[Thor Joachim Haga]

I actually follow Thor here. In Opera or ballet the music is a much the central or equally important part. Everything else is primarily made around the music. Music in films is generally only one part of the overall work and competes with everything else. Of course depends on the type of film (and silent movies are as special case additionally but the majority does not watch these). Fact is that film music is not concieved to be listened as a standalone work. Think of image and music counterpoint usages (yeah, probably rare nowadays…). That is a conceptual quality you cannot directly hear in the music itself (e.g. a sad scene scored with funny music).

Exactly. Film music has certain specific properties that other forms of music do not. It’s a separateness that should be CELEBRATED, and not dismissed as just any other type of music. The stance that “music is music” is rather belittling to all the different kinds of music out there. One thing is that it must co-exist with the film’s sound track otherwise (sometimes even merging with it, sometimes standing widely apart from it). Another is the split-second timings within scenes. It’s the musical artform that is the most ADJUSTED to other external things. That means you can easily have scores that work wonderfully in the film, but not so much as pure listening. I’m surprised this is even something to discuss – it’s always seemed to me as one of those “obvious” things that everyone interested in film music experiences once in a while.

I should point out that the opposite is sometimes true as well — a score works poorly in the film, but great on album. Like, say, Williams’ overwrought scoring of Hopkins’ speech in AMISTAD. It just takes the whole thing over the top, melodramatically. Same as the romantic music in Zimmer’s PEARL HARBOR. But alone, without those filmic associations, these are actually fine pieces of music.