How to compose a news theme that lasts 40 years
mainGeorge Fenton on the mechanics his most durable tune.
“Newsnight has outlived every other theme tune I’ve ever written.”
As #Newsnight approaches its 40th birthday, we celebrate one of the oldest tv news themes out there. This is how composer George Fenton came up with it…
More: https://t.co/YKlMay7TwU@StuartDenman pic.twitter.com/h7tVrvJGzq
— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) September 2, 2019
Unmissable.
Nice, but listen to John Williams’ news themes!
Puts Fenton into perspective:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LviYtRXX51E
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qvtDoA3tZgg
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc8QLB05rLk
Not really. Fenton is talking about having to encapsulate everything into 9 seconds. The John Williams themes are great, but much more expansive – presumably because he was allowed more freedom. (Maybe they only broadcast 10 seconds or so – I don’t know)
Listen to “Williams goes Fenton” here:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JBvV0XN8-tw
A sort of genius in this … I would love to know how much he got paid!
Living in the US, these themes are heard much less often. I am familiar with Mr. Fenton’s film work and it is just brilliant in my opinion.
From a professional point of view, the ‘tune’ is saturated with voice leading mistakes, just simplistic chords thrown one after the other. The thing that students try to unlearn when in the first year of music theory. But that is exactly what the media prefer, so that innocent brains tuning-in on the station would not be burdened with something suggesting sophistication. It should appeal to the greatest number of people and that is, the brainless, liberated from effort: liberté, égalité, fraternité.
Schoenberg puzzled half his life to find a tune that would last 40 years and hopefully longer, and inspired thousands of similar desperate seekers after WW II.
“…not be burdened with something suggesting sophistication…”
You mean something like Franz Liszt’s Les Preludes?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ_0njMB-Vc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO1bP_hBwzk
An intellectually dishonest reaction….. Liszt never intended his piece to be misused by a criminal tyranny. And by the way, his voice leading was always impeccable, whatever the nazis thought of it.