[Thor Joachim Haga]

How does it help that these are concert pieces composed for their own sake? What does that have to do with the music as such?

Because it’s composed without the constraints of film. I believe many film composers who do concert works speak about this liberty it gives them. Means the music is allowed to be structured differently or developed differently.

So if the exact same piece were not composed as a concert work but specifically for a movie (perhaps UNDER THE SKIN), you’d view the music differently?

Maybe, maybe not. I think in this particular case, it’s more the type of modernist music on display that would be the most important criterion. Some modernist music I connect to, some I don’t (I often have issues with Morricone’s approach, for example, but can appreciate Ligeti or Penderecki…I’ve never been able to work out why or how it is so).

But I personally have trouble imagining that I watch a movie where I find the music stimulating, original and engaging, but then not interesting as music by itself.

For me, it’s fairly easy, because I consider it stimulating, original and engaging IN RELATION TO SPECIFIC IMAGES. It is only in that symbiosis it works. It sometimes doesn’t without it.