The problem with recognizing James Horner is you're usually recognizing one of the countless classical, romantic and modern composers he's ripped off.

I agree on these other composers (especially Herrmann - the ultimate: three - maybe two - notes and you know it's him) and would add:

Danny Elfman - another self-taught guy who is really good and one of the few Americans after John Williams to have a distinctively different sound

Preisner - he has adapted Herrmann's use of motifs in an original, even more minimal way with an extreme, sometimes blatant expressiveness

Georges de la Rue - his music for Truffaut's films has a recognizable combination of simple motifs and understated light quality

Nino Rota - his melodies and crazy, humorous combinations of pop with orchestral sounds as in Fellini have never been equalled

Ennio Morricone - though the spaghetti westerns are only part of his output their sound is totally original, even weird in a sense

Max Steiner - his music almost screams at you STEINER! STEINER! STEINER!

Erich Korngold - another instantaneously obvious one with his luxuriant romanticism

Elmer Bernstein - with his somewhat Coplandesque vigor, but somehow different (and maybe even better)

Alex North - his way of handling the orchestra has a certain transparent quality to it no one else has - i.e. "Spartacus" or the original "2001" score

Maurice Jarre - his chromatic harmonies and melodic emphasis

John Barry - the combination of great, extended melody-writing and a simple yet strong orchestration, with a lot of use of short motifs somewhat similar to Herrmann

@William said:

John Barry - the combination of great, extended melody-writing and a simple yet strong orchestration, with a lot of use of short motifs somewhat similar to Herrmann

John Barry is instantly recognizable. Distinct string sound and string writing and low burring brass and great flute lines. Including bass flutes! [H]

Thomas Newman - his music has a very distinctive style. Always possible to recognize him - usually at the first repetition of a motif. And there's always at least one repetition. At least one... [[:|]]

James Newton Howard, not always from the first notes, but the orchestrations in his compositions have an unique sound to me... Apart from others named already.

Miklos Rozsa is probably the most recognizable of the old school guys because he loves canon. I don't know how he got away with it all the time but he did, and created a signature sound in doing so. Once while watching Ben Hur I decided to listen with head phones and was floored by the detail in his music - astonishing really because you tend not to hear it on a basic level. No doubt his musical integrity demanded it.

On the subject of educated musicians not liking the music of untrained musicians: I understand why if it shows through. If not who cares? Elfman is not trained in the traditional sense but very well liked but many schooled composers. Zimmer has done some very good work and some really dreadful stuff as well. Maybe he should take a night class.

Dave Connor

Rosza in fact was accused of writing the same score over and over again. Though this is unfair, since his earlier ones were quite different. But it is true the later ones started to sound rather similar. He definitely had the technique down.

"How are you doing today Miklos?"

"Oh, fine, fine. Just dashed off two scores this afternoon. What's for dinner?"

William,

Can't argue a bit with any of that.

DC

Evan,

On Jerry Goldsmith: no one ever loved the Major 7th interval more or used it in so many different ways with surprisingly different emotional and kinetic effect.

Dave Connor

Dave,

I hear ya, but I have to majorly disagree. Bernard Herrmann based almost his entire harmonic language on the major 7th. He combined it with dimished 5ths, augmented 5ths, minor 3rds, major 3rds, etc. But always he had the major 7th in there.

Evan Evans

A couple of questions to get you going:

1. Do you think there can be great scores for terrible movies?

2. What are everyone's favourite examples of "suberbly inappropriate" film music? I mean music that's absolutely the opposite of what you'd expect if you saw the images in silence and guessed what the music might sound like (for example, Johann Strauss's "The Blue Danube" accompanying spaceships in "2001: A Space Oddysey")...


Laters

Guy

Those are interesting questions, Guy.

I've mentioned one great score for at least a bad movie (maybe not terrible) - "Obsession," a really lame story but one of the most astoundingly beautiful scores of Herrmann. The score has all the drama, tragedy and emotion that the movie wanted but couldn't accomplish.

I think that the Blue Danube was oddly appropriate in "2001" but Alex North's rejected score was a thousand times better.

One example of a grotesquely bad score I remember is the one to "4-D Man" - yes, a rather obscure sci-fi film, but it was memorable because of its bad music - it had an extremely LOUD big band jazzy score that would suddenly intrude into the scenes of scientists in a lab, or a man being afflicted by pain because he had partly gone into the 4rth dimension. The effect was more than just taking you out of the film, it caused everyone in the room to laugh hilariously each time the cats started up their jam session.

I'll cast a vote for David Newman's 'The Phantom.' The movie was a yawner, but I really enjoyed the score. Nothing worth an Oscar or anything, but it was an energetic and fun piece of music, performed by the London Metropolitan, that far outpaced the actual movie.

Thanks William - I'll try and track down the "Obsession" score. Actually, didn't Hermann do a score for "Farenheit 451"? I thought that was a terrible film, but, again, I doubt Herrmann would've disappointed with the music. "McCabe & Mrs Miller" - is that his too?

Alex North's rejected score - yes I've read about it but never actually heard it. I'll search out that one too.

Isn't it weird the way some Hollywood blockbusters have these massive scores for giant, post-Mahler orchestras, where everyone's playing to the max, but when you walk out of the cinema you can't remember anything about it - it all got absorbed into the wall of noise from the explosions and wizz-bangs! I'd guess the film composer who's most noticed and enjoyed by the moviegoers right now is Thomas Newman, and it's because of all those quiet, reflective bits where he has three notes on the piano plus some sordino strings. Whether you like Newman or not, I guess the point is, he finds the moments in the movie where his music can actually get heard over the dialogue and the sound design.

Laters,

Guy

@evanevans said:

Ennio Morricone (Has signature cues he writes in every film that match other films in structure)

Evan Evans (has distinctive use of polytonality and solid orchestration) [[;)]]

Yes that's right about Morricone. I've noticed that over the years. Also, Thomas Newman too.

Evan the Evans? Yes - very solid! [[[;)]]]

@William said:

I think that the Blue Danube was oddly appropriate in "2001" but Alex North's rejected score was a thousand times better.

I agree that the Danube was appropriate not inappropriate, BUT just because Alex North wrote a nice score doesn't mean it was a good one. I fully support Kubrick's decision NOT to have original music. The film works best that way. It transcends the medium better than typical methods.

It takes a really good composer to say, on a film he's hired for, "I think the best score for this film ... is to have none!". I'm sorry, but all these guys just sweatin' to scribble notes on the page are missing something if they'd just backup and get some perspective. Film is an art. Writing a score for one is not always the best choice a composer can make.

That's why I believe the most powerful and effective film composers are those willing to try anything, even if it's not musical. As I have quoted myself saying on my own website for many years now:

"Film scoring is an artform seperate than any other ... including music."

Evan Evans

Evan,

I agree that Herrmann uses the interval constantly. However he uses it in a far more straightforward manner (as you suggest) in easily recognizable chord formations as in the Vertigo main title. Goldsmith uses it in far more varied ways, often times not recognizable because it's not a triadic formation and is split between instrument groups where as Herrman very often has it within a single orchestral choir (but not always obviously.)

I would agree that Herrmann probably numerically used it more times. However he seems more chained to it than Goldsmith who seemed to free it from any chains.

Dave Connor

Hi.

I think Stanley Kubrick had a genius for "superbly inappropriate" music - music which doesn't just amplify or enhance the latent drama or emotion, but turns the scene inside out. Johann Strauss in "2001" is a famous example, but there's a scene in "Full Metal Jacket" where the most vile, irritating comedy-novelty record from the 1960s is played as loudly as possible through a scene of total carnage. Its slapstick, happy-go-lucky dumbness is far more unsettling than any dissonant score would be. It's weird to think that a really bad piece of music serves the scene far better than any "good" music could.

Guy

Kubrick wanted above all, irony. And so he used the Blue Danube in "2001," the piece you mentioned Guy, the Mickey Mouse Club theme song in Full Metal Jacket, Beethoven's Ninth Ode to Joy at the end of "Clockwork Orange." Kubrick was a complete artist of the most severe, uncompromising kind imaginable, and so he used whatever he could to get the effect he wanted.

So obviously he was going for something that cut away all conventions - unless those convetions helped what he was trying to do. Having a complete, well-organized score - like Alex North provided - meant nothing to him unless it gave him the effect he wanted.

However, despite the fact I am acutely aware of Kubrick's ironic and unconventional approach in "2001" (I saw it forty times when it was first out in the theater) I still think the score North did may in fact have provided what Kubrick wanted just as well as the temp track which is what he used.

@William said:

"2001" (I saw it forty times when it was first out in the theater)

Man, I still can´t believe it. You´re crazy, man! [[:|]] [:D]

@dpcon said:

I agree that Herrmann uses the interval constantly. However he uses it in a far more straightforward manner (as you suggest) in easily recognizable chord formations as in the Vertigo main title. Goldsmith uses it in far more varied ways, often times not recognizable because it's not a triadic formation and is split between instrument groups where as Herrman very often has it within a single orchestral choir (but not always obviously.)
I would agree that Herrmann probably numerically used it more times. However he seems more chained to it than Goldsmith who seemed to free it from any chains.
Dave Connor

Ok, but I have to go on record and say Goldsmith is more known for his use of 4ths, and especialy fifths than 7ths. But I totally hear you and think that the 7th plays a strong role in Goldsmith, I just think it's not his strongest.

Evan Evans