Errikos, a very pertinent, eloquent and exquisitely concise exposition; its clarity and conciseness have helped me to consider the matter much further. You're a gifted teacher.
mh-7635, That vignette tells a very powerful and illuminating story. My hat is off to that honest composer, whoever he is or was.
William, you inspired me to search for the Soviet "Hamlet". (I'm a big fan of Shakespeare, having read all his works - except "The Merry Wives of Windsor".) I found a fairly recently posted restored version, which I've now watched all through. Shostakovitch did much better in that than in "King Lear". Also, I found it interesting that Prokofiev, after he'd reconstructed some of his most successful film scores to make them concert pieces, said it took far more time and trouble doing that than composing the original film scores.
What has my curiosity now is the difference between the two main 'styles' or 'modes' of musicianship:- accompanist and soloist. In short, one would expect a musician who is accomplished mainly as an accompanist could be excellent not only as an orchestral player but also - given the training and talent - as an incidental music composer. On the other hand, one would expect that the accomplished soloist type of musician is best suited to become - again, given the training and talent - a concert composer. It's perhaps too simplistic conceptually to have much relevance to real life, but for me it's a clue.
Now at the risk of delving too far into traditional dialectics (as understood and used in ancient Chinese wisdom), the difference between 'leader' and 'follower" is far more paradoxical and deeply nuanced than one might think at first. Here's a quote from Lao Tzu:-
A leader is best
When people barely know he exists,
Not so good when people obey and acclaim him,
Worst when they despise him.
"Fail to honour people,
They fail to honour you."
But of a good leader, who talks little,
When his work is done, his aim fulfilled,
They will all say, 'We did this ourselves'.
Isn't that last line the goal of incidental music composing? The incidental music gives the audience, without them being fully aware of it, support, guidance, nudges, steers and even lengthy narratives, in the domains of feelings, emotions and intuitive understanding - insofar as these strengthen, clarify or otherwise support the dialogue and action on screen as well as the intended plot and its 'lessons'. Then after the viewing, if the audience feels "yes I got it completely", but don't immediately feel any need to know who composed the score, then surely the incidental music composer has been, according to Lao Tzu, "a good leader". In my book that's a great art in its own right, but one that seems beyond so many film composers these days.
After Lao Tzu, a saying in Chinese wisdom was "to lead is to follow". If only Zimdroner and his acolytes would or even could learn that - but now I'm just dreaming.
