The Problem of Modern Film Music

We all have a few favorite movies that are remembered and loved not only by the plot but also for some other important components of a good film. Every carefully selected phrase, characteristic acting manner and memorable sound make us sometimes almost forget the movie but keep remembering a saying from it, a behavioral pattern or a song.

Music is by far one of the most important elements that can become key to the success of a certain film work. But as time shows, old film music was way more sophisticated compared to what is offered by the modern cinematography. And the problem to this is what is referred to as ‘temp music’. A notion that makes all major scenes in different film sound almost same and thus not memorable.

Let’s say you are asked to sing some tune from the Pink Panther. No doubt, the first thing you’d remember and reproduce would be the famous to-do, to-do, to-do, to-do, to-doo, the theme composed by Henri Mancini. Or, asked to sing something from a James Bond movie, you would unmistakably come up with the few recognizable notes of the theme.

However, if we take some of the contemporary films like those made by Marvel studio (great films, though!), we might find ourselves at a loss, since hardly anyone would remember a popular brand piece of music from them. Symphonic music is getting widely sampled and is roaming from one film to another, losing the power of its influence on the viewer. The video below describes this problem in detail and I would like you to watch it too. I think that but for it, I would not pay any attention to this issue, for so smooth and unnoticeable this transition has been made.

Wagner’s Tannhäuser in the Scanner

Science is a curious madam. She wants to know where you’ve been, what you’ve done and how you did it. She just has to!

Here’s a pretty amazing video on how this curious madam decided to see what happens to the vocal chords of a professional singer on the inside. Well, rather say from the side. Michael Volle, a German operatic baritone, went inside of the MRI scanner for another performance. He sang the popular yet challenging aria from Richard Wagner’s opera “Tannhäuser” and his moves were carefully watched and analyzed.

Experts say that this experiment might help to solve some of the mysteries concerning the way operatic singers belt out sounds and will also provide more information on the mechanisms and special features of the vocal tract in general.

Amazing Grace: Important Symbol of Christian World

Amazing Grace is among the music compositions most loved by the English language world, particularly by the Americans. It can be heard in most churches, beautifully sung by mixed choirs, it is performed by solo performers at various occasions – contests, auditions – at stage, it can be heard at the homes of common people at festive holidays, religious and not. And it could be even heard sung by the President of the U.S. Barack Obama in public (which was later featured by Coldplay in their song Kaleidoscope). All in all, they say the approximate number of times the hymn is performed annually reaches 10 million. Why so?

Barack Obama sings Amazing Grace (2015)

Digging into the history behind the piece, I realized that it has some of the elements that could not but make it popular among the people. Based on the words and story of the English poet John Newton, the hymn has become a universal work to encompass what people value in life. According to the author’s experience where he passed the way from sinning to redemption (J. Newton was in slave trading for a long time), it becomes obvious that even the toughest hardships in life can be resolved with the help of God and faith. The moment Newton begged for God’s mercy in a violent storm became the start of his spiritual conversion.

The message of the spiritual is so emblematic that the composition crossed the line of religious music pretty fast and welled over into the secular genre. Thousands of all possible music arrangements appeared with time and the interest to Amazing Grace has not run out of steam yet. Arrangers tried adding most unusual and unexpected elements to the hymnal, making it sound a bit jazzy, or a bit soulful, for example. The variety of instrumental combinations for which the piece was score is also surprisingly extensive. Some things will always be valued, it seems.

Vivaldi’s Four Seasons – a YouTube Star

In 2012, I was honestly surprised to find out that the video to a pop song by some Korean guy beat all possible records and broke YouTube’s views counter exceeding its limits. Of course, pop music’s feature is its massive character, it’s meant to be popular worldwide and cover the widest range of audience.

Classical music, unlike Pop, is a much narrower sphere aimed at the limited audience. No matter how beautiful classics are, tastes differ and the crowd prefers what’s mainstream.

In this regard, my big pleasure was to find out that a few days ago one of the most well-known classical masterpieces – Antonio Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” – became another ‘YouTube star’ by passing the 100 mln views milestone. Isn’t it great that a huge music work like that is in the row of videos most viewed by the people? Could Vivaldi imagine something like that back in 1725 when his set of four concerti was premiered in Amsterdam? It still far from Psy’s Gangnam Style’s 2,6 bln views yet but I think it’s already an important sign.

I sincerely hope that classical music will become more popular among the young people of today.

Maurice Ravel’s Bolero Is Free

Composing one of his last works, Maurice Ravel had hardly thought that this one would become his most renowned and well-known piece of music. “Boléro” was intended to become a ballet to be commissioned by the talented actress and ballet dancer Ida Rubinstein, a most charming and attractive woman, on top of that, who asked Ravel to orchestrate 6 pieces by Isaac Albéniz' known as “Iberia”.

Ida Rubinstein (1913)

Portrait by Antonio de la Gandara 

However, another orchestration to that piano set already existed (by Enrique Fernández Arbós), so Ravel did not want to sort out the copyright issues. Instead, he decided to create a completely new piece. One of composer’s interests was experimenting with dance themes. He loved to reinvent and restyle various dances, so the one-movement “Boléro” (the name of a Spanish dance too) became a perfect foothold for that.

The sensational popularity and success that followed became a sheer surprise to Ravel. Premiered in 1928 in Paris, the musical work was a big delight to the public. The author, however, was not always pleased with the interpretation of his creation on stage. Ravel often judged the conductors for the too fast tempo. Even Arturo Toscanini’s premiere of “Boléro” in New York (that made the work popular in the USA) did not please the composer, for the same reason – a too fast tempo!

These disputes, however, did not stop the ballet from becoming one of the most popular masterpieces in the history of music. According to the French Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers, the performance of “Boléro” begins every 10 minutes somewhere in the world. Just think about it!

And more figures: $60 mln is the sum of the royalties earned by the copyright holders of the famous piece since as long as 1960. But on May 1, 2016, this flow of royalties has stopped. Maurice Ravel’s “Boléro” has officially entered into the public domain and is free now.

Can-Can by Jacques Offenbach

The scandalous and provocative dance ‘of prostitutes’, can-can was to traditional dancing culture of the 19th century what rock’n’roll was to music at its origins. The physically demanding dance was not accepted that easily by the conservative society and was often banned in public. People protested against seeing women’s underwear being revealed so obviously during the performance of the famous high kicks (What would they say to modern ‘twerk’, huh?).

Cancan dancers

In fact, the origin of the now popular French dance is not so naughty. It is believed that cancan could have derived from quadrille dance (final part) or the acrobatic tricks of the entertainer known as Charles Mazurier (1820s). Moreover, at the very beginning both sexes performed the dance and there were solely male cancan groups too. The famous cabaret of Paris – Moulin Rouge – brought to light the first female cancan star-dancers (La Goulue & Jane Avril) and the notion “French cancan” turned into a national peculiarity attracting tourists from abroad.

The catchy tune that most of us would associate with the popular dance was composed by the French cellist and composer born in Germany – Jacques Offenbach. His “Can-Can” is actually titled “Infernal Galop” and is a part of the classical operetta “Orpheus in the Underworld” first performed in 1858. Just like the dance, this music work shocked the public at the premiere with too much satire in it. The entire work became a parody for the opera Orpheus and Eurydice by Christoph Gluck.

Offenbach’s ‘can-can’ was also arranged by the famous French composer Camille Saint-Saëns and appears in his renowned The Carnival of the Animals, where the piece is used for the tortoise part.  

Schubert's String Quartet "Death and the Maiden"

This quartet can by right be called one of the strongest pillars in the genre of chamber music. Most of the string quartets out there would necessarily have it in their repertoire. It might seem that the negative emotions in our life, be it anger, fear, despair and what not, are the best catalysts for creating art masterpieces, compared to the emotions of happiness that trigger fewer grand works.

Original manuscript of Schubert's "Death and the Maiden"

Schubert wrote the work in 1824, during a very hard period of life for him. He lived in poverty and his health was rapidly leaving him (assumable, syphilis). The moment he realized that death is soon and inevitable, is brightly depicted in this music work. Although death is the subject of the 2nd movement, one can note that it soars through the entire composition. The string quartet “Death and the Maiden” was not a completely new work. The composer took its theme from his earlier work of the same name, a lied based on a poem by Matthias Claudius that he wrote in 1817.

Reportedly, the first violinist to perform the quartet (Schuppanzigh) was not quite impressed with Schubert’s depressive composition. However, after being published 3 years after the composer’s death it promptly conquered its place at the concert stage. The work was soon transcribed by Robert Franz and Gustav Mahler and later, in the 20th century, versions for full orchestra appeared (J. Foulds, A. Stein). The memorable composition also inspired the creation of the play/film of the same name, as well as was used in a number of other films like “Sherlock Holmes” or Polanski’s “What?”, for example.

Personally, I like perhaps the only death-unrelated part of the work – the tarantella at the very end of the quartet. It is believed that tarantella dance used to be a traditional treatment for madness and a way of fighting off death (after a tarantula’s bite). Well, maybe this was the expression of the subtle hope that was still beaming in the heart of the dying composer.