The Film Scorer podcast features interviews with the best film score composers. Guests include Tim Hecker, Patrick Stump, and Oscar winners and nominees - listen now!
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Aug 30, 2022 · In the Classic FM Movie Music Hall of Fame 2020, we asked you: what are the 50 greatest film scores of all time? And you chose soundtracks that didn’t just serve to support the film’s narrative – but that stayed with you long after the feature was over.
- Laura
- The Hours
- Sunset Boulevard
- A Streetcar Named Desire
- On The Waterfront
- On Golden Pond
- High Noon
- Out of Africa
- Ben-Hur
- How The West Was Won
A singularly haunting score by David Raskin, Laurais largely built around variations of the title song, which has an evocative lyric by Johnny Mercer. In the song, Laura is the ultimate, untouchable object of desire; in the movie she is a murdered woman with whom a police detective played by Dana Andrews becomes obsessed. So with the mix of love, s...
There couldn’t have been a better choice than Philip Glass to score an intense, psychological film about three women linked in different decades by the works of Virginia Woolf. All the hypnotic Glass trademarks are here and the circular nature of Glass’ music underlines the unseen connections between the characters, to alternately soothing and chil...
The wonder of Franz Waxman’s soundtrack to Sunset Boulevardwas that it took you inside Norma Desmond’s head, which was a cluttered place indeed. Accordingly, the score might be called one of the first mash-ups, containing snippets of jazz and popular song, along with more haunting themes that signify Norma’s insanity. Film scholars have pored over ...
A Streetcar Named Desire was one of the first mainstream films ever to have a fully jazz-based film score, as befits its New Orleans setting. But Pennsylvania-born composer Alex North was a true musical eclectic, who also studied with Aaron Copland and wrote symphonies; he famously wrote a score for 2001: A Space Odysseythat Stanley Kubrick never u...
On the Waterfront was Leonard Bernstein’s only proper movie score, not counting the famous musicals (West Side Story, Candide) that were adapted to film. Though now recognized as one of the great soundtracks, it proved a bit controversial at the time, since Bernstein envisioned the music as a crucial part of story development, a device that would i...
Jazz-associated pianist Dave Grusin is one of the more celebrated film composers of the modern era – for starters, all the non-Paul Simon music in The Graduate was his – and also the owner of the GRP label. Combining jazz, pop and New Age elements, his Golden Pondscore captures both the rustic New England setting of the film, and the bittersweet st...
The plot of High Noonbuilds slowly to its climactic gun battle, and Dimitri Tomkin’s film score is all dramatic tension, with recurring themes including a horse’s advancing hooves and the ominous melody of the title tune. With a vocal performed by Tex Ritter in the movie, the song’s percussive horse-hoof sound was actually made by a Hammond Novacho...
This was one of the later movie scores by the English composer John Barry, who’s forever associated with his James Bond soundtracks. Though a short score (only covering a half-hour of the film) it contains some of Barry’s prettiest and most melodically grabbing themes. It won Barry his second-to-last Oscar for Best Original Score (he’d win again in...
The Biblical epic Ben-Hur got a suitably grand score from Miklos Rozsa; with two-and-a-half hours of music, it was the longest score used in a film at that time. Everything about the score is larger than life, from its series of fanfares to the sweeping chariot race to the heavenly church organ that accompanies the appearance of Jesus onscreen. The...
Alfred Newman has one of the longest-running careers as a film composer, ranging from Charlie Chaplin films in the 1930s to his final project, Airport, in 1970. His score for the epic Western How the West Was Wonwas an unusual one, as it used country and folk tunes and in grand orchestral arrangements. One of the key moments was an adaptation of “G...
- Jason Zumwalt
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to enhance the dramatic narrative and the emotional impact of the scene in question. [1] .
- John Williams. Possibly one of the most prolific film composers of all time, John Williams has written music for over one hundred films. He’s particularly known for his huge orchestral pieces, tailored perfectly to the score of a piece — he oftens watches the entire movie without a soundtrack to decide what to write for it.
- Hans Zimmer. Our next composer, Hans Zimmer, might not be as much of a household name as John Williams, but he is equally as prodigious in the film world.
- Max Steiner. Born in Austria in 1888, Max Steiner was a child prodigy and began composing professionally by the age of fifteen. He was one of the earliest film composers, having moved to California when talking pictures first became popular.
- Ennio Morricone. Most famous for his series of “Spaghetti Western” films in the 1970s and 1980s, Ennio Morricone was an incredibly prolific Italian composer who wrote the music for almost 500 movies during his lifetime.
Feb 21, 2019 · We’re defining scores as original music composed for a film, with recurring motifs and almost always without vocals.
- Pitchfork
Jun 7, 2021 · Two major components of film music are the score and the soundtrack. Composing and selecting the right piece of music for a movie is an important job. Film music can change the entire tone and feel of a film, so filmmakers and composers have to select the right music to bring each scene to life.
The greatest film scores and themes from soundtracks. Including: John Williams | Hans Zimmer | Danny Elfman | Howard Shore | James Horner | Ennio Morricone |...
The Film Scorer podcast features interviews with the best film score composers. Guests include Tim Hecker, Patrick Stump, and Oscar winners and nominees - listen now!
