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FILM SCORE BLOGS [Blog # 19] Musical joke of the day I discovered last week: “Knock knock.” Fortunately Herrmann was not such an obsessively minimalist and simplistic composer… although he did have his ever-repetitive, ostinato moments! “What happens to a composer when he dies?” Gradually I am recovering from my chest muscle spasm or muscle injury since last Thursday caused probably from over-lifting heavy materials at work. I had to be careful not to over-exert or turn and move around the “wrong way.” I guess I’m getting older : ) ! Fortunately I started my eleven-day vacation last Friday and did not have to work to possibly further aggravate the condition. The worst of it was Friday when I was at Warner Bros. Archives and later with my wife that evening at the newly remodeled Olive Garden on Beach Blvd just a block away from DVD Planet (we liked the old layout of the restaurant far better). I took liquid Advil for the pain, homeopathic remedies (Arnica, etc), and magnesium capsules to relax the muscles, and an air-activated disposable heating pad applied to my chest during sleep. I figured it would soon lessen its painful sensitivity-with-motion, and I’m feeling better now. It’s slowly healing. I’ll try not to aggravate it with undue physical exertion the next few days (good excuse not to do the yard work during my vacation!). A very interesting piece of information was that Arlene Dahl was tested for the part of Helen on Sunday, 2-14-54. Now that would’ve been fascinating to have her play that part! I think she would’ve fit the part quite well (although I thoroughly enjoyed Podesta’s performance). Jeanne Crain, Mara Lane, and of course Virginia Mayo were also tested. For the role of Paris, Ralph Meeker was tested, Mark Dana, and even, quite interestingly, Laurence Harvey and Guy Madison. I feel that Wise was quite correct in picking Sernas for the role. There was a review of the movie in the Los Angeles Times November 27, 1955 by Philip K. Scheuer. He commented on how “colossal” the production is, on the fine British oratory, the “thundering music score,” and so forth. I think it was a positive review based on these comments! The movie was originally set for being a three-hour epic but ultimately edited down to two hours (unfortunately). Mr. Warner wanted many of the scenes “speeded up,” including the 1st attack on Troy, the fight between Achilles and Hector, the Paris Escape scene, the Bacchanal scene especially, the last part of the Return to Troy, the Trojan preparation for war. He decided to deleted the commando raid scene, the 2nd Greek War Council before the attack on Troy, Achilles and Hector fighting after Achilles wounded Polydorus, and so forth. There were many Narration episodes designed for the movie as well, but they were all abandoned except the initial one after the Main Title sequence. At any rate, I finished my rundown analysis yesterday and submitted the 83-page document to Sarah. She’ll update the site as soon as she gets this newest blog (that I plan to submit by late afternoon). Reel1/1 is the Main Title (to di Marcia Pomposo) in 2/4 time in the key sig of one flat. I believe three snare drums and a field drum sound the initial rhythmic pattern forte on a grace note to 8th note to “3” triplet value 16ths figure (repeat these five notes in the second half of this bar) to (Bar 2) grace note to 8th note to grace note to 8th note to grace note to 8th note (followed by an 8th rest). In Bar 11, the solo trumpet plays the its figures on Line 2 D notes. Etc. In Reel 2/1 Bar 41 in C time, we first hear the Kitty theme. Violins play mf Line 1 F#/A staccato 8th notes (followed by an 8th rest) to same F#/A half notes to D/F# dotted 8ths to E/G 16ths (repeated next bar) to (Bar 43) F#/A to G/B quarter notes to A/Line 2 C dotted quarter notes to G/B 8ths. After a quarter and 8th rest in Bar 41, horn I plays dolce small octave A [written Line 1 E] rinforzando 8th note tied to half note (repeated next three bars). After a quarter rest, the distinctive celeste plays Line 1 F#/A/Line 2 D/F# 8ths (followed by an 8th rest) notes up to A/Line 2 D/F#/A (D major tonality) 8th notes (followed by an 8th and quarter rest), repeated next bar. Celli play Great octave D up to A quarter notes legato up to small octave F# half note (repeated next bar). CB play small octave D dotted half note up to A quarter note legato down to (repeat of Bar 41), while the bottom line CB play D quarter note pizzicato (followed by two quarter rests) up to A quarter note. Yesterday (Sunday) afternoon after lunch at Mimi’s and shopping chores, my wife dropped me off at Cal State Long Beach. I wanted to continue my research in the Periodical Room 322 of the Modern Music bound volumes. Probably the earliest article on film music in that magazine was in the Nov-Dec 1934 issue (Volume XII, #1) titled “Composers in Movieland” by George Antheil. He wrote in the second paragraph: “It is apparent that cinema music, to fulfill its primary purpose, should be descriptive and local. Yet if it is to be music at all it must achieve organic unity, whether by symphonic treatment, or some other method of restating and developing original thematic material. Either the score stands on its own feet as music or it falls into the category of pastiche, which is the destiny of most Hollywood film music.” “For Hollywood has a group formula for making music. Every studio keeps a staff of seventeen to thirty composers on annual salary. They know nothing about the film till the final cutting day…then the work is divided; one man writes war music, a second does the love passages, another is a specialist in nature stuff, and so on.” He then wrote that “there can be little doubt that the demand for ‘original scores’ is an excellent augur for composers.” He then discusses the technique of film composing. In the Nov-Dec 1936 issue (Vol XIV, #1), he wrote an article titled “Breaking Into The Movies.” He writes: “When a composer looks Hollywoodward, he should realize first that previous picture experience will do him but little good. There are several young composers in New York who scurry around writing the scores of little shorts, or avant-garde pictures, or even major independent productions fondly believing that these will win them a place in Hollywood’s gigantic studios. Nothing could be further from the truth… Eastern pictures and foreign pictures are frowned upon in the West.” “To come to Hollywood one must do two things, (1) secure a reputable agent, and (2) sit back and wait at least six months until the studios come knocking at the door… Reputations mean nothing out here; even Sibelius might write without giving the directors pause.” “…It is best to inform an agent that one does not wish a position in a Hollywood studio. A position as a staff composer is a dog’s life; it means that from the first to the last day one will write completely anonymous music… In general a staff composer does not draw the usual high Hollywood salary though he has a steady job. “…the Academy Award for the best motion picture score of last year went to Erich Korngold for a very lugubrious concoction indeed. Meanwhile many excellent composers have come out to Hollywood and returned East again. Scarcely any of them have gotten jobs. While on the other hand, the routine Hollywood composers who have been here many years, have grown alarmed at the influx of new men, and have used their influence to sew up every future score available. In other words Hollywood music is, at the present writing, a closed corporation.” His remedy is to have music critics band together, especially in the East, and turn a searchlight upon Hollywood scores. “…The music critics should realize, before anyone else, just how important this music is for the cultural development of America. Eighty million people a week go to the movies…I believe that the current attitude both in Europe, and in the East here is snobbish… “Some time ago I talked to a colleague from the east who remarked upon the ‘cheapness’ of the general run of musical ideas on the screen. He was judging cinema music from the standpoint of symphonic music; he, himself, was a symphonic composer. But cinema music is made of a broader and more dramatic weave…The symphonic composer finds it hard to believe that good music can be written around a literary or visual idea. But art, like anything else, can only be judged by how well it serves its purpose.” “The work of some Hollywood composers is, in this respect, good art—at least it is good artisanship…The case of Max Steiner comes to mind. Everyone interested in motion picture music can study Steiner’s scores with profit. Let us take, for example, an old film of Steiner’s, The Green Light. It is a bad picture and hardly needs music. But his adept handling of its various cinematic problems is all the more astonishing. Steiner is an old Hollywood veteran of whom we cannot expect a too tremendously new or exciting music. But his product is always a lot better than most of the protruding and miscalculated European movie scores to which I have listened lately… “It is a comparatively easy matter to write a score to an ‘art’ picture, or one in which special emphasis is laid throughout upon the pictorial.” Here he mentions Virgil Thomson’s shorts, the Mexican movie, The Wave, and his own Ballet Mecanique as movies easy to score. “They are, more or less, straight symphonic or ballet-like music.” “(2) Motion pictures…are made for audiences of millions. Therefore on of the principal problems of motion picture music is simplicity, plus telling effect. Please notice that it is not stipulated that this simple music be ultra-melodic. On the contrary, it can be as cacophonous as one likes, but wherever that cacophony occurs, it should be stirringly simple. “(3) Motion picture sound track lives in the world of the microphone. Orchestrations should be made for that microphone, and not for any either banal or trick arrangement of orchestral instruments. Oftentimes one single instrument, ‘stepped up’ in volume, produces a much more magnificent and sweeping effect than a whole symphony orchestra playing fortissimo; such fortissimos must always be dubbed down anyway, and they often sound very feeble indeed.” At the end of the column, he writes about how “…Shostakovitch comes as near as solution of the problem of movie music as anyone. His brittle ‘sound track’ score bristles with striking tunes, striking discords, striking orchestral effects usually upon one or two instruments, and many striking ‘againsts.’ But it builds and builds right up to the end when the Soviet airplane [in the movie, Alone] takes off and the music does likewise.” In the Nov-Dec 1938 column (Vol XVI #1), we read in 62 from Antheil: “Hollywood has, of course, developed quite a number of ‘solvers’ who deserve proper credit for elevating the prestige and artistry of film music to its present difficult situation. Two of them, Alfred Newman and Max Steiner, are indeed such experts that it is impossible to imagine anyone ever improving on them. In fact, as I have previously pointed out in his column, Max Steiner is a veritable genius in this regard, his artisanship amounts practically to artistry. Many of his recent scores show daring advances and startling newnesses, all of which indicate that Hollywood music, such as it is, definitely ‘goes forward.’” Sometime in the early Forties, Lawrence Morton took over that column. In the Jan-Feb 1944 issue (Vol XXI, # 2), he discusses Newman’s score for The Song of Bernadette. He writes that Newman’s approach was to treat the movie as a romantic drama and that he of course utilized the symphonic style of the late nineteenth century, “with overtones from the anthology of church music, and a fairly free use of dissonance to underline dramatic conflict. The whole feeling of the music, one of great warmth, is intended to invite sympathy for the strange girl who, like Shaw’s Joan, was as much a problem to the church as a worry to her family. This kind of treatment is, of course, the prevailing Hollywood style, and Newman’s in particular. While I have long felt that he had milked it dry many scores ago, and should have moved on to something a little fresher, his use of it here appears justifiable, at least on the grounds of appropriateness to the 19th century setting; and justifiable, too, as reflecting the mood of this particular picture…Something like the St. Francis music of Hindemith would have been fresher; or better still, something in the style of Milhaud, for whom this picture would have been a natural.” Hmmm. I don’t think Morton was being a very constructive critic here. His “I wish” or preferred list of alternate music is pointless, especially after stating that Newman’s music worked under the circumstances (although he not-too-subtlety put down Newman’s overall style as being stale, not “fresh” enough!). I enjoyed Antheil’s approach better. In the March-April 1944 column, Morton does, to his credit, praise Herrmann’s score to Jane Eyre. He wrote: Hmmm. I don’t know what he’s talking about here when he sates a “characteristic leap of a major seventh” for the melody’s 2nd interval. I just looked at the score. The rhythmic pattern set in the first bar (trombones especially) is the F minor tonality (F/Ab/C) in the spacing of Great octave F/small octave C/Ab. That’s the same spacing and tonality in the melody’s “second interval” [poor wording by Morton, under the circumstances) that I assume he means starts on Bar 25. In Bar 2, the melody/theme starts. Here we find the violins playing ff middle C half note to Db quarter note up to (Bar 3) Line 2 C half note down to Bb quarter note (etc). The melody’s return on Bar 25 starts an octave higher. There’s no major seventh leap. I don’t know. Perhaps I’m missing something here, but obviously Morton failed in accurately communicating what he was intending to convey. At any rate, he continues: “This melodic style, established at the outset, was maintained throughout. Emphasis was thus placed upon mood and atmosphere rather than upon an acoustical imitation of screen action.” Here Morton is quite correct in his assessment. Herrmann’s method was characteristically “mood music” in approach (unlike, say, Max Steiner in most cases). In the Jan-Feb 1945 issue of Modern Music, Morton was enthusiastic about a work by Moross: “Jerome Moross’ First Symphony is a lusty and joyful work, full of humor and brightness and charm….it is an attempt to write an American music based upon the use of native American materials. “To say that Moross is a folkorist is an accurate statement only if the term ‘folk’ is understood to include the American city-dweller as well as the Kentucky mountaineer, the deep-South cotton-picker and the cowboy.” I just found and blew away the dust of my copy of that symphony (“The Last Judgement”) written in 1942, issued by Koch (recorded early March 1993). I’m listening the First Movement now (“Theme and Variation”). It’s a nice piece of music, and typical Moross that we all know and love. Highly recognizable Moross style or identity. What’s nice about Morton’s article is that he gives examples of the written score in one up to two staves reduction. The First Movement starts in 2/4 time with the woodwinds playing Line 1 B rinforzando 8th to same B rinforzando 16th up to D# 16th three-note figure up to F# 8th to G# rinforzando 8th down to (Bar 2) E#-C#-D#-E# 16ths to C# down to A# 16ths to F# 8th figure. Later on (:30 on the cd), the strings play the main melody theme on Line 2 E/G quarter notes legato to F#/A dotted 8ths to E/G 16ths figure up to (next bar) A/Line 3 C down to F#/A 8ths to E/G-E/G staccato 16ths to C#/E tenuto 8ths. Morton writes: “In the Symphony, Moross has gathered together the spirit of various localities and various social phenomena. The first movement has a two-part theme which undergoes eight variations. It suggests in its first part a New England barn-dance fiddler, and in its second a Missouri revival meeting.” “The second movement, Sonata-Scherzo, is predominantly urban.” Here Morton gives a one-line reproduction of the melody. In 6/8 time, the violins place “gracefully” (dotted quarter note = 132) a delightful melody. We find Line 2 G up to B back to G 8th notes (crossbeam connected) legato down to Eb-D-Db 8ths to (Bar 2) C 8th (followed by an 8th rest) to same C 8th up to G 8th (followed by an 8th rest) to same G 8th legato down to (Bar 3) Line 1 B 8th (followed by an 8th rest) to same B 8th up to Line 2 G 8th (followed by an 8th rest) to same G 8th legato down to (Bar 4) Line 1 Bb dotted half note. Later (at the :49 point) the music continues but a trifle slower in 2/4 time. Here the horn plays small octave Eb up to Ab 8ths legato up to (Bar 1) middle C quarter note, and then another Line 1 C quarter note to (Bar 2) C-Db 8ths to Eb-Db 8ths to (Bar 3) C quarter notes, and then same C quarter note tied to quarter note next bar. In Bar 1, two clarinets and a bassoon play Great octave Ab/small octave Eb quarter notes to Ab/E quarter notes legato to (Bar 2) Great octave Db/small octave D dotted half notes, and so forth. Morton continues: “The slow Invention [Third Movement] is a gem of purest water…a tune of Western atmosphere.” This is quite true. This theme is quite Morossesque, something we could’ve found in his movie score, The Big Country. Morton then writes: “Western too are both the subject and counter-subject of the final fugue [Movement 4, “Fugue”]. …”The fugue is carried off with infectious humor and bravado.” He also states that the second movement of the score is unsuccessful overall, compared to the other movements: “..the popular-song style has not proved amenable to the kind of treatment prescribed by the sonata structure into which the composer chose to cast it. Whatever other weaknesses exist in the work are attributable to the straining for an emotional release which the composer’s very nature demands and which his material denies him. Thus the humor occasionally borders on low comedy, the brightness is frequently brassy, and the charm becomes naïve. “The symphony is a decisive advance over earlier work. It is, on the whole, an attractive piece, a cheerful commentary upon some of the simple pleasures of American life.” Morton disliked Tiomkin’s score for Capra’s San Pietro (May-June 1945 issue). In the Winter 1946 issue, he praised Friedhofer’s score for The Bandit of Sherwood Forest. “Ass motion pictures go, this one has a stale taste and musty odor, but it is a juicy plum for Hugo Friedhofer, and he has composed a seventy-minute score of real musical merit. “…He writes bass lines that move with a purpose, voice parts that really lead somewhere. You hear them gratefully, for instance, in the end-title music where the themes of the lovers and the Queen are made into a chorale-like finale. There is musical integrity (no padding) in some of the lengthy episodes, such as the main-title music, with its forthright and simple statement of the theme of the Merry Men; the duel between young Robin and Friar Tuck, with the humorous interpolation of the Dies Irae; and the big duel between Robin and the Regent, with its Hindemithian textures and harmonies.” Then Morton seques his comments on Friedhofer’s score to a Steiner score: “Notable besides the purely musical aspects of the score is its correctness for the film. In Hollywood this is a much more common virtue than real musicality. It is present, for instance, in Max Steiner’s music for San Antonio. Here, however, the virtue is attenuated by the composer’s use of musical illustration, a technique which gives us sliding-down-the-banister music, walking-across-the-plaza music, telegraph, monkey and throwing-bric-a-brac music. This is no substitute for real invention, even when heard in the spacious luxuriance of Warner Brothers’ incomparable recording.” Finally he comments on the appropriateness and cleverness of Werner Janssen’s music for Captain Kidd (although it was poorly recorded and dubbed by the studio). He writes: “In spite of this, and whether or not it was so intended, the score frequently gave us a kind of psychological insight, its method being pin-point accentuation and a rather weird commentary from the side-lines. If this was an intentional technique” [use of atonal passages, whole-tone sequences, high harmonics, flutter-tongued trumpets, etc], “it still needs vigorous development. And if Jannsen does develop it, he will be my candidate for the scoring of pictures like Spellbound and The Lost Weekend, in which Miklos Rozsa seems to have missed the point entirely.” So Morton seems to overall like Herrmann, Friedhofer, Moross, but dislike Rozsa, Newman, and others. [3:22 pm] “…For the first time, complete theories of rhythm and of melody writing are offered. Schillinger systemartizes musical relationships by expressing them methodically in mathematical formulas…Schillinger wondered whether mathematical analysis of great works of art would not show that they imitate natural process very closely. Confirmation was dramatic…He concluded that great artists had intuitively realized the mathematical logic of structure and movement.” Now: Every composer has his or her own characteristic working method or kind of organization. Composers choose the method or approach that best suits their personalities or general creative leanings. The method is a self-disclosure just as the music itself is (speaking of or about the creator), but the music or inspiration behind the method is the important factor. How the inspiration is implemented is secondary to the actual creative act. The method is part of the creative process, interwoven with the initial inspiration, but the actual inspiration may occur is a flash of a moment of spontaneity. And spontaneity knows its own order. It does not have to be forced into a Procrustean (did I spell that right?) bed or implementation technique (framework of expression). The Schillinger method is a framework that can be used, not necessarily “necessary” or a “basic reality” foundation of creating music in an intelligent, organized manner. It’s a formulaic, mathematical focus or framework of organization. It appeals to some composers, and does not appeal to other composers with different temperaments. The approach does not appeal to me. I personally did not “warm up” to Schillinger’s approach. Great music cannot be confined to any one model. Schillinger’s method is a tool that can be used for those temperaments and bent of mind who like such an approach. It certainly is a highly defined, mental (mathematical) approach. He writes: “The point of view comes straight out of middle Europe in the early Twenties when the application of a mechanistically conceived scientific method to the arts was all the rage….The system aims at the all-inclusive, under the one aspect of mathematical patterning…” that, Carter continues, is set in such elaborate schematic models that tend to confuse the reader than to clarify matters. He criticizes how the work tends to be too dogmatic with unsupported invective that ridicules “old-fashioned intuitive methods.” The work is far too focused on the most functional aspect of music and yet claims to give a high regard to “abstract” art! He writes: “The basic philosophic fallacy of the Schillinger point of view is of course the assumption that the ‘correspondences’ between patterns of art and patterns of the natural world can be mechanically translated from one to the other by the use of geometry or numbers.” Most of what I xeroxed for reference purposes was from the end sections dealing with instruments and their applications and combinations. The psuedo-science sections trying to apply dogmatically to art did not appeal to me. It did not attract my attention for very long, while a good piece of film music will consistently keep my attention (and enjoyment). Music is not so much a mental construct as an emotional construct that touches the heart more than the overly analytical mind. You glimpse immortality thru music/art. Art reminds you of deeper realities. Music is an excellent method of personal self-expression, meant to “raise your consciousness,” so to speak, to stimulate your sensitivity or greater awareness of something. A composer channels his inspiration and creative energies thru the craft and medium of music, specializing in the musical mode of organization, while other artists may prefer the visual arts. The different frameworks are simply focuses of attention within which creative activity occurs and expresses outwardly. Again, it is a method of expression. He creates in that way. It attempts to express what is inside him, a larger dimension that cannot ever be completely expressed outwardly, but music (or other art) is considered the best approximation of that inner life and reality achievable in three-dimensional terms. Similarly, I feel, the earthly personality in any one “life” or “incarnation” cannot completely express the Whole Self or entity that is the source of that personality expression. In a sense, the present personality is a form of artistic expression. It can show great beauty and harmony or great disharmony and tragedy, but it is still art, an expression, an expression or dimension of the inner life manifested outwardly. In analogy, Max Steiner is the Higher Self that creates the diverse personalities and styles demonstrated in cheerful expressions such as By The Light of the Silvery Moon, to the tense drama of The Violent Men. A personality that appears disruptive may have its inner purposes. For example, on some level, Herrmann’s outer personality characteristics were purposely or intuitively exaggerated (accepted on inner levels) in order to accentuate or strengthen the creative expression (as music) in order to intensify experience and dramatic potential (fire at heart’s center). The emotionality became an intense artistic focus that helped magnify life, just as a good score intensifies and magnifies the scene on a screen. His outer personality became a focus of attention, a brewing of creative agitation thru which activity occurred. His personality, like his art, went beyond the commonplace, charged with great psychic energy. And of course being a composer was his conscious focus of identity upon which he built his life. Or perhaps composing became his primary life construction by default since his primary intended construction was conducting (most wanted by the conscious ego) but his “conducting self” was not as “accepted” by that activity as his composing self., although both were closely aligned. 5:50 pm. Ah! My wife just arrived from work with a Caesar’s Deep Pan pizza for $6. Time to end this blog and satisfy my stomach! © Copyright 2005 Bill Wrobel < Back to BLOG LIST : Next BLOG > |
