I was fortunate enough to see Jerry Goldsmith and Elmer Bernstein conducting their own music in concerts with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Goldsmith and the orchestra gave a little teaching session before playing a suite from Planet of the Apes of how the brass instruments were able to create some of the sounds they make.
A great list. Your discussion of John Williams and Jaws got me to thinking, I wonder if he ever "borrowed" any programmatic effects from Strauss since he's always accused of "borrowing" from Holst. If you can take an idea and make it better, why not. My favorite Hermann score -- and I just read the other day that it was his own favorite -- is The Ghost and Mrs Muir. Not my usual kind of movie at all, but the first time I saw it I was like Whoa! It packs an emotional punch. You can smell the sea in his music, it's right up there with Britten's in Peter Grimes.
You mentioned Bernard Herrmann and his music to the Alfred Hitchcock movie Psycho. His score to the movie Vertigo scared the Hell out of me with Jimmy Stewart spiralling downwards
I remember being captivated by the magic of Herrmann's score to Journey to the Center of the Earth as a small kid. I still love his London Phase 4 recording, The Fantasy Film World of Bernard Herrmann which also has suites from Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, Day the Earth Stood Still (Klaatu barada nikto!) and Fahrenheit 451.
Another masterpiece of film music, rather unnoticed though, is Hugo Friedhofer score for Wyler "Best years of or lives" (1946). Probably one of the 10, if not the 5, richest and subtlest film music ever written. Absolutly inexhaustible in its orchestral and harmonic details. And what a master of counterpoint !
Jerry Goldsmith masterpiece: The Blue Max. Great seven-minute passacaglia highlights the album. (Ideal lesson for the Lydian scale as well.) Much of the soundtrack is not used in the film, which is a shame.
What a fantastic intro to film music. Thank you, Dave. It's a tribute that you could limit yourself to just ten! Of all the fabulous scores to choose from, every one of your ten is an indisputable hit, even as we want to add others.
North by Northwest by Bernard Herrmann is the mother of all film scores (IMO of course). It does such a great job of conveying the movie's underlying sense of menace and its non-stop suspense. Great music for a great film.
Thanks so much for this treat! Such a well chosen group. Admire them all. I agree with Mr. Williams about Vertigo. It is brilliant and my favorite score of all. Fully concur about the Ben-Hur score. Epic indeed. I wish we heard Rosza's concert music more often. Wonderful stuff
Thank-you for your advocacy of film music in this video and your previous videos on this subject. I am often astounded at your recall of music in every repertoire and when you sing the themes it really shows you know what you are talking about. I am one of those people whose entry into the classical music repertoire was via film music. A dear friend of mine played his film soundtrack collection often on each visit and he encouraged me to appreciate this particular genre. When he passed away, he left me his entire record collection on both vinyl and cd. After his funeral relatives and others suggested I should sell them online on either eBay or amazon, but I haven't had the heart or inclination to do so. Although I don't play them often, I am fascinated by the quality of music composed for what seem to be in some cases somewhat inferior films. For instance, Miklos Rosza's score for Sodom and Gomorrah. I can't quibble about any of the scores you recommend as entry suggestions even though I may differ from some of your choices. You are a great treasure, and I am so grateful for what you do.
A wonderful selection. The best of them impressed me with their versatility; Bernard Herrmann and Jerry Goldsmith were very good at leveraging different techniques to achieve different narrative goals. I do fear that the standard of film scores has fallen in recent decades. In 1978 we walked out of the theater whistling “Superman”; I can’t remember what any of the last twenty years of Marvel movies even sounded like.
In fairness, that's a bit like sighing "They don't write symphonies like Beethoven any more." It's true. But it's because he's Beethoven and they're not.
Great video Dave, keep 'em coming! I grew up loving the film music of Goldsmith and Williams when they were still composing for cinema, and they, alongside Herrmann, are my favourite film composers. I would say my favourite respective scores of those three as Dracula (1979), The Final Conflict (1981) and Obsession (1976).
Great top ten! I love your choice for John Williams… Jaws has it all. From romantic swashbuckling sea music to dark atonal horror and everything in between. John William’s score elevates what could have been a B movie horror monster film to a grand summer blockbuster
All fabulous suggestions, and I'm going back to watch the films with the score in the forefront of my mind. I was a kid when "Jaws" came out, and I remember the buzz at summer camp around the film. Even with us kids, the music was always cited as a driving feature of the film experience. We would hear someone doing the two-note motif as a joke whenever we were swimming.
Thank you for taking great film music seriously as it deserves! Like many, I grew up with the great 70s and 80s John Williams scores, and as you mentioned, his music was the means by which I became interested in classical music. But the amazing thing is, after all these years, and all the great classical music I’ve heard, I still find his scores to be most impressive-it’s not just the tunes that we all know and love. His harmonies and rhythmic verve, and his way of sustaining ideas through a scene, his use of leitmotif and thematic transformation . . . . My favorites, among many, are Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark. I’d love some individual talks on Williams, Goldsmith, and some others on your list which you haven’t done already.
With Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler, Richard Strauss and many others pointing the way, it's no surprise that the best film score composers could see where to go.
@@leestamm3187 Yes, indeed. But I will also add that his harmonies are more complex than any of those composers, so Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Bartok, Holst, Walton, etc., as well as his jazz background are also part of the picture-but it needs to be said that only a genius such as he is can synthesize such diverse elements and make them his own and have his own voice-which I think can be demonstrated that he does.
@@ignacioclerici5341 Perhaps we could say that complexity as an end in itself is meaningless. But complexity of harmonic language such as John Williams has is certainly not meaningless and irrelevant because it serves the purposes of underlining the dramatic and expressive content of the music. My point was that the influences of John Williams are not limited to the list of composers from the Romantic period mentioned in the above comment. His language is more rich and varied. And his harmonies are more complex than Bach’s by the way-not the counterpoint or overall conception, perhaps, but the harmonies, yes. Any study of his scores reveals this. That’s all I’m saying. No need for the terse dismissal.
Great list especially the avant garde sounding Planet Of The Apes and the ultimate Score As Movie Itself, Psycho. DAVE, How about a list of echoes of classical music in film scores? Psycho has echoes of the middle section of Sibelius' Pohjala's Daughter. Lord of the RIngs especially The Two Towers has echoes of Bruckner 9, Star Wars has echoes of Mars from The Planets, and so on. Classical references, influences, echoes in film music ... fascinating subject.
I believe you reviewed this one already. The 12 CD set of Charles Gerhard conducts Classic Film Scores contains music of Newman, Steiner, Rozsa, Korngold, Waxman, and Tiomkin. A wonderful collection of film music.
I liked your pointing out the through-line from incidental music to film scores. Can't argue with that! I know better than to say you "left off" something from your list. But I hope that listeners will find their way to Herrmann's score for Hitchcock's Vertigo. In recent years it has taken the form of a suite, with recordings by orchestras and even some chamber versions. Christopher O'Riley and Matt Haimovitz released an interesting 2-disc recording of pop and classical arrangements for cello and piano, called Shuffle. Play. Listen. It includes an amazingly effective arrangement of the Vertigo suite. The movements are in the usual sequence, but notably, they're mixed in with other pieces by Janáček, Martinu and others. I think this is smart, because the moody, chromatic music can lose a bit of tension played all together.
I always like when you talk about film music, and these were all composers I would have chosen myself. The Goldsmith choice was especially nice! One point of interest, the first film score to technically use the 12 tone row/serialist style was The Cobweb by Leonard Rosenman, which you might want to check out.
Film music should be embraced by the general classical community. I'm not sure about New York (more specifically, the New York Phil), but in Denver the Colorado Symphony performs film scores in concert all the time. It's a great way to introduce beginners to classical music before they plunge into stuff like Beethoven (or Mahler, or Phillip Glass, or Karlheinz Stockhausen). John Williams' music is probably better known than that of most "major" classical composers, and with good reason.
This is a wonderful list. I've loved Ben Hur, and its magnificent score, since I was about 7 years old. Haya Harareet, who played Esther, got married and lived just down the road from me, in Buckinghamshire. I recently picked up the LP of score at a local record fair, and I've fallen in love with it all over again. Thank you Dave!
All of these "10 essential x for beginners" videos are interesting and needed, but this was a pleasant surprise, such a great idea. Thanks for this video, Dave!
What a a wonderful video! Thank you, David. I've been a film score aficionado for decades and bought all the Charles Gerhardt/National Philharmonic discs on RCA, numerous Varese Sarabande albums, Bernard Herrmann Decca Phase Four and others and most of your selections are close to my heart. I was particularly pleased that you chose "King Kong" for Max Steiner. A great score, but it needs a modern recording, although the Stronberg/Moscow SO/Marco Polo isn't too bad in my opinion.
Super! By the way, Chandos has a series of recordings of film scores by Rumon Gamba & the BBC Philharmonic, including such notables as Bax, Vaughan Williams, Addinsell, Alwyn, Korngold, Rozsa, and on and on. I recently purchased the Film Music of Alan Rawsthorne, which is excellent. More to explore!
This was great. I'm hangin' in there because there are so many great scores out there, some great scores that rendered silly movies tolerable or even enjoyable, etc. Another tiny-but-great aspect of Jaws is a bit of allegory: the music that accompanies the assembly of the shark cage (all those diverse components being bolted together into a functional whole) is a fugue of some substance-melodic lines coming together to form a cohesive whole.
Dave- I am sure that Alfred Newman was a "fan" of Bruckner . The Song of Bernadette's main theme has a remarkable resemblance to the main theme of the beautifull sonata form adagio of the Bruckner 6th. To be honest Bruckner was the the " Godfather" of Blockbuster film scores. Bruckner 6 probably having more than most. Including Lawrence of Arabia, Born Free, The Big Country. But the Big Country has also a great Rach 2 symphony reference, AND the most beautiful melody in all of film score music is the Barn love theme in the greatest of all film score composers Miklos Rozsa's El Cid. Well that's my opinion.
@@leestamm3187 Its funny Lee,Dave left out Hans Zimmer which is surprising. What is more surprising it is said that out of all the great B composers . Bruckner is not on Zimmer's list. Yet in my opinion his greatest creation the "Chevaliers De Sangreal " from The Da Vinci Code in it's minimilistic form . Has quite a resemblance to a very early use of minimilism . Towards the end of the 4th movement of the Bruckner 9th , which I know Dave detests. I happened to see the first performance of the four movements by Samale-Philipps,Cohrs-Mazzuca in Berlin under Sir Simon Rattle in 2012. Which because Simon Rattle played it as FOUR movement symphony, it did work . Although the quality of the Bruckner finale written whist he was dieing was not his best except for the chorale. Anyway just before the recaptulation of the chorale before the coda. We hear a section of minimilism , very similar to " Chevalliers" theme from The Da Vinci Code. John Williams , Alfred Newman amongst others would say that they were inspired at least by Bruckner. BUT it doesn't appear . Or he says it, that Hans Zimmer was.
@@barrybernstein9049 I'm one of those stodgy old curmudgeons who doesn't care for completions of unfinished works. Leaving them unfinished is fine with me. Zimmer is pretty good, but I don't rate him with the greats of the genre.
I remember the first time I heard Dvořák's 9th symphony and clearly heard where Williams got his idea for the theme to Jaws. It doesn't matter, since composers have been ripping each other off for ideas for centuries, and it doesn't change the fact that Jaws is still a top notch film score. Also, I completely agree that Goldsmith's score to 'Planet of the Apes' is fantastic.
Apropos your mention of silent movie theater orchestras, years ago there was a book of ancient NY Times film reviews. Some from the twenties mentioned the classical music chunks played between shows by the orchestra -- conducted by Eugene Ormandy!
The theme from Jaws is remarkable for its power and simplicity. That said, it was actually taken from the start of the 2nd movement of Dvorak's Symphony 9, which was composed some 90 years before the soundtrack for Jaws was composed.
No it wasn't. You're thinking, first of all, of the finale, not the Largo (which is the second movement), and I have a hard time accepting theories of "borrowing" when the thing borrowed is just a tiny, generic idea. Yes, they sound similar. but that proves nothing.
Great film music is being played with increasing frequency at public concerts. One of the pioneers of this was - wouldn't you know it- - Leopold Stokowski. His 1945 performance of Now, Voyager's final scene with the Hollywood Bowl Symphony (complete with brief spoken introduction by the maestro) may be heard on YT. The music was only 3 years old!
For MODERN TIMES (1936) he used two Fox arrangers/composers David Raksin and Edward Powell (Alfred Newman's main orchestrator). David Raskin was also the arranger. I'm fairly sure Newman conducted the score. For THE GREAT DICTATOR (1940) Meredith Willson was the primary arranger and orchestrator. MONSIEUR VERDOUX (1947) Rudy Schrager did the above duties for this film. LIMELIGHT (1952) Raymond Rasch did the honors. But Chaplin wrote the music and although some of these men adapted the music to fit the scene, Chaplin rightfully was listed as composer and the music was based on Chaplin's thematic material.
@@JohnWMorgan I've played The Circus to a live screening of the silent movie. The music was good, not great. I've always wondered who did the orchestrations.
I was fortunate enough to see Jerry Goldsmith and Elmer Bernstein conducting their own music in concerts with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Goldsmith and the orchestra gave a little teaching session before playing a suite from Planet of the Apes of how the brass instruments were able to create some of the sounds they make.
A great list. Your discussion of John Williams and Jaws got me to thinking, I wonder if he ever "borrowed" any programmatic effects from Strauss since he's always accused of "borrowing" from Holst. If you can take an idea and make it better, why not. My favorite Hermann score -- and I just read the other day that it was his own favorite -- is The Ghost and Mrs Muir. Not my usual kind of movie at all, but the first time I saw it I was like Whoa! It packs an emotional punch. You can smell the sea in his music, it's right up there with Britten's in Peter Grimes.
You mentioned Bernard Herrmann and his music to the Alfred Hitchcock movie Psycho. His score to the movie Vertigo scared the Hell out of me with Jimmy Stewart spiralling downwards
That whole dream sequence (music and film together) has been seared into my brain since I first saw it at age 7. (Do the math, if you must.👴
I remember being captivated by the magic of Herrmann's score to Journey to the Center of the Earth as a small kid. I still love his London Phase 4 recording, The Fantasy Film World of Bernard Herrmann which also has suites from Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, Day the Earth Stood Still (Klaatu barada nikto!) and Fahrenheit 451.
Another masterpiece of film music, rather unnoticed though, is Hugo Friedhofer score for Wyler "Best years of or lives" (1946). Probably one of the 10, if not the 5, richest and subtlest film music ever written. Absolutly inexhaustible in its orchestral and harmonic details. And what a master of counterpoint !
Wow! I’ve long maintained that “Apes” was Goldsmith’s most innovative and original score, and here it is on your list!!!!
Jerry Goldsmith masterpiece: The Blue Max. Great seven-minute passacaglia highlights the album. (Ideal lesson for the Lydian scale as well.) Much of the soundtrack is not used in the film, which is a shame.
And Capricorn One is filled with locrian string runs which are cool too!
What a fantastic intro to film music. Thank you, Dave. It's a tribute that you could limit yourself to just ten! Of all the fabulous scores to choose from, every one of your ten is an indisputable hit, even as we want to add others.
North by Northwest by Bernard Herrmann is the mother of all film scores (IMO of course).
It does such a great job of conveying the movie's underlying sense of menace and its non-stop suspense.
Great music for a great film.
Thanks so much for this treat! Such a well chosen group. Admire them all. I agree with Mr. Williams about Vertigo. It is brilliant and my favorite score of all. Fully concur about the Ben-Hur score. Epic indeed. I wish we heard Rosza's concert music more often. Wonderful stuff
Thank-you for your advocacy of film music in this video and your previous videos on this subject. I am often astounded at your recall of music in every repertoire and when you sing the themes it really shows you know what you are talking about. I am one of those people whose entry into the classical music repertoire was via film music. A dear friend of mine played his film soundtrack collection often on each visit and he encouraged me to appreciate this particular genre. When he passed away, he left me his entire record collection on both vinyl and cd. After his funeral relatives and others suggested I should sell them online on either eBay or amazon, but I haven't had the heart or inclination to do so. Although I don't play them often, I am fascinated by the quality of music composed for what seem to be in some cases somewhat inferior films. For instance, Miklos Rosza's score for Sodom and Gomorrah. I can't quibble about any of the scores you recommend as entry suggestions even though I may differ from some of your choices. You are a great treasure, and I am so grateful for what you do.
A wonderful selection. The best of them impressed me with their versatility; Bernard Herrmann and Jerry Goldsmith were very good at leveraging different techniques to achieve different narrative goals. I do fear that the standard of film scores has fallen in recent decades. In 1978 we walked out of the theater whistling “Superman”; I can’t remember what any of the last twenty years of Marvel movies even sounded like.
I find most of the best scores written today are for foreign films.
In fairness, that's a bit like sighing "They don't write symphonies like Beethoven any more."
It's true. But it's because he's Beethoven and they're not.
Great video Dave, keep 'em coming! I grew up loving the film music of Goldsmith and Williams when they were still composing for cinema, and they, alongside Herrmann, are my favourite film composers. I would say my favourite respective scores of those three as Dracula (1979), The Final Conflict (1981) and Obsession (1976).
Great top ten! I love your choice for John Williams… Jaws has it all. From romantic swashbuckling sea music to dark atonal horror and everything in between. John William’s score elevates what could have been a B movie horror monster film to a grand summer blockbuster
All fabulous suggestions, and I'm going back to watch the films with the score in the forefront of my mind. I was a kid when "Jaws" came out, and I remember the buzz at summer camp around the film. Even with us kids, the music was always cited as a driving feature of the film experience. We would hear someone doing the two-note motif as a joke whenever we were swimming.
Thank you for taking great film music seriously as it deserves! Like many, I grew up with the great 70s and 80s John Williams scores, and as you mentioned, his music was the means by which I became interested in classical music. But the amazing thing is, after all these years, and all the great classical music I’ve heard, I still find his scores to be most impressive-it’s not just the tunes that we all know and love. His harmonies and rhythmic verve, and his way of sustaining ideas through a scene, his use of leitmotif and thematic transformation . . . . My favorites, among many, are Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark. I’d love some individual talks on Williams, Goldsmith, and some others on your list which you haven’t done already.
With Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler, Richard Strauss and many others pointing the way, it's no surprise that the best film score composers could see where to go.
@@leestamm3187 Yes, indeed. But I will also add that his harmonies are more complex than any of those composers, so Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Bartok, Holst, Walton, etc., as well as his jazz background are also part of the picture-but it needs to be said that only a genius such as he is can synthesize such diverse elements and make them his own and have his own voice-which I think can be demonstrated that he does.
@@IHSACC complexity doesnt matter, Bach is more complex than John Williams, so?
Irrelevant and meaningless
@@ignacioclerici5341 Perhaps we could say that complexity as an end in itself is meaningless. But complexity of harmonic language such as John Williams has is certainly not meaningless and irrelevant because it serves the purposes of underlining the dramatic and expressive content of the music. My point was that the influences of John Williams are not limited to the list of composers from the Romantic period mentioned in the above comment. His language is more rich and varied. And his harmonies are more complex than Bach’s by the way-not the counterpoint or overall conception, perhaps, but the harmonies, yes. Any study of his scores reveals this. That’s all I’m saying. No need for the terse dismissal.
Great list especially the avant garde sounding Planet Of The Apes and the ultimate Score As Movie Itself, Psycho.
DAVE, How about a list of echoes of classical music in film scores? Psycho has echoes of the middle section of Sibelius' Pohjala's Daughter. Lord of the RIngs especially The Two Towers has echoes of Bruckner 9, Star Wars has echoes of Mars from The Planets, and so on. Classical references, influences, echoes in film music ... fascinating subject.
An interesting topic, for sure! The problem is that I would need to play samples to make the point, and copyright claims prevent it.
Thank you for "Airport." Loved it since I first saw the movie.
I believe you reviewed this one already. The 12 CD set of Charles Gerhard conducts Classic Film Scores contains music of Newman, Steiner, Rozsa, Korngold, Waxman, and Tiomkin. A wonderful collection of film music.
Yes, I did.
I liked your pointing out the through-line from incidental music to film scores. Can't argue with that!
I know better than to say you "left off" something from your list. But I hope that listeners will find their way to Herrmann's score for Hitchcock's Vertigo. In recent years it has taken the form of a suite, with recordings by orchestras and even some chamber versions. Christopher O'Riley and Matt Haimovitz released an interesting 2-disc recording of pop and classical arrangements for cello and piano, called Shuffle. Play. Listen. It includes an amazingly effective arrangement of the Vertigo suite. The movements are in the usual sequence, but notably, they're mixed in with other pieces by Janáček, Martinu and others. I think this is smart, because the moody, chromatic music can lose a bit of tension played all together.
I always like when you talk about film music, and these were all composers I would have chosen myself. The Goldsmith choice was especially nice! One point of interest, the first film score to technically use the 12 tone row/serialist style was The Cobweb by Leonard Rosenman, which you might want to check out.
Goldsmith's score for the first Star Trek movie is stunning!
Psycho's titles are my all-time favorite. Saul Bass and Bernard Herrman were as good as it got.
I also loved the opening moments of North by Northwest, which I believe is one of the first uses of dynamic typography. It never gets old.
A great list of superb scores ! Bravo !!!
Film music should be embraced by the general classical community. I'm not sure about New York (more specifically, the New York Phil), but in Denver the Colorado Symphony performs film scores in concert all the time. It's a great way to introduce beginners to classical music before they plunge into stuff like Beethoven (or Mahler, or Phillip Glass, or Karlheinz Stockhausen). John Williams' music is probably better known than that of most "major" classical composers, and with good reason.
Alfred Newman was the head of music of 20th Century Fox and also composed the famous Fox fanfare.
This is a wonderful list. I've loved Ben Hur, and its magnificent score, since I was about 7 years old. Haya Harareet, who played Esther, got married and lived just down the road from me, in Buckinghamshire. I recently picked up the LP of score at a local record fair, and I've fallen in love with it all over again. Thank you Dave!
All of these "10 essential x for beginners" videos are interesting and needed, but this was a pleasant surprise, such a great idea. Thanks for this video, Dave!
What a a wonderful video! Thank you, David. I've been a film score aficionado for decades and bought all the Charles Gerhardt/National Philharmonic discs on RCA, numerous Varese Sarabande albums, Bernard Herrmann Decca Phase Four and others and most of your selections are close to my heart. I was particularly pleased that you chose "King Kong" for Max Steiner. A great score, but it needs a modern recording, although the Stronberg/Moscow SO/Marco Polo isn't too bad in my opinion.
Super! By the way, Chandos has a series of recordings of film scores by Rumon Gamba & the BBC Philharmonic, including such notables as Bax, Vaughan Williams, Addinsell, Alwyn, Korngold, Rozsa, and on and on. I recently purchased the Film Music of Alan Rawsthorne, which is excellent. More to explore!
Scott of the Antartic was an early experience for me, and I had no idea who composed the film score during my early teens.
What, no Alex North?? Lol Spartacus and Cleopatra are fabulous scores. Also the un-used score for 2001
This was great. I'm hangin' in there because there are so many great scores out there, some great scores that rendered silly movies tolerable or even enjoyable, etc.
Another tiny-but-great aspect of Jaws is a bit of allegory: the music that accompanies the assembly of the shark cage (all those diverse components being bolted together into a functional whole) is a fugue of some substance-melodic lines coming together to form a cohesive whole.
Dave- I am sure that Alfred Newman was a "fan" of Bruckner . The Song of Bernadette's main theme has a remarkable resemblance
to the main theme of the beautifull sonata form adagio of the Bruckner 6th. To be honest Bruckner was the the " Godfather" of
Blockbuster film scores. Bruckner 6 probably having more than most. Including Lawrence of Arabia, Born Free, The Big Country. But
the Big Country has also a great Rach 2 symphony reference, AND the most beautiful melody in all of film score music is the Barn love
theme in the greatest of all film score composers Miklos Rozsa's El Cid. Well that's my opinion.
Your mention of "Lawrence of Arabia" is a good pointer toward Maurice Jarre, whose lushly orchestrated film scores are among my favorites.
@@leestamm3187 Its funny Lee,Dave left out Hans Zimmer which is surprising. What is more surprising it is said that out
of all the great B composers . Bruckner is not on Zimmer's list. Yet in my opinion his greatest creation the "Chevaliers De Sangreal " from The Da Vinci Code in it's minimilistic form . Has quite a resemblance to a very early use of minimilism .
Towards the end of the 4th movement of the Bruckner 9th , which I know Dave detests. I happened to see the first performance of the four movements by Samale-Philipps,Cohrs-Mazzuca in Berlin under Sir Simon Rattle in 2012. Which
because Simon Rattle played it as FOUR movement symphony, it did work . Although the quality of the Bruckner finale written whist he was dieing was not his best except for the chorale. Anyway just before the recaptulation of the chorale before the coda. We hear a section of minimilism , very similar to " Chevalliers" theme from The Da Vinci Code.
John Williams , Alfred Newman amongst others would say that they were inspired at least by Bruckner. BUT it doesn't
appear . Or he says it, that Hans Zimmer was.
@@barrybernstein9049 I'm one of those stodgy old curmudgeons who doesn't care for completions of unfinished works. Leaving them unfinished is fine with me. Zimmer is pretty good, but I don't rate him with the greats of the genre.
I remember the first time I heard Dvořák's 9th symphony and clearly heard where Williams got his idea for the theme to Jaws. It doesn't matter, since composers have been ripping each other off for ideas for centuries, and it doesn't change the fact that Jaws is still a top notch film score.
Also, I completely agree that Goldsmith's score to 'Planet of the Apes' is fantastic.
Apropos your mention of silent movie theater orchestras, years ago there was a book of ancient NY Times film reviews. Some from the twenties mentioned the classical music chunks played between shows by the orchestra -- conducted by Eugene Ormandy!
Excellent ! - Thank You for this
The theme from Jaws is remarkable for its power and simplicity. That said, it was actually taken from the start of the 2nd movement of Dvorak's Symphony 9, which was composed some 90 years before the soundtrack for Jaws was composed.
No it wasn't. You're thinking, first of all, of the finale, not the Largo (which is the second movement), and I have a hard time accepting theories of "borrowing" when the thing borrowed is just a tiny, generic idea. Yes, they sound similar. but that proves nothing.
Great film music is being played with increasing frequency at public concerts. One of the pioneers of this was - wouldn't you know it- - Leopold Stokowski. His 1945 performance of Now, Voyager's final scene with the Hollywood Bowl Symphony (complete with brief spoken introduction by the maestro) may be heard on YT. The music was only 3 years old!
Having played a few Chaplin films at the AFI Silver Theater, I would be interested in knowing who his orchestrator was.
For MODERN TIMES (1936) he used two Fox arrangers/composers David Raksin and Edward Powell (Alfred Newman's main orchestrator). David Raskin was also the arranger. I'm fairly sure Newman conducted the score.
For THE GREAT DICTATOR (1940) Meredith Willson was the primary arranger and orchestrator.
MONSIEUR VERDOUX (1947) Rudy Schrager did the above duties for this film.
LIMELIGHT (1952) Raymond Rasch did the honors.
But Chaplin wrote the music and although some of these men adapted the music to fit the scene, Chaplin rightfully was listed as composer and the music was based on Chaplin's thematic material.
@@JohnWMorgan Thank you! This is great to know!
@@JohnWMorgan I've played The Circus to a live screening of the silent movie. The music was good, not great. I've always wondered who did the orchestrations.
Maybe we could also have "10 Essential Classical Scores That Inspired Film Scores"? 😉