[Closed] Now Playing XLIV

NP: THE GOLDEN CHILD (Michel Colombier)

A longtime favourite score of mine, although I would have presented it in a more listener-friendly fashion, as usual.

Guess what they used to play over many years before the main weather forecast on German TV?

I'm extremely underwhelmed by Oblivion. I don't know where all the huge fun are in the album.

Did Vangelis actually start the whole "ostinato" thing?

I was just thinking about Chariots of Fire and I feel like there's a strong conceptual link between the way Vangelis uses rhythmic layers of synths and what Zimmer, Powell and now the Inception/Tron family do with using a simple set of notes as a rhythmic device. In the famous Chariots of Fire piece, it starts with one note repeating as a rhythmic device, but then becomes more complex as the piece continues, until it becomes an ostinato-like base for the actual main melodies.

Obviously its not exactly the same thing but I think its very similar. Its even more similar in Vangelis' later Alexander score where pieces like "Titans" are very similar to how Zimmer used ostinatos underneath a power anthem in King Arthur. But its only recently that the ostinatos have turned into excuses for actual themes, rather than just being a rhythmic foundation for a traditional melody.

I don't know many more Vangelis works so I don't know if there are other examples or if these are anomalies in his body of work.

Methinks Claudio Monteverdi did.


Volker

NP: Gone With the Wind, RCA (Max Steiner / Charles Gerhardt)

I just discovered that the 2010 re-release of the Gerhardt-series is no longer available at amazon.de . (mp3s are though) Has it gone out of print all together?

I don't mean as a musical device, I mean the use of it in film scores.

Consider Chariots of Fire's descending 4-note synth loop (which sort of sounds like footsteps) and then imagine it being a sound of the style that's used constantly in Inception/Tron (I don't know if there's a technical name for that type of synth instrument) and see how it might fit perfectly as an ostinato in one of these modern scores.

"Riff" is not a technical term and means different things depending on the person and the context.

Just scimmed through Zimmer's Gladiator. I never particularly liked that score but now it just seemed to be a weired mixture of Holst, Wagner and Vangelis.

Anyway, doe anybody out there know the Varese and Naxos re-recording of Waxman's Rebecca? Recommendations?

Riff is a rhythmomelodic set of chords that can be repeated but is not always (repeated). Ostinato is primarily a rhythmic motif on the basis of the orchestra , mostly on lower frequencies, which Is repeated and provides the structural basis of the piece. Usually a larger, extended and with longer notes - theme comes on top of the ostinati basis.

Not many musical genres apart modern film music, have used ostinati as stand alone musical functions, but even in this case, film composers put a one note mortific statement on top (or a riff as you might say) which acts like a "theme" would do, if there was one, in the more classical sense that is. One or two note motifs (riffs) are very common today, but certainly a riff and an ostinato aren't the same thing.

Yes, Vangelis did use ostinati a lot, usually accompanied by percussion as well but there usage has nothing to do with zimmer's ostinati. Powell's have similarities, but what we are hearing today in the inception and tron sound, is clearly Zimmer's and Balfe's with Inception from 2010.

Thanks D. Good info!

Exactly.

The Bourne riff is BASED on an ostinato.