Classical Music-Is it dead or what?

[Trumpton]

Modern classical music I can not fathom. Take that bloke Birtwhistle - his "music" sounds like a pile of cutlery being thrown around a kitchen. It's crap!

[Steve R]

Those already mentioned, such as Nyman, Shore, Tavener and Gorecki (incidentally, pronounced Goretski) have indeed written some fine music in recent years.

Speaking as a violinist, I was particularly impressed with much of the music written by John Williams for the film Schindler's List (and dedicated to my colleague, the violinist Itzhak Perlman, who performed it on the soundtrack).

You know, for many years Hollywood has inspired some marvellous music from the likes of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Miklos Rozsa, Dimitri Tiomkin, Max Steiner and Franz Waxman. Again from a somewhat selfish perspective, I cannot help but mention that Korngold wrote a Concerto for the pre-eminent violinist Jascha Heifetz - re-working several of his famous film themes - that is still played regularly today. Rozsa also wrote a Concerto for Mr Heifetz and Waxman wrote a superb Fantasy on themes from the opera Carmen, also for Mr Heifetz.

Some great players have even settled in Hollywood, enjoying fine careers playing music for the movies, the great violinist Toscha Seidel (arguably the second greatest violinist who ever lived - after Mr Heifetz, of course) comes immediately to mind. He could have effortlessly had a stellar career as a concert artist, but actually preferred to play Hollywood music. Louis Kaufman (Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, The Diary of Anne Frank, Wuthering Heights, The Grapes of Wrath, Spartacus etc) is another.

Let us also not forget Leonard Bernstein (West Side Story).

Personally, my favourite music to play remains the unaccompanied works for violin by Bach and the charming miniatures written by the violinist/composer Fritz Kreisler (1875-1961).

As regards nomenclature, strictly-speaking, classical music was written in the Classical period (late 18th C to early 19th C). What most people (including myself, I admit) refer to as "classical music" should properly be called "serious music", as distinguished from folk, jazz, blues, rock etc, or "popular music".

Just to clarify, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote a piece called The Bumble Bee, as part of a much larger work. The theme was later adapted for the Disney movie Fantasia and only then entitled Flight Of The Bumblebee.

[Deuce Bigolo]

I agree the LOR score was almost perfect
I read the soundtrack was re-worked after the 3 films
Either way I'll be buying the complete works when their out if their not already or downloaded it from purely as a taster you understand

Not surprised after reading the wiki page that Shore was influenced by the music of Wagner(rise of the valkyries springs to mind)

[Deuce Bigolo]

Thanks for the history lesson

Gives me a starting point for a lot of research

I always thought of Classical music as an iceberg

What your exposed to via film scores/adverts is just the tip

[Deuce Bigolo]

Last of mohicans soundtrack was interesting

Sounded very Celtic,then i read this on the wiki page

The main theme of the movie is taken from the tune The Gael by Scottish singer-songwriter Dougie MacLean.



The main thing for me is how well does the music standup without the visual
On the whole quite well

Not sure if I'd say the same thing if I'd heard the music first bein gthe pagan that i am

[beutelwolf]

I think much of the classical music of relevance today is in film music. Nyman was already mentioned, though my favourite, Ennio Morricone, has not yet been listed here. A very simple and very beautiful classical piece is Deborahs Theme (from Once Upon a Time in America).

That kind of modern classical music also often goes beyond the classical instrumentation.

[Steve R]

Oh, Morricone definitely needs to be mentioned, as does Riz Ortolani, of course.

I mentioned just a few as examples, but there are a number of fine musicians writing for the movies in many countries.

[Pervert]

And the king of them all, Bernard Herman.