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Nyman, who celebrates his 60th birthday next week, also criticised Hollywood for its use of lavish orchestral scores in many movies.

He described them as "so big that you don't notice them" and said he would welcome a reduction in music budgets which would force composers to write for smaller ensembles.

"Then you would get music which is actually on the scale of the drama that is unfolding in front of you."

Nyman also said it was "scandalous" that he was not nominated for an Oscar for his soundtrack to The Piano - which sold three million copies.

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I don't know if his non-nomination was scandalous, but it has gotten to the point where some composers just use 100+ piece orchestras because they have the budget.

And it seems that's the only criteria some people use to determine whether a score is good or not.

- OHOHOH! Jimmy B used 96 musicians!
- He sucks! Steven A used 97!
- They both suck! Mark C had 156 from 5 different orchestras!

Funny though...Grusin performed the entire score on a piano so you can't say he used a huge orchestra on that project.

The thing is the score was just basically jazz piano with one dramatic piece that was basically the upteeth ripoff of John Williams' score to "JFK."

Nyman's work on "The Piano" was a case where the score played an important part to the story and the film. The compositions were the "voice" for the Holly Hunter character who did not speak.

Nyman also could have been nominated for "Gattaca" and "End of the Affair," both of which were exceptional works.

"He described them as "so big that you don't notice them" and said he would welcome a reduction in music budgets which would force composers to write for smaller ensembles. "

I bet if he was given the opportunity to compose for a large orchestra he would actually enjoy it. Perhaps he's jealous.

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Originally posted by MarkA:
I bet if he was given the opportunity to compose for a large orchestra he would actually enjoy it.

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Originally posted by sean:
I think that's very stupid of Michael Nyman to say it was "scandalous" that he wasn't nominated for an Academy Award for The Piano. You know, it sounds like what Errol Morris said when he won (for "Best Documentary Film") for The Fog of War this year: "Finally the Academy has noticed my work." (I'm paraphrashing, of course, but that was the jist of it.) These guys shouldn't write scores and make movies to win awards, they should do it for themselves (that's a better selfish attitude than whining about being nominated at dumb award shows like the Academy's).

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Well, he comes from the classical music scene, where fame is definitely more important than money. Awards and commendations count for a lot, and anyway, if we can complain about the fact that a great composer (e.g. Morricone, Kilar, etc.) has never received an Oscar, shouldn't they above all have the right to do it too?

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It seems to me that only the "safe" composers (ex. Williams, Goldsmith, Horner, Zimmer etc.) really get huge orchestras to do their work, so his point can be taken to be nonsensical.

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Originally posted by franz_conrad:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=1 face=arial>quote:</font><HR size=1>Originally posted by sean:

It seems to me that only the "safe" composers (ex. Williams, Goldsmith, Horner, Zimmer etc.) really get huge orchestras to do their work, so his point can be taken to be nonsensical.<HR size=1></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well just look at the kind of lavish orchestras spent on Van Helsing, Hellboy, The Matrix, X2, T3 and Timeline (the Tyler redux). How many of those were handled by safe composers?

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Franz, that's why I wrote: "etc." Hehehehe... I knew someone would try pigeon-hole that, but no cigar my friend.

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Originally posted by sean:
Franz, that's why I wrote: "etc." Hehehehe... I knew someone would try pigeon-hole that, but no cigar my friend.

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I don't smoke, but chomping like this is fun so what the hell - were X2, T3, Hellboy, the Matrix films, Timeline and any others I mentioned composed by 'safe composers'? That was my point, and it stands whether there's a catch-all 'etc' there or not.

Nyman's own music (whether for chamber ensemble or full orchestra, for film or concert hall) has usually left me cold, I'm afraid.

His general attitude seems to be that all film music is crap unless he wrote it. The guy is a pretentious twit and I wish he'd keep his biased and snobbish views to himself!

Matt

[Message edited by Matt Perkins 03 on 03-19-2004]

Good thing Williams wasn't nominated for Jurassic Park or Nyman might have gone after him with a baseball bat. It's not like Schindler's List is particularly overblown...

I don't smoke, but chomping like this is fun so what the hell - were X2, T3, Hellboy, the Matrix films, Timeline and any others I mentioned composed by 'safe composers'? That was my point, and it stands whether there's a catch-all 'etc' there or not.

NP Tess/The Tennant (Sarde)[/B]<HR size=1></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, I think, from my own personal preference, that all those guys (Ottman, Beltrami, Davis, and Tyler) can and will produce scores that will satisfy directors, and audiences, for that matter (even if most people don't pay attention), and fans, too. So, yeah, I think they're "safe", but I mean, you have a point: Don Davis or John Ottman are probably not going to score a big film like a new Star Trek movie or something of the sort—Ottamn's doing X-Men stuff cause he's friends with Bryan Singer, and an awesome composer, too, I think. That brings me back to Star Trek VI: That's what's so good about the score, is taking a risk, and, IMO, Eidelman's music sounds so much more mature than what guys like Hans Zimmer did at that time (1991), and filmmakers seem to ignore Eidelman now and don't give him big stuff like Star Trek or high-profile films of that kind. (Nicholas Meyer also did the same with Horner in the early 80s for Star Trek II.)

On to Michael Nyman: I don't own any of his scores, and whenever I've heard them on film, like Gattaca, I thought his music was dry, lacking emotion, and pretentious, like Philip Glass. But, I don't think he should keep his comments to himself. I like hearing what composers have to say about film music and about other people's scores (though he ain't being very specific); it's incredibly entertaining.

I liked some of The Piano, but never got quite around to buying it.

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His general attitude seems to be that all film music is crap unless he wrote it. The guy is a pretentious twit...

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I don't mind Nyman. He's okay. I know a lot of people that hate him and I understand that, but I don't mind him. I have The Piano (which is good in places and just plain old ANNOYING in others.), The Claim and Gattaca and I don't have problems listening to any of them.

A few nights ago on the radio I heard one of his piano works from the 1970s. I don't remember what it was called, I was half asleep at the time, but when it finished and the presenter said it was by Michael Nyman, my head popped up with question marks floating above it because I didn't remember hearing continuous lines of pulsating quavers on freaking Saxophones.
Anyway, I was surprised because it was so unlike the Nyman that I'm used to hearing and I rather liked it. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, I was half asleep at the time, so maybe it was crap.

He should get off his high-horse over that Oscar nomination already.

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Originally posted by Southall:
Nyman has been far more disparaging about film music in the past. I heard him say it was all "rubbish" once. He almost veers into Andre Previn territory sometimes.

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Originally posted by Scorro:
Grand total of Nyman scores in my collection = 0

I liked some of The Piano, but never got quite around to buying it.

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That applies to me as well. Though, I also like Gattaca and The Claim and have been meaning to buy them for years. I just can't seem to find a time that is right for doing so for some reason...

In regards to orchestras being too big for film scores, I think it all really comes down to what the composer does with the orchestra. If you're going to have lush, delicate orchestrations in which every line has a clear, distinct purpose, then a full orchestra is most welcome. But if you're the type of composer (I'll refrain from naming those I consider culprits) who's going to have every instrument banging on the same note at the same time, putting a cap on the orchestra's size might be an interesting and helpful idea.

Anyway, size doesn't matter, right? Doesn't it all come down to what you do with what you've got?

Michael Nyman may come across as snooty, but let us not forget that one of the most brilliant of all film composers, Bernard Herrmann, was full of bile and unkind words for his peers. Does this detract from his genius? No. Herrmann understood film music in a way that many composers today could only dream of. He was not a perfect human being, nor was he a "perfect composer." He was an angry, jealous man (I actually think that Herrmann's harsh opinions of film music is what propelled him to achieve what he did with the medium).

(An aside: musically, Nyman's work bears a notable similarity to Herrmann's. Nyman usually composes in the minimalist idiom, which is a form of composition in which short, very tonal musical phrases are repeated while slight variations introduce themselves over time. Herrmann was doing this before it had a name. One would have to be deaf not to draw a connection between the "Radar" cue from The Day the Earth Stood Still and something like "Prospero's Magic" from Prospero's Books.)

If Nyman's comment was indeed that it was a crime that he wasn't nominated for an Oscar for The Piano, I would have to say that I agree with him. I, for one, found the music quite moving, and it was the score that was perhaps most important to its respective film that year. Do I think it should have won? I don't really know. Maybe.

Dave Grusin was brought up earlier. In William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade, Goldman takes a short story that he had written years before and uses it as an example on how movie adaptations work. One of the more inspired things Goldman does in the book is interview several filmmakers whose work is renowned to discuss the short story and the adaptations he writes of it. He interviews George Roy Hill about what a director sees when he looks at the script, he interviews Dede Allen about how the montage might go, he interviews Gordon Willis about how one might light and shoot the piece, and so on.

When it comes to the music, he interviews Dave Grusin, who says that he feels that sometimes art films often have more interesting musical scores because the budget constraints often cause the composer to be more creative in the sounds he chooses to illustrate the film. A smaller ensemble may not be more versatile than an orchestra, but it can be more specific.

Again, this fits in with comments that Herrmann has made. He often derided Hollywood composers for using orchestrators, believing that the coloration of a score was just as important as motives (I would protest that most Hollywood composers forge long relationships with their orchestrators for just this reason; Howard Shore told me when I asked that the reason he orchestrates his own scores for the most part nowadays - this was a few years ago, but I think it still holds true - is because between the lack of control of texture and the fact that technology makes it much easier for him to write out the parts himself and fax them to his copyists, there was no point).

No two Herrmann scores sound the same (neither do two Shore scores, for that matter) and much of the reason is because the palette changed from project to project.

Nyman is different in that he tends to work with his symphonic band, producing a very specific sound.

I think he has a very good point, though, when he says that many times an orchestral score can be overblown for the project that it was composed for. In many cases, I think that genre dictates form, and unfortunately there aren't enough composers out there thinking outside the box - and not enough filmmakers comfortable with composers thinking outside the box - so things like Media Ventures, and the score-by-numbers method arise.

Royal S. Brown once mentioned how Star Wars actually had a negative influence upon the film music scene because it created this concept amongst film music aficionados that the romantic idiom was the end-all, be-all of film music. I remember a review I wrote, panning Evolution. A person wrote back to me, telling me that I was wrong in disliking the score because it used a full orchestra.

An orchestra is not the only way to score a film. I think that what Nyman is saying (and I will grant you that he is being quite overbroad in his assessment, but his point is still valid) is that there is a certain expectation of what a film score should sound like, and that is something that will stifle a composer's creativity.

I agree.

The size of one's canvas is immaterial if one is not filling it with something of worth. Evolution did not strike me as being either good music or a good album. I wrote my honest opinion, and you have every right to disagree with me.

If you are going to do so, however, don't do it by saying that just because the score was written for 105 pieces or whatever it is good music. Tell me why you disagree with me when I say that I don't think the themes were particularly original, that the eclecticism of the score had nothing to unify it, or that I didn't find myself being engaged emotionally by the score. You're entitled to your opinion just as I'm entitled to mine. No melody is intrinsically better just because it is played on one instrument instead of another, though. The melody may be more pleasing on the piano rather than the viola, in which case, that's what you say. Not pianos are categorically better than violas.

I don't mean to be targeting John Powell here, it is just that this particular incident showcases the type of attitude that Nyman is commenting on that Royal found infuriating, and that I myself have no use for. When Nyman says that the scores have gotten so big that you don't notice them, he has a point that the large orchestral score has become ubiquitous. It is something that is easily taken for granted (why else would Gabriel Yared's score for Troy, which is clearly an original and highly detailed work of a devoted artist, be rejected in favor of the same James Horner score he's been writing/cribbing for years?).

Regarding the emotionality in Nyman's work, I must say that in another thread, I make a distinction between music that I like and that I respect. Sometimes they will coincide. Sometimes they will not. There are many film composers out there whose work just doesn't speak to me. Is it a problem in their composition style? No. Is it a problem with my aesthetics? No. It is a question of my personal taste.

I happen to find Nyman's music very emotionally engaging. It is rare that I will not respond very strongly to a Nyman score.

While I had little use for Evolution, you may have found it the most trancendental film score in motion picture history. By the same token, there were plenty of people posting here who could care less about Nyman's music. For myself, I happen to love it. Drowning by Numbers, The Piano, Gattaca, The End of the Affair and many more are works I find wrenchingly beautiful.

Am I right and everyone else wrong? Well, yes, of course. I mean... no! Much of it is a matter of taste and therefore will vary from person to person depending upon what they seek in the music they listen to.

One might want to get past the initial defensive posture that many have taken in response to his comments and go for the substance beneath them. I certainly understand the knee-jerk "well, if you don't like film music, f--k you" reaction. I've felt the urge to counter the attitude myself when customers in the classical room attempted to use the same criteria to judge a film score as they do another type of music.

Let us not forget that Nyman's point of view is very different from ours. He is a composer who has to deal with the expectations of filmmakers and the marketplace at large. I'm sure that he's been hired many times on the basis of a score that he had done, only to find that his approach was "too different" from what the filmmakers were hoping for. Anybody who has heard his rejected score for Practical Magic can attest to that. Not that there's anything all that wrong with Alan Silvestri's replacement, but it is the easier choice.