GREAT MUSIC FOR TRAINS

Timmer wrote
No one heard MGV? It's bloody brilliant!

Steven wrote
What's MGV?

Timmer wrote


I think you'd really like it Steven.

Martijn wrote
I think Thomas Newman wrote some proper music that would fit right in!

Timmer wrote
Crushingly boring compared to something like MGV ( have you heard it Martijn? )

Bregt wrote
MGV is fantastic! I can play it forever and then some. I hope I can once attend a concert with this type of music.

Martijn wrote


<this next sentence should be read in Ian McDiarmid's best Return Of the Jedi Emperor's 'spitting disgust' voice> : You ask me to listen to Michael Nyman?

franz_conrad wrote



And the scores were:

Clip 1 - Max Steiner, KING KONG, 'Elevated Train Sequence' (1933)
"A composer known for his at-times-slavish echoing of the image in film scoring doesn't disappoint here. Wait till you hear what this guy does with airplanes."

Clip 2 - Miklos Rozsa, SPELLBOUND, 'Train to Gabriel Valley' (1945)
"This acclaimed composer balances the chug-a-chug motion of the train with the disoriented state of the character."

Clip 3 - Bernard Herrmann, GHOST AND MRS MUIR, 'Local Train' (1947)
"Bernstein tells a story that this guy thought the Orient Express should have been scored as a 'train of death'. Ha! Like this work of his? That's the friendliest train I ever heard."
This story about Herrmann is reasonably well known.

Clip 4 - Bernard Herrmann, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, 'Conversation Piece' (1959)
"A composer who spoke out against mickey-mousing concentrates on romance in one of the best train-set courtships in film. The woodwinds subtle hint at the motion of the train during all versions of this score's love theme aboard the train."

Clip 5 - Maurice Jarre, THE TRAIN, 'Main Title' (1964)
"This composer's harmonic writing and orchestrational ability have often been besmirched over the years. Here his specialty in percussion shines through for a genre of film he's not often associated with. It's all here - the train whistle, the force of the train, the motion sickness..."

Clip 6 - Philippe Sarde, LE TRAIN, 'Le Train' (1973)
"The definitive cinematic train score. Without slamming down a simple meter, you get the giddy sense of drifting motion of a train."

Clip 7 - David Shire, TAKING OF PELHAM 123, 'Pelham's Moving Again Blues' (1974)
"A train slowly grunts to life and heaves on its way."

Clip 8 - Howard Blake, RIDDLE OF THE SANDS, 'The Train to Emden' (1979)
"Quite a shame Ridley Scott can't go back to this composer."
Turns out he can, but he won't!

Clip 9 - Jerry Goldsmith, THE FIRST GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY, 'End Title' (1979)
"This composer scores the adventure more than the train." Weak clue, because I thought most would know the theme. It one of Goldsmith's best themes.

Clip 10 - John Barry, CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY, 'The Train Johannesburg' (1995)
"This composer typically avoids the motion of the train in scoring the emotional throughline of the scene."
I only got one person who was confused about where Barry had reused the Zulu theme in a late 80s/ early 90s score. Those who couldn't pick the score could usually tell the composer.

Clip 11 - Alexandre Desplat, LES MILLES: LE TRAIN DE LA LIBERTE, 'Le Train de la Campagne' (1995)
"A nice impressionistic portrait of a train. An early score from a very popular composer."
Pretty much only the winner of this week's game guessed this. Fine score - well worth hearing.

Clip 12 - Danny Elfman, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, 'Zoom A' (1996)
"A pretty good film up to this point jumps the shark, and the orchestra furiously speeds up for the big moment. (Here the composer suggests the motion of the train, though realistically, the train would be travelling at the same speed throughout this scene, so really it's speaking to the audience's need for greater intensity.)"
This is the moment in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE where a helicopter is dragged into a train tunnel. This is called 'jumping the shark'.

Clip 13 - Ennio Morricone, NOSTROMO, 'The Silver Train' (1997)
"Damn, that's some flute work! The composer who has scored more trains than any other makes even a convoy of horses sound like a train! This is not quite a feature film score."

Clip 14 - Michael Giacchino, MEDAL OF HONOR, 'The Radar Train' (1999)
"That glinting percussion and grunting brass somehow summon the picture of a train in my mind. This is also not quite a feature film score." The MOH main theme would have been the giveaway here for most.

Clip 15 - Michael Nyman, THE CLAIM, 'The Train' (2000)
"Saxophones, saxophones, saxophones, saxophones... Steam train chugging along. A rare bit of image-echoing from a composer known their arthouse work." Michael Nyman = saxophones.

Clip 16 - Christopher Gordon, ON THE BEACH, 'Moira and Towers Meet' (2000)
"This composer has remarked of this scene that it didn't need a train motion and such a sunny love theme rendition, but that the director wanted it to sound like Maurice Jarre. Sounds better!" If I'd added that the composer made this remark to me in conversation, that really would have given it away!

Clip 17 - Stephen Warbeck, CHARLOTTE GRAY, 'The Train' (2001)
"One of the less popular (and unfairly ridiculed) Oscar winners of the 90s takes over from Thomas Newman, and in the spirit of Clip 4, concentrates on emotion, the train only intruding via a gentle string meter."
Someone said the use of electronics in this cue gave it away as the composer of PROOF. I was surprised, as this cue sounded pretty acoustic to me. Warbeck drew the ire of many for winning the Comedy/Musical Score Oscar in one of the last years of that award. Thomas Newman composed the scores for Gillian Armstrong's two previous films - LITTLE WOMEN and OSCAR AND LUCINDA.

Clip 18 - Armand Amar, AMEN, 'Train I' (2002)
"Composer known more for their documentary scores pairs up with a legendary winner of the Best Foreign Language film Oscar."
The legendary winner was Costa-Gavras, who famously directed Z and State of Siege. I haven't seen this film, but soundtrack is great and I imagine the film has a lot going for it too.

Clip 19 - Ennio Morricone, RIPLEY'S GAME, 'Primo Treno' (2002)
"Now that's what I call a train of death! As the bodies pile up, it almost feels like the train is dancing some wicked two-step along with the killer." Watch the film. A very memorable scene.

Clip 20 - Shigeru Umebayashi, ZHOU YU'S TRAIN, 'Train' (2002)
"This composer appears elsewhere in this game. Chinese film." I figured those who recognised the next cue would pick this as also being by Shigeru. Some have asked me whether this is available. The 3-4 cues I have come from the Greek (I know!) 2CD compilation of Shigeru's scores. I don't like a lot of the music on that compilation, but this theme is a ripper. In an interview with BSO Spirit, the composer claimed that there was a CD release of this score in Japan, featuring 10 tracks, but I haven't found it yet.

Clip 21 - Shigeru Umebayashi, 2046, 'Main Theme (with percussion)' (2004-2006)
My favourite film of 2006, next to GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK. Wong Kar Wai's 2046 was actually released in 2004 in Asian countries, and only reached Australia in 2006, which is why this one could be released before 2005 and still be my favourite film of 2006. Sorry for the confusion here!

Clip 22 - James Horner, LEGEND OF ZORRO, 'The Train' (2005)
"Reminds me of something else by this composer, or perhaps something else by another composer."
So either it's self-plagiarism or just plain plagiarism. Meaning it's got to be Horner.

Clip 23 - Mychael Danna, WATER, 'Train' (2006)
"The last film was simply honored to be counted as a nominee in such a prestigious English-language award ceremony. Faced with a scene involving a train, this composer sensibly scores the emotional climax of the story instead."
This film was nominated for Best Foreign Language film in recent times. The final scene features two of the shunned widows at the centre of the story waiting with thousands of others at a train station for Gandhi to arrive. Danna's score is a curious mix of diatonic hymn melodies (sounding sometimes like TITANIC, and sometimes like the hymn 'Amazing Grace') and subcontinent instrument.

Martijn wrote


I did today.

Timmer wrote
Here you go Michael, courtesy of the previous page

Markus Wippel wrote
Of course Michael Nyman´s MGV!!!! Brilliant - listen to it three times in a row and you are going nuts