Film composer gives $2m to orchestra to fund works by … film composers
OrchestrasVariety reports a gift of $2 million to the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra by House of Cards composer Jeff Beal (pictured) and his soprano wife Joan. The money is designated for new concert works by film, TV and games composers.
Beal said: ‘There is an awkward, odd disconnect between the concert stage and the composers of Hollywood, and the music they create. This is an effort to give back, to support a wonderful orchestra of folks who’ve played on our scores for years, and try and influence the conversation around the concert stage and the deep pool of brilliant composers in Los Angeles and beyond.’
LACO musicians earn most of their living in the film studios.
The first LACO commissions will go to Michael Abels (‘Get Out’), Eímear Noone (‘World of Warcraft’) and Austin Wintory (‘Journey’).
There is, of course a fundamental difference between film music which is purely supportive and commercial, and concert music which is a serious art form (although one would not easily get at that conclusion with lots of contemporary stuff). That does not mean that there aren’t very good film music composers, but the perceptive framework of film music (and game music) is very different. Film music composers who also write concert music, like John Williams, if they are intelligent enough, make a difference between the two genres (Williams’ concert music sounds like early 20C Viennese music and is very different from his unbearably vulgar film music). And where film music composers write very good film music – with a touch of concert music – it is still listened to as entirely supportive and not as an independent art form.
If it is “very good film music,” why can it not also stand “independent” of the film by being heard in concert?
Congratulations to LACO, a wonderful ensemble!
With film music, form and rhetoric are entirely subservient to the narrative on screen. So, film music cannot have an independent musical narrative or structure, it is not meant to be experienced independently from what is seen on screen but it is supposed to create a mood, an atmosphere, nothing more. It is a background, an underpinning, a reinforcement of emotional content. It is supposed to not have any independent identity as music. That is the opposite of concert music which is listened to as having its own identity as a work.
This is such a simple and clear distinction that it is always surprising that even music lovers find it difficult to digest. When you sit in a concert hall, listening to a concert piece without visuals on a screen, all attention is supposed to go to the unfolding musical narrative which develops according to its own musical dynamics. It is an aural art form. With film music, that unfolding is entirely defined by what is seen on screen – except the very rare cases when a film director designs his narrative according to a musical ‘script’.
Excellent points, to be sure. But using the same thought process, wouldn’t it then be impossible to hear a religious work, a mass for example, in a concert hall, since it was intended to be performed in church as part of a religious service?
A piece of church music is not undermined in its identity if it is performed in a concert hall. Both in the church and in the concert hall, the work stands on its own.
The difference between concert music and film music is not the location where it is heard, but whether it is an independent work to be experienced as such or something subservient to a screen script, a movie.
In principle, the function of film music is indeed to serve the cinematography, but this does not invariably preclude the music also functioning as concert music and “having its own identity as a work”. Not everything can be pigeonholed as serving one function exclusively.
If film music would become part and parcel of regular concert repertoire, this will inevitably dumb-down programming and damage the art form. Almost all of it is vulgar filth if listened to as music. Why preferring such low-level kitsch nonsense when there is so much other music around worth hearing? Programming film music in the concert hall is merely a business trick, to lure-in audiences who think André Rieu is serious classical music.
That film music is even defended on a classical music site like this one, says something about some type of ‘classical music lovers’, who obviously are on the wrong location.
Do you feel similarly about an orchestra programming, say, Mendelssohn’s Incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream?
19C program music is still something that stands on its own and has its own narrative, structure, rhetoric etc. etc. The ‘visuals’ take place in the imagination, as invoked by the music (and not necessarily so, it can be fully experienced as abstract music). No comparison with film music.
“[Film music] is supposed to not have any independent identity as music.”
Yes, pieces like Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky sure don’t work in the concert hall. Oh wait…
It is impossible, even with the best of intentions, to take Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky as representing the much later usual film music.
It just doesn’t. A friend and I went to an orchestra concert in the Pops series that featured the music of science fiction films and TV. We went principally to hear Also Sprach Zarathustra, neither being big Sci-Fi fans, but of course we were familiar with some of the themes and we had both seen (and enjoyed) Star Wars.
Of course Star Wars was an early offering, along with things like The Twilight Zone and Star Trek, all vaguely familiar. But amazingly unsatisfactory. We soon twigged that the music could NOT stand alone, that it was designed to work along with images and action and dialogue and narrative. The Strauss was the opener of the second half; we sat through that in rear seats and crept away, having had more than enough.
I can think of quite a lot of film composers whose names encourage me when I see them in opening credits. I can hum many a movie theme, and recognise many others in a bar or two. I admire their work immensely. But I do not know much of it that can stand up in a concert hall for a whole evening. John Williams may straddle the fence — I am not very familiar with his non-film work — but I suspect it is still the “easy listening ” fans who attend his concerts.
Ironically, Williams’ music in the concert hall is mostly his film scores. His serious music sounds so different and ‘difficult’ for the film music admirers, that orchestras seem to be reluctant to program it, because they fear the disappointments of the audience members who come for the Williams film sound.
Some of JW’s concert music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ5Mj1sRAeM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8OHm8ThkoM&list=PLsFPTGz6gcW6Yfo3Kwr7aWGvnO5v9eoBQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgzFp9pYcPQ&list=PLsFPTGz6gcW6Yfo3Kwr7aWGvnO5v9eoBQ&index=11
the usual solution is for the composer of the score to do a “suite” for the concert hall which can often easily stand on its own as viable listening.
Of course, and then it is so structured that it obtains an independent quality. In practice, such ‘suites’ have difficulties to live-up to musical quality standards, because the type of sentiment of film music is so different from concert music. It is like trying to turn an advertising poster into a serious painting. (We know that has been done and what the results are.)
I believe in Takemitsu’s Ran Suite, for example
Ok Boomer
Bore-slap:
Opera music is just film-music for the stage. Some of it is quite good, perhaps you should give it a listen.
There is a fundamental distinction between opera and film, maybe you should try to read something about opera. There is enough on the net, that is even accessible to you.
Maybe this is helpful:
Opera is a total-work-of-art whereby the music, with all of its intricate musical structuring, is part of the whole. What you see is the outside of what happens on stage, what you hear is the inside: what the protagonists are experiencing. In opera, music is the heart of the art form; bad music cannot save a brilliant libretto, while a bad libretto is saved by good music, which proves the point.
The fact that in opera the protagonists are singing, thereby fusing their role on a deep level with the music, makes the relationship clear. In movies, the music happens on a different level and the protagonists are supposed to be completely unaware there is film music underneath, they act as if they are in ‘real life’, while in opera everything is stylized.
Don’t worry, I have speeling mustakes all the time.
Sally
John Borstlap, if what you say is true then why are John Williams’ film scores done so successfully in concerts, why do audiences respond so enthusiastically?
Partly, it’s familiarity; partly, the resurrection of pleasant memories of the film; and sometimes, the effect of rearranging themes from the film into concert-suite form. And one person’s “unbearably vulgar” can be another’s “attractive and exciting.”
To support Borstlap’s point, Miklos Rozsa is an example of a composer whose concert music stands in contrast to his film music, where he often set aside his individuality in service of the era and action of the film his music accompanied. (Of course, he couldn’t help sneaking the occasional hint of paprika into his film scores.)
I think that may in part be a response to the familiar — or the same inclination that draws people to Pops concerts by their local orchestras but that would never attract them to the serious subscription series.
I remember as a youngster going to the RCMP Musical Ride, a lovely spectacle that featured the riders performing to mostly classical music. But when they took a turn and broke into a rendition of the theme to (the original) Hawaii Five-O, then a very popular TV show, the audience erupted. It was a kind of recess from the real event, and the comfort of something familiar.
Maybe there’s something wrong with that enthusiasm? So many people profoundly love Trump, does that make him a respectable entity?
Thanks for picking this up Norman – the longer story on variety spells this out more clearly / LACO are not commissioning film music – we are commissioning and performing concert music composed by film/tv/game composes – Eimer will write a flute concerto, Michal a concerto for orchestra, and Austin as hybrid TBD multimedia concert work.
I will also say publicly something not quoted but said at our event on Sunday – which was essentially “not all film music is worthy of a concert experience/ stage (devoid of its visual context) and not all media composers are necessarily are concert composers – but for those who clearly are …. “there is an odd disconnect…
Composers /Artists don’t think of themselves in silos and record bin categories
John Mauceri’s excellent “The War on Music” says it in a different powerful way.
Here’s the full article excepted here
https://variety.com/2024/artisans/news/los-angeles-chamber-orchestra-2-million-gift-composers-1236199222/
Thanks, Jeff.
They say it themselves… so why any doubt? Film music composers who also want to write concert music are shunned because of their film music status and there is a reason for it. This is exactly what is the problem with John Williams’ concert music, but it also hunted people like Korngold, whose concert music suffers from the nature of the sentiment of his concert pieces.
Music is music. 100% subjective. Beal’s gift is an honorable and highly generous act that is supporting artists, musicians, composers. It shouldn’t be critiqued for its direction or worth. There’s plenty of folks who will shell out for a ticket to concerts featuring this music. Most will have a positive experience. The US has a long way to go in supporting the arts. Let’s encourage more support.
That art is 100% subjective is simply not true. Such ideas come from the world view of cultural relativism. If it were true, we would decide that wall grafitti is as valuable as paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, and that rap and hiphop can stand next to Mozart as superb equals. That many people have very underdeveloped tastes, does not mean they are right. Behind such defences of subjectivity lays populism and laziness.
Not a bad idea, but I don’t understand why a video game composer (Eímear Noone) was included. I have yet to hear video game music which was not a fifth-rate pastiche of real music, or alternatively what AI might churn from the prompt “epic orchestral music”.
The why is easy: because Jeff Beal was willing to “pay it back” and spend a considerable sum of money to commission a flute concerto from a video game composer. If nothing else it’ll be interesting to hear what he comes up with.
I am a film composer and think that John Borstlap makes some good points!
I hope you understand I have nothing against film music, it must be great fun to write it, and movies are greatly enhanced by it – and it even earns money – but to assess it with the wrong ears is damaging both film music and concert music. We simply listen with different ears to the two different types of music, in the same way we don’t expect symphonic structural intricacy when we relax with hiphop over tea.
The comparison of film music to opera music… consider how little opera music actually gets into the concert hall. A few overtures are still played but actual in-opera music, aside from Wagner?
A “Meditation” here and an “Intermezzo” there and… that’s about it.
It is possible for a film composer to rework film music material into a viable concert piece. Rózsa’s “Spellbound Concerto” comes to mind.
But how will a fresh piece fare, that doesn’t have the advantage of a thousand game plays in the listener’s ears?
It will probably be like all the others currently written for concert use… once and done.