Even though the Third Piano Concerto is usually thought of as Rachmaninoff's masterpiece, Isle of the Dead is so great - and purely orchestral, no pianistic writing at all - that it may actually be. There is an amazing range of expression throughout and such brilliant orchestration. (That youtube should have Boecklin's painting. )

This brings up my favorite (well some of it) film music - Roy Webb's scores for Val Lewton's films, including appropriately Isle of the Dead and Seventh Victim and probably the best of all, I Walked with a Zombie. He wrote more than 300 film scores of all kinds, but his work on these atmospheric black and white mystery/horror films of the 1940s is probably his best and has a wonderful subtle impressionistic quality, never bombastic like most horror film scoring, and adds hugely to the quality of the scenes. A CD was released of the scores that were reconstructed with incredible accuracy from the three staff original and no separate tracks by John Morgan -

Roy Webb SCores

Sorry James, 'Isle of the dead' doesnt work for me without looking at the painting which inspired the music (or so I heard). That YT video has some other painting. Here is the correct one:

This ostinato is no HZ kind. Its real music!

Ha ha! I know, but I needed Askenazy's version of Isle of the Dead. Of course, the photo of the Bocklin painting would need to be in black and white -if you want to be as picky as Sergei. 😃

One thing that is less noticed   is that Herrmann is the originator of  minimal film scoring common today and was the first to avoid using the leitmotif style - starting with  Citizen Kane - and instead simply score straightforwardly for the scene.  He later developed an approach of extreme simplicity using motifs rather than full blown themes, often even only a few bars. Herrmann used an elegant  musical alternation of simple motifs because this was perfectly suited to scoring the scene.  Max Steiner with his Wagnerian leitmotif style was the standard prior to Herrmann.  While Steiner did create some truly great scores, he also shows how the leitmotif is essentially irrelevant - though a good crutch - for film scoring.  Howard Shore used this approach in LOTR though, to very good effect. 

... to stray from the OT! 

Either we've exhausted the topic, or we've gone too far afield. My apologies to OP/OT if either is the case.

I think, that James Horner was just quite pragmatic. Producers needed big amounts of music fast and he did offer them that. There are so many examples of him taking complete passages from classical works. The 3rd of Schumann in the Willow-Theme is certainly one of the most obvious.

And I think, it is all about expectations here. If you want a filmscore to be absolutly innovative, then Horner could cause headaches. Personally, I liked some of his melodies so much, that I was just happy to hear them in other soundtracks, too. Although always slightly changed (e.g. Star Trek II and Aliens). Over the decades, he invented some own themes and repeated those, too. And I did not mind, as long as there was something new to each soundtrack. Especially in the 90's there were some of those (e.g. The perfect storm, Deep Impact), where there was not much innovation. They were mostly boring. But I can absolutly forgive the parallels between Titanic, Braveheart, The devils own, Legends of the fall, Avatar etc. Especially the Titanic-Suite has some awesome moments, that sound like absolute classic Hollywood.

Concerning the comparisons between mainly orchestral composers (like Shore, Horner, Williams or Elfman) and the Remote-Control-Group around Hans Zimmer, I would say, that this is somehow like apples and oranges. The reason for me is the following: The orchestra has developed over hundreds of years now, so the fundamentals for the "orchestral composers", if you want to call them this, are set in terms of instrumentation. You can read about how to balance an orchestra in very old literature already. So the main point for those composers has to be melodies and rhythms and orchestral craftship. The HZ-Guys are more like trying to invent the wheel again. Not completely, but in certain aspects. If you take the Amazing-Spiderman2-Soundtrack for example, you hear so many different sounds involved. And they all have to be balanced well. The orchestra has 2 main settings: european or american (2nd vlns next to first vlns or next to DB). But when you mix synthesizers and orchestra, you always have to think about a new concept. Where do I put which instrument inside the room? And then all those sounds, they create there. This is not easy at all. The classical instruments were developed over such a long time. And the HZ-Guys invent new instruments the whole time. When you hear Horner or Williams scores with synth in them (Amazing Spiderman1, Star Wars), you realize, that they do not feel that comfortable with that. They know, how to balance an orchestra, but I am pretty sure, they don't know so much about Mixing as Zimmer and friends do.

Finally a video of The dark Zebra-Soundset here. I don't own Zebra2, but HIVE from U-He. And I know, there is still a long way to go, until I will be able to craft own usable instruments there, so I just take presets. I find this video so impressive, because here you can see, how much work there has been to do the DK-Soundtracks.

You're right about most of that - Horner was  commerical.  I should just post something positive about Herrmann rather than negative reactions. 

jan1981: You are right in what you are posting. In fact, I consider Aliens a powerful soundtrack. However, I cannot think of one film composer off-hand that could rival Herrmann in terms of power. Orchestration? Probably. Harmony? Maybe. Melodies? Certainly. Power? I can't think of one. In any case, I consider the comparison between Herrmann and Horner specifically a little fruitless. It might as well have been "Herrmann vs. all the others".

The main reason I wanted to post was to make a point about orchestral composers like Williams, Shore, Horner, or even Elfman (that you mention), and Hans and imitators (Trevor, etc.). You make a point that to compare the former to the latter is like comparing apples and oranges, and in that I disagree. If both are using the orchestra for musical expression (or excretion), then they can be compared. If the latter are "good mixers", great, they are not composers, or their abilities as mixers are irrelevant (much as being an editor is irrelevant to Ottman composing soundtracks). As far as them "trying to re-invent the wheel", I'd say that's giving them more credit than it's due. I don't care if they are worthy of the Nobel prize for balancing acoustic and electronic sounds, that is engineering. When they write for orchestra, they immediately submit themselves for criticism as to how well they did that, period. Even if the writing for orchestra has to be considered concertante writing, i.e. in concert with electronics. 

There are so many works for orchestra with, say percussion, or amplified/electronic sounds. Bad writing for orchestra has never been excused, even in cases where orchestra and x have been well balanced. For example, the absense of any theme or harmonic progression worthy of a six year old in those soundtracks has nothing to do with whatever great engineering feat I am happy to concede. These soundtracks always make me think that someone desperately (and desultorily) tried to transform what was essentially an uninspired pop track to begin with, into an orchestral track. I would say it is exactly like providing me (who cannot draw my name in the sand) with the very same canvas, and the very same palette of colours with which Monet painted his Sunrise, and ask me to produce my own. The end result would speak for itself... I would have re-invented the wheel too, for I would also have added some lazer light to it. At least Horner knew his stuff.

People, if you use the orchestra and cannot write for orchestra, believe me, that fact will be as painfully obvious as my painting skills. A great composer and university professor told us all once, "You must try hard to make an orchestra sound bad". I think it was a very good thing to tell young aspirers, and I have never forgotten it. Thinking about this makes me responsible, lifts me out of my own little world, and places me and compares me with all the greats; for if you involve 80 or 90 professional people (let alone an audience) in your own fantasies, you must be respectful, and you must have good reason for doing so, other than the mere wish to express yourselves. Happily these days, that is what virtual instruments are for. Much like a locked room (from the outside), where I can blissfully express myself colouring its private walls with my 'Epic' trailer(park) subjects: didi-dada-didi-dada-didi-dada-didi-dada...

Yes I thought of changing the title of this thread to something like that.  Horner is not significant enough to balance Herrmann.

That concept of not being able to make an orchestra sound bad applies as well to sample libraries especially VSL.  They are often abused to create a beautiful sound with bad music.  If this same music were done with only a piano, or an organ, it would instantly be shown up for what it is.  But the luxuriant layers of sampled instruments disguise  it well. 

I intimated something like this on that Synchron strings thread and of course it was ignored by the people therre who are utterly oblivious to composing, orchestration, instrumentation - i.e. orchestral music.  I recently realized  I am deliberately contradiciting this facet of using samples, by NOT using the most richly beautiful sounds so thoughtfully sampled for anyone's delectation, but instead starkly simple instrumentation that is similar to what I would get if I  actually obtained a studio orchestra.  It is small, even chamber sized, and does not have the benefit of all those massive layers of generic orchestral sound that are now smeared obscenely over everything from low budget movies to documentaries to TV commercials and video games.