[Malte Müller]

the scene is edited to the music, or even such a device is used without film (such as the snare drummroll and sudden orchestral “drop” to announce Till Eulenspiegel’s execution in Richard Strauss’ composition… could have been Mickey-Mousing film music, but it’s not film music at all.)

But here the composer chooses it by musical means and not because the film demands it.

(…) he contrary, it serves more as an explanation for why a lot of film music gets away with a lack of quality, for why a lot of it is (barely) serviceable, but not great.

It could also be seen that the quality of film music may at least partly lay outside of pure musical measures.

Most people don’t listen to film music albums to begin with.

And they don’t really do that within a movie as well.

Great topic btw even if we might not come to a conclusion 😉