To me what matters is having an original style. Elfman really does.

And John Williams - who was a while ago criticized by pseudo-intellectual morons for "stealing" when in reality all his own themes are his own very distinctive sound - absorbs the many influences he is acutely aware of, being a vastly knowledgeable musician and supremely talented conductor as well as a great composer.  But they are all part of his own scores - unlike James Horner who deliberately, calculatingly and cynically stole completely and blatantly entire sections of music from classical works, including even the orchestration of such thefts. He was a shameless plagiarist, and an extremely mediocre composer who obviously needed to steal because he couldn't come up with anything of his own worth shit.  If you'd like a demonstration of that - listen to Star Trek by Goldsmith - one of the all-time great masterpieces of film music - and then the godawful trite garbage Horner wrote for Star Trek 2.  Endless augmented triad arpeggios that make one want to puke and a truly insipid, uninspired main theme.  Then more stealing from anything he could get his grubby mitts on.   A great film marred by a stupid score by a hack.  BTW his major (and expected) plagiarism in that particular film is Prokofieff's FILM SCORE (!) to Alexander Nevsky.  That is the Khan theme. Just check out both if you don 't believe it. 

John Williams is poles apart from that sort of low-life plagiarist, and is within the same area as other great composers who can't help being deeply influenced by the wonderful music they are profoundly aware of.   Williams loves the music he conducted regularly and yet his own is a new contribution that has his own signature style. 

Uh-oh - this turned into a rant about film score plagiarism!  How'd that happen?   

Macker: The ostinati are not so much a 'Simon says' effect. It is really very simple. Those provide the substratum upon which the orchestral ignorami can build a track. They all come from the rock/pop music world, where the drums and bass provide that substratum, and they know not any different. A constant beat or a pattern has to be there for their music (sic) to stand on (I think it was Debney who compared Hans' strings treatment to a rhythm guitar). They have no clue how one builds a proper orchestral score linearly.

This is in sharp distinction to the old-fashioned composers of yesteryear.  Many of them like Korngold were immigrants from Europe to America during World War Two and were basically classical composers who adapted what they did to film music. Max Steiner was another.  There is a basic structure to their music that was modeled upon the complex contrapuntal orchestral approach of Wagner.  

Nowadays the currently popular composers of film music don't even know what that is.  Not John Williams - he knows intimately the great composers.  But people like the current crop don't need to, because producers are equally clueless.   I'm sure some of the members of this Forum will say I am a pretentious pseudointellectual but it is undeniable that everything is being dumbed down to the lowest possible level.  

I have to continue with my rant about James Horner.  These are plagiarisms I noticed NOT because I read about them on the internet, but noticed WATCHING THE FILMS.  i was just trying to watch some movie and bam!  wait a minute, that music sounds familiar!  Yeah, it's not only familiar it's an exact copy!  

Shostakovich, 5th Symphony, Adagio, Flute and Harp soli.  Stolen with the same exact orchestration and uncredited, for the really bad fantasy film The Sorceresses. 

Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question .  Stolen for the Main Title (!) of the also bad film C.H.U.D. a low grade horror film Horner scored.

Robert Schumann, 3rd Symphony First Movement, main theme. Stolen for the film Willow. Horner took everything from this theme and just added some fanfares  in the brass.  

He regularly lifted stuff for his scores, and all of it uncredited.  Why? Because it's classical music, which meant to him - it is free to steal.  

I have no idea of how many other things he stole - probably many.  These are only a few I  noticed because I was watching the films.  

@William said:

I have to continue with my rant about James Horner.  These are plagiarisms I noticed NOT because I read about them on the internet, but noticed WATCHING THE FILMS.  i was just trying to watch some movie and bam!  wait a minute, that music sounds familiar!  Yeah, it's not only familiar it's an exact copy!  

Shostakovich, 5th Symphony, Adagio, Flute and Harp soli.  Stolen with the same exact orchestration and uncredited, for the really bad fantasy film The Sorceresses. 

Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question .  Stolen for the Main Title (!) of the also bad film C.H.U.D. a low grade horror film Horner scored.

Robert Schumann, 3rd Symphony First Movement, main theme. Stolen for the film Willow. Horner took everything from this theme and just added some fanfares  in the brass.  

He regularly lifted stuff for his scores, and all of it uncredited.  Why? Because it's classical music, which meant to him - it is free to steal.  

I have no idea of how many other things he stole - probably many.  These are only a few I  noticed because I was watching the films.  

Wow. this list adds to my already existing aversion to Horner. 

I couldn't agree with you more William. I think Horner is the most shameless plagiarist 'composer' at a professional level (and one who made a lot of money at that) that ever existed. 

Ive also noticed his copycat reproduction of other music with shock, and often cringed at how shameless this man was.

As to John Williams,  I like this quote from wikipedia...

Norwegian composer Marcus Paus argues that Williams's "satisfying way of embodying dissonance and avant-garde techniques within a larger tonal framework" makes him "one of the great composers of any century".

Yes I agree...one of the greatest composers of any century!I 

What I like about this quote is that it emphasizes what most people dont talk about...the complexity of JWs tonal language. 

The only drawback with JWilliams is the limited number of longer form works...he hasn't written as many concert works as a classical musician would. But I heard thats exactly what he plans to do following retirement next year...to write concert pieces. I cant wait for his first Symphony!!!

agitato: There is a symphony, and tons of concerti for almost every instrument, the most recent of which was a violin concerto (his 2nd) for Anne Sophie Mutter. However, prepare yourself for their not being anything like Star Wars or Harry Potter.

William: As overly plagiaristic Horner was in a genre where it is even expected -you're right of course and I could add to your list (ex. Glory - Carmina Burana)- I would take him any day over the current frauds. At least he knew his music, and his Aliens soundtrack was powerful! Other scores of his I enjoyed as a teenager were those of Brainstorm and Cocoon, although I don't know how I would react to them today. I haven't listened to those vinyls for decades...

Agitato, you are so right on that.  

Errikos, I also liked Brainstorm, before I heard the incredible list of total ripoffs Horner perpetrated. Not deliberately on my part, as I noted. Accidentally - just sitting innocently (relatively) in a theater.  But concerning Aliens - this was an incredible score! - yes!   

But not in quality - in shamelessness of ripping off.  At the climax, he actually steals from John Williams Star Wars. What? The sequence at the end where the Luke Skywalker is going into the Death Star. Same scoring.   Now that is shameless.  It's like, not only steal but steal from the most obvious source. So I guess he was encouraged by his reflection:  "They don't know all those classical composers! Hey! I wonder if I could steal from John Williams?  Ha-ha! Let's try!"  

@Errikos said:

agitato: There is a symphony, and tons of concerti for almost every instrument, the most recent of which was a violin concerto (his 2nd) for Anne Sophie Mutter. However, prepare yourself for their not being anything like Star Wars or Harry Potter.

William: As overly plagiaristic Horner was in a genre where it is even expected -you're right of course and I could add to your list (ex. Glory - Carmina Burana)- I would take him any day over the current frauds. At least he knew his music, and his Aliens soundtrack was powerful! Other scores of his I enjoyed as a teenager were those of Brainstorm and Cocoon, although I don't know how I would react to them today. I haven't listened to those vinyls for decades...

Yes Ive heard his concertos....the Tuba one is just phenomenally playful.

And yes they are no Harry potter or Star Wars. I think his film scores are like a walk in the park while the concert pieces are what he really takes effort to do.

I meant that I wish his volume of output in this was even more.

About Horner I would have to disagree that he is better than todays frauds. I would even take Hans Zimmer over him. No content music is better than blatant plagiarized music, which makes the listener feel really stupid....since he seems to have assumed that no one would find out he just stole almost every score of his from someone else.

Speaking of Elfman in the OP, you may be familiar with this famous response of his to a university professor who implied that Elfman relied entirely on others to make his scores:

https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=8458&forumID=1&archive=1

I read that exchange when it first came out years ago.  i was extremely annoyed by the professor, because he was so obviously assuming Elfman is just an ignoramus who can't possibly write good music due to never studying. That was right after the Batman score which is an all-time great film music score. 

The problem with that academic attitude is it's completely false, as having a real ability to conceive musical ideas that are interesting is the main thing in composition - NOT technical knowledge.  And Elfman's ideas are fantastically good.  His musical technique is something that is trivial and easy to learn, once someone like him has that talent.  

But all the snob professors, who are so great in their learning, can't even begin to write anything that anyone wants to hear after the one pathetic performance with their wretched little college orchestra.  Even though they know everything!  I was exposed to one of these professors. I even played at one of the those performances. He was bragging about how there were no mistakes in the player's parts.  But every time I went up to him at the University, naively trying to talk about composing, he made me feel like a bug. a nothing.  Because i didn't have all the academically approved knowledge he had.  But his music was completely dull and dead.

That is the exact same thing this twerp was trying to do with Elfman.  It is laughable now, as Elfman is world-famous as a film composer and this guy is - what?  

Speaking of the Batman score, I thought a brilliant thing about that was how Elfman transformed the main motif - which is somewhat similar to Herrmann's motif from Journey to the Center of the Earth. He developed it completely differently, and all the rest of the music was different. But it was a marvelous effect with the minor key motif C-D-E flat-A flat-G, that at the end becomes a major key motif, heard instead of starting on the tonic, starting on the major third.  That was an example of a subtle development that was far beyond those bad academic criticisms Elfman was getting.   

Excellent posts William and Errikos.

Elfman is a particularly interesting and useful case in point for the contrast between academic composers and pure talent. Because, as you say, Elfman has originality and definitely has some training, but not to the level of JW. But still with his relatively limited training he managed to produce pretty outstanding scores.

I am reminded of that quote from good will hunting: "at least I am not unoriginal!"

It is interesting William you mention being snubbed by a professor. I am not professional like you, but I had a similar experience which I will never forget. I took formal music lessons with a faculty from a reputed conservatory. He was quite knowledgeable about music and I did learn many things from him...although not entirely because of he wanted to teach me, but rather because they were bits and pieces he threw at me. Boy was he the most insecure composer I've personally come across! He would constantly keep reiterating that he has a doctorate in music (since I have doctorate in physics), and how he was friends with Samuel Adler, and how he knew this and that, and how perfect his score handwriting used to be....

He barely paid attention to me as a student who has his own passion for music....he made me feel absolutely worthless, and even said that there is no way I can take a serious course in music. He gave me the impression that he has no belief I could do anything serious in music. That might be true, but thats exactly the opposite of what a teacher is supposed to do!

What is funny is that I do not think his imagination was anything above the ordinary. Thats why hardly anyone knows about him!

I only wish he was less insecure and taught music for the joy that it was....he would have had more fun that way.

Anand

That sounds like you had the same professor!  

Now I've watched the whole of Doctor Strange 2 (Multiverse of Madness).

Erm .....

I was bored by the whole thing and would have abandoned it; only my curiosity about how Elfman was scoring it kept me going, but only just. The film itself seemed to me a ham-fisted hack piece of writing and production. Five exec producers? When has that ever been a good portent? They threw a couple of experienced actors into a B movie, along with loadsa CGI and loadsa money - and they've still got a B movie; just a big-budget B movie with CGI.

The 'story' is almost all cold-blooded comic book reptilian will-to-power stuff, staged as a ridiculously long mishmash of triumphs and defeats, all dependent on puerile CGI. How the hell do you score a piece of crap like that without it sounding like a somewhat updated old epic wild-west action movie score? Well, Elfman managed to acquit himself like the pro he is.

In my book he didn't do terribly well but nor did he do terribly badly - and no, I don't think I heard a moment of anything Herrmann-ish! Lol. It's almost all orchestral, but no motifs and no obvious thematic coherence, nothing memorable or likely to pass the traditional "old grey whistle test"; just a somewhat nondescript big salad of this and that. For much of the time I seemed to sense an underlying tired and jaded feeling - which might have been Elfman or me or both. It's all completely different from the very HZ-ish trailer score, which made me think someone else wrote that, though in the long credits Elfman is the only named composer.

How about emotions and feelings portrayed in the film - or at least implied by the story? If we discount the many obvious but failed attempts to induce shock and awe, emotional content is minimal to none. One lame exception was that the evil witch at times obsessed over her yearning to be just a normal mom, and which Elfman treated with a sickly dose of Tinseltown schmaltz - probably because that's how the director treated it. Other than that, affect-engaging narrative was notable by its absence - cognitive jolts and perceptual novelties are supposed to make up for that I guess. It's not the kind of raw material likely to move adults or inspire a great score.

I also have a review by a 24 year old Zoomer (also a gamer, a hockey player, and a Finn). He couldn't remember anything about the music, but summed up the film in one word - Raaka. In Finnish it means something like raw, brutal, cruel, barbaric. (Finns are known for their terseness which at times can be Zen-like).

Bottom line - I'd say Elfman did what he could to make the best of a bad job. But a crap film is a crap film. It's not generally expected that anyone comes out of it smelling of roses. Of course I don't doubt that some will rave about it as a great movie with great music. Different folks, different ... y'know.