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Posted: |
Aug 22, 2024 - 7:55 AM
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By: |
Night
(Member)
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I thought it would good to start a thread collecting all new stuff relating to Leonard Rosenman's 100th birthday; his centenary is coming up in about 2 weeks.
A writer wrote two interesting posts about Rosenman some months ago but did not mention his centenary:
https://iverson.substack.com/p/tt-401-leonard-rosenman-professional
https://iverson.substack.com/p/tt-4015-more-leonard-rosenman
Rosenman was also mentioned in the passing in The New Yorker magazine earlier this year:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/03/18/how-arnold-schoenberg-changed-hollywood
"At the final Jacaranda concert, the pianist and conductor Scott Dunn illustrated the Schoenberg-Hollywood relationship by playing three pieces by Leonard Rosenman, who took private lessons with Schoenberg in 1947. Rosenman wasn’t writing for the movies at the time; that transition came about when one of his piano students, James Dean, was cast in “East of Eden” and got his teacher hired along with him. (Dean, a modern-music fan, liked to tell an anecdote about Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto: after Jascha Heifetz complained that he would need to grow a sixth finger to master the piece, Schoenberg supposedly said, “I can wait.”) Rosenman began employing twelve-tone methods in his film scores. During the planetarium scene in “Rebel Without a Cause,” the orchestra dissolves into a magnificent Schoenbergian melee. It’s hard to imagine how Hollywood could have functioned without the language of dissonance. The horror genre wouldn’t even exist."
Does anyone know if there are any planned events (concerts, new releases, articles etc) coming up? I hope that something is done for the great Lenny's big 100th birthday. Maybe that Rosenman documentary will finally be released...
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One of my favorite film composers, there are a number of his scores I really love. I remember years ago something about a "symphony about dinosaurs" or something Rosenman was seemingly working on. Don't know how that ever turned out, but it if's finished, I would love to have a premier recording of that.
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What would be the score he is best known for? Is it actually Star Trek or is it just that he is best known for that by Star Trek fans?
I literally listened to that an hour ago. And Lord of the Rings this past weekend.
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Yes, I think Leonard Rosenman's most "important" scores are EAST OF EADEN and REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, these two put him on the map. His seminal scores for THE COBWEB and FANTASTIC VOYAGE were also very well received. Rosenman is also known for his Academy Award winning Kubrick collaboration on BARRY LYNDON (though he adapted Baroque music for the movie) and for his also Academy Award winning work for BOUND FOR GLORY (where he adapted music by Woody Guthrie).
I love his scores for THE CAR and PROPHECY, and generally Rosenman is often connected to science fiction/horror film scores, because his often atonal and spiky scores fit the genre and where he wrote some of his most interesting work.
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Posted: |
Aug 22, 2024 - 10:50 AM
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By: |
Thor
(Member)
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I have a very problematic history with Leonard Rosenman. I kinda hated his music. Didn't even care very much for fan favourites LORD OF THE RINGS and STAR TREK IV. Certainly not his ROBOCOP. I found his music cold, shrill and dissonant in all the wrong ways. Even when he was tonal. My distaste for him was further cemented when I read all those interview quotes (this was before his dementia, btw) where he bragged about himself and uttered all kinds of bizarre statements to heighten his position (e.g. that the only reason he didn't do the first ROBOCOP was that he was unavailable or some such thing).
Over time, I've become a bit more forgiving and receptive to him and his works. I'm still not a fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I've found myself curious at times. The James Dean stuff, BOUND FOR GLORY, CROSS CREEK, A MAN CALLED HORSE etc. Obviously BARRY LYNDON, but wasn't he only an arranger there, or provided some tissue material? Anyways, I still intend to set aside time to explore his work in more detail, both to reassess those I had dismissed, and hopefully to find new things. No guarantee that it will fare better this time, but who knows? His centenary is as good as excuse as any to do it.
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Posted: |
Aug 22, 2024 - 11:10 AM
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By: |
Night
(Member)
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Those "fan favorites" you mention, i.e. The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Robocop, I don't consider his best work. They are nice and all, but far from his masterpiece scores such as East of Eden and Fantastic Voyage for example. I'm a massive Rosenman fan (he is easily one of my top 10 favorite film composers of all time), yet I almost never listen to the "fan favorites" you mention. Also, as much as I admire Rosenman, i'm not a completist of his work; for me revisiting his best work, half a dozen or so of scores, is for most part enough for me. It's funny, you mention that you found Rosenman "cold, shrill, dissonant", when for me it's just about the opposite, although the latter is often true, but for me he is one of the most emotional film composers. Nobody else in film music could have written an as memorable Americana theme with the same kind of profound emotional resonance and originality that East of Eden had. I think that John Corigliano said it best: "not even Aaron Copland could have written a better Americana theme than Rosenman's East of Eden." I think it is one of the most moving and memorable themes ever written in scoring history.
I believe that Barry Lyndon was "just" arrangements of pre-existing music, no original music.
Anyway, I wish you the best of luck on your Rosenman odyssey if you decide to try his music again! I hope that you will like at least some of his music better this time around.
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I just listened to Robocop 2. Even in 1990 I really liked for its main theme (sans the singing). It is an interesting approach and score, much like the film which has some excellent scenes but some pretty poor ones too. A real schizoid experience.
Also a big fan of his Prophecy music, and again, it is a guilty pleasure film. Some truly terrifying moments with tension only Frankenheimer could achieve.
Of course love LOTR (way more than Shore, sorry) and Rebel without a Cause, East of Eden, and Fantastic Voyage.
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Posted: |
Aug 22, 2024 - 12:50 PM
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By: |
edwzoomom
(Member)
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I have a very problematic history with Leonard Rosenman. I kinda hated his music. Didn't even care very much for fan favourites LORD OF THE RINGS and STAR TREK IV. Certainly not his ROBOCOP. I found his music cold, shrill and dissonant in all the wrong ways. Even when he was tonal. My distaste for him was further cemented when I read all those interview quotes (this was before his dementia, btw) where he bragged about himself and uttered all kinds of bizarre statements to heighten his position (e.g. that the only reason he didn't do the first ROBOCOP was that he was unavailable or some such thing).
Over time, I've become a bit more forgiving and receptive to him and his works. I'm still not a fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I've found myself curious at times. The James Dean stuff, BOUND FOR GLORY, CROSS CREEK, A MAN CALLED HORSE etc. Obviously BARRY LYNDON, but wasn't he only an arranger there, or provided some tissue material? Anyways, I still intend to set aside time to explore his work in more detail, both to reassess those I had dismissed, and hopefully to find new things. No guarantee that it will fare better this time, but who knows? His centenary is as good as excuse as any to do it.
I'm not a huge fan either but enjoy the Intrada Collection release of Cross Creek and Rosenman's score for Dr. Leakey and the Dawn of Man, also on an Intrada Special Collection along with Gold's The Last Viking. I have LOTR and Barry Lyndon but as said, the latter is a compilation. It certainly sounds like he had great respect among his peers from what I am reading here.
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Certainly could use some more releases by him. A number of premieres still waiting for their time. But I guess he's not really much of a seller (save select titles here and there).
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My distaste for him was further cemented when I read all those interview quotes (this was before his dementia, btw) where he bragged about himself and uttered all kinds of bizarre statements to heighten his position (e.g. that the only reason he didn't do the first ROBOCOP was that he was unavailable or some such thing).
Next time we meet in person, Thor, I'll tell you some stories about LR.
(But don't make a special trip out here just for them! They're pretty short.  )
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I found his music cold, shrill and dissonant in all the wrong ways.
LR did this in exactly the right venue once: BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES (except for the Mass, which I find dates itself, but is still a bit fun.)
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I'm not a huge fan either but enjoy the Intrada Collection release of Cross Creek and Rosenman's score for Dr. Leakey and the Dawn of Man, also on an Intrada Special Collection along with Gold's The Last Viking. I have LOTR and Barry Lyndon but as said, the latter is a compilation. It certainly sounds like he had great respect among his peers from what I am reading here.
Thanks for mentioning Leakey, Ed. I saw it in the store recently, and neglected to look for sound samples. Now that I've heard them, I nabbed it. Yes!
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Why is John Wayne wearing Charlton Heston's costume from SOYLENT GREEN in that collage?
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A better question would be why they used a picture of James Dean from Giant (which was scored by Tiomkin) rather than one from Rebel Without a Cause.
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