gramophone.co.uk GRAMOPHONE SEPTEMBER 2019 15
FOR THE RECORDFROM WHERE I SIT
Soundtracks presented me with
a way into the rarefied world of
classicalmusic EdwardSeckerson
M
ovie music aficionados are a
very particular breed – serious,
knowledgable, fanatical. Even
the soft-core variety – as I once was –
are fiercely defensive of their favourite
practitioners. The music and the indelible
images they amplify are forever stored in
their imagination. For me as a teenage boy,
movie soundtracks were both a parallel path and a way into the
rarefied world of classical music. At one time I embraced both
equally. And I distinctly remember my parents’ disappointment
that I would split my hard-earned spending money equally
between acquiring the latest Dimitri Tiomkin or Bronisław Kaper
score (namely 55 Days at Peking and Mutiny on the Bounty) and my
first recording of Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique (Ferenc Fricsay and
the Berlin Philharmonic). In my parents’ eyes the money spent
on these often short-measure soundtracks was better spent on
‘proper music’. My protests went unheeded.
I acquired some treasures on the movie front: a rare LP
pressing of Alfred Newman’s highly intense score for The Diary
of Anne Frank and the lavish fold-out booklet edition of Alex
North’s sensational score for Kubrick’s Spartacus. The Main Title
of that score was especially striking for its brassy dissonance and
there were parallels to be drawn with André Previn’s equally
uncompromising strings and brass treatment (referencing
Hindemith’s Music for Strings and Brass) for Elmer Gantry
released in the same year, 1960.
But this was also the era of Miklós Rózsa whose Oscar-winning
Ben-Hur score took epic orchestral scoring and fabulous Hebraic
themes to another level. I distinctly remember the in-built
Overture for its first run at the Empire Leicester Square, the
gold curtains magically parting to a soft incantation of the
unmistakable chords of its thunderous main theme. More than
any other movie music I grew up with this score exemplified
the interplay and transformation of key motifs. It was the most
composerly and ‘symphonic’ of scores.
As my musicality developed and my musical interests broadened
I could be more objective about the role of music in the cinema
and I became less of a ‘collector’ and more of an ‘observer’.
I could take a step backwards and appreciate the immeasurable
contribution of Bernard Herrmann’s music for Hitchcock or Nino
Rota’s for Fellini; I could thrill to Maurice Jarre’s amazing work
with synthesised keyboards for the ‘raising of the barn’ sequence
in Peter Weir’s masterful Witness and more recently wonder at
Hans Zimmer’s work on Gladiator, Interstellar and Dunkirk.
But as I write I am reminded of a memorable encounter
with the godfather of this genre – the most prolific of them all,
John Williams – who, when I met him for a major feature in The
Independent, so modestly payed tribute to all the classical composers
who had inspired him to boldly go where few had been before.
But Williams made me chuckle when he recalled working with
Hitchcock on his last film Family Plot. Hitchcock thought the first
draft of the score too lugubrious. ‘But it’s a film about murder’, said
Williams. ‘Ah, but murder can be fun’, retorted Hitchcock.
Congratulations Alexandre...
Winner of the XVI International
Tchaikovsky Competition
BIS2150(HybridSACD)BIS2100(HybridSACD)BIS2300 (Hybrid SACD)“... a fire-breathing virtuoso with a poetic
charm and innate stylistic mastery ...”Gramophone, June 2019Marketed and distributed in the UK by Naxos Music UK Ltd
T: +44 (0)1737 645 600 • E: [email protected]
Available for download in Studio Master Quality from http://www.eclassical.com