Classical Music in Films

[jochanaan]

Haha you guys are so much more effective than any search engine I could use.

I always wonder what classical music fans think when they hear iconic pieces in films used as a score. I mean are you insulted when Apocalypse Now puts Wagner into a completely new context? Do you find that new interpretation interesting?

Most of us, I think (I'm generalizing from my own experience) simply are happy it's out there.

Also: No, John Williams is hardly classical music (Man, Opus106, you got some reaction there) but how do you go about distinguishing here? Is it just the time period? Because aren't there contemporary composers that are called classical? Otherwise: They make symphonies out of Star Wars and play it in opera houses. In 100 years who know Williams and Bach might not be so different from each other in how they are perceived by audiences, no?

Oh god, I feel like I am unleashing a storm^^

That storm has been raging for months on another thread in the Classical Music for Beginners forum.   (Hmmm..."Storm on a Thread"--maybe a title for a new piece, along the lines of "Rage Over a Lost Penny"! )  It's a long but not particularly complex argument; lots of repetition, little development.   My take is that since "classical" as a defining term is completely insufficient anyway, it doesn't really make any difference what you call it.

[Szykneij]

In 100 years who know Williams and Bach might not be so different from each other in how they are perceived by audiences, no?

No.

[karlhenning]

Now, "Williams and Bach are probably basically the same" would be a great post in the Star Wars thread! je-je-je

[jowcol]

Haha you guys are so much more effective than any search engine I could use.

I always wonder what classical music fans think when they hear iconic pieces in films used as a score. I mean are you insulted when Apocalypse Now puts Wagner into a completely new context? Do you find that new interpretation interesting?

I remeber seeing Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet with that amazing opening and it took me forever to find that music^^ So I guess using classical in film is a good chance to get to new/younger audiences...

Also: No, John Williams is hardly classical music (Man, Opus106, you got some reaction there) but how do you go about distinguishing here? Is it just the time period? Because aren't there contemporary composers that are called classical? Otherwise: They make symphonies out of Star Wars and play it in opera houses. In 100 years who know Williams and Bach might not be so different from each other in how they are perceived by audiences, no?

Oh god, I feel like I am unleashing a storm^^

Some nice insights, and don't worry about unleashing a storm, they will happen anyway, and many of the storms  are entertaining if you approach them as an anthropologist or expert on aberrant psychology. 

I like the point about films appropriating music and changing their meaning-- lord knows that Stanley Kubrik has added a very dark edge to The Thieving Magpie in Clockwork Orange.  Or, reaching back, how people associate the William tell OVerture with the Lone Ranger because it was on the tv show.

As far as "what is classical?", some on this forum wouldn't accept anything in the last century as classical-- it's not just film scores.  Minimalism gets the same rap, and many haven't really accepted the 2nd Viennese School.  Deep down it just shows how nebulous a label like "classical" or "jazz" can be.

[eyeresist]

My own definition of the various genres depends on the instruments used.
I guess I define the genres by (a) the sound produced, and (b) the tradition adhering to various instrumental groups. So, for instance, a saxophone, a trumpet, a plucked doublebass and a drum kit to me sound like "jazz", whatever they happen to play. Electric guitar and drums = rock music. So, for me, classical music is played by a symphony orchestra or recognised chamber grouping. If your music is made by an electronic oscillator and a set of car horns, that's not classical, that's something else.

[jochanaan]

My own definition of the various genres depends on the instruments used.
I guess I define the genres by (a) the sound produced, and (b) the tradition adhering to various instrumental groups. So, for instance, a saxophone, a trumpet, a plucked doublebass and a drum kit to me sound like "jazz", whatever they happen to play. Electric guitar and drums = rock music. So, for me, classical music is played by a symphony orchestra or recognised chamber grouping. If your music is made by an electronic oscillator and a set of car horns, that's not classical, that's something else.

So, how would you classify the concert by KISS and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra?  Or "Nights in White Satin" as recorded by the Moody Blues and the London Symphony?

[DavidW]

So, how would you classify the concert by KISS and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra?  Or "Nights in White Satin" as recorded by the Moody Blues and the London Symphony?

Or Eleanor Rigby?  Or Metallica played on cello?

[JenWo]

Well, the S in Metallica's S&M Albums stands for symphony^^ So I guess they have made their own classification already.

Btw: I'll keep my hands off the Star Wars thread. People seem less well tempered in that one^^

Also I am more interested in 'actual' classical music used in film, not in music just written as a score. Friends of mine are just working on a project that mixes classical music with animation and I just always think 'Fantasia' in that category.... But I they don't like that comment^^

[Grazioso]

Nice little mental prisons.

If those definitions are applied absolutely, yes, but there's truth in there, too. I often think of musical genres or streams in terms of Wittgenstein's concept of family resemblances: in the absence of one shared, defining characteristic, certain overlapping (sets of) characteristics are pragmatically used to define genres.

A basic example:

You hear two different pieces of music:

Piece A has: swing feel, improvisation, traditional jazz instrumentation (such as Eyeresist's "saxophone, a trumpet, a plucked doublebass and a drum kit")

Piece B has: swing feel, improvisation, traditional classical instrumentation (let's say a string quartet playing arco)

Does the two traits in common suffice to call them both jazz? Or does the "classical" instrumentation in Piece B make it classical, or some hybrid?

Contexts, expectations, and perceptions of shared traits play a big role in how we perceive and define things.

[DavidW]

Also I am more interested in 'actual' classical music used in film, not in music just written as a score. Friends of mine are just working on a project that mixes classical music with animation and I just always think 'Fantasia' in that category.... But I they don't like that comment^^

Stanley Kubrick liked to use classical music, check out 2001 and the Shining in particular.  Shutter Island uses classical music.  And obvious choices are composer biopicks such as Amadeus.

[eyeresist]

So, how would you classify the concert by KISS and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra?  Or "Nights in White Satin" as recorded by the Moody Blues and the London Symphony?

I would class them both as terrible music. But that "I was made for lovin' you, baby" sure is catchy.

I don't pretend that my system of genre classification is at all systematic! But it does usually prove to match my reactions to individual pieces. It also helps me cock a snoot at some notions of "art music". I recall watching Howard Goodall's documentary "Big Bangs", and being astonished at his assertion that Reich's Different Trains represented the greatest artistic use of sampling technology. There are plenty of more effective uses of sampling in music, but they are mostly in "popular" music (though not necessarily the most popular parts of pop music). They are not classified as "art music", therefore they are not art. Anyone spot the flaw in that reasoning?

[jochanaan]

...Anyone spot the flaw in that reasoning?

Yes, of course.  That's why, more and more, I lean toward using only two classifications: "Good" and "Bad" (and everything in between).

[eyeresist]

There's a great little quote from Raymond Chandler: "There are no vital and significant forms of art; there is only art, and precious little of that."


Actually, he produced a number of neat quotes on the subject of art (the references to "writer" can be applied to any artist):

"Without magic, there is no art. Without art, there is no idealism. Without idealism, there is no integrity. Without integrity, there is nothing but production."

"The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the single most valuable investment a writer can make with his time."

"Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all of the tricks and has nothing to say."

"I merely say that all reading for pleasure is escape, whether it be Greek, mathematics, astronomy, Benedetto Croce, or The Diary of the Forgotten Man. To say otherwise is to be an intellectual snob, and a juvenile at the art of living. All men who read escape from something else into what lies behind the printed page; the quality of the dream may be argued, but its release has become a functional necessity."


And, tangentially related (IMO):
"there is no bad whiskey, there are only some whiskies that aren't as good as others"

[westknife]

I would class them both as terrible music. But that "I was made for lovin' you, baby" sure is catchy.

Nights in White Satin? Terrible? Yikes.

[RJR]

Senso - A 1953 film by Visconit - music from Bruckner's 7th.

Swan Lake - The Mummy, with Boris Karloff.

Aimez-vous Brahms? (Goodbye Again).
Brahms 1st and 3rd (the haunting 3rd movement introduces the film).

[Grazioso]

I recently watched a History Channel documentary about the birth and early years (through the Spanish-American War) of the US Navy, and it relied extensively on classical music. I was so busy playing spot the tune that I missed who won the Civil War

Among others, I heard Brahms, Respighi, and lots of Mahler--at least three of his symphonies were mined for music to portray the drama of naval battle--a bit strange to hear his works when seeing an old painting depicting the War of 1812.

[eyeresist]

Swan Lake - The Mummy, with Boris Karloff.

Yes, this is interesting because early sound films weren't sure what to do as far as music was concerned. In this case, most of the film is without music, but the opening is accompanied by the tremulous theme from Tchaikovsky. Presumably, this kind of borrowing was also done in the theatre, back when play theatres had orchestras.

[sound67]

Yes, this is interesting because early sound films weren't sure what to do as far as music was concerned.

Indeed. Producers were worried the audience might be wondering where the music was coming from - but very quickly, Max Steiner (King Kong) proved conclusively that they need not have worried.

[TheGSMoeller]

http://www.youtube.com/v/INLLSsquzrI

Strauss: Im abendrot from Four Last Songs
David Lynch's Wild at Heart

The opening of this movement is heard several times during the film, here's the opening titles with a wall of flames in the background.

[Kontrapunctus]

Shame, an NC-17 movie starring Michael Fassbender, featured Bach's "Goldberg Variations." That was the movie's sole redeeming feature!