Jerry Goldsmith was already a veteran film composer with numerous iconic scores under his belt by the time he was enlisted to work on Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979). He’d worked in radio and television through the 1950s, contributing music to classic shows such as The Twilight Zone (1959) and Perry Mason (1959) before making the move to film, writing scores for films as diverse in subject matter (and sound) as Stagecoach (1966) and Planet of the Apes (1968) in the 1960s and Chinatown (1974) and The Omen (1976) in the 1970s. Goldsmith’s rich orchestral scores for such films, which were informed and influenced by early 20th century modernist composers, are both experimental and economical in their use and development of thematic material. He explained, “What I really try to do is to take one simple motif of the material for the picture, and a broad theme, and construct it so they always can work...
- 6/6/2017
- MUBI
Composer and pianist whose work included film scores, opera and jazz cabaret
The composer Richard Rodney Bennett, who has died in New York aged 76, pursued multiple musical lives with extraordinary success. He was one of the more distinguished soundtrack composers of his era, having contributed to some 50 films and winning Oscar nominations for his work on Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) and Murder on the Orient Express (1974).
But it scarcely seemed credible that this knack for writing for a mainstream audience in a melodic, romantic style co-existed with his mastery of serialism and 12-tone techniques. From 1957 to 1959, Bennett was a scholarship student with Pierre Boulez in Paris and soaked up the latter's total serialism techniques as well as his infatuation with the German avant garde. He also attended the summer schools at Darmstadt, the mecca for diehard atonalists.
His tremendous facility as a pianist would prompt the...
The composer Richard Rodney Bennett, who has died in New York aged 76, pursued multiple musical lives with extraordinary success. He was one of the more distinguished soundtrack composers of his era, having contributed to some 50 films and winning Oscar nominations for his work on Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) and Murder on the Orient Express (1974).
But it scarcely seemed credible that this knack for writing for a mainstream audience in a melodic, romantic style co-existed with his mastery of serialism and 12-tone techniques. From 1957 to 1959, Bennett was a scholarship student with Pierre Boulez in Paris and soaked up the latter's total serialism techniques as well as his infatuation with the German avant garde. He also attended the summer schools at Darmstadt, the mecca for diehard atonalists.
His tremendous facility as a pianist would prompt the...
- 12/28/2012
- by Adam Sweeting
- The Guardian - Film News
December is a month that increasingly sees few releases of new albums, so the closer this list gets to the present day, the fewer albums of importance there are to discuss, and most of those are hip-hop albums.
1967
Traffic: Mr. Fantasy Aka Heaven Is in Your Mind (Island)
Shortly after Steve Winwood quit the Spencer Davis Group (of which he was the lead singer and organist), he formed Traffic with some guys he'd jammed with at a club in Birmingham: guitarist/vocalist Dave Mason, saxophonist/flutist Chris Wood, and drummer/lyricist Jim Capaldi. After a couple of hit singles, they convened at a country cottage and put together the debut album by Traffic, titled Mr. Fantasy in their native country. By the time it was released, Mason had already quit.
The English and American editions were rather different. Not only did the U.S. LP (on United Artists) have...
1967
Traffic: Mr. Fantasy Aka Heaven Is in Your Mind (Island)
Shortly after Steve Winwood quit the Spencer Davis Group (of which he was the lead singer and organist), he formed Traffic with some guys he'd jammed with at a club in Birmingham: guitarist/vocalist Dave Mason, saxophonist/flutist Chris Wood, and drummer/lyricist Jim Capaldi. After a couple of hit singles, they convened at a country cottage and put together the debut album by Traffic, titled Mr. Fantasy in their native country. By the time it was released, Mason had already quit.
The English and American editions were rather different. Not only did the U.S. LP (on United Artists) have...
- 12/19/2012
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
So, yeah. Everyone knows that today the planet Venus passed between the Earth and the Sun. Especially Fox, which has Ridley Scott's Prometheus (review) hitting theatres this weekend. Can you think of a better rare celestial event to capitalize on? Dig it!
Star gazers (and perhaps legions of movie fans) will have their eyes on the sky today to catch a glimpse of The Transit of Venus, a rare celestial event that occurs when the planet passes directly between Earth and the Sun. Such transits help us to identify the capacity for life on other worlds as they move across the face of their home star. It was a transit like this that helped the scientists at Weyland Industries identify life on a distant world, which would ultimately lead to a world-changing, exploratory space mission aboard the ship The Prometheus.
So is the Transit of Venus timing and the...
Star gazers (and perhaps legions of movie fans) will have their eyes on the sky today to catch a glimpse of The Transit of Venus, a rare celestial event that occurs when the planet passes directly between Earth and the Sun. Such transits help us to identify the capacity for life on other worlds as they move across the face of their home star. It was a transit like this that helped the scientists at Weyland Industries identify life on a distant world, which would ultimately lead to a world-changing, exploratory space mission aboard the ship The Prometheus.
So is the Transit of Venus timing and the...
- 6/6/2012
- by Uncle Creepy
- DreadCentral.com
Did a folksong-loving teacher really just happen to write England's most famous classical work? Film-maker Tony Palmer questions the myth of the author of The Planets
Making a film – any film – is a journey of exploration. If you knew at the beginning what you know at the end, why bother to make the film? This is one of the reasons I am often spurned by commissioning editors: I begin with no script, certainly no "agenda" (their favourite word), and no schedule. Not much of a budget either, come to think of it.
It was 40 years ago, while filming Benjamin Britten, that I first thought of making a film about Gustav Holst. I had noticed a photograph of the young Holst in Britten's music room, and asked him why. He told me, "I owe him more than I can tell you." Which was odd, because you almost never heard the name...
Making a film – any film – is a journey of exploration. If you knew at the beginning what you know at the end, why bother to make the film? This is one of the reasons I am often spurned by commissioning editors: I begin with no script, certainly no "agenda" (their favourite word), and no schedule. Not much of a budget either, come to think of it.
It was 40 years ago, while filming Benjamin Britten, that I first thought of making a film about Gustav Holst. I had noticed a photograph of the young Holst in Britten's music room, and asked him why. He told me, "I owe him more than I can tell you." Which was odd, because you almost never heard the name...
- 4/21/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
The 5 Browns did not hint at the scandal that has rocked the family, during the group's concert on Friday - their first performance since their father pled guilty earlier this month to molesting his three daughters. The 5 Browns - a talented piano group made up of siblings Ryan, Melody, Gregory, Deondra and Desirae - kept the crowd of several hundred fans in Beaver Creek, Colo., focused on their remarkable musical prowess and kept their words confined to their music during a public rehearsal, a meet-and-greet with piano students and the live performance Friday night. They took the stage at the...
- 2/26/2011
- by AJ Vicens
- PEOPLE.com
#1 - Gladiator
(Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard)
There has been much heated discussion this week about whether Hans Zimmer can really be called an "influential" composer, but the proof seems to be in the pudding: Zimmer's output from 1999 until now is impressive, and includes first class film scores for thirteen of the highest grossing films of the past decade. It only seems fitting that he would take our #1 spot, and that SCOREcast readers would vote his score, co-written with Lisa Gerrard, to Ridley Scott's epic masterpiece Gladiator as the number one most influential score of the past decade.
But before we get into the analysis of why Gladiator took the top spot on our countdown, let's recap how we got to this point, starting with the beginning of the Top 10 list (click on any title to read SCOREcast analysis from each score, and comments from the SCOREcast readership):...
(Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard)
There has been much heated discussion this week about whether Hans Zimmer can really be called an "influential" composer, but the proof seems to be in the pudding: Zimmer's output from 1999 until now is impressive, and includes first class film scores for thirteen of the highest grossing films of the past decade. It only seems fitting that he would take our #1 spot, and that SCOREcast readers would vote his score, co-written with Lisa Gerrard, to Ridley Scott's epic masterpiece Gladiator as the number one most influential score of the past decade.
But before we get into the analysis of why Gladiator took the top spot on our countdown, let's recap how we got to this point, starting with the beginning of the Top 10 list (click on any title to read SCOREcast analysis from each score, and comments from the SCOREcast readership):...
- 10/7/2009
- by noreply@blogger.com (SCOREcast Admin)
- SCOREcastOnline.com
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