# Greatest film scores



## dcoscina (Aug 15, 2018)

This topic sort of sprung from the Herrmann Twilight Zone thread. I'm curious as to what everyone else out there feels are truly outstanding examples of film music at its finest. Here are mine (btw, these are NOT my favourite scores of all time necessarily but ones that I feel propelled the art and craft further)

1. Alexander Nevsky (Prokofiev)- Eisenstein actually recut the Battle on the Ice to conform to Sergei's score, something that has rarely occurred in film music history (another notable example is Williams' ET final cue where Spielberg also re-editted the final sequence to fit Williams' music). Prokofiev's score has been aped more than a few times and even before the likes of Herrmann would manipulate the orchestra to conform to film, Prokofiev recorded the trumpets close to the mics to produce a grating distortion to signify the Teutonic Knights. Genius. 

2. The Sea Hawk/Adventures of Robin Hood (Korngold)- pretty much could pick any one of Erich's works but these two perfectly distill the idea of operatic scoring for a picture. Korngold studied with Strauss (or Mahler, I cannot recall which one to be honest) and took the late 19th century romanticism and applied it to film. It's amazing to realize how many hit points the composer ended up catching AND still made his music intelligible away from the picture. 

3. Planet of the Apes (Goldsmith)- I could go on and on about this (and have often). It helped that Goldsmith had an excellent relationship with Frank Shaffner (sic) and whose partnership would also produce greats like Patton, Papillon, Boys from Brazil, even Islands in the Stream (from a music POV). I can think of no other musical tapestry that best exemplifies the world that Taylor finds himself in. From the pizzicato strings treated to echoplex to the haunting serialist woodwinds augmented and punctuated by percussion bursts and tam tam scrapes, it occupies a station that few other scores can ascend to. Every subsequent Apes score is so much lesser compared to the original, even when the composers were trying to "ape" Goldsmith's atmosphere. 

4. Star Wars (Williams)- I personally prefer Superman and think its every bit as great of a score, perhaps better from a stylistic breadth point of view (from the quasi religious sonorities in the Krypton music to the pandiatonicism of Smallville through to the heroic, more modern Metropolis material, there's so much development there of key motives and themes too!). But Star Wars ushered in the return of the symphonic score like no other score of its time accomplished.

5. Psycho (Herrmann)- The score paved the way to a manner of scoring that would give way to other memorable entries like Jaws, The Omen, etc. The composer chose to limit his instrument palette to strings that matched the B&W tone of the film. While none of the string techniques used were cutting edge (Bartok string quartets could be said to have been an influence on Herrmann's score) it was the marriage to picture and the music's function that made such an indelible impression. 

6. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly- Morricone changed the musical landscape of the western with his scores that accompanied Sergio Leone's sprawling portraits of American history. While I would take Once Upon a Time in the West personally (I love the wailing, haunting harmonica which not only functions as underscore but diagetically too), TGTB&TU precedes it by two years and established the sound that Morricone would employ onward. From the lyrical operatic wordless female soprano to the twangy guitars, the spaghetti western scores ushered in a new sound for the western film genre. Even though this sound was introduced in the early chapters of the trilogy featuring "the man with no name", the style culminated to a magnificent score for this film. 

anyhow I could probably write a book or add many more but these are the ones that come to mind immediately.... Care to add yours? I hope any replies will attempt to describe why you think the scores you list should occupy this list.


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## Parsifal666 (Aug 15, 2018)

dcoscina said:


> anyhow I could probably write a book or add many more but these are the ones that come to mind immediately.... Care to add yours? I hope any replies will attempt to describe why you think the scores you list should occupy this list.



Ben Hur: To me this is the perfect example of a film score that crossed over into concert music, the best and most impactful of Rozsa's impressive accomplishments. Rozsa never liked the decadophonic noodlings of many composers of his day (and was involved in a general, mutually unappreciative acquaintanship with Schoenberg). However, his love of consonance is precisely what makes this so memorable, powerful, beautiful. No other score rewards me as much with every listen (though I love a ton, including all the stuff @dcoscina listed). Captain from Castile is a great one too imo.


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## fixxer49 (Aug 15, 2018)

dcoscina said:


> This topic sort of sprung from the Herrmann Twilight Zone thread. I'm curious as to what everyone else out there feels are truly outstanding examples of film music at its finest. Here are mine (btw, these are NOT my favourite scores of all time necessarily but ones that I feel propelled the art and craft further)
> 
> 1. Alexander Nevsky (Prokofiev)- Eisenstein actually recut the Battle on the Ice to conform to Sergei's score, something that has rarely occurred in film music history (another notable example is Williams' ET final cue where Spielberg also re-editted the final sequence to fit Williams' music). Prokofiev's score has been aped more than a few times and even before the likes of Herrmann would manipulate the orchestra to conform to film, Prokofiev recorded the trumpets close to the mics to produce a grating distortion to signify the Teutonic Knights. Genius.
> 
> ...



*7. Fight Club *
@dcoscina you only included traditional orchestral scores, but doesn't the soundtrack to this film work perfectly? and it felt quite groundbreaking at the time of its release. all elements of the soundtrack, including the end credits, were married up perfectly to the feel and tenor of the film itself. 8. Blade Runner? 9. Purple Rain...?


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## Quasar (Aug 15, 2018)

I've always been charmed by Victor Young's _Around the World in 80 Days_.


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## dcoscina (Aug 15, 2018)

fixxer49 said:


> *7. Fight Club *
> @dcoscina you only included traditional orchestral scores, but doesn't the soundtrack to this film work perfectly? and it felt quite groundbreaking at the time of its release. all elements of the soundtrack, including the end credits, were married up perfectly to the feel and tenor of the film itself. 8. Blade Runner? 9. Purple Rain...?


Well the topic was film scores not soundtracks but if you are looking at non traditional scores then I would also offer David Shire’s Taking of Pelham 1,2,3 and Tangerine Dream’s Thief. Elliot Goldenthal’s Heat also worked well but Mann tracked in several songs and other composers works so Goldenthal cannot take all the credit for that. 

You could say Saturday Night Fever worked well but I wasn’t really looking at song based scores. And the criteria was film music that influenced the development of the craft. I don’t think Fight Club necessarily had much impact aside from its own film and what the Dust Brothers did wasn’t trend setting. It’s a good score but contained within its own film in my opinion.


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## JohnG (Aug 15, 2018)

The Mission -- Morricone


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## dcoscina (Aug 15, 2018)

Actually on the topic of Goldenthal, I can’t think of another composer from the ‘90s that had such a influence on music. After Alien3 and Demolition Man, modernist scoring techniques like cluster, quarter tones and aleatorism seemed all the rage for a while. Of course Goldenthal didn’t pioneer those techniques (his mentor Corogliano had played with them in his 1980 score to Altered States and Alex North’s vicious Dragonslayer also had a fair bit of modernism) but he seemed to exploit them at a time when they were embraced by the industry and beyond that of just the horror genre where they’d been tightly kept up to that point. I mean Humphrey Searle’s The Haunting (1966) contains a fair bit of dissonance and texture writing but employed to underscore the horrific elements of that story.


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## JohnG (Aug 15, 2018)

dcoscina said:


> Star Wars ushered in the return of the symphonic score like no other score of its time accomplished.



so true about Star Wars. 

I have seen you and others -- pretty sure @re-peat loves this one too -- praise the "Superman" score. I find the movie unbearable and I can't separate the score from the picture enough to love it that much. That said, I do have the John Williams Signature Series edition of the "Superman March," and if anybody wants to learn to orchestrate, that score is an orchestration course unto itself. A million great ideas.


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## JohnG (Aug 15, 2018)

dcoscina said:


> Actually on the topic of Goldenthal, I can’t think of another composer from the ‘90s that had such a influence on music. After Alien3 and Demolition Man, modernist scoring techniques like cluster, quarter tones and aleatorism seemed all the rage for a while. Of course Goldenthal didn’t pioneer those techniques (his mentor Corogliano had played with them in his 1980 score to Altered States and Alex North’s vicious Dragonslayer also had a fair bit of modernism) but he seemed to exploit them at a time when they were embraced by the industry and beyond that of just the horror genre where they’d been tightly kept up to that point. I mean Humphrey Searle’s The Haunting (1966) contains a fair bit of dissonance and texture writing but employed to underscore the horrific elements of that story.



Even that vampire movie with Brad Pitt was made less dated and potentially challenging to watch by Goldenthal. He's awesome. And "Titus" -- wow!


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## dcoscina (Aug 15, 2018)

JohnG said:


> so true about Star Wars.
> 
> I have seen you and others -- pretty sure @re-peat loves this one too -- praise the "Superman" score. I find the movie unbearable and I can't separate the score from the picture enough to love it that much. That said, I do have the John Williams Signature Series edition of the "Superman March," and if anybody wants to learn to orchestrate, that score is an orchestration course unto itself. A million great ideas.


The film alas is a bit of a mess, admired mostly by people wth a sentimental attachment and to the music I would guess. The first act on Krypton and Smallville features the best writing of the film. Once it transitions to Metropolis they hired Mario Puzo amount others to re write it and it turns to borderline camp which is a shame considering how ambitious the movie began. I won’t refute or deny the cheese factor of the film but prefer to let Williams music function as a programmatic or Symphonic tone poem and it works marvellously in that capacity. That said, Empire Strikes Back is some Next level shit. The writing in that blows me away to this day.


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## JohnG (Aug 15, 2018)

And lets' not ignore kids' fare -- "Peter Pan" by JNH and John Powell's "How To Train Your Dragon" -- both scores, 1 and 2 -- amazing work.


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## dcoscina (Aug 15, 2018)

Jonny Greenwood’s There Will be Blood was and is an amazing score because it takes a competely different tone compared to the Copland and Barber influences to underscore early 19th century Americana but rather uses Penderecki and Bartok to evoke the monstrous nature of Daniel Plainview


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## CT (Aug 15, 2018)

Honestly, most of the frequently cited candidates for "greatest film score" don't do much for me, which isn't to say that I don't think they're great accomplishments or anything, or that I don't enjoy bits and pieces of them in isolation.

I'd have to think about it more, but of those mentioned here so far, only "Blade Runner" and "Planet of the Apes" really make my mouth water as musical-cinematic experiences... I know you said this wasn't as much about personal favorites as overall influence, though.


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## NoamL (Aug 15, 2018)

IMO *E.T.* is JW's greatest score, thanks to the huge number of themes combined with the way they develop & interweave across the arc of the film. It's not his greatest marriage of film & music (iirc in an interview he cited Schindler's List as being "more than a piece of celluloid" in comparison to some other films he scored). However for sheer musical value E.T. is hard to top.


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## CT (Aug 15, 2018)

Regarding Williams' body of work on its own, I think I would vote for "A.I. Artificial Intelligence." I know it has relatively few, but ardent, devotees, including John Mauceri.

I could be wrong, but I seem to remember that Williams himself also holds it in particular esteem.


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## Parsifal666 (Aug 15, 2018)

To Kill a Mockingbird


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Aug 15, 2018)

American Beauty had a huge influence on scores that followed, as did The Dark Knight. 
Vertigo is still influencing composers today.


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## Wally Garten (Aug 15, 2018)

Two that really pushed electronic-experimental scoring forward are _Forbidden Planet_ and _The Day the Earth Stood Still_. They're also fantastic listening.

I also find the original _Star Trek_ and _Doctor Who_ themes quite daring, even today.


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## ctsai89 (Aug 15, 2018)

You should change "greatest" to "favorite". 

It's all just opinions.


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## Mike Fox (Aug 15, 2018)

I'm gonna have to say Elfman's early stuff (Batman, Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, Nightmare Before Christmas) is genius to me. The dude taught hilmself how to compose, yet he created both a name and a unique style for hilmself. Mad props to Elfman.

Oh yeah, he can sing too.


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## JohnG (Aug 15, 2018)

so many great ones mentioned -- Nobody has mentioned John Barry yet but he wrote themes that were, variously, memorable and beautiful. But yes, Elfman, the Batman collaboration between HZ and JNH is amazing, To Kill a Mockingbird too -- good one!

Schindler's List score too -- so glad someone brought it up; and the film, to me, puts S. Spielberg among the great directors.

I also like "American Beauty" but I think for me "Little Women" is the best of T. Newman's scores. So many good ones that it's hard to choose.


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## Kyle Preston (Aug 15, 2018)

Film music at its finest (to me) doesn't mean how influential the score was but how much it resonated with me personally. So my savagely-selfish (and somewhat dated) list is:

*Michael Nyman - Gattaca*
His _Departure_ piece is just.........I'm really biased because the film captures nearly everything I believe and feel - which I didn't know was possible till I saw this movie.

*Howard Shore - Lord of the Rings*
Near the end of the Two Towers when Gandalf rides down the hill with the horses... Jesus

*Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard - Dark Knight*
The score oozes everything I love about music. The timbres, the leitmotifs - to me, it sounds like the composers bring the best out in each other. And I don't care what the purists say, this score is fucking memorable!

*Johan Johansson (and Max Richter) - Arrival *
The sonic textures made me feel like I did playing Limbo or Inside - the score feels like a masterclass in musical sound design. The timbres created are so rare and interesting.

*Jonny Greenwood - The Master*
If someone asked me to describe what empathy sounds like, I would present this score


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## dcoscina (Aug 15, 2018)

JohnG said:


> so many great ones mentioned -- Nobody has mentioned John Barry yet but he wrote themes that were, variously, memorable and beautiful. But yes, Elfman, the Batman collaboration between HZ and JNH is amazing, To Kill a Mockingbird too -- good one!
> 
> Schindler's List score too -- so glad someone brought it up; and the film, to me, puts S. Spielberg among the great directors.
> 
> I also like "American Beauty" but I think for me "Little Women" is the best of T. Newman's scores. So many good ones that it's hard to choose.


I wish Newman wrote like he did for Little Women, a true underrated gem. 1994 was a terrific year for Newman with Shawshank (my favourite of his) and Little Women. That year also produced Interview with the Vampire and Cobb from Elliot Goldenthal, Lion King from Hans, Stargate by David Arnold, and Forrest Gump Fromm silvestri. A truly phenomenal year for film music


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## JohnG (Aug 15, 2018)

Kyle Preston said:


> *Michael Nyman - Gattaca
> Howard Shore - Lord of the Rings
> Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard - Dark Knight
> Johan Johansson (and Max Richter) - Arrival
> Jonny Greenwood - The Master*



Great list Kyle! I can't help feeling wistful about Arrival, given what happened not long after, but it is a fabulous score.


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## Will Blackburn (Aug 15, 2018)

+! for To Kill a Mocking Bird. Also

Orca Killer Whale by Ennio Morricone.



Land Before Time - Horner



Legend Of 1900 - Morricone!


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## dcoscina (Aug 15, 2018)

Braveheart by James Horner was also magnificent. It did 70% of the films job in conveying the emotional content of that story. Brilliant


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## Will Blackburn (Aug 15, 2018)

dcoscina said:


> Braveheart by James Horner was also magnificent. It did 70% of the films job in conveying the emotional content of that story. Brilliant



Good call, i was 12 when i watched that at the cinema, For the Love Of A Princess still hits me like a ton of bricks when i hear it


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## Kyle Preston (Aug 15, 2018)

I feel the same @JohnG - Johansson was such a massive talent.


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## Parsifal666 (Aug 15, 2018)

Mike Fox said:


> I'm gonna have to say Elfman's early stuff (Batman, Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, Nightmare Before Christmas) is genius to me. The dude taught hilmself how to compose, yet he created both a name and a unique style for hilmself. Mad props to Elfman.
> 
> Oh yeah, he can sing too.



Not a favorite of mine (I dig Black Beauty), but I have all admiration for that man. He's quite the success story, and heck yeah good for him!


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## JohnG (Aug 15, 2018)

Favourite D. Elfman is "Dolores Claiborne" -- nothing like his other stuff and super effective.


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## dcoscina (Aug 15, 2018)

JohnG said:


> Favourite D. Elfman is "Dolores Claiborne" -- nothing like his other stuff and super effective.


We appear to have similar tastes John. This was another fantastic score by Elfman but I do admit to loving his Njghtmare before Christmas


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## CT (Aug 15, 2018)

Kyle Preston said:


> Howard Shore - Lord of the Rings



This is probably my overall pick.


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## dcoscina (Aug 15, 2018)

I found Interstellar to be quite fantastic. I also think Gladiator is great but the scores that really knocked me out by HZ were Rain Man and thelma & Louise, both of which gave him the space to let his music shine. Good on Ridley Scott especially.

Oh and I totally agree about The Dark Knight. A fabulous film and a perfect score. To my mind that was the best picture of 2008 but hey what do I know...


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## dcoscina (Aug 15, 2018)

Oh I can’t believe I forgot Spartacus!! Shame on me. And since we are talking Alex north, let’s not forget Steetcwr Named Desire which was he first film that featured a jazz score if I’m not mistaken.


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## Kyle Preston (Aug 15, 2018)

miket said:


> This is probably my overall pick.


 
It's so, so good... And Doug Adam's book on the subject is a great read. Titanic amounts of creativity went into that score.


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## JohnG (Aug 15, 2018)

Kyle Preston said:


> It's so, so good... And Doug Adam's book on the subject is a great read. Titanic amounts of creativity went into that score.



Yes, a feat of persistence and musicality and fighting against all odds -- Imagine the pressure? Great book, as you said, Kyle.


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## Guy Bacos (Aug 15, 2018)

Maybe not one of the greatest film scores, but a film I saw again last week and the music was so beautiful, A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Music by JW.


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## re-peat (Aug 15, 2018)

“Superman” (the 1978 film) is one of those things you hope future generations won’t excavate and assume it to be representative of what the human race was up to back in the 70’s of the previous century, isn’t it? My oh my, what an embarrassing, awful waste of celluloid.

But yeah, the music is exceptional. Always been one of my main arguments for inducing *John Williams* in the hall of remarkable 20th century composers.
If I had to pick a desert island score of him though, I think I’d go, after long deliberation, with *“Jaws I & II”*. Historically also not without importance, that music, because it saw Williams stepping up from a exceptionally solid but still fairly conventional craftsman to the unstoppable volcano of musical brilliance which he would prove to be, score after score, during the next two decades.
(I’m aware Williams did some important work before “Jaws” — “Images”, for example, still ranks as one of his most adventurous and experimental scores — but I think it’s safe to say that “Jaws” was a turning point.)

- - -

My desert island *Thomas Newman* score is *“Lemony Snicket”*. The breadth of inspired ideas, the masterfully controlled avalanche of colours familiar and unfamiliar, the meticulous care with which it was all put together, the sensational production … A series of most fortunate musical events, amounting to a major work from a major name in film music.

- - -

More often than not, the musical stylings of the Hollywood legends from the Golden Era don’t speak to me all that much, I have to confess. Perfectly crafted, no doubt about it, but most of the time too operatic, too derivative, too obnoxiously emotional, too Viennese (or German, if you prefer), too reliant on stock-in-trade techniques, too overbearing and too, well, … boring. In my opinion, that is.

There is however one big exception. (And one slightly less big one: Korngold, who’s talent was such that he seemed simply incapable of writing bad music.) But the big one, to me, the ab-so-lu-te summit in the mountain range of 40’s-50’s Hollywood composers and beyond, is *Franz Waxman*. There’s no beginning to describe how high I rate the man’s music. Non-stop swarming with invention of the highest order, always faultlessly written and orchestrated, totally comfortable with any technique it adopts to get its meaning across, and at its best, of a quality that has to be the envy of everyone who’s serious about writing music.
Impossible to pick a single work, but if I must, I go with *“Objective, Burma!”.*

Waxman’s music is, in one respect at least, a bit like Mozart’s: trapped in the style of its age, yet, somehow able to manage to turn the limitations of that predicament into an asset. Here’s an example: the suite from *http://users.telenet.be/re-peat/1-06%20The%20Horn%20Blows%20At%20Midnight%20-%20Suite.mp3 (“The Horn Blows At Midnight”)* (1945). Seven minutes of sublime musical composition.

- - -

I need to mention a score from *Alberto Iglesias* as well, I just don’t know which one. Maybe in a second or two I will. Anyway, Iglesias is, without a doubt, the single biggest musical revelation to me of the past 15 years. He has even pushed former favourites aside — see the first paragraph — as the film composer I now spend most time with. And every second spent with Iglesias is one of marvelling, tingling, putting dropped jaws back in their place (only to have them drop again the next moment) and being deeply moved by such an amazing talent and the timeless beauty it produces.
Flawless parcours, in my book, except perhaps for “Exodus” which showed that mainstream blockbusters aren’t perhaps the avenue that a man of Iglesias’ depth and sensibilities should be exploring (just as they aren’t for Thomas Newman, as was clearly illustrated, I thought, by his uncharacteristically impersonal and dull music for the Bond franchise).

Well, those two seconds are up, and I am still nowhere closer to a single choice. So I would suggest, to anyone who’s interested, to go for *“Archipiélago”*, an excellent 3CD retrospective of his work so far.

- - -

I’ve got a couple more (Nino Rota, Jerry Goldsmith, Don Davis, George Fenton, Bruce Broughton, Jerry Fielding, Lalo Schifrin, Michael Small, David Shire), all as important to me as the above batch, but that’s for another post.

_


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## Iskra (Aug 16, 2018)

dcoscina said:


> I found Interstellar to be quite fantastic. I also think Gladiator is great


Good thread to find some gems!
I found Interstellar great, Gladiator I'm sorry to say it's meh for me. Sorry to say, but I find Gladiator to be a copy of a copy of a copy of some originals from many decades ago. Plus, I know everyone loved the idea of playing the duduk to depict the homeland of the main role, but being Spanish I find silly to link Extremadura with an Armenian instrument - the places are 5700Kms apart! It's like linking the 1800's Texas with Peruvian pan flutes and cajon, or Victorian London with a Senegalese percussion ensemble. It's a stupid and small thing, but I remember watching the movie and thinking "what the f*ck??"

I'm no expert by a mile in classic filmscores, but I love a lot of the more or less recent animation film scores... I think Wall-E by Newman, The Incredibles and Inside out by Giacchino and as mentioned above HTTYD both 1 and 2 are wonderful scores, within the film and by themselves.

As a kid, many of the classic scores from the 80s/90s made a big impression on me that last until this day. Many of the classics from the 80s (BTTF, all Star Wars, Close Encounters, Willow, and many others...) Man, there's some great music there!
I remember another two that struck me a lot when I was a kid. One was Edward Scissorhands by Elfman. The other one is Cyrano de Bergerac by Jean Claude Petit. Actually that was the first record of a sountrack I ever bought with my own money (my father bought me Star Wars, Superman, and a few others when I was still a child and had no real money to buy anything). 

It's difficult to remember all the wonderful filmscores that are there, it's so many of them. My Deezer playlist is on fire because of this thread, so keep 'em coming - although I'm supposed to be working right now and not messing around with playlists!


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## aaronventure (Aug 16, 2018)

Jerry Goldsmith's Star Trek score. Works with the film (I can't imagine how both boring and ballsy it was to edit that 6min panning shot without the music and still sign off on it), works beautifully as standalone music. If you by any chance missed it (could be possible ), do give it a whirl.


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## Parsifal666 (Aug 16, 2018)

If you like epic and haven't heard Rozsa's* El Cid* yet and , then you are missing out.




aaronventure said:


> Jerry Goldsmith's Star Trek score. Worked with the film (I can't imagine how boring it was to edit that 6min panning shot without the music and still sign off on it), works beautifully as standalone music. If you by any chance missed it (could be possible ), do give it a whirl.




I like that one better than any of JW's Star Wars music. First Contact is a nice addendum to the series and well worth picking up imo.​


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## Parsifal666 (Aug 16, 2018)

re-peat said:


> If I had to pick a desert island score of him though, I think I’d go, after long deliberation, with *“Jaws I & II”*. Historically also not without importance, that music, because it saw Williams stepping up from a exceptionally solid but still fairly conventional craftsman to the unstoppable volcano of musical brilliance which he would prove to be, score after score, during the next two decades.
> (I’m aware Williams did some important work before “Jaws” — “Images”, for example, still ranks as one of his most adventurous and experimental scores — but I think it’s safe to say that “Jaws” was a turning point.)
> 
> - - -
> ...



You know, as much as I like the main *Jaws* theme and debut score as a whole, Jaws 2 I like at_* least*_ as much. John had a way of knocking sequels out of the park, often without overly recycling themes from the debuts.

For a really cool-in-an-atypical-way listen, you might give* Family Plot* a spin or two if you haven't already. Oh, and I'm betting you're familiar with *The Fury*, which is in more than a few places a case of Williams giving homage to Bernard.

I just started liking Thomas Newman's music (weirdly, I started getting interested in his scores via the Garritan CFX patch, "Newman Beauty"), and was wondering where to go from* American Beauty *and *Dory*. Thanks so much for pointing out a new score for me to appreciate.


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## Satorious (Aug 16, 2018)

Jaws 2 is in some ways a stronger "score" - it expands and doesn't just merely repeat the simple two note motif from the original. I particularly love the majestic underwater/main-title music in Jaws 2.

That said, the original's "primal" score works better in the film. Aside from the original's main-title theme, the other standout for me is the "Ben Gardner's boat" cue - mysterious, melancholy and ultimately omnious/sinister. Works absolutely perfectly in the film, so effective - I'm dreading things before they actually happen on-screen (just listen to the chief Dreyfus)!



I saw someone else mentioned John Barry on the previous page. Absolutely, yes! So many great scores to choose from (Bond, Ipcress File, Born Free, Lion In Winter, Out of Africa, Dances with Wolves, Midnight Cowboy, Body Heat, Frances, Walkabout). If forced to pick, I'd have to go Dances With Wolves and On Her Majesty's Secret Service, but don't make me pick!

Trying to tie things together - I often wonder if John Barry's majestic opening theme to The Deep inspired John Williams' opening track on Jaws 2 which came out a year later. Barry (much like Goldsmith) was able to elevate rubbish movies such as these:



Jaws 2 director Jeannot Szwarc went on to work with John Barry on his follow-up project Somewhere in Time (yet another amazing score). Apologies for the rambling response!


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## re-peat (Aug 16, 2018)

Parsifal666 said:


> For a really cool-in-an-atypical-way listen, you might give* Family Plot* a spin or two if you haven't already. Oh, and I'm betting you're familiar with *The Fury*, which is in more than a few places a case of Williams giving homage to Bernard.
> I just started liking Thomas Newman's music (weirdly, I started getting interested in his scores via the Garritan CFX patch, "Newman Beauty"), and was wondering where to go from* American Beauty *and *Dory*. Thanks so much for pointing out a new score for me to appreciate.




There’s musical jewelry to be found in almost every Thomas Newman score, be it “The Good German”(definitely check out that one), “Little Children”, “Erin Brockovich”, “Revolutionary Road”, “Saving Mr. Banks”, “The Judge” or “Meet Joe Black (which contains, in the gorgeous “Whisper Of A Thrill”, one of his most acclaimed cues) or a handful of others.

There are of course also the inevitable moments when you may start to wonder — unless you’re very much into aroma therapy — if your time couldn’t be better spent than sitting listening to yet another 5 minutes of drone-driven ambient music of spartan minimalism, but on the whole, I don’t hesitate to say that Newman’s rare and fabulous musicianship is radiantly present in everything he does. He may not stand alone, like Jeeves does, but the company he’s in, is certainly very slim.

---

I have given every pre-’95 soundtrack of Williams at least a thousand spins. (The number of spins of his post-’95 work have plummeted rapidly however, down to figures I can count on the fingers of one hand for his work of recent decades, which I increasingly dislike.)

But yes, I am, I think I may say, intimately familiar with both “Family Plot” and especially “The Fury”. The latter contains in fact my number 1 Williams cue ever. And if it isn’t number 1, then it is number 2 in which case “March Of the Villains” (from “Superman”) sits in the top spot. It's always one of those two anyway.
Either way: “For Gillian” from “The Fury” is, to me, one of the best things Williams has ever done. (And perhaps it’s no coincidence that it is the least Herrmann-esque moment in the score. You’re absolutely right, by the way: much of "The Fury" owes indeed a great debt to Herrmann.)

And once again, we find ourselves talking about great Williams music written for a movie the undeveloped film of which should have been exposed to the light of day because it doesn’t deserve the dark of theatre.

_


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## JohnG (Aug 16, 2018)

re-peat said:


> And once again, we find ourselves talking about great Williams music written for a movie the undeveloped film of which should have been exposed to the light of day because it doesn’t deserve the dark of theatre._



We've wrestled on this forum from time to time about whether it is appropriate to evaluate or even hear music separately, away from picture, or only in the context for which it was written, i.e. with the picture.

It's almost incredible but the main reason we don't hear concert versions of a lot of works stems from the rather large expense of new-use / reuse payments to orchestrators and copyists. Not begrudging anyone his or her pay, but it is a pity.

Thanks as ever to @re-peat for an articulate and impassioned couple of posts, both of which mentioned scores I've never even listened to, much less "know." Though I have to agree about Lemony Snicket -- genius score for a somewhat tiresome movie.


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## re-peat (Aug 17, 2018)

dcoscina said:


> 3. Planet of the Apes (Goldsmith)- I could go on and on about this (and have often). It helped that Goldsmith had an excellent relationship with Frank Shaffner (sic) and whose partnership would also produce greats like Patton, Papillon, Boys from Brazil, even Islands in the Stream (from a music POV). I can think of no other musical tapestry that best exemplifies the world that Taylor finds himself in. From the pizzicato strings treated to echoplex to the haunting serialist woodwinds augmented and punctuated by percussion bursts and tam tam scrapes, it occupies a station that few other scores can ascend to.




Anyone with an interest in the “Planet Of The Apes” music, owes it to him- or herself to purchase “Simians and Serialism”, John O’Callaghan’s in-depth study of the making of that landmark score. “In-depth” is for once not a hollow blurb word: this book is clearly the work of someone who is madly-madly-madly in love with this music and spared no effort to gather everything that is worth knowing about the music and its composer. The staggering amount of detail the author dug up, after spending months in various archives and libraries, going over thousands of memo's, plus his thorough study of all the manuscripts, sketches and scores ... Awesomely amazing.

And still not entirely satisfied with that Herculean effort, which would have drained any other man to utter exhaustion, O’Callaghan then decided … and take a deep breath before reading the next bit … to _re-record the entire score himself_, making an orchestral mock-up of the complete music to which he added live recordings of the … _very same percussion that Goldsmith used on the original recording_. Yes, he managed to track down the entire original Apes’ kitchen sink — found it lying in some L.A. hangar apparently — and somehow succeeded in getting all that stuff into his own studio.

The addition of this percussion to the recording adds enormously to the success of the project of course, and it is therefore all the more regrettable that O’Callaghan relied for the piano and orchestral parts on samples from VSL, Garritan and Miroslav Vitous. If-only-if-only-if-only someone was around at the time to inform O’Callaghan of the fact that there is much else and much better-sounding material available than the libraries he chose to work with … There’s no doubt that he did everything he could to make the mock-up as authentic-sounding and convincing as possible, and he succeeds admirably in several aspects of the production, but inevitably, it’s the piano and the orchestral sounds in this recording which are rather serious let-downs. Most of the music sounds cold and lifeless, the way mock-ups usually do, and lots of it is very quantized too which doesn’t help either. In short, the taxidermist version of “Planet of the Apes”. Not everyone hears it the way I do though because the recording was nominated in the 2016 Reel Music Awards Category of “New Recording of an Archival Score”.

And either way, there’s no disputing that this is a mind-boggling achievement dripping with love, passion and dedication which, furthermore, offers a new and crystal-clear window on some layers of Goldsmith’s incredible music, revealing many details that are much more difficult to hear, for obvious reasons, in the original 1967 recording.

The first release of both the book and the CD were quickly sold out, but I just had a look at O’Callaghan website and it appears he has replenished his stock.

_


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## dcoscina (Aug 17, 2018)

re-peat said:


> Anyone with an interest in the “Planet Of The Apes” music, owes it to him- or herself to purchase “Simians and Serialism”, John O’Callaghan’s in-depth study of the making of that landmark score. “In-depth” is for once not a hollow blurb word: this book is clearly the work of someone who is madly-madly-madly in love with this music and spared no effort to gather everything that is worth knowing about the music and its composer. The staggering amount of detail the author dug up, after spending months in various archives and libraries, going over thousands of memo's, plus his thorough study of all the manuscripts, sketches and scores ... Awesomely amazing.
> 
> And still not entirely satisfied with that Herculean effort, which would have drained any other man to utter exhaustion, O’Callaghan then decided … and take a deep breath before reading the next bit … to _re-record the entire score himself_, making an orchestral mock-up of the complete music to which he added live recordings of the … _very same percussion that Goldsmith used on the original recording_. Yes, he managed to track down the entire original Apes’ kitchen sink — found it lying in some L.A. hangar apparently — and somehow succeeded in getting all that stuff into his own studio.
> 
> ...


Yes indeed, I bought it as soon as I was released a few years back


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## Iskra (Aug 17, 2018)

JohnG said:


> It's almost incredible but the main reason we don't hear concert versions of a lot of works stems from the rather large expense of new-use / reuse payments to orchestrators and copyists. Not begrudging anyone his or her pay, but it is a pity.



That's very sad. Of course everyone deserves to be paid for his/her hard work, but with the current state of things, that payment is almost equivalent to zero, so too high rates in this case means almost no work.


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## Mike Fox (Aug 18, 2018)

Another one of my favorites.


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## Dave Connor (Aug 18, 2018)

Not sure if I saw Hugo Friedhoffer’s, The Best Years of Our Lives mentioned but that’s a perfect, beautiful score. David Raksin’s scores such as Forever Amber have beautiful informed writing with the same sort of serious writing chops and orchestration you find with Franz Waxman. (I agree with Waxman being a sort of singular talent (personality.)

Kilar’s Dracula (above) an absolute stunner from a very chopsy composer with keen dramatic skills, much like the old-school Hollywood guys. Wonderfully modern though.

The Dark Knight a modern classic that firmly establishes the new school in film as being on par with the depth of the old school (as David Newman has done both in departing from and staying within traditional film language.) 

Check out HZ’s cue “The Oil” from Dunkirk if you want to hear the football moved down the field considerably in sonic invention in film music. It nails the picture but quite a musical achievement on it’s own to my ears. [To view the subject historically as above.]


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## MusicIstheBest (Aug 18, 2018)

So many great scores, impossible to choose. A few that I'll mention that I love: William's score to Raiders of the Lost Ark, Kamen and Korngold scores to the Robin Hoods (I've wondered if Kamen was influenced by Korngold's score, I found subtle similarities); I don't love the entire score, but Jarre's main/love theme in Dreamscape is one of the most interesting and masterful sci-fi melodies I know of. Lot's of great stuff already mentioned - William's A.I., Kilar's Dracula, Elfman's Dolores Claiborne are also high on my list. Another one that doesn't get a lot of attention is Silvestri's score to the first Predator, fantastic and an enjoyable listen on its own.


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## Steve Martin (Aug 19, 2018)

One of my favourites is the Feather Theme from Forrest Gump. It's just blends perfectly as an accompaniment for the visual of the feather floating down.


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## Parsifal666 (Aug 19, 2018)

A departure from the massive, King of Kings sound he pioneered, this is Miklos Rozsa at his most lyrical. Check out the unforgettable, piano led section around 5:00 in; I always wondered if Thomas Newman was a fan of this score.


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