About half of my CDs are film music. By far, movie sountracks are my favourite ‘genre’. Among my friends (real and imaginary, mostly imaginary), I seem to be the only one with this musical penchant.
Now, I don’t mean movie sountracks that are just a compilation of previously-released songs that are generic, and not intended for the movie itself, but actual film scores. Stuff from composers such as Danny Elfman, Ennio Morricone, Howard Shore, Carter Burwell, John Williams, etc…
C’mon! Am I the only one who gets moved by the plaintive harmonica riff from Once Upon a Time in the West? Or busts a gut listening to Songs in the Key of Springfield?
Just wanna know…
Your not crazy. I have a few Soundtracks in my music collection (not many but there are a few I’d like to get… is it strange that I like the Disney ones?)
I have stuff like Mulan, The Full monty, Men In Black and hope to get Cats soon.
I have many of Bernard Herrmann’s scores (FAHRENHEIT 451, MARNIE, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, and PSYCHO in addition to VERTIGO)…Sadly, some of these are not available in the US, but you can get them in Europe.
Also:
Henry Mancini (HATARI!, PINK PANTHER)…
John Williams (STAR WARS, SUPERMAN, INDIANA JONES…)
John Barry (James Bond)
Dmitri Tiomkin (THE ALAMO)
and Max Steiner and Kornbluth and Newman (damn, I’m blanking on first names)…
But the best soundtrack of all time is, IMHO, Newman’s score for DeMille’s THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.
I don’t buy them very often to listen to at home, but I really do enjoy listening to them. A bad score can really kill an otherwise decent movie, and vice-versa.
On a side note, our local classical station often plays the main title them from Elmer Bernstein’s score for “The Magnificent Seven.” I always get a kick out of that.
I don’t listen to film scores so much to recreate the experience of the movie (although I can’t help the scenes that run through me head whilst listening), but because I like the work of the individual composer.
Like CKDH, I’m a big Bernard Herrman buff. In addition to VERTIGO, PSYCHO, and NORTH BY NORTHWEST, I also have his scores for THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (theremin!) and THE DEVIL AND DAN’L WEBSTER, which is one funky piece of Americana. I’ve got recordings of his “serious” music, too…the Symphony, the String Quartet, and the Clarinet Quartet.
Other soundtracks in my record collection are scattershot…Franz Waxman’s music for THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN…the scores of BLOW-UP and ZABRISKIE POINT (for the solo work by Herbie Hancock in the former and Jerry Garcia in the latter).
One of my two famous reletives was Alex North, who scored a lot of films in the Fifties (Giant and—I think—The Misfits among them). Any North fans here?
Not a fan of scores in general, but a big fan of Thomas Newman. I have scores to American Beauty, The Player and The Shawshank Redemption. Next on my to-buy list are probably Unstrung Heroes and The Linguini Incident. I do so wish the score for The Man With One Red Shoe were available – it’s the one that got me hooked on Newman in the first place.
The entire voting membership of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences should be lined up and shot for not giving this year’s Best Score Oscar to American Beauty.
Not at all. At last count, my soundtrack CDs (either original scores or musical song scores, but NO compilation/Big Chill-type stuff) numbered 277. And it keeps growing and growing…
My favorites? Herrmann, Waxman, Goldsmith, and Morricone–though I do have quite a bit of Steiner, Barry, Mancini, Rozsa, North, Williams, Rota, Elfman, Delerue, and Elmer Bernstein (to mention just a few). All-time best score? Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky
Sorry, CKDH, but that was written by Elmer Bernstein, not Alfred Newman (who, IIRC, was never even contracted with Paramount)
Absolutely. My favorite probably is A Streetcar Named Desire, though Viva Zapata!, Dragonslayer, and Spartacus are some other great ones. Though the Academy is a collective bunch of lamebrains, they did do something right in giving North a Special Achievement Oscar, the only one given to a composer for his body of work. Btw, though North did score The Misfits, Dmitri Tiomkin scored Giant.
The Last of The Mohicans Henry V The Mission Jurassic Park Conan the Barbarian
have a permanent residence in my car (their counterparts on CD live with the rest of the film scores in the house). At last count, I had about 65 film scores and soundtracks, second to classical (302) in sheer numbers in my collection.
(Hoping to purchase a convertible, but right now I’m content with rolling down the window and driving a wee bit above the speed limit on the turnpike with the music blaring.)
Pick up “Cinema Choral Classics” - some great choral music from the scores of The Omen, 1492, The Abyss, and The Lion in Winter. I have a choral fixation.
[Honestly, CCC2 is not as exciting as CCC1 (like Jurassic Park 1 vs. Jurassic Park 2), but I’ll give it another listen.]
Well, I certainly can’t claim the knowledge and depth of experience of many of the posters in this thread, but I do like film scores. The two that rank near the top of my personal list are Glory and The Blues Brothers. I also enjoy the theme music from the original Halloween.
Tehre’s an option on the Matrix DVD that I thought was pretty slick: it’s a music-only version. No dialog, no sound effects, just the music. Very cool.
Sort of off-topic, but does anyone know where to find sheet music for classic film scores? Especially Bernard Herrmann’s stuff? I don’t even know if printed sheet music even exists for some of the older stuff, but if anyone has any ideas where I might start looking, I’d very much appreciate it.
If you like Bernard Herrmann’s music, check out the score for Taxi Driver (although there is narratives by DeNiro inserted, including the famous “you talkin’ to me” scene)…this music is hauntingly beautiful.
Which reminds me: Williams’ score for Schindler’s List. Incredible.
…and, like my brother, I wish more film soundtracks were released without the annoying gratuitous top forty hit included.