# Old Composers That Inspired Modern Composers



## ryanstrong (Jan 3, 2012)

I would like to discover or rediscover some of the work of older composers to draw inspiration from. What I would really like to know are what are those famous older composers specific works that have inspired some of our favorite film composers and their scores of today?

I read a thread somewhere of the comparisons to John Williams' work and Igor Stravinsky, I believe it was specifically Stravinsky's Rite of Spring / Williams' The Dune Sea. That was fun going through and listening to Stravinsky and hearing some of the inspiration and nods.

What are some others? It does not necessarily have to be direct song for song comparisons but overall style and mood of general works.


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## midphase (Jan 3, 2012)

Holst inspired countless scores...including Gladiator!


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## ryanstrong (Jan 3, 2012)

Any specific pieces, movements or opus of Holst that you would recommend?


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## dedersen (Jan 3, 2012)

The Planets. See if you can guess which blockbuster "Mars" inspired.


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## ryanstrong (Jan 3, 2012)

dedersen @ Wed Jan 04 said:


> The Planets. See if you can guess which blockbuster "Mars" inspired.



Ah nice, Star Wars! The bit where the Death Star explodes. Very cool - I'll have to give The Planets a good listen, some really great things happening in these pieces.


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## David Story (Jan 3, 2012)

Copland- Rodeo
Mozart- Dies Irae
Ravel- Daphnes
Grieg -Peer Gynt Suite
Satie- Gymnopédie


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## ryanstrong (Jan 3, 2012)

David Story @ Wed Jan 04 said:


> Ravel- Daphnes



Maybe one of my favorite pieces of music - LOVE Ravel.

I will definitely have to check the others. This may be bad, but probably the first time I heard Satie's Gymnopedie was on Imperfect Samples' website showcasing the Fazoli 

Thank you!


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## noiseboyuk (Jan 4, 2012)

David Story @ Wed Jan 04 said:


> Copland- Rodeo
> Mozart- Dies Irae
> Ravel- Daphnes
> Grieg -Peer Gynt Suite
> Satie- Gymnopédie



Could you also post the scores they inspired?

I see Mars quoted frequently, including for the first Star Wars (I know it was temped) but I don't hear a strong musical connection in the final score. Ditto Gladiator to be honest. The strongest one by far that I know of is the Star Wars / Rites Of Spring comparison - that's pretty startling!


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## dedersen (Jan 4, 2012)

noiseboyuk @ Wed Jan 04 said:


> I see Mars quoted frequently, including for the first Star Wars (I know it was temped) but I don't hear a strong musical connection in the final score. Ditto Gladiator to be honest.



Really? You don't hear Mars in the "The Battle" cue from Gladiator?! That's one of the most blatant cases I have heard. I love the score Zimmer made for Gladiator, but this one cue has sections that sound like they are nearly identical to the presumed temp track.


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## jleckie (Jan 4, 2012)

I've heard that Elliot Goldentahl inspired Tyler Bates... I'm pretty sure Goldenthal is older...


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## noiseboyuk (Jan 4, 2012)

dedersen @ Wed Jan 04 said:


> noiseboyuk @ Wed Jan 04 said:
> 
> 
> > I see Mars quoted frequently, including for the first Star Wars (I know it was temped) but I don't hear a strong musical connection in the final score. Ditto Gladiator to be honest.
> ...



Ah - I just downloaded a handful of cues some time ago from iTunes and The Battle wasn't one of them - just checked on youtube and yeah, I do here a strong "influence" there in places! Fair dos.

Hey, at least it's 7/8 not 5/8!


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Jan 4, 2012)

The Rite of Spring.


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## Stephen Baysted (Jan 4, 2012)

Wagner.


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## handz (Jan 4, 2012)

Sorry but when I see those discussions about how Williams copied Stravinsky for dune sea and Holst for beggining of Ep. IV etc etc I really dont know if I have to smile or cry - such statements are so blind. 

EVERY composer in history was inspired by composers before, Williams for example may used similar orchestrations or compositional methods (but dont remember that classical music was used as a temp track for the movie and it SHOULD have same feeling) but not copied exact material, in classical music history it was common to take some motives from other composer and use it in other work or - this was really very very common in romantic period (one of the most important for movie music) take a folk song and use it as a theme in symphony / concerto - this fact if you will be judging composers by getting inspired - would totally prevent you from listnenig for example to Tchaikovsky as almost all (maybe to ostrong - but many many) his most famous melodies are just exact parts of Russian folk songs - and melody is for sure one of the main things. 

Horner used Kchacaturians Gayaneh in Aliens, Zimmer Mozarts Dies Irae in Lion King.. many many examples could be found. 

If you just want to know what Composers were most inspirational for nowdays (maybe better said recent as majority of todays music is starting to sound like nothing close to classical music) I would say: Debussy, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Scriabin, Wagner, Mahler, Holst, Vaugh Williams and many many more, Long time ago when I was listening to clasical music almost every time I had on mind tons of examples - exact parts of works being used / used as inspirations in movie music.


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## ryanstrong (Jan 4, 2012)

@handz

I don't want to speak for all the others, but the sentiment here was NOT that modern day composers COPIED or RIPPED classical composers and their work. Or let's have a witch hunt to find who did.

I personally am not familiar with a ton of old classical composers and their work, I know a little but not a lot; I just was not raised with any of it. I am however very familiar with the modern day composer and their work, so I simply would love to know what composers inspired our modern day film composers.

Almost like a... "So you like this? You may also like..." but referencing an older composer. That's all. Thank you all so far for the suggestions - I've been enjoying rediscovering some of late greats.


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## ryanstrong (Jan 4, 2012)

That said, could anyone give me something good to listen to that Alexandre Desplat may have been inspired from? I love his work on Coco Before Chanel, The Tree of Life and The King's Speech.


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## re-peat (Jan 5, 2012)

Rystro,

To get a pretty good idea of the roots of orchestral film music, you should check out classical _program music_, in other words: works following some extra-musical roadmap, be it a story or a poem or whatever, or works that offer a musical expression of non-musical ideas (as opposed to _absolute music_, which refers to music that has no extra-musical references.)

So, classical program pieces. There’s loads of these about (from the 19th century onwards, these type of compositions quickly gained in number, popularity and importance). In my opinion, some really good ones are:

*César Franck* “Les Djinns” and “Le Chasseur Maudit”
*Richard Strauss* “Til Eulenspiegels Lustige Streiche” and “Don Quixote”
*Hector Berlioz* “Symphonie Fantastique”
*Modest Mussorgsky* “Pictures at an Exhibition” (orchestrated by Ravel, though I much prefer the original piano version)
*Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov* “Sheherazade”
*Frans Liszt* “Mazeppa” and “Les Préludes”
*Maurice Ravel* “Ma Mère L’Oye” and “Miroirs” (orch. version)
*Claude Debussy* “Jeux” and “La Mer”

Many of classical music’s ‘greatest hits’ are often programmatic in concept: *Bedrich Smetana*’s “Ma Vlast”, *Camille Saint-Saëns*’ “Dance Macabre”, *Edvard Grieg*’s “Peer Gynt (incidental music), *Paul Dukas*' “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, …

Richard Strauss in particular should be high on your list, as he is often named as one of the prime sources of the cinematic musical vocabulary (along with *Richard Wagner*). Not only because Strauss was quite the wizard when it comes to depicting narrative elements with music — he could ‘tell’ or express just about anything with music — but also because it’s mainly his musical heritage (along with Wagner’s, Mahler’s and a few other post-romantic composers’) that fled across the Atlantic to Hollywood (in the heads and suitcases of composers like *E.W. Korngold*, *Franz Waxman*, *Miklós Rózsa* and *Max Steiner*) at the time when the atmosphere in Europe turned rather grim during the early 20th century.

But it didn’t stop with Strauss of course. Later on, composers like *Bartók*, *Stravinsky*, *Prokofiev*, *Shostakovich*, *Copland*, *Milhaud*, *Honegger*, *Janácek* and many others, all produced music which had a profound influence on the development of orchestral film music.

Some more interesting works to check out (on top of the works already mentioned earlier in this thread):
*Béla Bartók* “Concerto For Orchestra”, “Music For Strings, Percussion & Celesta”, “The Miraculous Mandarin”
*Igor Stravinsky* “Symphony in Three Movements”, “The Fairy’s Kiss”, “Scherzo Fantastique (Les Abeilles)”, “The Firebird”, “The Nightingale”
*Sergei Prokofiev* “Romeo and Juliet”, “Scythian Suite”, “Le Pas d’Acier”, as well as his symphonies
*Darius Milhaud* “La Création Du Monde”
*Dmitri Shostakovich* symphonies, ballet suites, orchestral suites

_


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## lux (Jan 5, 2012)

I would add Bizet (Arlesienne above all) and Gershwin to the list. Not to speak about Mascagni.


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## Farkle (Jan 5, 2012)

lux @ Thu Jan 05 said:


> I would add Bizet (Arlesienne above all) and Gershwin to the list. Not to speak about Mascagni.



Piet and Lux, I think these are great recommendations. 

I personally also like studying ballet scores (some of which were mentioned, Firebird most notably), as ballets are about supporting rhythm and movement through music (which is an important skill for film composers to master).

I would add Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (duh!), and, the oft-overlooked Petrouchka to this list. Petrouchka is a killer ballet, and Stravinsky does some nifty cross-thematic references with it (the first movement alone, the Shrove-tide fair, is brilliant in its musical depiction of different carnival attractions occuring).

And, of course, Daphnis and Chloe (Ravel), for tone-painting. His opening dawn sequence is EPIC.

Mike Worth


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## re-peat (Jan 5, 2012)

Mike,

I didn't mention 'The Sacre' only because it has already been mentioned _twice_. As for 'Petrushka': it is, by far, my favourite of Stravinsky's three so-called Russian ballets (my desert island Stravinsky disc would first of all include 'Petrushka', followed by most of his chamber music and small-scale works such as 'L'Histoire du Soldat', and then some later ballets — 'Agon', 'Pulcinella', 'Le Baiser de la Fée', 'Apollon Musagète', 'Scènes de Ballet' — and _only then_ 'Le Sacre'). 

I've always been surprised actually why there was a riot at 'The Sacre's premiere and not one at 'Petrushka's because the musical leap from 'The Firebird' to 'Petruschka' is, in my opinion anyway, MUCH bigger and amazing than the relatively comprehensible move from 'Petrushka' to 'The Sacre'. Probably that famous riot had just as much to do with the choreography as with the music (which was, in fact, almost instantly recognized as the masterpiece that it is). And Diaghilev's cunning manoeuvres, in order to create a sensation, will have helped as well of course.

Anyway, the reason I didn't mention 'Petrushka' (I hesitated for quite a while though) is because it's hasn't really been very influential in a cinematic sense, has it? I can't really think of many film scores where the musical echoes of 'Petrushka' are distinctly present, not directly anyway. Whereas 'The Sacre' is just about omnipresent throughout the entire history of film music.

_


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## Harzmusic (Jan 5, 2012)

Anyone already mentioned Guiseppe Verdis Requiem (e.g. "Dies Irae"), Carl Orffs Carmina Burana (e.g. "O Fortuna")?
Some pieces that seem to have influenced the common epic choir pieces.


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## JoKern (Jan 5, 2012)

Hi there, 

I think a good composer gets inspired by everything, but when we're talking about great classical composers and how their works influenced future composers... then (imho) Mahler is missing. :wink: 
I personally like his Symphony Nr. 2 most. Just get a music sheet at your music library and listen to this masterpiece.

Inspiring music pieces (with great learning potential, especially in instrument colors) is the orchestral music for children, for example:
- Sergei Prokofiev with "Peter and the Wolf"
- Camille Saint-Saëns with "The Carnival of the Animals"

It's not just an accident that the grandfather theme is played by a bassoon, but a real understanding of which instrument is best used in this register or to show this emotion. For me this is very inspiring and there is a lot to learn. 

Has anybody more examples of classical orchestration works for children? Would be cool. :wink:


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## maraskandi (Jan 5, 2012)

I heard a cue from Desplat's The King's Speech on the radio some months ago, it reminded me very much of the 2nd movement of Beethoven's 5th piano concerto, known as the "Emperor".
Incredibly beautiful music!

Beethoven Piano Concerto no 5, 2nd movement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbrBQwRmd2I 

The section @ 3.38 also is slightly remeniscent of some of the John Williams Jurassic Park score, but that doesn't mean he referenced it, can just be circumstantial. 

And a +1 to re-peat for including Liszt in the list.  His "Mountain Symphony" or "Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne" is wonderful too, it is also one of his Symphonic Poems along with the Mazeppa and Les Preludes

Liszt - Bergsymphonie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X68O4YIg04o (www.youtube.com/watch?v=X68O4YIg04o)


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## re-peat (Jan 5, 2012)

Blast, we forgot *Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky*. Shame on us. If there's one composer who created the template for lush, sweeping romanticism (which resonates in film music to this very day), then surely it must be him. A key work in this respect is 'Romeo and Juliet' of course, with its famous soaring love theme, but most of his other music, a.o. the symphonies, ballets and concerto's, has been hugely influential as well.

Oh, and *Sergei Rachmaninov* of course. Another name that really can't be ignored when making a list of classical composers who helped shape film music. Particularly important in this context are his 2nd and 3rd pianoconcerto.

There has been no mention yet of the 2nd Viennese School either (*Arnold Schoenberg*, *Anton Webern*, *Alban Berg*). Dodecaphony (serial music) is obviously not the world's most accessible type of music and it is rather abstract as well (making it less suitable to evoke or describe), but even so, quite a few film composers, and not the least (a.o. Jerry Fielding, Alex North, Leonard Rosenman, ...), were heavily influenced by it.

_


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## maraskandi (Jan 5, 2012)

and hostakovich wrote lots of film music.

For me also Saint Saens, Prokofiev as well as Ernő Dohnányi and Percy Grainger are great for orchestral inspiration


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## Farkle (Jan 5, 2012)

re-peat @ Thu Jan 05 said:


> Mike,
> 
> I didn't mention 'The Sacre' only because it has already been mentioned _twice_. As for 'Petrushka': it is, by far, my favourite of Stravinsky's three so-called Russian ballets (my desert island Stravinsky disc would first of all include 'Petrushka', followed by most of his chamber music and small-scale works such as 'L'Histoire du Soldat', and then some later ballets — 'Agon', 'Pulcinella', 'Le Baiser de la Fée', 'Apollon Musagète', 'Scènes de Ballet' — and _only then_ 'Le Sacre').
> 
> ...



Oops, good call, Piet! I didn't catch Le Sacre earlier in the thread. Mea Culpa! 

I was under the impression that part of the reason for the riots during the premiere of "Rite of Spring" was additionally due to the rather pagan content and the rather... ahem... primal style of ballet dancing (including the woman who dances to death to satisfy the spirits of nature). I agree with you, Piet, there is a HUGE leap forward in polytonality and contemporary composition in Petrouchka, but perhaps the story and dancing was very familiar to the audience (puppets and carnivals), so that the reception was more well received?

Oh, and spot on with Tchaikovsky!! Everyone thinks of his Nutcracker, but check out his Swan Lake ballet, as well as the Romeo and Juliet overture (nice call!), and... for me, my favorite 2.5 minutes of Tchaikovsky... with the lonely, gorgeous theme in oboe, into the sweeping, dramatic, passionate strings... is the opening to his 4th Symphony, 2nd movement...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN7oFdFqtB4

Some great lessons to learn about getting the strings to sound out in the orchestra!!

Mike


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## Ed (Jan 5, 2012)

Speaking of the Nutcracker, some stuff sounds too much like Ballet music to me, but there is some great stuff in these old scores . My favourite from the Nutcracker is the Arabian dance.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Jan 5, 2012)

Do old film composers count as well? If so, let's start with The Mann...


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## handz (Jan 5, 2012)

Ed @ Thu Jan 05 said:


> Speaking of the Nutcracker, some stuff sounds too much like Ballet music to me, but there is some great stuff in these old scores . My favourite from the Nutcracker is the Arabian dance.




Ed... I sometimes having hard time to recognize if you are joking or not, but...it IS ballet music :o


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## David Story (Jan 5, 2012)

+1 for film composers. Prokofiev composed 2 highly effective and influential scores:
• Alexander Nevsky (drama)
• Lieutenant Kijé (comedy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_vJbS_67Lw&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_vJbS_6 ... re=related)

Bernard Herrmann is the featured artist on my next SciFi Soundtrack show. 
The Day The Earth Stood Still was the "shape of things to come" in science fiction to this day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_EjaHvdLg8

I agree (as usual) with Piet, Tchiakovsky is a father of film scores. He was considered the gold standard for drama and romance until the 60's. Also pioneered exact timings of music to movement in his ballets. And Thanks for mentioning The Nightingale", it's a favorite. Stravinsky's gifts for character and special effects are in fine form.

Bizet is an influence with Carmen also, and like the others here, their music is often simply placed in the film. Eg Beethoven's 7th in The King's Speech.

You might want to listen to William Walton's film scores, they are stunning.


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## re-peat (Jan 6, 2012)

Most people will already know this I suppose, but talking about "The Nutcracker": John Williams included a wonderful tribute to Tchaikovsky in the score for ‘Home Alone’ when he based the cue http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2TyYimaAH8&feature=related (‘Holiday Flight’) on the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfUz0NBOBEs (‘Trepak’) dance from "The Nutcracker".

And another one of Williams' nods to the classics occurs in 'Last Crusade', in the cue http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4H8N6Lfsbo ('Scherzo for Motorcycle and Orchestra'), which has many echoes of the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azR_r2ygTZI&feature=related (fifth movement of Berlioz' &quot;Symphony Fantastique&quot;).
(Anyone who has 10 minutes to spare, should really give a listen to this entire Berlioz clip. And play it loud as well, if possible. Not only is is very interesting in the context of this thread as this music contains many orchestral techniques, colours and effects that have since reappeared very often in film music, but, under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel, things get cooking like they rarely do.)

_


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## MichaelL (Jan 6, 2012)

Barber's Adagio..perfectly captures the pathos of war.

Used by Georges Delerue in Platoon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECQeLQURNuw&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECQeLQUR ... re=related)


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## maraskandi (Jan 6, 2012)

"things get cooking like they rarely do.) "


The climax is awesome, love the descending woodwinds, and the final bloom of the brass!

Yaaaaaaaaah, right, the neighbours are having one more spin of the ending.


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## lux (Jan 6, 2012)

I wonder how old masters of film music like Max Steiner, Miklos Rozsla, Korngold...would fit in the "influencial" scenario, considering also that many of them lived and worked in times where some of the mentioned composers (Copland, Stravinskij, Rachmaninoff, Gershwin...) were alive and in activity.

I personally find lot of Rozsa influence in a large amount of movie composers.


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## David Story (Jan 6, 2012)

re-peat @ Fri Jan 06 said:


> (Anyone who has 10 minutes to spare, should really give a listen to this entire Berlioz clip. And play it loud as well, if possible. Not only is is very interesting in the context of this thread as this music contains many orchestral techniques, colours and effects that have since reappeared very often in film music, but, under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel, things get cooking like they rarely do.)
> 
> _



Best performance I've heard. Thanks! Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orch are magic. Berlioz is the founder of orchestration as we know it, and theatrical too.

Michael, Barber's Adagio is much imitated, I love it as "Agnus Dei" also.

Luca, Korngold and Steiner are just as influential as Stravinsky and Copland. Concert music has to be adapted to work in film 90% of the time, and the old film composers showed us how to do that. Stravinsky and Copland also did film scores, which are fun, but didn't add to the cinematic vocabulary. It was their concert music techniques that were brought into film by others.

Prokofiev did inspire with his film scores, as did Walton(The First of the Few, Richard III), Rozsa, Herrmann and Corigliano(Altered States). All those composers had active concert careers.


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## JoKern (Jan 7, 2012)

When I watched "Shutter Island" for the first time, I was wondering who did this score and why do I know the "theme". 
I googled and found, it's because it is not composed specific for this movie. 

On wikipedia it says: 
"The collection of modern classical music [on the soundtrack album] was hand-selected by Robertson and Powell, who is proud of its scope and sound. 'This may be the most outrageous and beautiful soundtrack I've ever heard."

They are using music by Penderecki, Mahler, Cage, ... and so on. Very interesting although a little bit off-topic. 

And I would like to add Brahms to the list. (Hans Zimmer said in an interview in Geneva last year he is listening to him, so he might be an inspiration.)
For me, he is. Especially his violin concerto and his Symphony No. 4.


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## Ed (Jan 7, 2012)

handz @ Thu Jan 05 said:


> Ed... I sometimes having hard time to recognize if you are joking or not, but...it IS ballet music :o



I know it is ballet music, because it was written for a ballet.

The reason I like this is because it sounds more like a film score, there are other parts to the Nutcracker that sound more old fashioned and that do nothing for me, that is what i mean by "ballet music". I should have clarified since a lot of people wouldnt really get what I mean.


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## Alex Temple (Jan 7, 2012)

This may just be me excessively nerding out to classical music, but I've always thought it was funny that people mention the end of Mars/Star Wars connection. It's definitely there, but the first time I heard "Mars," I immediately thought of how much it sounds like Mahler's 2nd Symphony (which was composed earlier). When you drop the needle here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=bvWQeLep7QE#t=488s. 

So yes, Mahler should definitely be on this list.

Other pieces that I don't think have been mentioned: "The Perfect Fool," by Holst. All three sections could easily fit right into any orchestral movie score. Charles Mackerras has a very good recording of this. Here you can listen to the gorgeous second section: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8bEO64K2LI

It's probably too recent and relatively unknown to be a major influence, but Veljo Tormis' "Overture No. 2" is another good one and definitely qualifies under the "if you like this you may also like..." banner.

Any piece from Respighi's Roman Trilogy.

Arvo Part's "Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten" is up there with Barber's Adagio in how uncompromisingly sad it sounds.

Bruckner's 9th Symphony is one of those hugely imposing pieces that doesn't get enough attention IMO. For looking at cinematic music the first movement sounds like a lot of heavy, brassy film scores (when I saw Independence Day I was immediately reminded of this). The second movement is one of the most barbaric pieces I've ever heard from the 19th century, especially with a good performance. The third movement is a great listen but I think it veers away from the cinematic sound that we may be looking for. Here's a passage from the first that is one of my favorites from any piece: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=6CEiZ7DTVZ8#t=520s


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## Alex Temple (Jan 7, 2012)

Can't believe I mentioned Bruckner without saying something about the 8th Symphony. I think his music gets neglected a lot because of the patience required to sit through his symphonies, but the rewards can be enormous. Some of his finest passages being buried deeply within expansive movements that last up to half an hour. Anyone who has given up after a few minutes would probably never hear them.

Anyway, here's a part from the middle of the last movement of the 8th Symphony that is about as massive and bombastic as anything I've heard out of Hollywood. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVTemkkT0UI&feature=related


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## sherief83 (Jan 7, 2012)

Alex Temple @ Sat Jan 07 said:


> So yes, Mahler should definitely be on this list.
> 
> Other pieces that I don't think have been mentioned: "The Perfect Fool," by Holst. All three sections could easily fit right into any orchestral movie score. Charles Mackerras has a very good recording of this. Here you can listen to the gorgeous second section: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8bEO64K2LI
> 
> ...



Alright, you got me out of my cave since I'm such a nerd for classical music as well :mrgreen: 

You sure are a Mahler fan girl aren't you? =o Not a day without you mentioning mahler somehow..lol

Holst I believe admitted to an influence from early stravinsky ballets in addition to Ravel (introduced by His friend Ralph Vaughn Williams) and few minor others when he was writing the planets. 

Mars specifically with its large chords(horns) are really directly inspired by Stravinsky's rite of spring "the sacrifice dance", watch for how Stravinsky uses his large horn chords. I'll look up the measures but its toward the end right after whatever ridiculous 11/3 rhythm Stravinsky used there..lol 

As for Buckner's 9th second movement being the most brutal? well You know me dude, I love Bruckner to death but not the most brutal music of its century. As masterful as many though and honestly its one of the most misinterpreted movement ever by many modern conductors.

You really have to get deeply into a 12 hour Wagner's opera specifically the ring, Tristan and Tannhauser to see brutal. Also, Tchaikovsky, who I'm such a nerd for wrote some series brutal music that is under appreciated today, Manfred comes to mind. 

I love love love Bruckner's 8th...its just the Music of GOD him self. its length is just a test to anyone's faith...but its absolutely the company of God.

And in addition to what you posted...My very favorit of the 8th.
The third movement alone is just...mind blowing experience. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E7lFtlXnWk

I always thought there is nothing closer to the music of God than Bruckner's symphonies and chorals. Even Mahler was a fan it shows in many of his symphonies.

As for the main thread's title. Honestly every single composer if studied closely,one will always find where their roots of inspiration came from in order to start their own Musical Direction to their own voice.

Holst found his inspiration from Ravel, Stravinsky, Vaughn Williams. 

Ravel found him self in debt to Debussy, Mussorgsky and Rimsky Korsakov.

Debussy toured Russia in his 20s and was influenced by Wagner, early Russians like Mussorgsky and even Tchaikovsky(loving on his fourth Symphony) in his orchestral writing, of course his piano writing is on a whole different level.

Stravinsky found his inspiration from Debussy(heavily), Tchaikovsky, Wagner. 

Mahler from Bruckner and Wagner and many other snipts of other composers he conducted (might I add Tchaikovsky for his 9th since to my surprise, it is quiet closely modeled to Tchaikovsky 6th in structure and there is evidence that Mahler conducted Tchaikovsky 6th 7 or 8 times before writing his 9th) 

Tchaikovsky was a nerd for anything Mozart, Schumann, Beethoven(whom inspired him to want to write his own music) and of course adored anything Léo Delibes(after swan lake) and Bizet's Carmen for Ballet music and had a thing for Italian composers like Rossine and Verdi (2nd movment 4th symphony melody was an idea derived from the opera Aida for instant) and Finally the one Composer he never wanted to admit being influenced from, Wagner.

Bruckner from the music of Bach, Schubert, Beethoven and Wagner(the most)

Wagner from Liszt, Beethoven, Bach, Schumann and early German composers like Weber whom he encountered when he was young, and some Waltz Viennese composers like Strauss II.

Beethoven from Mozart, Hayden(the most) and Bach.

Mozart mostly from Bach, Hayden, his father and Gluck.

and i should I also mention that there are many Unknown composers that have secretly contributed or influenced any of the names I mentioned and were respected in their days but not very known today. Raff comes to mind.

The only true Original in all this(for all we know) Is Bach.

Ok I Just threw up on this thread with stuff. So I better get out before I start writing each composer's detailed history... o


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## David Story (Jan 7, 2012)

Good post sherief83! You can trace influences all the way to the dawn of time. 
Bach is influenced by Buxtehude, Vivaldi, Telemann and his huge family of pro musicians. He transmogrified their music, really improving the emotional range and technique.

Respighi has very cinematic works, but I can only think of a few soundtrack influences. If you want extreme epic majesty:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43bDPoRN2xA

Since we're mentioning more recent composers: PHILLIP GLASS.


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## Alex Temple (Jan 7, 2012)

Sherief, good points across the board. What I meant by brutal when I was talking about Bruckner's 9th/II was how its unforgiving dissonances, rhythmic insistence and lack of melody were unusual at the time. There's definitely _bigger_ sounding stuff in the Ring for sure.

Another Respighi piece is the "War Dance" from Belkis, Queen of Sheba. Not surprising that most of the comments on the Youtube video are talking about the exact same thing we are - how cinematic it sounds. 8) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh8pEC56PtY&feature=related


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## David Story (Jan 7, 2012)

Thanks, Alex. Great performance of "War Dance"! He worked well into the 1930's, wonder why no film scores...

Let's remember Rossini, he's very influential, esp in animation.

Here's a link, by composer:
http://www.allegro-c.de/formate/cmm.htm


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## ryanstrong (Jan 8, 2012)

Wow, thanks for the outpouring of responses and opinion... I'm going to have to really sift through and organize all these.

@sherief83
What a great response! Love seeing that tracked back - now if you could do that but start with Elfman, Desplat, Zimmer and Williams and I'll be totally happy!

Thank you all! Glad this seems like a fun geek out discussion for some, I love talking music.


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## vicontrolu (Jan 15, 2012)

excellent thread dudes!


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