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"Waltz with Bashir" by Max Richter
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Waltz with Bashir is a wonderfully warm, romantic, but also harrowing film by Ari Folman. Equally the soundtrack is a very moving piece of work by composer Max Richter which complements the film perfectly. With this score the composer has finally obtained proper worldwide exposure, winning the hearts of music critics and musicians around the globe. The score was nominated for an Annie Award for Best Music in an Animated Feature and, most importantly, won the European Film Awards for Best Composer in 2008. More...
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"The Reel World" (2nd edition) by Jeff Rona
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Hal Leonard Books has just published a new and completely revised second edition of The Reel World by composer Jeff Rona. The book details the technical, business, and creative aspects of becoming a successful film scorer. Based upon his significant experience in the field, the author shows how to work with the many different professionals involved in filmmaking without diluting the essential element of creativity. This revised edition includes a wealth of new interviews with some of Hollywood’s top film scorers including John Williams, Carter Burwell, James Newton Howard, Hans Zimmer, Mark Isham, Wendy and Lisa and more. Check out an extract of the book, and receive a 20% discount on online purchases. More...
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George Fenton conducts the LSO playing his Film Music
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Acclaimed film and television composer George Fenton will conduct the London Symphony Orchestra for the first time at London’s Barbican in a concert dedicated to his music. The event will take place on Sunday 7th June and full details can be found at the: LSO website along with a video where the composer discusses his music and his relationship with directors and programme makers, from working with director Richard Attenborough on "Cry Freedom", "Gandhi" and "Shadowlands" to his music for the breathtaking natural history series "The Blue Planet" and "Planet Earth" featuring David Attenborough, the first of which led to a the theatrical release Deep Blue.
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Film Music meests Classical and Pop on the Isle of Man!
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An unusual concert will be held on 11th June as part of TTXGP, the Time Trials Xtreme Grand Prix, which is billed as the world's first such event with Zero Carbon & Clean Emissions. The concert is called “The Promise of a Generation” and will feature the London Metropolitan Orchestra and a Rock Band at the newly restored Villa Marina’s Royal hall on the Isle of Man. The exact programme is subject to change, but at the time of writing is expected to include music by Michael Kamen, Claude Debussy, Elmer Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Queen, Prince, Ennio Morricone and John Williams. Further details and booking information is available at the TTGX website at www.ttxgp.com/concert.
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Star Trek: The Music
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With a new Star Trek movie hitting theatres soon, we take a look at the music of Star Trek. Over the past 40-plus years, the Star Trek Universe has brought us 11 major movies and 5 television series (not to mention the animated series, video games and some song singles), and that is a lot of music! Many composers have played a part in creating this music. In the "Star Trek" movies, Jerry Goldsmith has dominated, with James Horner, Leonard Rosenman, Cliff Eidelman, and Dennis McCarthy providing very able support. The Television Series have employed many more composers with Dennis McCarthy and Jay Chattaway playing major roles, following in the footsteps of the father of Star Trek music Alexander Courage who started it all off in 1966. More...
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Scott Joplin: Bethena - A Concert Waltz
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We add a new ragtime piece to our catalogue of Scott Joplin's piano rags. "Bethena" is a ragtime waltz and so it is quite unusual, since a waltz has 3 beats in a bar whereas most ragtime pieces have 2 or 4 beats in a bar. This work is also a neat tie-in with last week's review of the soundtrack to "Benjamin Button" since it is the final track on the second album. We provide the piece in the following formats:
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Alexandre Desplat: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
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French composer Alexandre Desplat is a good choice for a quirky film like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button where the main character ages backwards. Desplat rightly treats this as a magical fairytale but with an element of involving realism. The music is light and delicate in texture with a number of recurring themes, but never repetitive as they are always evolving. Harp and strings are quite prominent throughout but many other instruments have a say, including a saxophone which blends well with the film's source music of jazz tracks which are included on CD2 of the double album. More...
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Laurie Johnson: The New Avengers
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Laurie Johnson is most famous for his music for cult television series. He created themes for Animal Magic, This is Your Life and Wicker's World, but it is series like The Avengers and The Professionals which achieved cult status. Having been in the business for 50 years, the composer is steadily releasing his back catalogue in a series of triple albums. The first was called "The Avengers", the second was "The Professionals" and now the third set The New Avengers has been released. Disc 1 from this set contains music from 3 complete episodes and several other themes and cues from "The New Avengers", while discs 2 and 3 contain respectively, music from two of his stage musicals and various tracks from film, television and big band jazz arrangements. More...
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Dance of the Dead by Kristopher Carter
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Kristopher Carter is best known for his musical contribution to various animated television series about superheroes, such as "The New Superman Adventures", "The Justice League", "Teen Titans" and "Batman Beyond". However he has also scored a number of films including the recent Dance of the Dead. This is a teen zombie flick, which has given Carter the opportunity to provide a varied range of musical cues from dark suspense through several shock/horror moments and some heroic action elements. These are all well executed and surely show that the composer has a promising future in film. More...
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A. R. Rahman wins the big Film Music Awards
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Slumdog Millionaire has had an astonishing success at the film awards, and composer A. R. Rahman has made a clean sweep, walking away with virtually all the major film music awards. His film music career started with a string of movies from the Tamil film industry in Southern India. He has proceeded to score and provide songs for other film centres across India and across the world, not to mention two very successful stage musical productions which started in London and proceeded to tour the world: "Bombay Dreams" and "The Lord of the Rings". Rahman was the obvious choice by Director Danny Boyle to create the music for "Slumdog Millionaire". It will be very interesting to see where his career goes from here. More...
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Brahms' Intermezzo in A Op.118 No.2
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We have to admit that we weren't familiar with this gem for piano by Brahms until it appeared on the audition playlist for the Youtube Symphony. Now that we've discovered it, we've completely fallen in love with the piece, and here it is for our visitors in our usual variety of formats:
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Indiana Jones: The Soundtracks Collection by John Williams
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The combination of director Steven Spielberg and composer John Williams have been entertaining us for years, and the Indiana Jones film series exemplifies the great story-telling collaboration. The most definitive versions of all the Indiana Jones Soundtracks have now been released in a fantastic box set called Indiana Jones: The Soundtracks Collection. The set consists of the four film soundtracks, with many of these containing previously unreleased tracks, a 5th bonus CD featuring yet more music from the films and an interview with the film makers, plus a substantial booklet with further information and behind-the-scenes photos. More...
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Humboldt County by iZLER
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It's awards season again where the focus will no doubt be on the past year's big budget movies and stars. But away from the major studios it's good to know that there are many independent film-makers who are turning out good films on a minimal budget. Independent films can be a great training ground for many film professionals including composers. We take a look at the soundtrack to Humboldt County by the composer iZLER. Could this be a name we will hear much more about in future, possibly during awards season? More...
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Requiem for a Dream by Clint Mansell
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Requiem for a Dream is composer Clint Mansell's Magnum Opus. It won the Online Film Critics Society Award in 2001 for Best Original Score and should have won a whole lot more. But perhaps this was a slow burner - it was only when the music was picked up and used elsewhere that people started to recognise it and respond to it. And it has been reused many times including the trailer for "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers". We now review the original soundtrack. When music is made to perfectly match a film as intense as Requiem for a Dream, you know you are in for quite a surreal experience. More...
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Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" from the 9th (Choral) Symphony
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Let's celebrate the Christmas and New Year holiday period with Beethoven's "Ode to Joy". Though it was written almost 2 centuries ago, the theme is one of the most recognisable pieces of Classical Music. It comes from his 9th Symphony - the first from a major composer to feature voices. The orchestra is augmented by a choir plus Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass soloists, who in the final movement sing verses from a poem by Schiller called the "Ode to Joy". Beethoven's music is a set of variations on this theme, which is now the Anthem for the European Union.
- Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" - Sheet Music arranged for Solo Piano
- Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" - Sheet Music arranged for Bassoon and Piano (includes alternative sheet music for Flute, Oboe, Cor Anglais, Clarinet in Bb, Clarinet in A, Bassoon, Trumpet, French Horn, Trombone, Tuba, Violin, Viola, Cello, Double Bass)
- Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" - (piano solo) MIDI file and MP3 file
- Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" - (bassoon and piano) MIDI file and MP3 file
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John Williams' music in Star Wars: A Musical Journey
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John Williams has recently re-crafted his Star Wars music from all six films to fit a show called "STAR WARS: A Musical Journey". This is a live two-hour musical event with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and chorus, with scenes from the movies and live narration. The show will premier in London's "O2 arena" (previously called the Millennium Dome) on 10th April 2009 before launching a European Tour. The venue will also host an exhibition of models, props, costumes and artwork from the Lucasfilm Archives. Tickets will go on sale on 15th December 2008 - see The O2 site for further information.
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Songs of the Sea: The Regatta Suite - by Jeff Rona
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The Sea has always been a great source of inspiration for all types or creative people, whether artists, story-tellers, poets or composers. Jeff Rona was commissioned to compose music for the nautical events held at this year's Olympic Games in China. The music was performed in a number of Chinese cities, and the composer has now adapted and recorded the music so that it can be experienced more widely. The resulting album is called Songs of the Sea: The Regatta Suite and clearly illustrates how good a composer Rona is. The music is varied - in places heroic and majestic, but at other times impressionistic and evocative. More...
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The music of James Bond 007
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With new Bond film "Quantum of Solace" on general release, we take a look at the Music of James Bond. Two new CD releases have taken differing approaches to celebrating the last 45+ years of James Bond music. The Best of Bond has been superbly crafted by conductor Carl Davis with a mixture of Bond Songs and incidental tracks. In contrast James Bond: The Gold Edition is purely instrumental but comes on 2 CDs with a comprehensive booklet on the history of James Bond music.
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Mozart's Symphony No.40 in G minor
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Mozart's last 3 Symphonies are among the finest in the repertoire and, through their influence on later composers, helped to bring about a revolution in the art form. His Symphony No.40 is one of very few he composed in a minor key, and the stark single-minded mood of its opening movement with its relentless momentum was a particular influence on Beethoven and music scholars over the past 200 years. We present this movement in its original orchestral format including downloadable PDFs of the full score and all instrumental parts, and also as a (fairly difficult) piano transcription:
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Torchwood - music by Ben Foster and Murray Gold
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Newly released, this album covers music from the first two seasons of Torchwood the post-watershed spin-off from the nation's favourite "Doctor Who". Most of the incidental music has come from Ben Foster who acted as orchestrator and conductor for "Doctor Who" with the parent series' resident composer Murray Gold providing the "Torchwood" main theme and one or two episodes. The style is similar in some ways, with some of the orchestral sections being recorded by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in Cardiff, but Torchwood veers off into the kind of dark adult territory that is out of bounds for "Doctor Who". More...
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Javier Navarrete - Pan's Labyrinth
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2006 was a very exiting year for film soundtracks, and gave the award committees a lot of excellent material to choose from. Javier Navarrete's score for Pan's Labyrinth stood out as a deserving entry among many notable scores from well-established hollywood composers. The music of "Pan's Labyrinth" has the focus and simplicity of traditional story-telling, and therefore stands very well on its own, even away from the outstanding film for which it was created. Although all the music is based upon a simple melody, a lullaby in waltz tempo, the complete soundtrack is surprising varied and transports the listener into a child's fantasy world inhabited by strange creatures. More...
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Edvard Grieg's "Wedding Day at Troldhaugen"
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The composer Edvard Grieg had a house built for him near Bergen in Norway. Though this is now a museum dedicated to Grieg, he and his family lived there for many years and they called the house "Troldhaugen" which means "Troll's Hill". Among his "Lyric Pieces" for piano there is a popular piece called "Wedding Day at Troldhaugen" whose happy mood seems to suggest the Grieg family enjoyed life to the full in this house. At mfiles we now have 3 Lyric Pieces and one arrangement available as sheet music and audio files:
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The Doctor Who Prom Concert by Murray Gold
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Two British institutions come together for the first time this month, with a special Doctor Who Prom Concert in the Royal Albert Hall which features a mix of Classical and Doctor Who Music. The music of composer Murray Gold will feature alongside that of Copland, Holst, Wagner, Prokofiev and Turnage. The show will be presented by Freema Agyeman (who plays Martha Jones in the series) with Daleks and Cybermen, and a specially filmed scene written by departing producer Russell T Davies, starring David Tennant as the Doctor. For more about the music from the series, see our reviews of the two Doctor Who CDs covering music from Series 1 and 2 and from Series 3.
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Camille Saint-Saens - The Elephant and Film Music
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Regular visitors to mfiles will know that we cover both Classical and Film Music. The French Composer Camille Saint-Saens is the first well-known composer to compose music in both these camps. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the film "L'Assassinat du Duc de Guise" which is considered to be the first film for which music was specially commissioned. Among the composer's most famous concert pieces is "The Carnival of the Animals" which is a fun suite which depicts (and sometimes caricatures) various members of the animal kingdom. One of its movements is called "The Elephant" where a double-bass plays a ponderous but witty waltz. More...
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