[Nick Zwar]

I have one more… well, I got more than four, but I originally wanted to pick four examples, but didn’t get to finish what I wanted to write. So here is the fourth one I didn’t get around to writing yesterday (we went to the theater).
Phlip Glass’ KOYAANISQATSI (1982), which opened completely new doors of music for me. I was a teen back then, and had never heard anything like it before. I was already interested in both classical music and film music, I knew Wagner and Beethoven and Stravinsky, and even some Schönberg, even some Ligeti, and of course Morricone, Williams, Goldsmith for film scores… but here came something along I had never heard before.
A type of music that would be called “minimalist” (I didn’t know the term back then), but Glass music was repeating arpeggios, gradual shifts, hypnotic layering… if Wagner’s music was oil paintings and Stravinsky’s music was ink sketches Glass’ music was… mosaics.
I was still in school, but I had a summer internship at the German distributer for KOYAANISQATSI, Atlas film, and access to all the promotional materials, so I got the poster and LP and stuff.
Glass music was perhaps the type of “current” modern classical music that was not overly concept bound and abstract, nor was is it simply regurgitating neo-romantic paths… it was definitely something different. KOAANISQATSI back in the day was an experiment, it was a highly influential film, and Glass himself would go on to apply his techniques and compose some very impressive film scores for movies with a more “classic” narrative. We’re all used to minimalist sound and music by now, but back in 1982, the music KOYAANISQATSI was radical. Even today, when I listen to it, the music has not aged, not dated, the music is timeless. (And was partially used, very effectively, in both the trailer and the movie for Zack Snyder’s WATCHMEN.)
That was the fourth score I wanted to mention among my examples for “great” film scores. And this one was one that would have fit in no score card I would have had back ín the day.