As I am I great fan of Frederic Talgorn, I was wondering how many of you other Frederic Talgorn fans know of his pseudonym "FRANZ PUNKLER" when he does some library cues other than his deWolfe library cues?
I have come across three very fine orchestral cues for a MegaTrax CD: MX120 Movie Showcase 6: Epic Human Drama Hollywood-style epic human drama themes, featuring the Philharmonia Orchestra of London and choir. https://www.megatrax.com/browse-details.php?id=100140&id=100140 Check Out "One Man's Story" (cues 63-64-65)
Vintage Talgorn, leaving me with a big smile.
Feeling good that I found these cues, I poked around further. And, wouldn't you know it, there are a number of KPM library cues to be found. You have to search the menu, as they are not in exact numerical order. When I saw the titles of the CDs, my spirit dropped. "Oh God, he's finally gone over to the dark side," I thought silently. But give them a play, he's still our Frederic Talgorn. The cues are fine.
Wow. Didn't know this at all. I will play those highlighted tracks later on (I'm in work right now). I wonder if they are actually from the old DeWolfe CD's, just repurposed for the new agency/set? The name change is odd. Franz Punkler?
My understanding is that in the library music world, composers often used pseudonyms to get around royalty issues... Or at least that's what John Scott explained to me. He used a few back in the day when he was writing library music on the regular.
It's worth noting in Talgorn's case that his library music often directly reused aspects of his film scores, but with a few notes or ideas changed around - for example this piece is a transparent re-working of his end title music from ROBOTJOX, with the melodies altered by the structure basically the same (bouncy heroic Western theme segueing quickly into surging string melody):
Anyone who wants to hear Talgorn's EXTENSIVE library output (apparently not even all of it's featured here), go ahead and peruse the DeWolf website - lots of great stuff there:
I'd like to use this time to point out that there is some EXCELLENT orchestral library music out there, written with an extremely high degree of craft/quality/memorability, often penned by composers who have otherwise never touched film (or at least not enough to be on most of our radar) - John Fox, Tony Hymas, Johnny Pearson, Tony Kinsey, Simon Chamberlin, David Arnold (no, not THAT David Arnold... A different British D. Arnold, if you can believe that), John Cameron, Gregor Narholz, as well as more familiar names like Ron Goodwin, Richard Harvey, Christopher L. Stone, Alessandro Alessandroni, Colin Towns, Alfi Kabiljo and others have all written some fantastic library cues as good (in some cases better) than their film music counterparts.
I've been meaning to create a thread spot-lighting some of my favorite works in this sub-sub-sub genre, the 'nichest' of niche', and might do so next week if I have a productive-enough weekend ahead. There really is some excellent and highly enjoyable music out there!
Speaking of library music, I'm still willing to offer a handshake and/or beer (or a suitable IOU) to anyone who can identify [what I have to assume is a library cue] that opens and closes the wonderfully tacky and oh-so-90's below trailer below - The film was gloriously scored by John Scott but this is definitely not from his score. It sounds a LOT like Talgorn's library music to my ears, the glorious string phrasing and brass counterpoint just like his DeWolfe stuff... But I can't seem to find it on that website so I'm thinking it might be by someone else:
We're certainly traipsing into obscure territory with this subject, folks!
I've been enjoying this discussion about the talented Frederic Talgorn, which also mentions the legendary John Scott.
I had the pleasure of interviewing both gentlemen for my new book "Composing Adventure: Conversations with Composers about Great Adventure Scores." They talk about their memories working on films like Robot Jox, Fortress, Heavy Metal 2000, Asterix at the Olympic Games, Delta Force 2, Goldfinger (Mr. Scott played brass on that score!), Greystoke, The People That Time Forgot, Yor: The Hunter from the Future, King Kong Lives, etc. They also talk about their methods of scoring when taking on a film project.
Both composers were so gracious to speak with! My book can be found at Barnes & Noble and Amazon at the links below:
