I don't know too much about movie scores or soundtracks, and I would love for some suggestions on some CD's to buy.
A couple of my favorites:
1) I have always loved Hans Zimmer's Driving Miss Daisy score.
2) Of course I think that Jurassic Park is amazing, as are most pieces by John Williams.
2) I also bought the Gladiator soundtrack recently and I think it's awesome.

My classical favorites would include Beethoven's 7th, most things by Chopin and Liszt, Shostakovich's symphonies, piano concerti, and quartets. I also love Spanish music-- Granados especially, but also Tarrega, Albeniz, and others. Also, I like Schumann, Dvorak, and Faure.

Per people's suggestions, I am dowloading Bartok's string quartets.

I am a novice on modern music (other than Shostakovich) and would appreciate suggestions. I once attempted to listen to Corigliano but was very stymied. Maybe I need a new mindset.

thanks, and hope to talk to you all again soon!

I'd be very interested in finding out what you guys think is the place of film scores in the annals of music. I mean, can you compare someone like Hans Zimmer or James Horner or John Williams to someone like Frederic Chopin or Beethoven or even Shostakovich?

Is film score a valid art form--even independent of the movie itself? Or is it merely a commercialization and denigration of the art? I'd be interested to know what you guys think.

And what do you think of contemporary composers who refuse to do movie scores, saying that they lower and degrade the music? Is it as valid to compose for a film as it is to compose in general for yourself?

....unfortunately your not going to get much of a conversation from me at 2.40 am in the morning (here in England anyways).

Stick around, there's lot's of good folk around these here parts!

Film music in the big picture...

I'm writing this more at large than to just you Orpheus.

Elmer Bernstein said that film music is the lyric music of the 20th Century.

It's obvious that film music developed out of or is akin to previous dramatic forms which employ music such as programmed music, opera, and music for stage performances (i.e., ballet) from the 19th Century and earlier.

Many major 20th Century composers have written for film--Saint-Saens, Holst, Walton, Prokofiev, Copland, Diamond, Thomson, Dello Joio, Gershwin, Khatchaturian, Bliss, Bax, Ireland, and Shostakovich.

Ralph Vaughan-Williams, who wrote for films, insisted that modern composers should write for films because the specific disciplines involved--being direct, easily accessible, and forced to write within time constraints--imposed limitations that made composers get to the point, that nipped self-indulgence in the bud the way that writing for a newspaper might tame the excesses of an over-florid author.

Is it a valid art? Does it stand apart from the film? Is it a denigration of music?

Film music is first a craft, maybe it's the borrowing of an art. The music is put into service in collaboration with a larger whole (the film) but one whose aims are the same as music played by itself--communicating through a medium that stirs emotions.

In fact, many believe that film can't stir emotions or communicate its points without music being there to assist it.

Certainly, the composers are artists. Film music CAN be played apart from the film and stand on its own. It wasn't primarily designed to do this, but as I have said before, film music which can't stand on its own as music does an injustice to both film and music.

There are rather poor scores which would suffer on their own that have, nonetheless, been very effective in their function on a film's soundtrack.

Slowly, film music is being accepted in concerts, mostly Pops concerts of light music. Certainly, film music CDs outsell most classical ones which is why people who love film music have been lucky to see a lot of it available now, but that's a side issue.

Does film music stand on it's own? Yes. But it is a point of personal taste. I listen to film music and for me it stands on its own just fine, but others have different taste buds.

Is it a denigration of music? Well, that's been an argument for some time. Some classical music lovers do feel that film music is often stolen from music by more major composers (which isn't really the case) or simply don't like the sound, find it too simple and watered-down. And it is true that film music isn't designed like say Baroque music--it doesn't have six lines of melody all going at once played on different instruments all playfully and mathematically interwoven for effect. Film music is its own form of music, it has its own approaches and conventions, many of which clash with the established forms of other orchestral music. If they call this a denigration, I'm not sure how to argue with them other than to say that film music still does for me the same things that other music may do for them.

As for the last question, what about contempt-orary composers who refuse to work for film because they consider it beneath them, well, it raises an issue that also applies to those who consider film music a denigration.

But we are dealing with two different outlooks. Outlook one is from the elitist snob who can't associate himself with a mass or popular entertainment form. Everything has to reek of class and position and the acquisition of a refined taste and sensitivity that the unwashed proles cannot relate to. Film, if art film, might be permissible, but film music, Jerry Goldsmith along side Handel and Mozart, the very idea is met with laughter and sneering.

These guys can go to hell. Actually, what I want to say about these guys I can't get into print on this board.

The second outlook is anti-establishment. Like the Frankfurt school theorists who lumped film music in with jazz and rock as mind-numbing music based at root on a repetitive beat which somehow or other makes music a re-produceable product which also keeps the entire system going. They see mass or popular entertainment as an opium, a bread and circus, that keeps people from true political enlightenment, film music included. There are contempt-orary composers who find the academic approach, serialism, atonalism, and the like, as the only way for a modern music to go. To them, film composers are prostitutes, selling-out whatever little talent they had in the first place, to compose "old-fashioned" tonal music with a popular appeal. I'm not against their academic kind of composition but for academic composers to claim a superiority of their tastes over film music is the same snobbishness that the elitist feels. And this puts the talented film composer between a rock and a hard place, looked down on by both the upper class and the radical, when all he/she's trying to do is give the average guy with average tastes a good time. But in the case of the academic composer, I sometimes feel his comtempt for film musicians may cloak a hidden jealousy. If these academics didn't have a university to support them and they had to actually ply their trade out on the streets and they found out that they couldn't compose a note anyone would care to listen to or pay for, I think it would crush their egos (just before they starved to death). In any case, you might understand how the academics could get to be clanish and pat each other and their patrons on the back for having a superior understanding and need to look down on the "sell-outs" who can actually sell their music.

These guys can go to the same place the other guys can go to and they all deserve to sit in a room with each other anyway.

In any case, these are all silly questions. You either like something or you don't, it either feels good or it doesn't, and all the rest is crap. I like film music. Period. I don't need to excuse it, defend it, explain it, or anything, I just have to like it, even if I'm the only one in the whole world that does. Thank God that listening to film music is legal and that I don't have any other twisted quirks, but if I did, so be it. If you give up your pleasures because they are forbidden for whatever reasons (but especially because someone else told you it's not correct), you may get to heaven but your life here on earth will be hell.

You already have scores you like, but if you want a list of great suggestions that will knock your socks off, start out with scores by crossover composers like Shostakovich or Prokofiev--Alexander Nevsky, Ivan the Terrible, The New Babylon, King Lear. Walton's Shakespeare scores and all the scores by the Americans listed above (especially The Red Pony and Gershwin's Second Rhapsody from Delicious). Then go onto the meat:

My list of the 12 great film composers is as follows:

Bernard Herrmann

Miklos Rozsa

Malcolm Arnold

Jerry Goldsmith

Elmer Bernstein

Ennio Morricone

Georges Delerue

John Barry

Franz Waxman

Jerome Moross

Maurice Jarre

Dimitri Tiomkin

Just about anything by these guys gets my seal of approval. But they are just the tip of the iceberg--Ifukube, Sarde, Korngold, Steiner, all the Newmans, Poledouris, Broughton, Horner, Friedhofer, Elfman, Zimmer, Williams, Stevens, Baxter, Mayuzumi, Jaubert, and on and on and on and on...it's a world of sound that everybody here loves and feels is the benchmark of the 20th and now the 21st Century. Welcome to the board Big O and enjoy.

NP: Atragon (Akira Ifukube)

Here is just an additional speculation on my part. I personally believe that some
elitist concert composers denigrate film composers because they could NOT
span the vast range of subjects quality film composers must tackle. Sometimes
concert composers are commissioned to compose for a city opening or some
other project, but most of the time they can pick their compositional forms,
subjects, etc. Imagine being hired to compose emotional and iconographic
music for the following variable subjects: 25 foot shark, outer space man who
wears a blue suit with a red S, dinosaurs, an espionage movie, an archeologist
with a whip, an American revolution, and impoverished Irish children. Those
subjects barely scratch the surface of John Williams’ contributions. Try to write
complex music for subjects like: smart apes, albino outcast, the Devil’s son,
a small football player, a killer alien, many various westerns, a Viking, or
an invisible man. That’s barely an introduction to Jerry Goldsmith. Fine film
composers are superb artists because their abilities to musically portray
almost any subject are infinite.

NP Rio Conchos

[Message edited by joan hue on 11-23-2000]

Not only has the film composer got to be a musician but he/she needs to have a dramatic sense, needs to know, like an opera composer, what music needs to do, not just as music pure and concrete, but as a form which communicates the subtext of human drama, emotions, etc. Joan is right, if anyone has the right to look down on other musicians, it's the talented film composer.

A couple things about the topic at hand--
Chris had an interesting comment about Van Gogh. It is kind of funny to think of the stereotypical struggling artist as compared to today's John Williams. I don't mean to play the devil's advocate, but John Williams could write a piece of CRAP and get paid 20 million dollars for it! He gets millions as an advance! Now, don't get me wrong, because I do agree with almost everything you all posted. But don't you think there's a case to make for the struggling artist out there whose music is tempered only by his/her own emotions? Humor me with this thought experiment-- If Van Gogh had sold his first painting for 22 million dollars (or however much it would be sold for today) what would the rest of his life had been like? Would he have continued to produce such masterpieces or would he have drifted into aristocratic idleness and shot off a painting or two whenever he needed a little extra cash?

Thanks, again for your great posts and kind words of welcome. And please, no more references to my little mishap down under. It's obviously a very painful reference for me.

You just brought up another topic. I'm reminded of the lines from Singin' In The Rain where Donald O'Connor is a starving composer. I forget the order this goes in. He's offered a job scoring movies. He says, Now I can quit starving and write that masterpiece. Then he gets sacked and says, now I can live poor and write that masterpiece, it goes something like that.

It all depends on the integrity and goals of what an artist wants to accomplish in life and his stamina or how far he's willing to go to placate the muse.

Nobody would play Charles Ives, way too dissonant for turn-of-the-century tastes, so Ives ran an insurance company, made a million dollars at that and composed on the weekends. Today, no one remembers Ives as an insurance salesman. Paul Gaughan left his wife and kids to go to Tahiti and paint.

It's a speculative question--some people, prodigy musicians especially, become well-paid and famous at a young age, what might they have accomplished under other conditions? Who knows, maybe better stuff, maybe junk.

Can cash and fame ruin a great artist in the making? It has and it has helped great artists too or made no difference for others. God grants us talents and graces and then we fend for ourselves for a while. It ain't a perfect system and mankind doesn't always come out on top--sadly, we lose out on what we could have and other times we can get more than we could have hoped for.

Should we support artists who are out on the edge and fringe of the avant-garde exploring the sub-atomic space of art? That's what patronage is about, bankrolling someone so they can do what they do. Film studios bankroll people who will do what they need. There are other artists-for-hire. Those artists who are not-for-hire need to find their own sources of income: individuals, foundations, schools, tax dollars even.

Will I say that the system is unfair because those with talent sometimes don't succeed while others less deserving do or that horrible lower common demoninator tastes often triumph over works of greater depth and meaning? I could, but if I learned one thing in economics class, it was supply and demand. Capitalism reflects a brutal world, it's indifferent to people, it's divisive and competitive instead of co-operative, etc., but it does force one, like it or not, prostitution or not, to put something into society. No work, no food. And, in this case, it's human society, not the individual provider, who decides what is worth while. You know people are being served and made happy because they are willing to work and pay for what you are doing. You may want to do other things, fine, but if they aren't of service to society they won't be as praised and supported by society. You can find a niche and have a small group of people support you while you struggle with expressing yourself or keeping your art pure and that's fine too. The market is a tyranny in this respect, it won't give you what you think you are worth, but it does reflect the tastes of people and what they think you are worth. The question is, would you have it another way? Would you force certain art down people's throats who didn't want it just because some people thought it was great? And who are those people? And would you make people who didn't like something pay for it too? But the truth is that people do recognize the artist's dilemna living in a world where art and commerce co-exist. Give people credit, society does understand the importance of art to lead the way where human culture, sensibilities, and lifestyles need to next evolve to and society does fund and encourage art "R & D--research and development." Society does find ways to advance the avant-garde, the new boy on the block. But, as I said above, like everything else in human society, it's not perfect, it's not utopia, and messing with things to try and make it utopia goes one of two ways--it makes things better or it really ****s them up. But it's true--often what is current, like Van Gogh, was once the vision of someone struggling, ignored, and now long dead. Sadly, maybe the difference between acclaim and obscurity rests in having a good PR man. We could change that and try to promote and throw money and exposure towards everybody who stands up and says, "I'm an artist." But I hope you can see what trouble that starts. Sorry Orph, no easy solutions.

Pretty cool that u understood me. I never write in Spanish here and I've no idea what came over me. Muy bien eh?

Hay mucha gente differente aqui. Tontos y buenos y estupidos......yo soy un tonto.

Como se dice "LOL" en Espanol?

Anyway....

Later babe

Look at our movie stars. Through excellent artistic endeavors, they achieve fame.
Then they star in a movie that due to poor direction, script, etc. bombs. They still
draw the high salary for previous meritorious portrayals..or big box office sales.

Are all Picasso paintings equal? Are some of his paintings better than others? Some
of Shakespeare’s play are so magnificent and perfect, audiences never tire
of watching varied interpretations, and actors aspire to reinvent a new Hamlet or
Macbeth yearly. However, a few of his plays are rarely performed, considered too
long and meandering. I’m not sure all artists hit the bull’s-eye every time, but
composers like Goldsmith, Morricone, Rozsa, Williams, and others rarely miss their
targets.

O.K., Lou, it’s time for you to write a tome on film music.

No reply from Orph--maybe we just overwhelmed him?

Orpheus, we can only speculate what great artists like Van Gogh or Lautrec might have achieved, had their financial circumstances been dramatically altered (ala today's standards).

I'd like to think that Vincent would have gone on to create many more wonderful canvasses...and that BOTH of his ears would have been connected to his head until his natural demise.

Well paid artists produce more and better work!

Here in the year 2000, artists of ALL kinds, shapes and sizes can avail themselves of a deep and very wide GLOBAL market for their works.

When we examine an artist such as Michelangelo, who was well funded throughout his career, the conclusion is clear. His prolific output was a direct result of excellent funding!

Okay, Orpheus, are you convinced?

Joan--It was only a couple of paragraphs, what's to publish?

Orph--Chris here just reminded me that I didn't cut to the chase on your question.

Let's take a talented guy. He's poor. He's struggling (and in Williams' case you could say this is true--he didn't start out making megabucks--he started out playing piano for Mancini and Drasnin and writing cues for TV). In any case, he's good but poor and unknown.

So he goes about his work and creates real greatness that eventually we discover and get to have. Now let's take the same situation and change it. The first work in his teens puts the artist forever on the map (this has happened to many rock musicians)...

Now, the artist is rich and loved and has all the privileges. And he decides to become a hack. He could produce good works, but doesn't. He could try to find new challenging frontiers but would rather repeat himself and give the public what it wants and make the bucks and art be damned. He doodles and win prizes and so he decides to do nothing but doodle. Well, so what? What can you really do about it other than feel sad and turn away? And some people are paying his bills, so obviously some people are happy with what he's doing.

Joan makes a good side point that half of the people on the Board call a certain score magnificent, while the other half call it a dud. I'm sure there are some who'd already call John Williams a "hack".

I am thankful for your very articulate answers, Lou and Joan. Despite my rumblings, I do agree with you on all counts. Lou is right that we probably can't know the answer to such questions as my thought experiment about Van Gogh...

If a person like John Williams were ruined by money it would in my eyes diminish all of his previous work. The true artist stays true to his work and emotions no matter whether he is struggling on the street for pocketchange or working on million-dollar advances. Those that reject film music as low and degrading to music merely reveal themselves for the tenuously inspired musicians that they are. I read something by Robert Pinsky (former poet laureate of the U.S.) in the NY Times a couple weeks ago about art transcending the medium (the article was about TV as art).. I think that if an artist cannot transcend his material possessions then he is not a real artist, and if he is stymied by the medium then it merely shows his own limitations.

oh, and thanks for finally cluing me in on the meaning of "NP". I'm glad I didn't have to ask. (I hope it doesn't have to be a film score)

--Orph

What is a true artist?

What if an artist likes his material possessions or doesn't mind being edited or for hire?

What if an artist doubts the vision he is following, struggles with it, doesn't remain true to it, but still produces something others find worthwhile, is he not a true artist?

What is the ideal relationship between art and the world that art is a part of? Does art need to be free from commercial concerns in order to be true?

And if Williams were ruined by success why would that taint/diminish all his previous work in your eyes? What happens when artists grow and stop producing what you liked before, like Roberto Rossellini going from fiction Neo-realsim to making documentaries about the History of Iron (he grew to believe educating people was more important than entertaining them, but many critics disagreed with that and where he was going)? Does the new work invalidate the old?

I'm just trying to get an idea of where you are coming from and what your attitude is about all these topics and just what you really think of film music and the people who create it.

And you can NP just about anything.

For instance, NP: BBC radio from London

Yes, I believe film scoring is a valid art-form. It is just a different animal to writing music intended for stand-alone consumption.

These are the two major differences between the art of film composing and the art of stand-alone composing, as I see them. Firstly, the art of film scoring is part of a bigger art-form, the movie itself. Secondly, music intended for stand-alone consumption, be it a pop song or a symphony, serves a completely different purpose to music written for film.

Within its intended medium, film music not only enhances the agenda of the movie, but the movie also gives the film score meaning and purpose. Outside of the movie, film music, on the whole, is fragmented, incomplete and meaningless. Of course there are exceptions to this. Occasionally film music can work away from the movie, but it is my belief that such music does not necessarily make great film music. I suppose what I am trying to say is that sometimes too much music in a movie is not desirable – by too much, I don’t just mean the quantity of music, but the nature of the music.

Let me put it this way. Mahler’s tenth symphony opening movement adagio is arguably one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, but it would not necessarily make great film music. Likewise, Horner’s score to BOPHA! (1993) is a fine example of movie-scoring excellence, but it is, in my opinion, virtually worthless as stand-alone music.

And that is the point I am trying to make. The purpose of film music is quite different to the purpose of stand-alone music, and it is this interpretation of film music’s purpose that often leads to a difference of opinion here at the message board. There are those people who believe film music works well on the album (some believe the success of the soundtrack album to be more important than the success of the music in the picture), whilst others, including myself, see movie music as just that, music written to be consumed within its intended medium – the movie. Indeed, one could argue that film music is not intended to be listened to, but that it exists as an element with the aural/visual mix that is the movie – how many times have we heard people say, ‘a good film score should not be heard’? By that I mean, if a film score is succeeding when you are viewing the movie, it is registering positively in the subconscious. Though I collect soundtracks, I do it because I have a nerdish interest in all things film. I don’t usually listen to soundtrack albums, I collect them as I collect bus timetables.

Film music when heard in the movie is not a ‘commercialization and denigration of the art’ of music composition – it is only when the music is divorced from its intended medium that some understandably believe film music to be inferior as ‘purely music’ – which it usually is, in my opinion. By the same token, music intended for stand-alone consumption rarely works as a mood-enhancer or as a musical reinforcement of the movie’s agenda as successfully as music written by the skilled film composer.

Writing film music isn’t an inferior art-form, but film music is usually inferior to music written for stand-alone consumption – it has to be – like I said earlier, too much depth and complexity in film music is as bad as too little depth and complexity in stand-alone compositions.

The job of the film composer is to serve the movie first – this is an alien concept to many composers. A good film composer is not a composer of original, ground-breaking, thematically deep, and orchestrationally complex musical masterworks – the good film composer makes a virtue of recycling existing musical ideas – he copies, simplifies and plagiarises so as to make his music accessible to the cinema audience – he serves the movie. This is not to say that all film music is simple and unoriginal – there are of course many exceptions to this – but they are exceptions. Many contemporary composers could not bring themselves to compromise their own creativity by writing music for film. This isn’t snobbery – it is simply the right of an individual to follow his own instincts. Indeed, the composer who is inclined to serve his own musical sensibilities first will not necessarily make a good film composer.

Many film composers thrive on the opportunities that composing for film offer them – perhaps such composers as these would not be best suited to writing stand-alone music, just as many contemporary composers may not be best suited to composing for film.

So, Beethoven’s Seventh is one of my favourite stand-alone compositions, whilst Goldsmith’s score to THE BLUE MAX is one of my favourite film scores. But, both works are completely different animals. THE BLUE MAX is of very little musical value away from the movie, and, to be frank, the use of Beethoven’s 7th didn’t really do much to enhance ZARDOZ, for instance.

Finally, I believe some leading composers denigrate the art of film-composing because they genuinely believe composing for film involves the dilution of their own creativity – they see writing for film as having to illustrate someone else’s ideas rather than their own.

Indeed, I find the remarks made by Joan Hue above that some concert-hall composers may be ill-equipped to compose for film utterly absurd. The concert hall composer may be unwilling to compose for film, but he is far from being incapable. The composer of symphonies and pop songs is blessed with instinctive inspiration which can be easily be adapted to writing for film – though as I have said, it is the restrictions imposed on the film composer by the agenda of the movie that is one of the main reasons why some contemporary composers do not wish to involve themselves with composing for film.

In my view you need to be able to judge an artist’s work in two ways, as an individual work of art and as part of a body of work.

Consider a work of art as an individual work. In other words, can the work stand-alone and be a success without any other work to bolster it? Jaws is an excellent example of this. It succeeds even if John Williams had never written another score in his life. In brilliantly supports the film and lends menace to the often malfunctioning mechanical shark that it could never have been achieved without it.

Consider a work of art as part of a body of work. As an individual piece of an entire corpus, Jaws is part of an integral evolution in John Williams style. If you consider the other films that he score before and after Jaws, you can see that it marked a turning point.
Before Jaws he had score some films that had some fairly jazzy beats and some that displayed a funky 70’s style (Eiger Sanction, Earthquake, etc..) With in two years, he scored Star Wars, CE3K. In addition, to the symphonic style that he displayed with such genius, he you can also hear some of his Americana style that first surfaced in 1969 in The Rievers.

To address another point you raised about John Williams, I don’t believe that his success has ruined his work as an artist. Many people say that John Williams doesn’t write scores like he used to. They are quite correct, but I believe this is by choice. Take a look at his work from 1975 to 1987, huge symphonic scores, that were his trademark. In 1988, he began to choose smaller, more intimate films that required smaller more intimate scores that are very different from what he had done before. To be sure, he still scored all of Steven Spielberg’s films with his former trademark sound. But his success let him choose different pictures that allowed him to stretch as a composer. Listen to Rosewood, JFK or Accidental Tourist. They may not be your cup of tea, but they are well written and support the films they were written for.

Indeed, He has always been willing to experiment with different styles. Listen to the extremely dissonant Images and the very jazzy How to Steal a Million and tell me that this sounds like the man who scored Star Wars.

It is interesting that Goldsmith followed a similar path to Williams up to the late 70s and into the early 80s – perhaps Williams’ JAWS and STAR WARS were just as crucial to Goldsmith’s development as to the composer of these film scoring masterpieces himself.

Additionally, I also do not think that Williams’ success has ruined his work as an artist. Goldsmith has suffered a far greater deterioration in creativity than Williams and yet has not enjoyed even a fraction of the success that Williams has garnered for the past twenty years.

Indeed, Williams is still creating superb and diverse film scores today.

Now Daniel said something very different from the rest of you. He ventured to say that the score should not be separated from the medium (or even seperable). This is probably the way most filmmakers see the film score, just as a matter of practical concern. It should be "seen and not heard".. or.. er.. "heard and not... seen"
But obviously, Daniel, there are MANY people in here who see more in film scores than the intended effect by the filmmaker. I think that this is because the filmmaker is not the originator of the music--the composer is. And you cannot tailor-make creativity. I BET that if you ask John Williams or Jerry Goldsmith when they came up with the themes for some of their scores, they would admit that they had been mulling them around in their head for a while even before the movie was assigned.

From what I hear, Daniel, you are in the minority, because the people in this Board do think that the music should be limited to "sound in the background of the film." Instead, they see a paralleling epic--a secondary (or for some primary) action, struggle, romance, climax, resolution.

And thank you all for your words of welcome.

--O

NP Andres Segovia

[Message edited by Orpheus on 11-25-2000]

[Message edited by Orpheus on 11-25-2000]

This is a bit of a different case. With the Beatles is was the collaborative creativity, (or, some may say, the sole creativity of John Lennon). Obviously solo artists may not have the same kind of success as they did in their groups. And god knows Sir Paul has tried-- how many albums has he put out since the demise of the Beatles? I definitely don't think that McCartney is an example of success ruining someone.

I am talking about a person who has produced great work in his/her life and who reaches a point of success where no more work is necessary. If he gives up music or lazes around and makes the poorest-quality scores around then to me it shows that music was not his lifelong passion but rather a job to be done merely for personal financial benefit. Thus, his previous body of work should be viewed in that context. If John Williams (and Paul McCartney) are true artists, (and I venture that they both are), then they make music because they love it.. and while money and success would make that passion a little sweeter, it could never spoil it.

--Orph

I just have to say that I love Daniel 2 even if I don't always agree with him 100%. But much of what he said here is on the money. I do find things to like in film music apart from the film, but I'm in the minority (not with people on this board but with many people in general). And many of the things D2 said are valid ways of looking at the role of film music.

D2 also said, "This isn't snobbery, it is simply the right of the individual to follow his own instincts." I called composers who looked down on film music snobs and reacted against it, but D2 may have it over me on this point--I don't like composers who shoot down film music but no one ever said they had to like it or ever work in it.

MWR scores points with his Beatles analogy. If Joe Artist writes a great work in 1912 and then in 1913 becomes "malleable in the hands of material/financial interests," that shouldn't mean his work of 1912 now sucks. You may have less of an opinion of him as a person or as a "true" artist overall, but his personality shouldn't necessarily invalidate his good previous works or create prejudice against them.

I asked Orph to define a true artist and he kind of answered it by saying that it is someone who does the work for love and not cash. That may be too narrow a definition of both art and artistry for me, but, if it's Orph's, I don't feel like arguing to have him budge from it for now.

I agree with you more than you know. And I must admit that I don't really know completely what a "true artist" is and cannot define it other than saying that the true artist's passion is not affected by success.

But this whole argument, I think, also has a lot to do with one of the most argued-over issues involving music--the interplay between the biography of the musician and the music itself. This controversy is more pertinent with Shostakovich than any other musician of this century. Was he a party-man who cowardly capitulated to Soviet rule and dogma and allowed himself to be used as propaganda? Or was he a valiant anti-Stalinist crusader who masked the hidden meaning of his music in pomp and circumstance that would please the Party? I personally find this question extremely intriguing. There is a great website on this subject that I suggest: http://www.siue.edu/~aho/musov/dmitri.html

Furthermore, is this controversy about Shostakovich's life relevant to his work? Or does the work stand alone? I think that even those of us who would argue that the work stands alone must admit that the personality, character, and biography of the author no doubt contribute and alter the work.

So, this may be a tenuous connection, but attempting to tie it in to that whole hypothetical situation with John Williams and his success--If Shostakovich were revealed late in his life as being a willing instrument of the Communists in the USSR, would this diminish his previous work?

I don't know the answer, but it's an interesting question.

--Orpheus

"The true artist's passion is not affected by success." OK. Come what may, fame, fortune, poverty, whatever, the true artist remanins true to what he's doing. But as a lot of my longwinded posts here have asked...what about an "artist" who falls short of this mark? What are we make of him and his work? Where do we place it in the scheme of things? Do we automatically reject it or consider it inferior?

After Shostakovich was denounced by the party, people would actually come by his house and throw stones! His son used to climb a tree and use a slingshot against them. Both his son and grandson finally defected. Maybe Dimitri had the chance, too, in his lifetime but opted against it for reasons not known. In any case, I don't look at DS as evil. He wanted to compose in a climate that did not give artists freedom. Was he a tool of the government, a sly critic of it, a supporter? I don't know, but these seem to me secondary questions when I listen to DS.

Works stand or fall on their own first.

Then, who the artist is, what the background of the work is, all the other works by the artist and how they relate to this one, and any other styles or movements that are going on around the artist, and finally all the political and personal issues involved, they all form a background and context from which to view a work from, but I consider them secondary to the work itself. Secondary I said, but not irrelevant.

Who an artist is and what he does will affect your value judgments. Many artists are bastards. Wagner--a miserable guy. He tried to ruin his critics and other composers. Philosophically, he helped put anti-semitism and pro-German nationalism into 19th Century German culture. He was in essence a Nazi. Even Hitler said--to understand Nazism you must first understand Wagner. But hey, I love the Ring cycle. And yet, I can't help thinking about some of this baggage when I'm listening to it. Luckily, I can enjoy his operas without having to shack up with the guy.

In any case, considering how few soundtracks you have now, I'm thinking of sending you some more film music. Do you have a tape deck, can you play cassettes on anything? I don't have a CDR burner, I can only send tapes.

I'm making a tape for Pyrodude. It would be no big deal to dub it for you. I also found a few cassettes I no longer use (I have the music on CD now, etc.) that I could send as hand-me-downs. You Newbies need to hear more of this music. I can't supply everyone, but I can afford you two.

Oh, Pyro was young and had to ask his Mom if he could receive a package from a stranger, which is understandable, but it made me feel kind of creepy nonetheless. So, for the record, I'm hetrosexual, not into minors, not a member of NAMBLA, not planning to visit (I live in Michigan far from California), have no desire to lure teens out into the woods for torture and killing---I just think someone should give you newbies a broader taste of things. I only wish someone here with more time and equipment on their hands besides me would chime in and offer the same. Especially since what I have to offer reflects my tastes and will leave out things I've never bought because I'm not into them. That's all.

I wanted to say one thing more about Shostakovich. My piano teacher grew up in the Ukraine under the USSR and only escaped about 12 years ago. I once asked her what she thought of Shostakovich, and she was visibly shaken--she almost shivered. She was disturbed by the mention of his name, and told me that she doesn't like him at all. It was very poignant.

I have listened to Wagner and I know that he was a good composer, but I too have a hard time listening to him, knowing that countless of my relatives (as well as millions of others) perished while German officers entertained themselves with this music. I cannot separate the biography of the musician from the music so easily... I just can't!

Again, Lou, thanks for your generous offer--I am excited and extremely thankful. Of course my mother would object also, but I have a PO Box and I won't tell her anyway.

--Orpheus

I try to keep my pleasures from art seperate from their surrounding politics and background (otherwise a lot couldn't remain pleasures), but the attempt isn't always possible or successful.

I'm able to see advertising and design as art even though I dislike some of the corporations that finance this work, I allow "true" artists a fall from grace even though it's a cultural loss, I like Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia despite its propagandic agenda, I like film music even if some consider it a cultural blight. Still, I can't completely ignore the questionable context of such art myself. But the works are there--I just try to take the good of them out from the bad.

Still, I'm reminded of just one of the amazing scenes in Douglas Sirk's masterpiece, A Time to Love and A Time to Die. The German soldier on leave has a friend in Party who has been offering him food and lodging. The girl he's been courting hates the Nazis and is angry over his accepting favors from this guy. She says, "Some murderers love their Mothers or cry when their dogs are dying, but it's enough that they are murderers for one minute a day, at least to those who are in their hands at the time." You can't always feel emotional sympathy for or compromise with an evil just because it is also helping you out.

I feel I should clarify one or two of the points I made earlier – though you have obviously fully understood the gist of what I have been trying to say.

I believe that some of the greatest music ever written has been composed for film. When I talk in terms of the audience not being conscious of the presence of the film score, I mean this is the case for most of the time, not all of the time. Take Alfred Newman’s STREET SCENE theme, what more memorable theme could one imagine – not only is it properly noticeable within the movies in which the theme is applied, but it is also haunting and evocative. Even away from the movie this theme conjures up images of the New York skyline or the shadowy rain-lashed streets and alleyways of an urban setting – it is noir scoring of the highest calibre. There are countless other examples of movie music being the most powerful element in the movie-mix at any one time.

Take Steiner’s passionate scoring of THE LETTER. This theme has all of the romantic turmoil and struggle of Wagner, and without it, as a movie, THE LETTER would have been far less potent. In fact, movie music often ‘sets’ the tone of a movie, particularly in the past when the movie’s credits appeared at the beginning and not half way through the picture.

In each and every movie genre, movie music has been written than epitomises that genre – be it science fiction, romantic drama, the thriller, the action movie, the sports movie or whatever. And this is where a blurring between the film score and stand-alone music takes place. The movie score can be broken down into various components – each component being more relevant in certain movies than others. Every movie requires a slightly differing emphasis from the film score, from those movies that are almost purely musical (such as EVITA), to those movies without music (such as FAIL SAFE). A film score cannot effectively be pigeon-holed – one film may place the emphasis on low-key dramatic score, another may opt for a bombastic and thematically strong musical accompaniment.

I suppose if one were to break down the various components that make up your average film score, one would be surprised at the amount of skill that is required of the film composer – some of these skills being quite different to those required of the stand-alone composer. The main theme usually played over the opening credits is usually where the film composer can ‘strut his stuff’ as a fully-fledged composer of music. Here, the music is the thing – okay, so the audience will probably be reading the credits, but the music is the most obvious thing about this initial portion of the movie. The dramatic score is where the film composer comes into his own – this is where his skills as a composer of music often become secondary to his skills at interpreting the agenda of the movie at hand.

And Daniel2-- I understand you as well, and I think that I agree with you somewhat. But, as I said before, you represent a view that is much more common for filmmakers, I believe. When I saw Gladiator for the second time (after I had gotten to know the soundtrack quite well) I noticed that even in the battle scene the music was spliced and the track was not ever played completely. So, the original score is cut and fit to the movie in order that it, as you say, is not noticed--or, in other words, so it goes. So while this splicing may in effect ruin the independent musical piece, it makes it work for the movie and so is necessary because that is the point of the score. I understand this and agree, but from Hans Zimmer's point of view, he has created a paralleling story that is as enrapturing as the movie itself. The filmmaker will tailor the score to fit his movie exactly, but the score--if it is worthy--maintains its beauty even independently.

D2--The one point that you keep making in your posts that I have to agree with is the idea that Film Music is for the film first. Whether it works in the film is the music's main priority.

Of course, now that a number of people have been listening to film music apart from the film so that it has become a sort of stand-alone music, I wonder how that changes things. Certainly, I can personally judge the latest score I'm listening to apart from the film as music on its own. If I don't like it, I suppose someone could say, well, you're not supposed to listen to it that way. Comparing film music to stand-alone music is "unfair" to it. But, since I find personally that most stand-alone music is the stuff that doesn't hold up to film music, I'm sure most scores don't need to worry about comparisons, at least from me. I guess I think more highly of film music's quality to give it short shrift.

Today in the world of soundtrack albums, I wonder if the film composer runs into this situation: It's 4 in the morning and Jerry or John or Christopher or Ennio is up working against a deadline (Horner's asleep having cribbed some Prokofiev and called it quits for the night--Sorry D2). The film needs a certain figure to catch a moment of the action but it ruins the progression of the cue. The composer knows this is what the film needs but that the cue won't sound as good on the soundtrack album--still, do they service the film or stay up another 45 minutes to figure out how to serve both?

Put another way, has the reality of soundtrack albums and people listening to this music altered the way film composers think of their duties? I guess composers are the ones to answer this.

Orph--I love Leni Riefenstahl movies, but Leni herself is another story. It's true that she produced her Nazi-era films through her own production company and not through the Party, which is probably the only thing which saved her from a long jail term (nonetheless, various tribunals tried to hold her). She claims to be ignorant of politics and to know nothing of the forced labor that were used as extras on her film Tiefland. She says she never slept with Hitler. Her autobiography makes her sound like a victim. I think she's lying but I can't prove otherwise.

Peter Cohen's masterpiece documentary, The Architecture of Doom, which I have mentioned before in other posts, really posits Nazism as a Neo-Romantic Art movement that turned into state policy. Nazi ideology and aesthetics, the Nazi's view of what Man should be or not be, is directly related to their atrocities.

Seen in this light, Riefenstahl's work is extremely important to Nazism. It takes abstract Nazi aesthetics and ideology and creates an image of them so that Germans and others could "see" just what the Nazis were trying to create.

So, because of this and despite Leni's own protests, I consider Leni a Nazi, a key Nazi in fact. I think Triumph and Olympia were crucial to promoting Nazism. And yet, I can't deny that they are well-made, powerful, at times even beautiful, films. World War II and the Holocaust are over, fifty years have passed, and people have become more media saavy, so I feel it's OK to look at them. Unlike Birth of A Nation in 1915 or Triumph in 1934, I don't see these pro-White supremacy films having the same weight or impact today. At least, I hope not.