The Film Music of John Williams: 80th Birthday Celebrations/ Philharmonic Hall, Saturday
IT IS 85 years since the silver screen first spoke and sang, with the arrival of the first talkie, The Jazz Singer.
For over 20 years there had been music in the cinema, but usually snippets from the classics played by anything from a small orchestra to a lone piano. With the advent of the soundtrack, the music score came too, with, for example Max Steiner’s music for King Kong in 1930.
But it was the arrival in Hollywood of Erich Korngold that cranked things up a gear. He already had a reputation in Europe when he was called to adapt Mendelssohn for the James Cagney and Mickey Rooney film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
When he was invited back he composed some superb music for films including the Errol Flynn swashbucklers. Hungarian composer Miklos Rozsa was amongst those who followed, and films such as Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Seven involved Bernard Herrmann and Elmer Bernstein.
Serious classical composers were lured in too and Prokofiev (Alexander Nevsky), Walton (Henry V) and Vaughan Williams (Scott of the Antarctic) wrote scores sufficiently distinguished to gain places in the he repertoire of the symphony concert.
One remembers also the music Virgil Thomson wrote for the documentary films such as The Plough that Broke the Plains, and Leonard Bernstein’s for the Marlon Brando film On The Waterfront.
Doyen of the current crop is John Williams who turned 80 yesterday, an event to be celebrated by Carl Davis and the RLPO on Saturday night. Wisely, film music is usually programmed separately, as the Hollywood Sound is a different breed to the classical mainstream.
The dynamic catchy upbeat tune or big romantic theme is important to a film’s success, and it can best be described as light music for large orchestra. None the worse for that.
A packed house will hear music from some of Williams’ remarkable successes including Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jaws, Close Encounters, ET and Superman, as well as some of Williams’ predecessors.
It will be a hard night’s work for the orchestra, but for the audience it is a rich 23 course banquet, albeit most of them succulent sweets.
Review
Korngold - String Sextet/Piano Quintet
THOSE curious about what came before Hollywood, should listen to the earlier music of Korngold. The latest comes from the Doric Quartet, who play the Piano Quintet and Sextet for Chandos Records. The Quintet was written in 1921-2 and the quartet are joined by Kathryn Stoit while for the String Sextet of 1914-15 there are Jennifer Stumm and Bartholomew Lafollette, viola and cello. Recorded at Snape Maltings last summer, this rich romantic music strongly pre-empts the screen music to follow, and the performance and sound place it ahead of the competition.
