# Poltergeist by Jerry Goldsmith



## dcoscina (Oct 6, 2020)

I'm going through a bit of a Goldsmith phase right now, listening to most of his seminal 60s, 70s, and early 80s work. Poltergeist was a score I know but haven't really listened closely to probably because I found it to be a scary, slightly vicious film. Goldsmith's score also follows suit, but listening to the re mastered complete score released by FSM Silver Age Classics, I've gotten a new respect for this score. There is actually a lot of melodic content here- a beautiful balance of impressionism and more mid 20th century modernism. It's a crazy good score actually.


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## Virtual Virgin (Oct 6, 2020)

Yes, I think this is a well crafted score. I'm hoping Omni publishing will pick this one up.


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## robgb (Oct 13, 2020)

It's a pretty brilliant score. Pure Goldsmith.


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## ed buller (Oct 13, 2020)

dcoscina said:


> I'm going through a bit of a Goldsmith phase right now, listening to most of his seminal 60s, 70s, and early 80s work. Poltergeist was a score I know but haven't really listened closely to probably because I found it to be a scary, slightly vicious film. Goldsmith's score also follows suit, but listening to the re mastered complete score released by FSM Silver Age Classics, I've gotten a new respect for this score. There is actually a lot of melodic content here- a beautiful balance of impressionism and more mid 20th century modernism. It's a crazy good score actually.





Fantastic Score ,bizarrely has some of his most romantic and heartfelt melodies. Do you know The Satan Bug ?



Best

e


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## robgb (Oct 13, 2020)

ed buller said:


> Fantastic Score ,bizarrely has some of his most romantic and heartfelt melodies. Do you know The Satan Bug ?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Genius.


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## dcoscina (Oct 13, 2020)

Virtual Virgin said:


> Yes, I think this is a well crafted score. I'm hoping Omni publishing will pick this one up.


Listening to the expanded FSM presentation, yeah totally. Some terrific writing that balances Bartok, Stravinsky and Ravel. Yet it all feels like Jerry at any given time. Masterful. The guy was a genius in the truest sense of the word. 

If I have any hope for an afterlife, it's to be able to bug him nonstop about how he wrote all these fabulous scores. What the inspiration was... What about modernism he appreciated and enjoyed so much. So many questions...


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## dcoscina (Oct 13, 2020)

ed buller said:


> Fantastic Score ,bizarrely has some of his most romantic and heartfelt melodies. Do you know The Satan Bug ?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks Ed... now I have to buy this score. You bastard!! LOL

I am familiar with it but not as much as I should be. What knocks me out is this large orchestral flourishes that Goldsmith uses which combines different instrument choirs. Really neat stuff. I guess we can cite Ravel or Stravinsky as utilizing those techniques as well.


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## ed buller (Oct 13, 2020)

dcoscina said:


> Thanks Ed... now I have to buy this score. You bastard!! LOL
> 
> I am familiar with it but not as much as I should be. What knocks me out is this large orchestral flourishes that Goldsmith uses which combines different instrument choirs. Really neat stuff. I guess we can cite Ravel or Stravinsky as utilizing those techniques as well.



I am , I must admit , somewhat obsessed with this score. Both Jerry and Johnny where taught by Ernst Krenek and I guess a lot of their more modernist approaches to harmony came from those lessons....but it's a guess. For a period of maybe 3 years during this time ( mid sixties ) Jerry fished at that river with some wonderful results

best

ed


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## dcoscina (Oct 13, 2020)

ed buller said:


> I am , I must admit , somewhat obsessed with this score. Both Jerry and Johnny where taught by Ernst Krenek and I guess a lot of their more modernist approaches to harmony came from those lessons....but it's a guess. For a period of maybe 3 years during this time ( mid sixties ) Jerry fished at that river with some wonderful results
> 
> best
> 
> ed



Didn't know Williams studied with Krenek. Both studied with Mario Nuevo Tedesco however.


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## ed buller (Oct 13, 2020)

dcoscina said:


> Didn't know Williams studied with Krenek. Both studied with Mario Nuevo Tedesco however.


Many did

e


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## lux (Oct 13, 2020)

What engages me with Poltergeist, like many other scores from its age, is how music is capable to add so much depth to the whole script introducing a multi-dimensional array of emotions around a single event, as much as it works in real life.

Family love, courage, terror, epicness, mistery. A beautiful compendium of harmonies and melodies let us simultaneously experiment a moltitude of emotions and feeling, thus making the story way more interesting.

That was scoring before the huge exploit of production music, which probably changed the game like nothing before. Horror is horror, period. Scary is scary. Love is love. Fun is fun. I think many one-dimentional works of recent years pay the due to how production music changed the way composers think of moods, emotions, in such a flat and rigorous way. 

Think Christopher Young and the magnificent Hellraiser score. Depth, thats the word.


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## robgb (Oct 14, 2020)

lux said:


> What engages me with Poltergeist, like many other scores from its age, is how music is capable to add so much depth to the whole script introducing a multi-dimensional array of emotions around a single event, as much as it works in real life.


Another Goldsmith example of this is the Chinatown soundtrack. While it sounds amazing on its own, when you watch the movie you see how beautifully it's utilized to deepen the emotion of the story, building to the final climax.


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## robgb (Oct 15, 2020)

dcoscina said:


> If I have any hope for an afterlife, it's to be able to bug him nonstop about how he wrote all these fabulous scores. What the inspiration was... What about modernism he appreciated and enjoyed so much. So many questions...


I just want to give him a hug and say thank you.


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## dcoscina (Oct 15, 2020)

robgb said:


> I just want to give him a hug and say thank you.


Yes indeed. He left the world with a bounty of stellar music that we can enjoy and learn from.


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