I completely agree on Ralph Richardson. I am a devotee of the great classical British actors - Richardson, Gielgud, Guiness, Hardwick, and of course Olivier.
"Obsession" was around '76 and BH. One of his greatest, composed when he was resuming work after a hiatus caused by the Mancini/pop craze (an actual very sad quote of his concerning this was "The new guys want me!" - can you believe that?) It has a tremendous soundtrack album (at least the old LP I have). Scored for standard orchestra with organ and choir.
In reference to another aspect of this frighteningly disorganized thread, that score is maybe the ultimate in "narrating" a story - without any lietmotifs - because the film itself is so lame. The music is so great it creates all the real emotion in the story and almost succeeds in creating a feature film experience - without a feature film.
On "Taxi Driver" I really think it was made much better than the other Scorcese films by the Herrmann score, which actually succeeded in imparting some humanity to the inhuman squalor so beloved by that director.
I've also scored only bad films or TV commercials. I guess what I was getting at was it is a dysfunctional medium in that sense, from the standpoint of pure art. No other artists have to deal with such a problem. In opera, if the libretto is bad it can be replaced or the composer can refuse to go through with it. (With film you never know until the premiere - as we know all too well.) And besides, no one pays any attention to libretti, really. The same for oratorio and ballet. Even incidental music for theater is detached as concert music, as in Grieg's "Peer Gynt," or Schubert's "Rosamunde." Maybe this is why film music as a pure art has to this day a somewhat questionable reputation, even though the best of it is an art as high as any that ever existed.
"Obsession" was around '76 and BH. One of his greatest, composed when he was resuming work after a hiatus caused by the Mancini/pop craze (an actual very sad quote of his concerning this was "The new guys want me!" - can you believe that?) It has a tremendous soundtrack album (at least the old LP I have). Scored for standard orchestra with organ and choir.
In reference to another aspect of this frighteningly disorganized thread, that score is maybe the ultimate in "narrating" a story - without any lietmotifs - because the film itself is so lame. The music is so great it creates all the real emotion in the story and almost succeeds in creating a feature film experience - without a feature film.
On "Taxi Driver" I really think it was made much better than the other Scorcese films by the Herrmann score, which actually succeeded in imparting some humanity to the inhuman squalor so beloved by that director.
I've also scored only bad films or TV commercials. I guess what I was getting at was it is a dysfunctional medium in that sense, from the standpoint of pure art. No other artists have to deal with such a problem. In opera, if the libretto is bad it can be replaced or the composer can refuse to go through with it. (With film you never know until the premiere - as we know all too well.) And besides, no one pays any attention to libretti, really. The same for oratorio and ballet. Even incidental music for theater is detached as concert music, as in Grieg's "Peer Gynt," or Schubert's "Rosamunde." Maybe this is why film music as a pure art has to this day a somewhat questionable reputation, even though the best of it is an art as high as any that ever existed.