JAMES HORNER

Don't y'all listen to Scrooge McDuck over here, the Khan ending sounds superb!

I see it differently. It's Horner's signature sound, and it's nice to know the sound I enjoy so much is the sound he wants to write when given the opportunity to write a concert work. It makes me appreciate all his past scores that much more. To compare it to Williams' concert work, although I enjoy his non-film music compositions, none of his concert work moves me as much as his best film scores. I enjoy it on an intellectual level, which is nice -- just not so much on an emotional level. But as far as I can tell with this new Horner work, I think it's going to be just about everything I love about Horner.

And I can't wait to hear it.

Just played it twice. LOVE it! Can't wait to hear it in complete form!

Does anyone know how long it lasts?

Sez you. Film music conventions FTW.

I think with Morricone and Williams it is different. Many composers alternating between film music and concert music write stuff that is separate in both genres, often actually publicly somewhat denouncing their film efforts.

There are many reasons behind that and Thor's argument is actually pretty valid in that regard, because concert composers do cite the freedom given by a concert environment (as opposed to more or less defined structure of a proper film score), especially today. That doesn't mean of course that a concert form (a symphonic concerto is basically a virtuoso sonata for a soloist with an orchestral backdrop, a symphony itself is originally a sonata written for a full orchestra and so on) doesn't have its own structure, but they feel more freedom writing without the picture. In some cases, of course, there are composers that feel that what they have to say is only in the film environment (Hans Zimmer being the most notable example).

So the question is actually how do you pull that thing off. Also, in the American environment film music is far more respected than in Europe in terms of being an art of its own. Of course snobbish reviewers exist everywhere and I myself know (and am proud of knowing) a Polish concert and film composer who while writes modern contemporary music (not far removed from, say, Elliot Goldenthal) in terms of not exactly being a tonal writer in his concert stuff, but at the same time stressing musicality AND accessibility (if only through the use of easily recognizable rhythm sometimes) in his own work and in the work of his peers. So he treats some of the most modern attempts at avant-garde as ridiculous and the composers as those who don't know BASIC stuff about music if they couldn't concoct a simple melody to save their lives (so the percussionist drops a mallet on the ground while the orchestra stays silent).

Concert environment may or may not make the music more free-flowing in general (Horner himself wrote a film music piece for Enemy at the Gates which, perhaps more than his other film scores, feels like a part of symphony than a film score piece and that would be River Crossing to Stalingrad).

It's a complex issue to consider.

I don't think this is necessarily the case. Those composers probably genuinely enjoy writing both types of music and simply feel that one is more suited for the concert hall and the other more suited for the silver screen.

Concert hall also may give them a possibility to explore a different kind of music writing that a movie can tolerate (on a meeting on the Transatlantyk festival in Poznań Andy Hill said that you can't really pull off a wholly avant-garde score in a film, and the attempts to do it failed, because the audience needs a tonal backdrop to keep the film comprehensible to them, this is probably why with all his craziness, Goldenthal does add thematic material and sometimes relatively tonal underscore among all the ruckus he can make).

Also concert hall does give them a more free-flowing approach to music that they sometimes would like to have. Sometimes composers who work in both fields argue in favour of concert music that they don't have anything to fit their music into. There are no images they have to adhere to, simply. Thus, they enjoy the freedom of a preferrably non-programmatic concerto when they can just write whatever is in their mind with the only limitation being their composing technique and imagination (and of course, instrument capability).

I believe that Williams did speak in favor of concert writing. Kilar brushed off film music as "somewhere I can write pretty waltzes for" while his concentration was definitely put into his largely praised concert hall writing.

Is there a difference between "absolute music" and "program music"? This discussion has been going on for 150 years. Film music has to subordinate itself under the needs of the film. In doing so it often reflects the musical style of the period the film portraits. Written for the concert hall this would render the music anachronistic.
I regard creating music in the context of a joint creative process an art form in itself, yet many "snobs" won't follow me there. But I must consider: Most of the music Williams wrote for STAR WARS I would find an anachronistic, bombast oddity, had it been written for the concert hall. I would turn to Strauss or Stravinski rather. But in the context of the film I enjoy the music as something ingenious.
If a film composer writes original concert music, he places himself into a whole different context. He now wants to add his voice to contemporary orchestral music. He now comes entirely into his own. The result may be more or less accessible, more or less close to his film music idiom, that depends on the cmoposer alone. I would never insinuate that "they're admitting to the snobs that they're musical frauds with the film music and are craving acceptance by writing what they think will get them accepted as "serious" composers." (Southall)
I consider our heroes serious composers in both worlds. But both worlds have diffenrent needs.
If - as a listener - you are not so much into contemporary symphonic music as you are in film music, that's up to you, but it is not the fault of the composer.

Volker

Horner is officially back in business:

http://jameshorner-filmmusic.com/james- … -southpaw/

I think a smaller score from Horner would be quite welcome. I think that is the score I'm waiting the most from him this year.

I'm fine with just piano and guitar.

I would love to hear Horner's take on the Lord of the Rings. I think that what we got is fantastic, but if somebody paid him to sit down with the films and re-score them, I would love to have both his and Shore's take on it. I can dream...

Probably. I think Shore did a fine job but am sure Horner's would have been completely different and the things people seem to like so much about Shore's would not have been there (all the character themes and specific scoring-to-the-moment is pretty much the opposite of what I guess Horner would have done, where he'd have done his usual through-composing and focusing on emotion). And I guess the four-note motif would have figured rather heavily.