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Who are/were they?
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Posted: |
Apr 15, 2019 - 11:27 AM
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By: |
Mephariel
(Member)
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If we are talking about genres, honestly some of the all time greats or titans in the industry is probably the answer.
Guys like Williams, Goldsmith, Morricone, Horner, Zimmer.etc. Those composers have great scores in nearly every genre.
If we are talking about medium, then the answer gets a bit more complicated. I think guys like Vangelis, Zimmer, Elfman, Mansell gets high points for being able to incorporate electronic music with traditional orchestra. You can also say Barry did a great job incorporating Jazz in his days as well.
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Posted: |
Apr 15, 2019 - 11:34 AM
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By: |
Morricone
(Member)
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Well this is easy. I just posted a tribute to Elmer Bernstein that kind of established him as a trailblazer, in that he pushed so many envelopes that benefitted every composer to this day. I won't repeat that humongous article but here is one paragraph:
"More stereotypes followed but he used every one to explore different styles of music. For instance, extending jazz to the classic SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS and STACCATO TV series. And further To Cajun jazz in WALK ON THE WILD SIDE, to the African-calypso fusion of RAMPAGE, 70s funk of LIBERATION OF L.B.JONES. And then he went Ye Old English in WHERE’S JACK, the gospel folk music of GOD’S LITTLE ACRE, the Polynesian HAWAII, the Vegas SILENCERS, the psychedelia of I LOVE YOU, ALICE B. TOKLAS, Rock-a-billy BABY THE RAIN MUST FALL and on and on. And speaking of BABY, THE RAIN MUST FALL Glenn Yarbrough’s chart topping rendition of that song wasn’t the only popular song Elmer wrote. Brook Benton’s WALK ON THE WILD SIDE, Johnny Cash doing THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER, Jack Jone’s LOVE WITH THE PROPER STRANGER and even Vikki Carr on THE SILENCERS all got some airplay. Elmer did lots of theater including the 2 musicals MERLIN and HOW NOW DOW JONES, both received Tony nominations. He wrote dance music for OKLAHOMA, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and PETER PAN. And let us not forget his ultimate challenge. Ivan Reitman getting him to score the animated epic HEAVY METAL. Rock reviewers were assigned to review this film across the country and an amazing amount of them referred to Elmer’s score as the glue that melded the disparate heavy metal songs together into a coherent whole. I’ll go further and say this was Elmer’s STAR WARS and would have been recognized as so if the subject matter wasn’t so marginal for the time."
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About Elmer . . .
A lot of composers are versatile, but Bernstein was so good that he was typecast . . again . . . again . . . again . . . and again.
That's 4 agains:
1) Epics
2) Jazz
3) Southern dramas
4) Westerns
5) SNL spin-off comedies
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Posted: |
Apr 15, 2019 - 2:52 PM
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By: |
joan hue
(Member)
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I did a topic like this in 2009, but I will avoid mentioning a search engine. It is nice to have new perspectives on this topic.
I wrote the following in an old topic.
“Superb composers marry their music to the narrative and visuals of movies. Movies
encompass a myriad of genres, and composers must adapt their music to dovetail with those
various genres. Regardless of composers' and directors' "signature styles," directors and
composers rarely make movies or compose music that strictly adhere to a single genre.
Let's look at Steven Spielberg and John Williams. Spielberg needed a composer
who could:
1. Compose delightful, melodic music about a kindly extra-terrestrial. The he composed
music for aliens who captured but returned humans; and finally, Williams had to compose
dissonant, atonal music for aliens who came to destroy the world. All have very different
soundscapes and music.
2. Compose horror music about a blood thirsty shark.
3. Compose stunning music about the horrors and tragedies of concentration camps.
4. Compose music about dinosaurs.
5. Compose romantic music for a ghost and firefighting.
And so on.
And this same composer would compose almost baroque sounding, lovely music for
JANE EYRE and heroic, iconic music for a super hero called SUPERMAN. He did a
western called THE COWBOYS. We are talking versatility in the genres he scored that
was always reflected in his musical compositions.
In The Golden Age, many composers shifted their styles for genres and the passing of time.
Note the sublime beauty of Alfred Newman's WUTHERING HEIGHTS and compare it
to later scores like NEVADA SMITH and the modern rousing sounds of AIRPORT.
Steiner started with KING KONG, DARK VICTORY and other dramatic and
romantic films, but in the 60's, he scored A SUMMER PLACE with a track that
was popular with teenagers and played on the radio”
Morricone, you are so correct about Elmer Bernstein.
Elmer Bernstein did jazz scores, composed The Magnificent Seven and the lyrical To Kill A Mockingbird. He also scored comedies. I’d call him very versatile.
Do Goldsmith’s Powder, Rudy and Star Trek sound a like? No. He composed various scores for different genres.
I thought I could pigeon-hold Howard Shore because of Silence of the Lambs and Se7ven, but his thematic score for the Lord of the Rings proved his versatility.
I do think that a few composers lack versatility, but I’d just tick people off if I mentioned names, so I’ll avoid that part.
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So all of them, then? But some more than others!
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Posted: |
Apr 15, 2019 - 4:06 PM
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By: |
.
(Member)
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Despite his limited time as a film composer, I rate Previn as one of the most versatile... westerns, dramas, historical, war, scores with jazz/blues, musicals, thriller/horror, comedies, TV as well as big screen, and stage works, conductor of other composers' scores as well as his own. Add sci-fi if conducting the Rollerball score counts.
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Posted: |
Apr 15, 2019 - 4:58 PM
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By: |
William R.
(Member)
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Lack of versatility has to go to Rosenman. I like a lot of his style...but it's the same style in every film. For me, versatility is determined through a change over time, not just genre. Goldsmith, Horner, etc. all sound a bit different from decade to decade. Whether it's instrumentation, experimenting with electronics or rhythm...Rosenman just doesn't have that.
Rosenman definitely seemed to have a fixed style, but he did stray from it on occasion; he won Oscars for adapting American folk music and European Baroque music, and he was capable with jazz (see The Chapman Report). There's also his collaboration with The Yellowjackets on Trek IV, which felt like a step way out of his comfort zone. Obviously the results in that case were less-than-stellar, but I give him credit for trying something way out of left field.
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Who are/were they?
Doug Fake? 
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Certainly no one was less versatile than the "synth-specialists" who were en vogue in the 1980s -- Tangerine Dream, Faltermeyer, Moroder, etc. Of course many of those people fell out of favor once filmmakers realized that established composers like Goldsmith, Jarre, Barry, Shore, etc. could create electronic music too (and often better, because they were more experienced in film writing).
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Certainly no one was less versatile than the "synth-specialists" who were en vogue in the 1980s -- Tangerine Dream, Faltermeyer, Moroder, etc. Of course many of those people fell out of favor once filmmakers realized that established composers like Goldsmith, Jarre, Barry, Shore, etc. could create electronic music too (and often better, because they were more experienced in film writing).
LOL, filmmakers surely didn't go for Goldsmirh, Barry, Shore or Jarre if they wanted synth in the 90s. Thankfully they went for Zimmer instead who had tons more knowledge and talent in the genre.
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Posted: |
Oct 22, 2021 - 4:06 PM
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By: |
Octoberman
(Member)
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Certainly no one was less versatile than the "synth-specialists" who were en vogue in the 1980s -- Tangerine Dream, Faltermeyer, Moroder, etc. Of course many of those people fell out of favor once filmmakers realized that established composers like Goldsmith, Jarre, Barry, Shore, etc. could create electronic music too (and often better, because they were more experienced in film writing).
LOL, filmmakers surely didn't go for Goldsmirh, Barry, Shore or Jarre if they wanted synth in the 90s. Thankfully they went for Zimmer instead who had tons more knowledge and talent in the genre.
That's probably because by the 90's, composers like Goldsmith, Barry, Shore or Jarre had moved forward, away from the synth infatuation.
That left Zimmer.
Big fish. Small pond.
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I agree about Rosenman being less versatile BUT I’m basing that off of two scores: FANTASTIC VOYAGE and STAR TREK 4. I really like FANTASTIC VOYAGE and think it works in-film and outside the film. STAR TREK 4 generally works within the film but I hear Rosenman struggling as he follows the same atonal stuff and half-heartedly attempts to make it sound kind of different. Outside the film it’s very difficult for me to listen to.
Most versatile is probably John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith. Goldsmith covers a TON of genres and partly because he is less-discerning with his projects, he got to work on so many different types of films, many of which were not great films.
Williams has also covered TONS of different genres and his music has also covered lots of different musical types. At the same time I appreciate the consistency of his musical voice that is heard in all of his music, to varying degrees. But it never overpowers to the point of distracting from the film’s genre.
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