about working with Adrian Boult on the score. He recalled: “At that time in the British Film Industry there was what was called the Eady plan, whereby the government would grant certain subsidies or tax breaks as long as a high percentage of British technicians were used on the movie. Sam Spiegel knew that I wanted to conduct but he wanted (and needed) and additional British credit on the music budget. As the orchestra booked for the scoring was The London Philharmonic Orchestra then Sam said he wanted Sir Adrian Boult to conduct. I thought this was wonderful as he was a fabulous conductor and I had great admiration for him. On the day of the recording sessions he rehearsed the first cue with the orchestra, but when it came to the actual “take“ I advised him about the streamers coming across the screen and how he had to be in sync with these and the tempo markings on the score. At this he began to give me a totally blank look and said that he had no idea what I was talking about! Apparently Sir Adrian hadn’t conducted a film score in this way and he explained to Sam that he was not experienced in this and he said to Sam “This young chap you have here seems to know how to do it. So from that point I conducted all the music, but Sir Adrian got the screen credit“.

It would seem that Sir Adrian did record versions of “The Overture“ and “The Voice of the Guns“, as two quite different performances of these cues appeared on the special LP and Souvenir Brochure box-set edition which did not feature on any other edition of the soundtrack that appeared in 1962. But these were also re-recorded with Jarre conducting. It also appears that the London Philharmonic Orchestra at some stage in the recording had to be replaced with session musicians organized by Gerard Schurmann and his contractor Phil Jones, as both Jarre and Schurmann felt the orchestra were not really quite up to the more complicated cues. Having recorded the score twice I can vouch that some of the cues are the most difficult to record both from a performance standpoint and just getting a balanced sound.

Maurice was certainly less than happy with the re-recording I did for Silva Screen a few years ago. And I don’t blame him as just about everything that could go wrong on a series of sessions did, but Maurice put the blame (in his interview in the Cue Sheet) on my choice of studios...CTS Wembley. However, this is not correct, as my choice all along had been to record LAWRENCE at Abbey Road studios with Mike Ross-Trevor... but the production was “hi-jacked“ in my view by Christopher Palmer who insisted that Maurice would be far happier recording at CTS Studios with Dick Lewzey engineer. This certainly was never my choice... but I was overruled by Christopher, who also took it upon himself (with he said Maurice’s blessing) to change some of the orchestrations and make edits that to me did not make sense. So the recording didn’t turn out as either Maurice or myself wanted... it would have been so much better at Abbey Road and maybe would have saved me a fortune having to record the whole score all over again.

Fortunately I met Maurice in Seville a few months after the CTS sessions and he said to me in his most charming way “James, that recording you did is really sheety!... but the booklet and artwork are superb“. So we still remained friends and could laugh about it, especially as I did make a promise to “have another go at Lawrence“ but this time with the orchestra, studio and engineer of my choice .

 Did Maurice Jarre ever mention his desire to record the complete score and why do you think it has taken so long to record the complete LAWRENCE OF ARABIA?

 Mainly expense I suppose, as for this recording I had to get all the original oversized manuscripts of Schurmann’s orchestrations transcribed onto the Sibelius notation programme… which took a great deal of time and money. Then of course the orchestra is rather huge, numbering 100 musicians including 11 percussionists, 3 ondes Martenots, 2 grand pianos, 2 harps, 5 clarinets and an enlarged string section. Plus maybe my attempt with Silva put other companies off any recording… for although not a recording with which I was too happy it did sell very well for Silva. I was surprised that Maurice never really wanted to attempt a re-recording as certainly I was once approached by Robert Townson at Varese about providing them with the original manuscripts as they were considering a re-recording in Scotland. Also Maurice had a relationship with Milan Disques… so I was surprised that Maurice didn’t want to record the score with them. But I am glad to say that with the improvement of the Prague orchestra over the past few years and the sound that engineer Jan Holzner gets at Smecky Music Studios, I feel the wait has been worthwhile?

 You mentioned the debate over the original Gerard Schumann orchestrations for LAWRENCE. Do you believe that Maurice Jarre has been unfairly criticized or that this orchestrator perhaps gets more credit than he deserves?

 Yes, I do believe that from some rather vocal sources there has been the most unfair criticism. I do not want to particulary re-open that debate except to quote from one of Maurice’s other orchestrators: "You'll be happy to see Maurice's original sketches at USC soon. Maurice wrote all of LAWRENCE, which is in his handwriting. Same with ZHIVAGO. I think that the original orchestrator maybe made a bit of a stretch to claim otherwise! The sketches say it all." As I say in my sleeve notes for LAWRENCE:

Over the years there has been much debate in the film music community over the role in general of orchestrators and what their influence might be on the final scoring of any movie. There has also been more specific (and often unduly heated) debate over the partnership on LAWRENCE of Maurice Jarre and Gerard Schurmann. It is well documented that they did not see eye to eye! I will leave it to other more qualified persons to debate this further... if they wish. All I can add is that Gerard Schurmann’s orchestrations are vivid, challenging and imaginative, whilst Maurice Jarre’s thematic material is truly inspired; and, as CD 2 will show, this melodic inspiration continued for the next 40 years of his career in film music.

My final thought on the matter is that around the same time Gerard Schurmann did the orchestrations for THE VIKINGS and EXODUS and yet doesn’t seem too concerned about his lack of credit for these two classic films?

 In addition to being album producer, you have been a conductor of the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. When you decide to conduct is it a personal choice because of some favorite music?

 I try to conduct as little as possible and leave that to those much better at it. Plus you have much more control over both performance and recorded sound by producing… especially if to click… as when conducting you are concentrating on (and being distracted by) the click and often you can only hear the sections of the orchestra closest to you so that you have absolutely no sense of orchestral balance. I often to say to young composers who I contract orchestras for “Don’t bother conducting, unless you are really good at it, stay in the booth and produce”!

 You have made such good choices for Tadlow CD releases, including epic soundtracks like EL CID and EXODUS. How do you obtain the necessary funds to complete and distribute such elaborate recordings?

 I have been lucky that over the past few years the contracting and producing side of my business has been successful and that has funded the recording side. At the end of the day not one Tadlow Music release has recouped its costs. I knew that would be the case when I started it... but fortunately my main business helps to offset the losses of my "hobby"! But the signs have been there for the last two years that sales of CDs are actually falling and this is not being offset by enough revenue from downloads etc.! The only way some of these releases might earn extra revenue to help pay for them is by licensing out tracks for other usages, like commercials etc. I feel very lucky that with LAWRENCE and the next release, I have now recorded every one of my own personal choices. (all of which have been critically acclaimed... I am glad to say) So I need not record any other titles. But it would be nice to go on if the only reason was the preservation of film music: both the manuscripts and the audio recordings. For without this a great deal of music will be "lost" to future generations. It is just a shame that the very people who do make revenue from these copyrights... the music publishers... have never helped it this restoration of "their" music!!!

 Of all your many previous releases on Silva Screen and Tadlow, can you name a few that were especially memorable or problematic?

 I much prefer doing single composer scores or collections as compilations of different composers are much more difficult to record because stylistically each track is different and it takes a while for the orchestra, the conductor, the engineer and me to adjust to each new track. Among my favourite albums to record have been the John Barry ones like THE LION IN WINTER, THE LAST VALLEY, ROBIN AND MARIAN, WALKABOUT, RAISE THE TITANIC because at the end of the day (and I am not trying to be derogatory here) John’s music is very simplistic and formulaic, so everything is relatively easy to record and perform… it is more a case of getting the right “feel”, or waiting for the right “take” which can either be take 1 or take 5… who knows?

I also loved researching and recording the 2 albums I did of music by Jerome Moross: VALLEY OF GWANGI and THE CARDINAL. Plus I had great fun… and recording should always be fun… recording THE GODFATHER TRILOGY and THE PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN TRILOGY. And of course all of the Tadlow CD’s have been memorable because each album usually takes up a year of my life from beginning the research, trying to track down scores, to the score reconstruction process, and then to the actual sessions followed by intensive mixing, editing and mastering, and then finally to the preparing the artwork. I am totally involved with each and every process of the recording.

Problematic? Well most recordings have some problems to overcome… usually budgetary because there really is never enough time or money to record things as perfectly as I would like. I am certainly rather ashamed of some of the earlier productions I did in Prague and wish that I had spent a wee bit more time on rehearsals as in the early 1990’s the orchestra, while being good, were not up to the standard of London. One of the main problems with Prague in the 90's were the really awful recordings Thomas Karban did for Edel which were then licensed to Silva. Thomas just did not allow any time for the orchestra to rehearse... and expected a good performance after just one take, plus he swamped the orchestra in artificial reverb... so even the LSO would sound rather sloppy with no rehearsal. However, I also did my own fair share of poor productions for Silva (and other labels) in the 90's... mostly under pressure of tight budgets and little or no rehearsal. But also remember that the very first album I recorded in Prague on February 6th,1989 was FELLINI / ROTA... which still stands up today as a pretty good effort... as well as other albums of this time.

Also in that period the orchestra were totally new to this style of music and recording... when I first went to Prague they hadn't even heard of JAMES BOND... let alone the music for the films!!! Now they are among the best in the world... being the orchestra of choice for many British and American composers for their new scores. As well as currently recording more film music and classical/crossover albums than any other orchestra. One of the latest scores we recorded was THE EXPENDABLES for Brian Tyler. A pretty dramatic improvement in just 15 years!!! (Mind you I had to be rather ruthless in getting the core of musicians that I wanted... and I had to replace a few fine but not brilliant musicians, which is always a tough thing to do).

 What recording projects are you working on now or considering for the future?

 Just finished recording one of my all-time favourite scores… for another label… but I have been sworn to secrecy until the “official announcement” is ready… sorry. After that I am working on another Tiomkin score fortunately not as long as THE ALAMO. Plus I still have hopes of recording the complete QUO VADIS but there have been certain unexpected obstacles to this, but these are being surmounted with the help of EMI Music, the publishers. And I also intend recording an album of extended suites from Western Film Scores by Maurice Jarre, including VILLA RIDES, EL CONDOR, THE PROFESSIONALS etc.

 Thank you, Mr. Fitzpatrick, for taking the time for this interview.

An Interview with Bronislau Kaper

Fri, 21 Jul 2023 12:53:10 GMT

Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine (SNC) No. 2 and No. 3/1975

Text reproduced by kind permission of the editor, Luc Van de Ven

Johnny Green and Bronislau Kaper rehearsing with Michael Rubin - acclaimed concert violinist

Having once met him, it’s difficult to imagine a more gregarious Aquarius than Bronislau Kaper. He makes the ways others approach life seem desperate by comparison. He apparently rushes at it with an almost unbridled joy and enough enthusiasm for an entire corporation. All you need to have a party is Bronislau Kaper and someone else. His effervescence supplies the champagne. His sharp, Slavic features are dominated by large, sparkling eyes and a broad smile serves as a vehicle for his often hearty laughter that erupts in infectious bursts. Kaper’s European flavored accent turns “th”‘s to “zeh”‘s and he speaks briskly. Facts filed over the years spill forward with little difficulty or hesitation. He’s an interesting combination of old world charm and the man of at least the present and maybe even the future; so youthful in appearance and manner, that at half his age I tended to feel twice his age of 70 years.

Though some words in Bronislau Kaper’s speech seem to be left out, it’s the way he talks. The interviewer wanted to retain that feeling.

…When you were a young man… 

You mean when I was a very young man. Because I feel like a young man now.

Well, of course, that’s taken for granted. 

Naturally. Thank you.

…What were your aspirations musically when you finally decided this was what you wanted to do with your life? 

My aspirations were not what I am doing – not what I was doing, you know. My aspirations were higher, to be a legitimate music composer. Maybe a concert pianist, which I gave up soon, but anyway it was not to write music for movies. As a matter of fact I graduated law in Warsaw.

Right.

 Also you know it too? (Laughs). I’m afraid this whole interview is pointless, because I think you know more about me than I can remember because I found people who write books do so much research. They sing me sometimes themes from my scores which I forgot completely. It’s fantastic; I admire it really. Anyway, being from a bourgeois Polish-Jewish family in Warsaw I had to get higher education because this was the custom. You have to be either a lawyer or an engineer, or a doctor. Those were the three things. As a matter of fact it exists in the United States, this sense of a certain prejudice, you know.

I almost became an engineer. 

You see! You know this famous story in America about the mother with the two boys – you know this story?

(Laughing) Oh yes, yes. She introduces them, “The seven-year-old is the lawyer and the nine-year-old is…” 

…the doctor, yes. Is the same story. Anyway, to satisfy my father who after all spent money on my education, I graduated law. But at the same time I graduated conservatory you know. Piano and composition. Was very strenuous because at the same time when I graduated law, two weeks later I had to play Chopin concerto. I really never recovered from the strain… (Laughs).

I guess everything since has been gravy, right? 

That’s right. Everything goes easy, yeah. I was not too much interested in university and fortunately I was a good student because things came easy. I was number one student in school, not in my class – in school. It was embarrassing because then I said, “Well, O.K., I’m going to continue,” like Paderewski story, you know. When Paderewski gave an interview and said to the reporters, “At the age of 35 I realized already I had no talent for piano at all.” So they said, “Why don’t you quit?”. He said, “It was too late. I was already famous.” I was not famous, but I was established number one student in school. And law was very easy for me too because I didn’t take it too seriously. I graduated at the age of twenty-two and a half. So I was really very well-educated at this age. I wish I could have retained some of this knowledge until today…

Did you start writing theatre music in Poland or when you went to Germany and France?

 When I was in Poland I had to make some money so I was teaching. I was teaching mathematics, Latin… whatever I knew right away I taught somebody else, not to waste it. A friend of mine came to me and said, “Let’s write songs”. There were two cabarets in Warsaw, so we started writing songs. Every night we’d have to stand in front of the cabaret at the cashier to get paid royalties.

This was “B.A.” – “Before A.S.C.A.P.” 

Before A.S.C.A.P.; that’s right! I started composing serious music at the conservatory. I had songs performed, piano music. I wrote what we called art songs, Lieder and all that. But then I decided it wasn’t enough, so I went to Berlin to continue. I thought in Berlin I will learn more, and I must say I learned a lot about theory and composition, but not about piano. I found that the level of piano playing in Poland was much higher than Berlin. As you can see today, the great pianists all come from Poland, play beautifully. 

Now in the six years in Berlin I made what I would call a career in movies at composing. I became a very well known song writer in Berlin. I got into the picture business. I saw, Hitler in his Mercedes-Benz. I got married to a Russian girl. All in six years. It was fantastic. And I met in Berlin a very famous lyricist, Fritz Rotter, who you know wrote many, many big hits, ‘I Kiss Your Little Hand Madam’, ‘White Lilacs’… We became very close friends, started writing songs and became very successful. We used to publish two songs a day.

My goodness!

Yes, yes. We wrote two songs, right away went to the publisher, and got an advance. We were driving a beautiful convertible Cadillac (that’s how successful he was) and I bought an apartment. Then I met great singers like Richard Tauber for whom I wrote many, many songs for movies. And next break was with Jan Kiepura. The last movie I did in Berlin was with him. Already Hitler was looking at us, you know, and things were getting very hot. We sold everything and the day when I finished the last recording for the Kiepura picture, we left, went to Paris. And then in Paris I was lucky again, escape the bad things and the good things come.

What year was this now?

 ‘31, ‘30, ‘32… I don’t know. Don’t ask me about what year. I’m pretty dumb when it comes to this. I remember the tie people wear, or the glasses. Your frames I will remember… they look a little like mine. I started movies, one after another, then Louis B. Mayer came to Paris looking for bargains and found me because he heard this song I wrote for Kiepura, ‘Ninon, Smile At Me Again’; everywhere – Vienna, Paris, Berlin. So he figured, “Ah-hah!”.

A bargain. 

He found me, I played for Mayer, he made some strange moves with his hands which I didn’t understand (I didn’t speak English!)… He cut his hand in two; he wanted to tell the other people who came with him that half my salary would be against my royalties. You know, one of these deals which later have been changed.  We (had) always talked about Hollywood. I never forget the idea we all had that everybody had a “bungalow”. It sounded so terribly exotic, you know. We all felt we were going to walk around in white helmets, in three-quarter shorts with canes in our hands.

And have luncheon outdoors on divans. 

Yes, with Charlie Chaplin, Marlene Dietrich, Clark Gable. I call Gable and say, “Hey, Clark! Come to lunch”, Garbo “What are you doing for tea?”. As a matter of fact before I went there two of my colleagues already went. Franz Waxman went before me. I forget who engaged him. I think Joe May, a director who came first to Hollywood and brought Billy Wilder with him. Joe May was a very strange man. Crazy, you know, but fabulous – a real genius in movies. One day Billy Wilder tells me that he got a wire from Joe May from Hollywood saying, “Come to Hollywood! To Universal Studios. Bring two cases Rose Anjou wine and three bidets!”. I’ll never forget it. Billy and I were in Cafe Select and he showed the wire to me. I just didn’t believe. I must tell you the truth; I didn’t know who Louis B. Mayer was, because Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was not known in Paris. We only knew two names: Paramount and Fox. Little we knew that MGM was the biggest! And Louis B. Mayer was…

The biggest still. 

The biggest still. Yes, the biggest person in all… But I must say that Louis B. Mayer saved my life, my family. Because of him I was able later to bring my people from Poland, you know. Anyway the first six months were lovely, and Mayer was very nice. First we got a movie called ESCAPADE. Myrna Loy refused to play the part and Louise Rainer got it. Are you checking my credits? (Laughs, as I scan my notes).

There was a short called TWO HEARTS IN WAXTIME. 

Is that the name of it? You see! I didn’t know that one short. I’ll never forget ESCAPADE because in Europe you did everything; you had no money for specialists. You did the movie, you did the songs, you did the score, and you conducted it. Even so I don’t like to conduct. I never did.

Why not? 

First of all when I came here I didn’t speak a word of English. Now, how do you convey to an orchestra what you want? It would be such a tremendous waste of time. I would have to look at this dictionary or have an interpreter, you know. It’s a terrible waste of time. Then I came to the conclusion that having a conductor concentrating on technique of conducting and catching the cues…

… Would free you.

 Yes – I’m in one monitor booth and I’m listening at the same time to the music and to the dialogue, and I have a complete picture of the final result in dubbing. So when I come to the dubbing room, after having heard my music with the dialogue on the stage, and knowing the possibilities: How loud can I play it? Is this spot good?  I’d change sometimes when I’m sitting upstairs. If you conduct yourself and even if you play it back, you play it back loud because you want to impress yourself… and sometimes the producer. Also you have to play your music loud; because that’s the last time you hear it loud. There’s a story. You write a piece of music, and then you hear it with the orchestra. It’s fantastic. On the stage. So great. And then after this you go to the dubbing room…

And it’s nothing.

 Nothing. So it starts with nothing and ends up with nothing. This way at least I know what’s going to happen. I don’t have any surprises, any heart attacks.

So you cut out that agonizing step.

 That’s right. Also the results were better. I thought so. And I got used to this. And I know so many film conductors who are so much better than I. I’ve had terrific conductors in my movies. I had such people like Johnny Green, you know, and he was the head of the Music Department at MGM.

He’s also a wonderful composer but he’s done very little of that.

 Unfortunately.

RAINTREE COUNTY is a wonderful score. 

Wonderful! Fabulous score I It’s a very interesting story because I had a long conversation with John at his office and I told him that “… your problem is you don’t compose enough. You’re so busy being the executive head of the department that you, a composer, suddenly have an empty trunk. And I think this is very bad for you because you are a composer.” And he took it very, very deeply to heart — very seriously. And then he decided to and he asked for this picture and being the head of the department it wasn’t too difficult. And I think it is a marvellous score! We talked about conducting because I said in Europe you had to do everything. Here, is specialists. And when I did the first short I wrote the songs for it because I wrote songs. Mr. Mayer signed me because of ‘Ninon’; he didn’t care about this other thing. So I started writing some incidental music. The head of the department called me and he said, “You’re crazy, it’s not your job. You’re a song writer. We have a scorer to do it.

The old American way of pidgeon-holing. 

That’s right. Then, after a certain time they found out that I can write scores. So I would look over the script and started thinking of the score and I wrote the song because there was a scene in the bar. And they called me and said, “You’re crazy! You’re a scorer. We get a song writer to write a song for you.” So I was either a song writer who couldn’t write a score or a scorer who could not write a song! Well, I punish them later – I wrote both.  ESCAPADE was a picture with Louise Rainer and William Powell and there was a song, ‘You’re all I need’. I wouldn’t believe it today but the song was number one on Lucky Strike Hit Parade. I was so naive; I did not even know what it meant. Jack Robbins, the publisher, came to me and said, “You have number one song on Lucky Strike!” (A weekly radio program that celebrated the Top Ten song hits.) I didn’t speak well English. I knew Lucky Strike was a cigarette, but I didn’t see any connection between smoking and my song. Anyway, I was lucky – I had this first hit. And then came ‘San Francisco’ (which) was naturally a big, big moment.

Now, did you also do any of the score for that? (Herbert Stothart was musical director. Credits seemed to curiously blur in those days.) 

No, just the song. As a matter of fact there were two songs. You see, at this time they had writers under contract like (Arthur) Fried and (Nacio Herb) Brown. They wrote a ballad called ‘Would You?’. They had the choice because they were big people. They naturally figured the ballad can be a big hit. The other song is kind of special material, so they say, “Let this foreigner write this special material” because they thought, “Who can write such an embarrassing song, a rousing song. But especially we were taught by our publishers that only ballads can sell. No music which has a pickup (‘Dai Di’) can sell. Got to be ‘Bum!’ on the downbeat. No minor tunes can sell – oh, lots of other things. Anyway when I was in Paris, in Berlin, my songs were very American… I thought. And they thought so too. Because. I liked American music. I used to play Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Vincent Youmens, and Arthur Schwartz. All these people were our idols. So they used to say about me, “Kaper is very talented but really too American.” So I came here and I said, “Ah-hah! Now…”

Perfect.

 “Now I’m going to show them!”. So when I wrote ‘San Francisco’ I was sure it was a modern song. I was so corny, you see. I really thought this was ‘Sophisticated Lady’ by Duke Ellington. Well, we knew it wasn’t, but I didn’t. But because I was so naive, in good faith, it fit so good the period. Because no American would dare to write it. He would be a little ashamed to write, “Dam, bam bah-bah…” Can you imagine Jerome Kern writing it, or Gershwin? No! They would rather die – and they did.

(Laughing) And you’re still here. And it seems like such a standard, even then it sounded like it had been around for years and years. Herbert Stothart then was Head of the Music Department (of MGM) for 20-odd years.

 De facto, yes – but not by title. Herbert Stothart was just an independent power. He was number one scorer of movies at MGM for many years. The producers and the high executives adored him, you know. He was what they called a ‘showman’, which was a magic word.

It was a tangible word that they, not being musicians, could deal with.

 They didn’t, that’s right! For them it was easy to understand. They said, “I don’t care how well he reads music, if he can do it, let him do whatever he wants – he’s a showman!”. He delivers. And I adored him. Beautiful blue eyes, a red face. He was such a great personality on the stage. When he recorded he was really a showman. One hand was covering the left ear; here was an earphone which he turned around both ways. Everything was different but fantastic. I look today at old movies with his scores and he knew when to hit the strong chord; he knew when to stop the music. We all learned a lot from him, you know. Today we might say it’s schmaltz, still we learned a lot about the drama. There was another man called William Axt…

He began earlier in films. 

Same time also. Was before Stothart, but also (the) same time. Like Verdi and Wagner. Axt was a different type. A quiet man, no showman, no blue eyes, no high blood pressure. Very well trained, but no brilliant personality. There was a movie called AT THE BALALAIKA and Stothart didn’t want to do it… maybe he was busy. Axt was assigned to this and it was a big movie. The producers said, “We need a song, something like ‘Volga Boatman’.” So he said, “let me look around,” and a week later they have a meeting and he says, I got the song… I think.” He plays them the song and at the end there’s, quiet, a silence. (Already you know what this means). “Yes, Bill, it’s very good but you know it’s not ‘Volga Boatman’.” So he says, “Well, I try again please.” In about two weeks he plays another song. “Very good, very good. But you know… something’s missing. It is not Volga Boatman.”

 This went on for three weeks. Finally they said, “Let’s call Herb Stothart. Maybe he will have an idea. And he comes there – a little late always – “Sorry I’m late boys!”. They presented him with the situation. Herb listens, and then says, “Why don’t you use ‘Volga Boatman’?” Suddenly everybody was relieved and happy, “Yes, why don’t we use ‘Volga Boatman’!”. You see, they really wanted it but they were embarrassed to say it. And again they say, “You see? You see Herb Stothart? Showman!” And poor Billy Axt was out of the picture.

Along with that reminiscence, have they ever come to you and asked to give them something like the last film you did?

 (A little gravely). Yes. Yes. “We need something like ‘Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo’”. I heard it many times. Somehow I couldn’t write it. (Laughs). The worst thing happened when they used to “can” previews. You know, add a temporary score. They used to take something from the library and put it in, in order to save money, so later when the picture was all cut, you didn’t have to cut the music. There was a special man who knows the library and puts the canned music into the movie to fit it somehow. Very often the producers, after having heard the canned music for four previews, got so used to it that when you finally wrote (an) original score, they didn’t like it. You see, there is a magic about the connection of music and the film. This is the secret why people go and buy music from movies.

It brings back that first memory of the film. 

Same thing as the producer, the director who sees four times the music play ‘Da-Ri, Da-Ri’ – and you play ‘Ti-Ra, T-Ra’. Well, you are wrong! So you have to be very careful. Once I did a picture where they used a piece from Offenbach in the Main Title… ‘A Flea in Her Ear’… and I knew I was in trouble. So I said, “Let’s use the Offenbach. Nothing can be as good as Offenbach.” So right away they all come, “Oh, no, no – you can write!” You know what saved me? They would have to pay for Offenbach. Not in public domain. It would cost them around three thousand dollars. I insisted, but they wouldn’t give in. And now when I wrote my music, they had to like it!

A lot of your songs and themes are very simple. You don’t go in for very elaborate constructions. 

The only one which was complicated was INVITATION.

You used the theme a great deal: romantically, wistfully, with a bit of anxiety. 

You know the story about this song? Well, we did a movie called A LIFE OF HER OWN with Lana Turner and there was a scene in a bar where somebody has to play some piece of music. The director was George Cukor and Johnny Green was the head of the department. They said, “What can we use there in the bar? Maybe it Chopin waltz or something?” I say, “Why Chopin waltz, why don’t I write a piece?” So they looked at each other kind of suspicious, “O.K., you want to write a piece? Compete with a Chopin waltz.” I say, “Yes, I write a piece.” I was getting fresh already then.

You’d been there a few years. 

Yeah, I knew already. I wouldn’t give away a chance to write. So a week later we meet and they said kind of shyly, tentatively, “You have any idea of what you’re going to write?” I said, “I already wrote it.” And I played: “Dah-Dah Dee-Dee, Dah Dee Dah Dah – Dah Dah Dah”… A LIFE OF HER OWN… They liked it very much and it was in the picture in a scene played on piano by Jakob Gimpel, a great pianist, a friend of mine who still plays it. The picture was a complete disaster, you know – but we started getting calls.

 So very soon after this they did a movie with Dorothy Maguire and we decided to put it in this picture. That’s why I used it so often: because I knew already I had something. And the moment we did this picture, we got immediately five or six recordings; Percy Faith, Victor Young, and others. And because the film was called INVITATION, we called the song ‘Invitation’. After the movie, Paul Webster wrote the lyrics, which are very nice but nobody knows them.

Well, it worked beautifully because the story was rather depressing (Dorothy Maguire plays a woman with an unnamed incurable illness whose husband married her out of some pity and a job offer from her father) and it kept it a little lighter, a little up. 

A little hope there, yes. I say it without conceit, but I think that INVITATION started a certain trend of this kind of sophisticated harmonies in instrumental music. The best proof is that it is very difficult for the average pianist to play by ear. I wrote another song later called ‘Gloria’ for BUTTERFIELD 8 and it also has a little bit of this flair.  You know, I like it when you have a long picture, because already you have so many things happen, so much color and so many changes in time; people mature within the movie and they go through so many things. Now I had the most wonderful time writing music for GREEN DOLPHIN STREET – I really loved working. Every little sequence; a carriage coming into town, I was kind of playing with it, improvising almost. I could play any kind of music I wanted.

I’ve had a difficult time convincing some jazz buffs that it wasn’t written as a jazz piece.

 (Beaming) I know…

It became such a standard. It must be a beautiful thing to see something evolve like that. 

And it was very strange because I never read DOWNBEAT magazine. We used to have meetings at MGM in the music department and Andre Previn was on the staff and he was usually sitting there reading DOWNBEAT magazine. And suddenly he whispers to me, “Miles Davis recorded GREEN DOLPHIN STREET”. So I said, “So what?”. He says, “That means that in the next three months you have fifty recordings of GREEN DOLPHIN STREET.” And then it started.

GREEN MANSIONS is a rather strange film… How did the idea to work with Villa-Lobos come about?

 That’s kind of a CIA story… (Laughs). Mel Ferrer was the director of the movie and I think this was a kind of political move because he was married to Audrey Hepburn. Not that at this time he was a known or good director but a family affair; a little of this give a little, take a little… (Earlier), he met Villa-Lobos and heard some of his music and like some directors who have preconceived ideas; he has to have Villa-Lobos music. When MGM decided to do it, then Mel convinced them, persuaded them to buy music of Villa-Lobos. A typical “amateur deal”, because how can you buy music? You don’t know what you buy! You don’t know what you’re going to play in the movie; how much you’re going to use; who’s going to do it.

 Then the film finally came into existence and they say, “Well, Mr. Lobos, when are you going to come and do the movie?” He says, “Me, come and do a movie? I don’t do music for a film! I give you my music and you just put it in your picture.” Very proudly, but very silly. He would not know where to begin. Now big troubles. Sol Siegel, head of the studio, came to me and said, “Listen. Here is the situation; we want you to do the movie.” So I said, “I don’t want to do a picture with Villa-Lobos. You use his music and get an arranger.” He says, “No, no, no. You do the score. You use as much of his music as you want – just to keep the contract.”

 The result was I wrote the score, and my credit said, “Musical Score by Bronislau Kaper, Incidental Music by Villa-Lobos, Song by Bronislau Kaper and Mack David” – you know, the song (sung) by Tony Perkins. Mr. Lobos came to Hollywood and he gave me the dirtiest look – even before I did the picture. Already the fact that I’m going to touch his holy music made him hate me. We had a picture taken. I’m smiling and he isn’t.

You did only one science-fiction film called THEM! It came out in the middle of the fifties and you treated it differently from what seemed like the other dozen S-F films that opened every week.

 I treated it not like a science picture. I treated it like a real menace. I was getting tired of the usual effects. I treated it as an action movie, you know, “Boom-Bang!” Oh, you should have heard this music on the stage – it was really good. And I wrote a ‘Fugue’ which was out of the picture later.

For which part?

I forget. It was a ‘Fugue for Ants’. Just for fun; I knew it was going to be out of the picture, but I wrote it for kicks. Took me about four days to write it. Very chromatic too (Mimics the patterns which sound like groups of ants skittering along). I remember the musicians liked it. Ray Heindorf conducted it. Absolute genius for conducting movie music. Absolute genius! He’s also a great arranger. When I came to this town Harry Warren played for me big production numbers of his songs – symphonic, made by Heindorf. It was so great Harry Warren believed he wrote it himself.
Oh, but the funny thing happened to LORD JIM. There was a question of doing this kind of music (Cambodian) and get a couple of the instruments, and get the people who can play it. And we were absolutely at a loss. I didn’t know where to start! Then somebody said, “I know there are two French students who know Indochinese music. They live in Paris. Maybe we can get the instruments in the Indochinese Embassy in Amsterdam.” I mean, there were sleepless nights. Well, I went to Cambodia to do research and to listen to music. Terrible. Absolutely impossible. And I had auditions of people; little groups. The dullest thing you can imagine. So then I came back and I talked to a former agent of mine, Abe Meyer, who suggested I contact Monty Hood, the Head of Ethnic Music at UCLA. I called him and found that he knew me; we (had) met at Ernest Toch’s. I came to him and he took me downstairs to the Gamolin room. I thought I was dreaming. I had to pinch myself. There were all the instruments – Java, Bali, whatever you want – not to mention Thailand. Not Cambodia. But it made no difference to me because the fact that we were shooting in Cambodia did not mean the story took place in Cambodia. It just had to be any part of Indochina.
So after analysing them all, I took certain elements of Bali and Java. But I saw not only the instruments; they had an orchestra for this music. Forty people or thirty-six who would rehearse every week and they knew how to play them. Now, I went like to school. Monty Hood and his assistant taught me how to write all the instruments. I took orchestration lessons in Gamolin. I wrote two pieces. One was a slow piece, one was a fast one. They were supposed to play in the evening and I was chicken: I didn’t want to go. The next morning I call, “How did it go?” He said, “The slow piece went like a charm; the fast piece is impossible to play.” I made a mistake. For one instrument I thought they had two hammers. They had only one. So I rewrote it, but I learned. It was really fantastic how lucky I was, able to find those people after I was looking for them in Paris, in Holland. Suddenly here, under my nose. I liked to work on LORD JIM. Big scope. I recorded in London. Wonderful orchestra.

Are there any films you wish you had been associated with? 

Yes, but I can’t think offhand. Sometimes I see a movie and I say, “Gee! Why couldn’t I have done this picture?” I don’t very often think about pictures I wish I would have done, but there are some songs. One of the songs is Victor Young’s ‘Stella by Starlight’. Every time I hear it I say, “What happened to me? Where was I? Why didn’t I write this song?” It’s too late now.

What would you like to do that you haven’t done? Is there anything you haven’t done?

 Oh yes! I would like to write music – good music. When you’re in movies, every picture takes three months of your life and then you have no time, not only to compose; you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time to do anything. To be at a studio under contract is nice for security (if there is such a thing), but it really makes you a slave of your profession, which you should not be.

It makes you hunger for all aspects of music. 

For freedom! Music, sports, reading, even writing songs. Now song writers are free. They just walk around and get together, have a few drinks, smoke and write songs. That’s nice. And if they’re tired they go to Santa Barbara, or to Mexico, or to Las Vegas for two days. You cannot do it when you’re at a studio. If you leave for two days, even if they’ve nothing to do for you, they look for you and say, “Where have you been?” Is that a question to ask a grownup man? I think it’s terrible.

You’re really not semi-retired because you’re very active personally. 

I’m not only this. I get scripts to read, I have plays to read and projects with producers and all this. But I tell you, you come to a certain time in your life when you do not want to be judged by other people. Evaluated, you see? That’s terrible. If you are in movies, I don’t care who you are, you can be the greatest composer in the world…

But you’ll be judged on that one film. 

You’ll be judged while you are writing. You will have to play for somebody or the producer or a director who know nothing about their profession, who never did anything in their life, not even one television show – suddenly they are entitled to say, “I don’t know what I want.” Now, who are they to judge my work? I resent it, I don’t want it. I’ve been asked recently by people, “Why don’t you work in movies?” I say there’s nothing that really attracts me terribly. If it would attract me very much, I would even give in a little and let the people say what they think of my music (Laughs).

Well, I hope before too long you find a good script and a good director. But if you don’t, continue doing those things you never could before. 

I’m very busy now with the Los Angeles Music Center. I’m now on the Board of Directors of the Symphony and I live in a different world. I live in a world of friends, musicians, where I don’t have to put my level down. People, with whom I have a real, complete understanding. Like Zuben Mehta, Daniel Barenboim, Zuckerman – all those people… Arthur Rubenstein, still one of the greatest friends of mine. I adore these people. We sit and talk and play.

The important thing is you enjoy yourself, as you have all these years.

 I’m very happy. I don’t regret. You know, 28 years at MGM, it was a long, long time. There was a man who worked I think 40 years at Warner’s and one day he came home and said to his wife, “They fired me.” And the wife said, “I always knew it was not a steady job.”