I just happened to catch this over on CNN while browsing around today and thought I would pass it along.  It’s an interesting list, and the back and forth on the comments is also fairly interesting because it demonstrates the many faces of the film music community.

TCM did a very cagey thing by using the term “soundtrack,” which opened the door for the inclusion of films like American Graffiti and others which have more rock or other popular music scores.  Also, the use of the term “influential” and not best or some other qualitative term also narrows the focus of the list.  For my part, I can find no glaring omissions from the list, or anything that I don’t consider worthy.

Many of the comments have lamented that there were no Danny Elfman or Hans Zimmer scores on the list, but do we really have the distance to say what will be “influential” about their scores?  Sure, maybe an early Elfman/Burton score or early Zimmer could be thrown on the list, and yes, they are among the most important composers of the last 20-25 years, but will they have the lasting influence of a Steiner or Hermann?

If there was something I might wish were included it would be a Korngold score from an Erroll Flynn film, surely Williams would never have written Star Wars without the influence of Korngold’s music.  I also might question the number of rock and pop scores (I think they could have done without one or two of them), but in all I find the list very balanced and of high quality.

Your thoughts?

So I’ve done some more digging around in databases and such to root out more about Prokofiev’s film projects, and it now appears that the only one of his film scores not to be finished, or “unrealized,” was The Queen of Spades.  Tonya, the only other film listed in the Grove as being “film unrealized” that I had not confirmed as such, was indeed made with a score by Prokofiev.  There is are a few articles in the Prokofiev journal Three Oranges that I’m hoping to get my hands on soon that will hopefully enlighten me as to Tonya and the other films he scored during World War II – for those keeping score at home, those would be Kotovskiy, Lermontov, and The Partisans in the Ukrainian Steppes.  I have yet to find anything about the mysterious Nashi devushki that was listed in IMDB, but the finding of solid sources regarding Tonya, and that the official count of 8 finished, 1 unrealized, now meshes with what I had read in program notes by respected Prokofiev scholar David Nice, leads me to believe that it used his music but that he did not write a new score for it.  Hopefully an article by John Riley on Soviet war-time films that I hope to get will also assist in this department.

In the previous entry I included links to some recordings, and I have found a more complete CD with music from The Queen of Spades that I would like to share.  Also of interest might be this recording of piano arrangements, there are selections from Lermontov, Partisans, and Tonya on it.  It is, as far as I can find, the only recording of any kind with music from these films, with the exception Prokofiev’s op. 110 Waltz Suite, which includes the “Mephisto Waltz” from Lermontov.

I also mentioned previously that Prokofiev had incorporated material from Queen of Spades into his Fifth Symphony, and having now listened to the music, I can now report on how and what material.  The cue labeled on the album above as “Hermann sees Lisa” includes material that Prokofiev would turn into the Adagio third movement of the symphony.    Now, not knowing the Pushkin story at all (except for reading the summary on Wikipedia), I’m not sure of the exact circumstances of the theme, though it do recur in other cues later on in the score.  The theme and its orchestration are remarkably similar to how the occur in the symphony (though I think it is about a step or so higher in the film version) and I’m pretty sure that the varied presentations of the theme in the score are all incorporated into the movement in some way.  If you pull out your recordings, the theme that is used is the first one to be presented in the movement.

Well that is pretty much it for now.  As my semester has started, I won’t be able to update every week, though I will do my best to update as often as I can.

Update – More info on Tonya, from an article abstract, the film was unreleased, though without reading the article I’m somewhat cofused as to if the film was actually finished or not.

There are many topics and research projects that I wish I had the time to properly research.  For now, I am content to jotting down notes and thoughts about them and telling myself that I’ll get to it some day, and maybe somehow work it into possible dissertation topics.  Such topics include my interest in music and sound in the Kurosawa film, serialism and minimalism in film scoring, and the topic at hand: the film score of Sergey Prokofiev.

Prokofiev’s reputation as a film composer comes largely not from the scores themselves but rather the concert suites/cantatas based on the music, the most known being those after Alexander Nevsky and Lt. Kije (Op. 78 and 60 respectively).  His music for Ivan the Terrible Pt. I and II was also posthumously turned into a cantata.  I’m not going to go into much detail here about the scores, but rather just give a few thoughts and also try to tell you what is readily available.

In all, Prokofiev seems to have completed eight scores, and left another unfinished due to the project’s cancellation (though he would work some of that material into other works).  The scores are:

1) Lt. Kije (1933, released 1934) – For the longest time I thought the film for this hadn’t actually been made because in the listing in the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (the goto source for musicians and researchers of music) says that the film was unrealized. So imagine my surprise when, going to do some quick background for this post, I find that not only was the film made, but could be viewed on-line.  As mentioned above, the score exists as a concert suite, Op. 60, which can sometimes have vocalists singing in the second and fourth movements.  This piece is widely available on CD.

2) The Queen of Spades (1936) – This score was to be for a film released in part of celebrations to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Pushkin’s death (who wrote the novel the film was to be based on).  The film was cancelled and the score never finished.  Prokofiev did work some of the material and themes in to other works, including the Fifth Symphony.  There has recently  been a reconstruction of sorts of the score and turned into a concert piece by Michael Berkeley, a CD was released in 2009.

3) Alexander Nevsky (1938) – Directed by Russian master Sergei Eisenstein, this is one of Prokofiev’s most well known film projects, and the masterful Battle on the Ice sequence and music has proven to be one of the most influential in the history of cinema and deserves a post all on its own.  The music is well known in the form of a concert cantata (Op. 78), but the 1993 re-recording of the complete score available from RCA is what film score fans will want to get (re-released in 2004).

4) Lermontov (1941, film released 1944?), 5) Kotovskiy (1942, film released 1943), 6) The Partisans in the Ukrainian Steppes (1942, film released 1943), 7) Tonya (1942, film unrealized according to Grove) – I know nothing at all about these films, nor can I find any recordings of the music.  They are listed in IMDB under Prokofiev’s entry (which is also cluttered with other instances of his music used in films).  Also listed is a 1943 film Nashi devushki which is nowhere in the Grove entry for Prokofiev.  It could be that it simply used music by him but not specifically written for the film.  It is these films and scores that seem to be in the most need of academic study and recovery.

8 and 9) Ivan the Terrible Parts I and II (1942-44, films released in 1944 and 1958 respectively) – Prokofiev’s final scores and also Eisenstein’s final films.  Part II was not released until 1958 due to state censorship, ten years after the director’s death and five years after Prokofiev’s death. Luckily, there exists both a complete recording and full score of the film.  Unfortunately, we never did get the third part of this planned trilogy as Eisenstein died before completing it.

For those interested in also seeing the films, besides the above link for Kije, the three films by Eisenstein are all available in a box set by the always excellent Criterion Collection, though I cannot comment on sound quality of them (and I’ve always heard horror stories about the quality of the original Nevsky score).

Finally, a word of warning about the recent massive box set of Prokofiev’s music from Warner Classics.  There is a volume included which is labeled “Stage Works & Film Scores,” which, when I first saw it in my school’s library, I was quite excited by.  But I was dismayed when looking at the listings that the “film music” is merely the Nevsky and Kije suites, though, of course, there are four different versions of Peter and the Wolf (each in a different language!), but no music from Ivan or any of the other scores mentioned above.

Prokofiev, while not the most prolific of Russian film composers, has proven to be a very influential one.  As Cooke points out in The History of Film Music, many of Hollywood’s leading composers have taken cues from not only his scores but also his ballets, operas, and concert works, most notably one John Williams.  I realized this some years ago when, after becoming very familiar with the Fifth Symphony, I suddenly heard his influence in the orchestration and thematic writing during the asteroid chase in The Empire Strikes Back. And while Prokofiev’s collaboration with Eisenstein have been well documented and preserved, much like the films and writings of Eisenstein himself, it seems long overdue that we assess and retrieve the rest of Prokofiev’s film work to properly place him among not only Russia’s but also the world’s film composers.

I’ll just get this out of the way, then move on: Sherlock Holmes is not a very good film.  It’s not a bad film by any stretch, but it’s also not a good one.  I never really found myself caring for the characters, or very intrigued by the central mystery, and just in general found most of the film somewhat boring.  But one thing that did standout from the mediocrity of most of the film was Hans Zimmer’s score.

The score was released on iTunes back on Dec. 22, prior to the film’s release, and having listened to it a few times I went ahead and put it among the five best scores of 2009, and now having seen the film, I stand by that assessment.  If anything, the score is one of the few bright spots of the film (along with costuming, set design, and Robert Downey Jr.’s performance – though even his scene chewing couldn’t save a poor script).

Primairly, what Zimmer’s score is is fun – it’s kooky, off-kilter, and kind of strange.  Holmes’ theme uses a broken and out of tune piano that sounds like the bastard child of a honky-tonk piano and a hammered dulcimer.  Also featured are a fiddle (of course), banjo, and accordian, which gives the whole score a slightly carnival atomosphere.  The off-beat accents and instrumentation of Holmes theme made me think of some of Danny Elfman’s scores for Tim Burton – I’m looking at you Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.  But Zimmer does add his distinctive flavor and sound to the score.

Supposdly the film was temped with Zimmer and James Newton Howard’s score for The Dark Knight, and there are a few elements that seem to have made their way to the final score, notably a low cello/bass growl in a few cues off the album.  Those few moments besides, Zimmer has crafted a very unique sound that blends effortlessly these two sides of the score – the kooky Holmes theme and the darker orchestral sound.

And maybe that is reflective of part of the problem with the film, it doesn’t know what it wants to be – action film or a character study of Holmes.  Had the script toned down the action set pieces and focused more on the characters of Holmes and those around him, the film could have been much better, and certaintly the actors were in place to do it.

But back to the score itself, one thing that dissapointed me in viewing the film is that it seemed like the score was a bit buried in the final mix.  On the album, there are some huge orchestral hits and bass punches that I kept expecting to hear but never did.  A good example is the opening track on the album, “Discombobulate.”  It packs some serious punch on the album, but never comes alive in the film, not even when the theme is presented in the closing credits.

The most effective musical moment of the film was when Holmes was attempting to escape from the exploding warehouse and the sound mix drops out, the film goes slow motion, and we get to hear Zimmer’s score.  It’s a tired Hollywood moment, but Zimmer’s tender string writing here is quite good and works well.

It’s always hard to try and line  up an album with a film on only one viewing, but one of the strange things on the album that demands closer viewings of the film is the penultimate track.  Labeled “Psychological Recovery…6 Months,” it’s an 18 minutes suite of music that seems to be taken from multiple moments of the film, but I’m not quite sure of this.  It could be that there is an 18 minute stretch in the film with constant musical underscoring, but I don’t remember it.  One thing that slightly annoys me about the track labeling for the album is that the quotes that the titles are taken from don’t seem to line with the musical cue it is assigned to – this is something also present on the CD release of The Dark Knight.  It just makes the job of your humble reviewer that much more difficult.

Regardless, though, I found the score to be enjoyable and did suceed in bringing various aspects of the film out, but even a good score by Zimmer couldn’t save the film from being anything other than what it was…strictly middle of the road.

So most of you have heard of this film Avatar I’m assuming, it’s kind of been everywhere for  the last month of so and raked in money left and right this past weekend.  I’m not going to bore you with a film review here, but I will say that I do recommend seeing it, and if you do, try and see it in 3D.

What I’m here to do is talk about Little Jimmy Horner’s score for the film, his third with director James Cameron (after Aliens and Titanic).  The debate on Horner rages round and round the film score world, and just like any debate with impassioned people on both sides, this score is likely to give people in both camps plenty of ammunition.  My thoughts are as follows: it’s good, it works, though with a few ‘buts.’

So let’s talk.

First, the standard charge lobbied against Horner: he copies and steals from himself and others.  Well, those hating him for that will find stuff to complain about, mostly in the first cue on the album, “You Don’t Dream in Cryo…”  Listening to it, and granted I don’t know every note Horner ever wrote, I heard Field of Dreams/Sneakers (the two scores were written for the same director and have some things in common, especially the sound of piano chords) and The Dark Knight (there was some electric cello that smacks of the Joker’s Theme) at times, and possibly some Apollo 13, but it’s been awhile since I heard that score.

My other big complaint with the score is the “ethnic” element that is supposed to be representative of the Na’vi people.  According to the Wikipedia article on the score, but found nowhere in the liner notes for the CD, Horner worked with an ethnomusicologist to create the musical sound of them.  My problem is that many of the elements that Horner incorporates serve to somewhat reinforce this idea of “African” as “other” or “primitive.”

Most of the vocal elements heard in the score seem to be taken from stereotypical Africa singing, not unlike what we heard in Hans Zimmer’s score for The Lion King.  The more instrumental aspects of the score are based in percussion and winds.  I cannot name the woodwind instruments used, but if I’m not mistaken they are taken from cultures that live in the forests of Oceania (Papau New Guinea possibly).  I could be wrong, I’m not a trained ethnomusicologist.

The winds are definitely taken from a culture that live in a dense forest of the equatorial region, though, which makes sense.  When one is trying to create a music for a fictional culture, or even trying to explain how one culture creates their music, one of the first question you ask is, “what materials do they have to make instruments from?”

For the Na’vi it would be wood from the forest and skin from animals.  As we see in the film, the forest and animals are sacred and part of them, so music would most likely have deep religious connotations and making and playing instruments made from them would be a highly ritualized activity.  If Horner did indeed work with an ethnomusicologist, I’m sure she would tell him these things…

But if Horner took anything away from the meetings, it seems like it was only the basics of what cultures might have music that the Na’vi’s would sound like because he doesn’t seem to have tried to create a unique sound, but rather merely copy what we already had here on Earth.  And in a world where Bear McCreary has shown how one can combine instruments from many different cultures to create a sound that is different from what one might hear from their respective cultures and use it to represent an alien culture, there is really no excuse for Horner to fall back on such stereotypes.

Not to mention it could be considered offensive by some, which was my most immediate reaction when listening to the score.  Some of this is tempered to a degree by the film’s presentation of the Na’vi people, thanks in large part by the over-the-top prejudice of the film’s main villain, Col. Quaritch.

In large part, though, the score works.  Just as the visuals and 3D help the viewer get lost in the world of Pandora, so to does the score carry a viewer along.  The best example of this is the sequence when Jake takes his first flight.  When I saw the sequence I immediately remembered the “Lighting of the Beacons” sequence from Return of the King.  It is a beautiful example of how music and image can be integrated into a whole that can enrapture a viewer’s senses.

The score, as a whole, illustrates the best part of James Horner as a composer: the man is a master of orchestral colors.  Along with John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith before he died, few others really know how to get the varied colors that are possible with a traditional orchestra.  I love the work of Michael Giacchino, but he could learn a few things from Horner and Williams about using the colors of a big orchestra – but that is another post entirely.

Horner’s Avatar score is one of the best of the year, in my opinion, and will probably be on the short list when Oscar nominations are announced in late January.

Stay tuned for hopefully a review of Zimmer’s Sherlock Holmes score, then be on the look out New Year’s Eve for my Year End Awards, complete with my bold Oscar predictions.