Since I was a kid there has been a closing theme that has sucked me into its high string vortex like no other...
...and I cannot say for sure why it hit my young ears and thrust me into its b&w aural netherworld, but...it...did and that's all that matters.
And then when I was older I came across this piece for the first time...
...and ever since it's been the same story.
There must be film music out there with the same ambience and pull. I'm sure I'll think of some. You know I'll think of some. But for now these two will do just fine.
The chords in that last one really do it for me. It's as if she's emerging out of morning fog into daylight.
Anyway, I could add Khachaturian's "Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia," Grofe's "Sunset" and Gershwin's "Concerto in F" --oh and Hanson's “Serenade for Flute, Harp, and Strings”--to this introductory mix. For me, each song and piece exudes a profound sense of melancholy with a bit of wonder. And yearning. With a touch of sublime. I am helplessly zoned in.
A thread of this nature is a field day for one composer in particular; a plethora of cues to choose from. The one I have selected is special. The day after 9/11 I'm at work and a colleague sent me a slide show of the melting pot that is NYC reacting on the ground to what was happening up high. With slides too of what was happening up high. At the time I hit the visual play button headphones had already been in place for a while and this piece happened to be in progress. Dear God, a harrowing bit of inprovised "underscoring" if ever there were. A few years later I would meet the composer and in our discussion that evening mentioned all this, including having adopted his music as a personal anthem for that awful day.
Melancholy. Harrowing. Nature.
It's all here. With the same power to stir even 20 years later.
And Glenn Miller can put you In the Mood and Jarre is anything but jarring in the mood here with this electronic stunner (oh do I love the film & its score):
