I agree completely on that. Those are great examples too - Planet of the Apes - there is so little actual music in it, but what is there is so good that it is more significant than most operas. I find myself humming every cue of that. People on both TV and film have been imitating that score right and left for the last 35 years. And Chinatown is even better if that is possible. Not only for the melancholy dark jazzy trumpet tune, but for tiny moments here and there, like the empty riverbed with its incredibly desolate strings and chimes, or the extreme unease and indefinable vocal and percussive sounds in the "investigation" scene. Goldsmith does what is probably the essence of the best film music - not reinforcing what is on the screen, but instead revealing the hidden psychological depths beneath it.

Different strokes for different folks I guess. While I like much of Goldsmith's music, none of it "astonishes" me. I reserve that for the likes of Mahler, Gershwin, Charlie Parker, guys like that. Williams' music impresses me mightily though. Let's be honest- in the past 7 or 8 years, Goldsmith had taken to writing scores that had pop-styled progressions. Very simple ones and not a whole lot of modulations. On a purely musical level, I find most of his post 1997 scores...well saccharine. I still listen to Mulan but I don't think it's on par with his superior Tora Tora Tora score. I don't even want to make a comparison between The 13th Warrior and Wind and the Lion. I heard Hollow Man but cannot really comment as I don't have the score. But much of his originality seemed to have waned. Now one can attribute this to his failing health in many respects. But we're talking music here. I get a lot more out of listening to Angela's Ashes, A.I. or Minority Report. On the other hand, I think the music application of Harry Potter is awful. It was on the other night and I found the music to have a total disregard for what was happening on screen.

Catch Me if You Can and The Terminal have moments of real brilliance but don't make for a complete listening experience. And the new Star Wars films have almost undone the magic and awesome qualities of Star Wars and TESB.

The other thing I must consider is that I go through stages of liking one composer over the next. Sometimes I'm more in a Goldsmith mood than a Williams mood or vise-versa. I've been listening to Giacchino's The Incredibles a lot lately. Although now I've taken a break and re-vsisted Goldenthal's early '90's scores like Demolition Man, Cobb, and Golden Gate.

There are few composers, even great ones, that I can always listen to and enjoy whenever. Vaughan Williams happens to be one of them. Was he a genius? No. But there's something in his music that I really appreciate.

I've also been on a Chris Young kick of late. I had a chancde to hear his first forray into film scoring with a score to PRANKS. A low budget slasher film from 1982. For this, Young eschewed the typical scoring devices of cheesy synths and went with a string orchestra, mixed percussion, 2 pianos and a bass harmonica. A surprisingly excellent score. Frankly, if there was ever a person to follow in Goldsmith's footsteps, I'd nominate Young, except he doesn't seem to be getting the high profile jobs that many film score fans hoped he'd get.

Vaughn Williams is not a genius?

You must be joking.

He is one of the greatest composers of modern times. The 4th Symphony is an awesome work beyond 99% of all composers who ever lived. The 6th is equally great, and the 9th is even greater. And those are just his symphonies.

So I disagree just a wee bit about old Raiph.

However, you may be right about Goldsmith's later scores. I was not talking about those at all. In fact, I haven't heard them. I have heard almost everything he did from the 70s back, but not much of the newer stuff. But I have a suggestion as to why his later scores might not be up to the earlier.

The movies he scored are pieces of shit.

Basic Instinct, Rambo, etc. etc. etc... gag. These are garbage films but done on a big budget. And the venal low-life producer hacks who dump this crap hire a great artist like Goldsmith to do music so it will be "classy." But the rotting stench of these film ideas must ultimately have an effect upon someone like Goldsmith, even someone as professional as he was.

This in fact is something that enrages me, and which prevents me from wanting to touch normal film composing today with a ten foot pole. I cannot accept the stupidity and wretchedness of today's films. And if you want to find a reason for why even a great composer like Goldsmith "waned" - where the hell else do you really need to look?

Yes William, poor Jerry seemed consigned to mostly crappy movies. Funny enough, scores for Mulan, LA Confidential, The Edge, and perhaps the last truly great film he scored Six Degree of Separation, all contained very interesting, effective music. I notice a difference when ANY film composer works on a great film as opposed to a marginal piece of trash.

As for Vaughan Williams, he's one of my all time favorite composers. He's seen as middle of the road by academia because he wasn't doing anything "original" in a time when modernism was at its height. But I love all his works. The Tuba Concerto, Oboe Concerto, Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, Tallis Fantasia, Symphonia Antarctica, but mostly the slow movement from his 5th Symphony. It's so bittersweet but doesn't go anywhere near shmatlz. It's one of the most moving pieces I've ever heard and it still retains its effectiveness even after I've heard it more than 100 times.

Bartok appeals to my mind while Vaughan Williams will always touch my heart and soul.

Okay it sounds like the original statement should have read JW is a superior composer to JG in such and such a time period or something. When someone composes a dozen or so brilliant scores that define the art for a couple of decades I tend to go with that rather then focusing on any decline for whatever reasons. Williams is a very popular composer but has never been a cutting edge guy. His most famous scores are throwbacks very well written and executed. He has done some brilliant writing that is modern to a degree but he didn't set the bar for modern popular film - Goldsmith did. Every composer in the town I live in knows it and talks about it: I live in LA California. As Basil Polodouris said, "He's the mold."

This is an easy call in my opinion and is not any kind of put down on JW. But history will not note JW as a trailblazer who brought the art to it's present zenith. In fact William's good friend Andre Previn has told him to stop writing Hollywood crap and get serious (LA Times.) Papillon, A Patch of Blue, Freud, these are seminal film scores. The Boys from Brazil sounds like Strauss and Mahler and is totally original, thorough writing done under extreme time constraint.

If you compare the total body of work here I don't think there is any comparison.

Dave Connor

..

Paul, I couldn't agree more with your take on VW. Like I said in my earlier post, of any composer, his music has an eternal appeal no matter what mood I'm in. I just listened to Serenade to Music and it's simply gorgeous.

But i don't like using the word "genius" and "brilliant" to describe him. I feel that those words have been over used in our current society. I worked on a film score a while back and the director called my music "brilliant". I said that I was glad he liked it but it was no where near brilliant. "Brilliance" is a word I reserve for Beethoven, someone who could write the 9th Symphony completely deaf. Mind you, his 7th Symphony is my favorite. Wagner was also a genius. A bit of a prick but nevertheless a genius. Charles Ives may have been a little eccentric (aka insane) but I'd call him brilliant.

Getting back to Vaughan WIlliams, I think he is as valid a composer as Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Bartok, Britten, or any other early 20th century composer. Luckily, the concet world has moved past its obsession with dissonant music so the works of Vaughan williams are not only performed more but are appreciated as much as they deserve. I honestly cannot find a piece written by him that I dislike.

..

Here's a quote from a current film that says it all:

Mrs. Incredible: I can't believe you don't even want to go to your own son's graduation.

Mr. Incredible: It's not a graduation! He's moving from the 4th grade to the 5th grade.

Mrs. Incredible: It's a ceremony.

Mr. Incredible: It's psychotic. They keep inventing new ways of celebrating mediocrity, but when someone is genuinely exceptional....

...I suspect there's no shortage of brilliance today. What's changed is that there's no longer any specific point of reference for evaluation. Even as late as the early 20th century there was still a very specific way of doing things, where "classical" music was concerned. And in Beethoven's day the guidelines were just that much more narrow. I mean, if you compare Beethoven to Brahms, there are obvious connections between the two, but putting someone like Adams next to Stockhausen, or even neoclassical Stravinsky next to Varese... Add in the technologies of the late 20th century, and the whole thing explodes again. Now there's virtually no common ground upon which to compare two composers. And what's primarily changed is the environment in which musical works are made and appreciated. There's no easy answer. But I can't say I agree about the education system, in general. And to remove computers from the cirriculum would be just plain irresponsible. That would be like denying romantic composers the piano, which was the "latest" and most influential musical technology of its time, and one that caused a similar explosion of compositional output.

What has had a more devastating effect on music, and art in general, is the equation of financial success with musical/artistic success. With each "composer" becoming a little corporation unto themselves, and doing whatever they can to turn a quick buck. But then, that's the culture we live in... we have to survive. I would say that this is the central force in pushing mediocrity. After all, the most successful product is the one the greatest number of people will buy, and must therefor (by mathematics alone) appeal to the lowest common denomintor. And I'd say it is a shame about music departments closing. They may not be creating "brilliant" composers, but all the drop-outs can't help but leave with a better understanding of music, thus contributing to the musical culture as intelligent (or at least more intelligent) listeners. Composers need an audience, and those being spoon-fed on Brittany Spears alone are lost to us... But she brings in the big bucks, so that's what the masses are going to get!

J.

If you're talking about a few individuals who stand out over all the rest of the human race probably for all time, that is genius. I think the reason you don't want to use the word with Vaughn Williams is because he acted unlike a genius. He was not arrogant, flighty, erratic or wild, he was a sturdy, down-to-earth, unpretentious man with a methodical style and method. He lived to his 90s and his last symphony was composed just before he died. So he doesn't seem like the image of ... GENIUS. In many respects he was similar - though with the prototypical English character - to Bruckner, who was a humble Austrian from a rural background. But his particular genius also took him into the rarest company.

I was somewhat conotradictory before - I meant I was not AWARE of those later Goldsmith scores as individual entities apart from the lousy films. But no one seems disturbed by this - that the greatest composer would have to work on bad films. It shouldn't happen. Why does it happen? He is at the pinnacle of success. Is that what a beginner struggles through for years - scoring TV commercials and industrial films and falling into the black hole of library material - to reach? The offer to score shallow drivel like Basic Instinct?

It has become almost a reversal of the past: nowadays, a composer's best chance of getting a film to score that is a worthwhile project is a low budget independent movie, not a studio film. And of course that will not pay much money. To me this is a severely dysfunctional art form.

Paul, that is a fascinating and important point you make about the early schooling you received. In other words, with that humble set up, your teacher was able to concentrate upon the essence of what needed to be learned, instead of getting lost in the maze of computers and internet and "teaching tools."

..

For the record folks, I use the word genius very sparingly. It does belong to Beethoven, Mozart, Bach. If Lennon and McCartney aren't geniuses, who are then in the history of pop song writing? Or Louis Armstrong in Jazz?

Who are the geniuses in film music? Nobody? How about Korngold, a man universally recognized as a genius prior to writing a single note for film. Bruno Walter (Mahler's closest friend and the greatest conductor of the 20 century?) declared Korngold a genius when Korngold was a boy. Can we trust Walter who had the genius of Mahler in his daily life to use the term judiciously?

Korngold's contribution to film is part of the bedrock that established the art in the sound era. Goldsmiths contributions are far more numerous such as unconventional orchestral devices and instrumentation (Planet of the Apes) the first use of Midi and Synthesizers integrated into the orchestra. Not the least his entire approach to scoring in which he changed the entire tablature of sound and instruments to fit the film. His range of styles still dwarfs all other film composers, which can hardly be disputed. And these are just a few of his contributions. Does John Williams have a single innovation to his credit?

Now just consider his writing. The man is a first rate composer by any standard and in any era. How about the choral writing in the Omen? The percussion in Planets? The strings in Alien? On and on.

Having met the man and spent time watching him work and relax I can tell you he exuded genius right and left. Rare was the person in the industry from security guard to orchestra member that didn't recognize it. He had a phenomenal aura and presence.

I rest my case.

Dave Connor

@dcoscina said:

Here's a quote from a current film that says it all:

Mrs. Incredible: I can't believe you don't even want to go to your own son's graduation.

Mr. Incredible: It's not a graduation! He's moving from the 4th grade to the 5th grade.

Mrs. Incredible: It's a ceremony.

Mr. Incredible: It's psychotic. They keep inventing new ways of celebrating mediocrity, but when someone is genuinely exceptional....

How did you remember that so well? You got a bootleg?

Can i have a copy?

[:D]

Evan Evans

@dcoscina said:

Here's a quote from a current film that says it all:

Mrs. Incredible: I can't believe you don't even want to go to your own son's graduation.

Mr. Incredible: It's not a graduation! He's moving from the 4th grade to the 5th grade.

Mrs. Incredible: It's a ceremony.

Mr. Incredible: It's psychotic. They keep inventing new ways of celebrating mediocrity, but when someone is genuinely exceptional....

How did you remember that so well? You got a bootleg?

Can i have a copy?

[:D]

Evan Evans

I have a propensity for remembering dialogue. Especially good dialogue from films.

I heard some woman caller practically berate Brad Bird on a radio call-in show for making the Incredibles "too predictable". She bitched about how Mr. Incredible was your prototypical "stupid" male figure and how Mrs. Incredible was this "faux post feminist" figure. I think this idiot ought to research the genre of film before she criticizes the guy who made it. What a twit!

As for Goldsmith, well, Dave, I don't call his actual music "genius" as I've heard techniques he used in Planet of the Apes before in the works of Varese. How he applied music to a scene in a film was innovative. This is where we differ. I think of Williams' music in pure music terms, much more virtuosic and complicated. And I'm talking about the comparison between both composer's forays into diatonic, tonal centred music.

For modernist compositions, Goldsmith wipes the floor with Williams work. I never thought Williams was comfortable writing dissonant or atonal music. Goldsmith always seemed very comfortable with it though. Like the sequence in Papillon where the natives are shooting darts at title character and he's falling in slow motion. Goldsmith employed various brass effects like portamentos, clusters, even quarter tones to underscore the dizzying effect of the poison taking effect and the plunge he takes into the water. Really effective. And in spite of his complaints of Ridley Scott's alteration of his Alien score, I love the opening credit music that has flutes, echo-plex and log drums to evoke the cold, stark, vastness of space. I don't think his post Romantic theme would have worked that well.

dcoscina

Not to be argumentative [[;)]] but you are starting to push a button. it is the old button of "well, the concert composers already did all that. This film guy is just repeating them."

We heard it with your quote of the professor who set me off - the Bartok "knock off."

And now we hear it again with Varese and Goldsmith.

Sorry, but this does not wash. First of all, I have all of Varese's works in every recording ever done of them. He did not do what Goldsmith did, purely musically speaking. He did something similar, in Poem Electronique and in his use of percussion generally. But it was not the same thing, lifted for film use ala Little James Horner.

But secondly and more importantly, this whole idea that because a harmonic idiom or orchestrational technique was already used in concert music does not mean those composers are doing the same thing as a film composer. These are universes apart, and not one of those concert composers wrote a film score in which those techniques or styles were used. (Unless you're talking about Vaughn Williams, Shostakovich or Copland - some of the few concert composers who crossed over.) It is completely different creation to do something in a film score and frankly, most of the concert composers who did what they did were not skilled enough (in film music that is) to do that particular thing. Perhaps they could have become, but they were not. Any more than a composer can instantly write an opera, when his background has been in chamber music. It requires an entirely different artistic achievement to do this, even if you are using the exact same style you write in concert music but adapting it for film. A demonstration of this in reverse is Herrmann, whose concert music is, with a few exceptions like Souvenirs de Voyage and Silent Noon, not up to the standard he set with his film music.

PaulR,

Good point about playing techniques, and the application of computers in the "early" stages of learning. You're probably right about that. To be honest, I can't profess to know how they're being used in the classrooms over here (or there), so I'm standing on thin ice even talking about it. I was thinking of the compositional aspect, which is generally a 'later stage' in musical education, and has changed dramatically with the application of computers. (Richard D. James, aka Aphex Twin, may be a good example of a contemporary genius whose "domain" is computer/electronics-based. He started making tracks as early as 14, which have had a tremendous influence on music, in various genres, for at least ten years.)

Good point also about "crap". I don't know how much crap I've written (and most of it in full score, written out long-hand), but there's a good deal of it! Maybe I'm still cranking it out, too – who knows? [;)]
But seriously, I was just telling a composer friend of mine the other night that he was too cautious about composing – so affraid to write something bad, that he doesn't write anything at all, and so enamoured with "the rules" that he fails to see that even with a knowledge of those rules it's still a trial by fire. You need to get burnt to stand any chance of coming out the other side...

As for me, I'm somewhere in the middle, getting nice and crispy!
"What's that smell? Steak? Chicken?"

J.

Talking about genius, I think we speak too less about Eric Satie. I tend to agree with one of my music history teachers that it will be him who will be presented as the most influential 20th century composer in the books written in 50 years.

William, I don't mean to get anyone upset. I'm merely stating my perspective on this matter. I value your reponses. They give me food for thought. I'm never rigid enough to totally discount a differing perspective.

I think I was simply using the Varese association to underline how I don't like tossing the word "brilliant" around to describe things. Goldsmith himself probably never regarded himself as a genius. He did what he did. And I hear some North in Goldsmith's music too. Not to press any buttons any further but guys like North or Rosenman were the pioneers of modernism in film music.

I think we all have a habit of vehemently defending our preferences in music because of the way our brains function. My father is a neuroscientist and he explained to me once that the right frontal lobe, which is responsible for our higher more evolved brain functions, is the area of the brain where our belief systems are generated from. There was study about how aggression is also linked to this part of the brain, more in men incidently.

The point is, let's all realise that whatever we discuss here isn't going to suddenly change the reality of the world, where all busts and statuettes of Beethoven sitting on people's pianos will turn to Williams or Goldsmith based on our heated discussion here. It's simply well informed dicussion. And as I said before, I value the level of knowledge posters have on this board. I've learned a lot! Keep it coming!!!

Merry merry!

Dave

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