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| This is a comments thread about Blog Post: Denizens of the Orchestral Deep by Mark Ford |
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Posted: |
Dec 1, 2010 - 8:26 PM
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By: |
ToneRow
(Member)
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Thank you, Mr. Ford, for writing an article on these lower-register wind instruments. While I love these affecting sounds emanating from all of the instruments which you spotlight, my personal favorite sonorities come from the cor anglais (the English Horn). I have loved the rich tones (between the oboe and the clarinet) of the English Horn for years, and for the past few days was contemplating posting a thread here @ FSM to ask members what their favorite instrumental sounds are. Seems Mr. Ford beat me to it and wrote a whole piece demonstrating these sounds issued from the contrabassoon and bass clarinets.
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH is my favorite Bernard Herrmann score. The reason for this is likely due its large wind and brass ensemble, augmented by percussion, and the absence of strings. I consider Maurice Jarre's THE TRAIN as my 2nd favorite string-less score.
Despite these 2 superb scores (plus many other fine works), my first thoughts nevertheless turn to the music of Alex North when I wish to listen to excellent writing for wind instruments. North was a true master of woodwind writing, lending this family of instruments many passages of complex expression yielding various emotional responses in the listener. Bernard Herrmann may have been a genius in selecting just the right proportion of instruments within the orchestrations to his scores, but he, more often than not, wrote 2 or 3 note motivic cells, either ascending or (usually) descending, rather than composing long musical lines with abundant notes. Additionally, Herrmann's instrumental palette may impress the ears with its sounds, but often-times clarinets and bassoons and other instruments are given sustained notes to play in unison, creating simplicity (maybe even banality, to some people) as opposed to density via counterpoint lines or polyphonic invention. If one loves this Herrmannesque type of "sound", then I recommend exploring the concert works of Icelandic composer Jon Leifs, whose brief orchestral tone poems like "Geysir" and "Hekla" are even more elaborately orchestrated and outrageously audacious in nature than anything we've heard from Herrmann.
http://www.bis.se/index.php?op=album&aID=BIS-CD-1030
Another composer who writes very distinctive music with 'in your face' instrumentations is Gerald Fried, and Fried's movie and TV music bursts with highly noticeable wind instrument sounds, not the least of which would be Fried's scores for classic STAR TREK, especially the "Catspaw" episode.
Jerry Goldsmith's usage of the contrabassoon appears in scores as diverse as THE STRIPPER, THE ILLUSTRATED MAN, THE CASSANDRA CROSSING, etc., and in his television work, like his sole contribution to VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA. While I recall detecting the sound of the contrabassoon within Goldsmith's 1981 score for OUTLAND, I don't remember much utilization of these lower-register type instruments afterwards. Isn't it interesting that both Mr. Ford and myself are referencing soundtrack music greater than 30 years in age as our examples? Can any other member on this Board offer examples of memorable contrabassoon and/or bass clarinet appearing in scores from 1990 through the present?
Interestingly, contemporary concert music compositions have increasingly (though gradually, not rapidly) been expanding the repertoire for instruments such as the tuba, the contrabassoon, the double-bass, bass clarinets, etc. Some of these concertos (and other forms) have been commissioned because of the rise in virtuoso players for these less-than-common instruments - instruments which have typically languished in the background within large orchestral works prior to the 2nd half of the 20th century. One of the earliest pieces written specifically for the contrabassoon may have been Bassnachtigall, by Erwin Schulhoff. Modern composers like Gunther Schuller, Donald Erb, and Kalevi Aho have contributed significant works for contrabassoon. Aho's Tuba concerto was completed in 2001, and his concerto for contrabassoon was finished as recently as 2005; both are available on the great BIS label from Sweden.
http://www.bis.se/index.php?op=album&aID=BIS-CD-1574
There's hope yet for these large instruments, so that we won't have to rely on vintage 50-year old sound recordings to showcase them!
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Posted: |
Dec 2, 2010 - 10:12 AM
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By: |
joan hue
(Member)
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Mark, I certainly can't add anything enlightening to your essay. What I do want to say is that I'm grateful to you and ToneRow for enlightening ME. I've always admired music's "textures" and orchestral colors, but I lack the in-depth musical background to really articulate what I'm often hearing in music. (I did play piano and percussion, so I do have some background.) I recognize musical instruments, the standard ones: horns, percussion, strings. etc. Thanks to this essay, I now know a bit more about the often unrecognized or more rare instruments, and how they immensely contribute to the soundscapes of film scores. I loved the Herrmann, Goldsmith, and North examples which illuminated this thesis , and they were familiar examples that I could relate my ears to, which helps in understanding. Gracias!!
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