The Sound of Movies

Whenever people ask me what sort of music I listen to, I never know how to answer. Because after Bon Jovi and the Monkees, the answer to my favorite type of music is: film scores.

I'm not talking about the soundtracks from musicals (though, admittedly, I'm a big fan of musicals, too). I'm also not talking about the kinds of albums that include a collection of pop songs that were featured in a film. I'm talking about the score of the movie itself: the background music that plays during the film. Such music -- which is largely instrumental -- probably makes up 50-60% of my CD collection (not to mention taking up the same amount of space on my iPod).

I think there's probably a few reasons why I'm such a fan of motion picture scores, as opposed to other type of music, but I think the biggest reason is this: I'm drawn to music that tells a story. A movie's score is an essential part of the viewing experience -- after the actors and the director, I think a film's composer probably has the biggest impact on the finished products. A movie's music can set the scene, highlight characterization, change a scene's mood, and invoke real emotion in the audience. And the best composers, I think, produce scores that strike the same emotional chords not just when you're watching the movie, but when you're listening to the music on its own.

If you've never listened to a movie score before, give it a try!  Here are a few of my favorite composers to get you started:

-- Danny Elfman

He's probably best known as director Tim Burton's go-to composer. But musician Danny Elfman crops up as the mind behind the music for a surprising number of well-known (and non-Burton) projects, including Good Will Hunting, Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, Men in Black -- and the theme song for the TV show The Simpsons. 

Of course, Elfman's best-known work is his numerous collaborations with director Burton. To date, nearly all of Burton's films feature Elfman's music, including Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland, and -- my favorite -- the songs and score for the animated musical The Nightmare Before Christmas (for which Elfman also sang many of the songs). Elfman's punchy, catchy, slightly-offbeat melodies are perfect for Burton's weird and wild filmmaking, and it's hard to imagine Burton's movies without Elfman's music behind them.

Born in Texas in 1953, Elfman spent much of his childhood in L.A. but eventually moved to France, where he became a member of a theater group. He next spent some time in Africa, but came down with malaria and had to return to the states. At which point his brother, who had just completed a film called The Forbidden Zone, asked Danny to create the soundtrack. He put together a group of musicians for the job, and after the project was over, the group remained together as the band Oingo Boingo. One of the band's biggest fans was a young Tim Burton -- the rest is history.

Listen to a clip of Elfman singing from The Nightmare Before Christmas

-- Jerry Goldsmith

Any Trekkie is rather honor-bound to be a Jerry Goldsmith fan. Goldsmith scored the music for five of the Star Trek movies -- including the original, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. (The new theme Goldsmith came up with for The Motion Picture was so well-loved by show-creator Gene Roddenberry that it would be reused as the series theme song for Star Trek: The Next Generation.)

To me, many of Goldsmith's scores have a sweeping, epic, almost operatic quality (which makes him quite a fitting choice for a Star Trek composer!). One of my personal favorites is his score for First Knight, the 1995 movie starring Sean Connery as King Arthur. The film had its flaws, but the soundtrack was not one of them: it's rich and fresh-sounding themes make the music of "Camelot" come alive.

Jerry Goldsmith was born in Los Angles, California, in 1929. He first started his career as a clerk at CBS, but quickly moved on to work as a composer, first for radio, than television shows, then TV films and mini-series. His first film score came in 1957, for Black Patch -- and he went on to score over 180 films.

In addition to his work for Star Trek, he was influential in other areas of sci-fi as well, scoring such films as Planet of the Apes, Alien, and the Twilight Zone movie. But his work went well beyond the arena of sci-fi, and the films he scored included Patton, Chinatown, Under Fire, Total Recall, Medicine Man, Basic Instinct, Mulan, and The Omen -- the latter of which earned him an Academy Award. He passed away in 2004, at the age of 75.

Listen to the theme song from Star Trek: The Next Generation

-- Hans Zimmer

I wonder, sometimes, if Zimmer would still be my all-time favorite score composer if he hadn't happened to score several of my favorite films. Zimmer is behind the music for the Pirates of the Caribbean, Dark Knight, and Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes films -- the three movie franchises I happen to love best.

You don't have to be a fan of the films to appreciate his music, however. Nowhere is this more evident than in At World's End, the third film in the Pirates series. While many fans had a strong dislike of the movie (though I wasn't one of them!), the score was almost universally praised for its emotion, scope, and sweeping themes. Time after time, Zimmer creates scores that are as vast and varied as the movies he writes them for. Best of all, his music is catchy -- filled with thematic melodies that will stick with you long after the credits have finished rolling.

Zimmer was born in 1957 in Frankfurt, Germany. By age three, he had begun playing the piano; at six, he'd decided to become a composer. He moved to England in 1971, and started his music career writing commercial jingles. His first score was for the 1982 film Moonlighting, and his works include the music for Rain Man, Thelma and Louise, A League of Their Own, The Preacher's Wife, Gladiator, Pearl Harbor, Mission: Impossible 2, Hannibal, The Da Vinci Code, and countless others.

Listen to a clip from the score for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

-- John Williams

Star Wars. Richard Donner's Superman. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Indiana Jones. Jaws. Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Jurassic Park. Harry Potter. It's easier to name the iconic musical themes that Williams hasn't written than to remember all the ones he has.

John Williams is responsible for creating most of the best-known, and most-loved, movie themes of the last thirty-odd years. The majestic looming of Darth Vader's Empire "march," the heroic fanfare of Superman's theme, the ominous two notes of the approaching shark in Jaws or the sweet five-note greeting of Close Encounters -- they're probably familiar to you even if you've never seen the film in question. His themes pop with mood and character, creating atmospheres of emotion unparalleled in film scoring.

Born in 1932, Williams is a New York City native. He worked as a jazz pianist in night clubs and Hollywood film studios, before he was contracted in the late 1950s by Revue Studios to write themes for television. His first film score was for the 1959 picture Daddy-O. Since then, he's written the scores for over a hundred movies, and has won Oscars, Grammys, Emmys, and Golden Globes.

Listen to a clip of the Star Wars theme

-- Post by Ms. B

Immortal Beloved

December 16 marked Ludwig van Beethoven's 242nd birthday. And, being a massive Beethoven fan, I wanted to do something to mark the occasion. So let's celebrate the great composer by taking a look at some of the Best of Beethoven Trivia:

-- Beethoven was born in 1770. When little Ludwig was old enough to start showing a talent for music, his father (a musician himself) decided his son was going to be a child prodigy. Of course, Beethoven actually was a child prodigy -- but it still wasn't enough for dear Dad. Determined to make his son appear as brilliant as possible, Johann Beethoven routinely told people that Ludwig was two years younger than he actually was. It was years before Ludwig himself discovered that he actually hadn't been born in 1772.

-- When he was about 18, Beethoven was lucky enough to travel to Vienna (the European center of music at the time) and meet his hero: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart later commented on Beethoven's musical performance to friends, saying, "Keep your eyes on him; someday he will give the world something to talk about."

-- Beethoven's eccentric personality was one of his most defining characteristics. He could be moody, arrogant, and insulting; or warm, good-humored, and compassionate.

-- He liked jokes, bad puns, and even pranks, and was known to sometimes be a chair-puller.

-- One of his most famous patrons was Prince Karl Lichnowsky. He once told the prince (who provided Beethoven with financial support, mind), "There are and there will be thousands of princes. There is only one Beethoven."

-- Beethoven was not the most desirable of customers. He went through servants and landlords as an alarming rate. At restaurants, he'd forget to pay the bill, wrote musical notations on the tablecloths, and once dumped a dish of veal and gravy over a waiter.

-- He wrote, among other things, nine symphonies, five piano concertos, 16 string quartets, 10 violin sonatas (plus five for cello and 30 for piano), and two masses.

-- "Ever thine. Ever mine. Ever ours. ..." Although he never married, Beethoven loved several women in his life. The most famous, though her identity remains a mystery to this day, is the "Immortal Beloved" to whom he wrote a love letter.

-- The great tragedy of Beethoven's life as a musician was his increasing deafness. He was hard of hearing and suffered from increasingly severe tinnitus (ringing of the ears). He famously carried around "Conversation books" (many of which survived to this day), asking those around him to write down their responses to him instead of speaking aloud.

-- Beethoven's Ninth (and final) Symphony had its premiere performance on May 7, 1824. (That's the one featuring the famous "Ode to Joy" chorus in the final movement.) By this time, Beethoven's hearing was virtually gone -- but he still insisted on conducting the concert himself. A second conductor, Michael Umlauf, stood beside him, and instructed the performers to disregard Beethoven's signals and focus only on Umlauf. Beethoven, for his part, continued to conduct with his usual enthusiastic vigor (even though much of his gesturing did not match the orchestra's actual performance).

That opening concert of the Ninth Symphony was unlike anything anyone had ever heard before. At the end of the performance, the audience leapt to their feet, cheering and applauding with wild enthusiasm, already calling for an encore. But Beethoven, his back to the audience, conducted onward, unable to hear the applause -- and lost in the world of music he heard inside. Finally, Karoline Unger, one of the sopranos, stepped forward and touched Beethoven's sleeve to turn him around ... so he could see the audience's joyous response.

Video: Ode to Joy flash mob

-- Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are space probes that were launched in 1977. (Stick with me; I promise this is related.) The probes were launched to explore the furthest reaches of our solar system, but they're also something of messages-in-bottles. Each probe contains a gold-plated copper "phonograph record" disk (along with instructions on how to play them), meant to be messages about humanity to any intelligent life that may run across them. The disks are etched with pictures of Earth, and contain samples of sound ... and music. Including a recording of the Fifth Symphony.

After a flash mob that awesome, it seems only fitting to find out that Beethoven's music has reached the stars.

Music:

- Beethoven's Last Night (album): The rock band Trans-Siberian Orchestra is mostly known for their rocked-out Christmas music releases. I much prefer this concept album for a "musical," featuring Beethoven, a deal with the devil, and the fate of his "lost" Tenth Symphony.

- Music collection of Beethoven (county library collection)

Films:

- Immortal Beloved: Starring Gary Oldman as the famous composer, this 2000 movie tries to answer the question of the identity of Beethoven's famous and enigmatic "Immortal Beloved."

- Beethoven Lives Upstairs: This charming (and family-friendly) little movie tells the story of ten-year-old Christoph, whose family has a most unusual and eccentric second-floor tenant.

- Copying Beethoven: Taking place during the last three years of Beethoven's life, the film opens with the composing of the Ninth Symphony. Ed Harris stars as Beethoven, with Diane Kruger as the copyist hired to help him complete his manuscripts.

- Fantasia and Fantasia 2000: These Disney classics feature works of classical music set to animated sequences. The first Fantasia film features the gods of Greek Mythology in Beethoven's Pastoral Sixth Symphony, while the Fantasia 2000 sequence has an exert from the Fifty Symphony featuring a battle ... of butterflies!



Books:

- Beethoven's Hair: DNA testing on a lock of Beethoven's hair revealed some startling theories about the composer's death and life. (Was later made into a documentary.)

- Beethoven As I Knew Him: A biography written by one of Beethoven's own students.

- Beethoven's Letters: Does what it says on the tin. This collection of letters, written throughout the composer's lifetime, offers a fascinating look into, as they say, the man behind the myth. (You can hear dramatic readings of some of those letters in this documentary.)

-- Post by Ms. B