[Nick Zwar]

Every now and then you come across these “essential” scores, “classic must haves”… as if there is a canon, a checklist you are supposed to complete, scores that belong into every collection, scores you must have (and definitely must have heard) before you are allowed to call yourself a “film-music person”. What can I say: I love those “essentials”, I love when knowledgeable people have come together and tried to make a “canon”. Because I found these “canons” usually have value. Such “canons” have enabled me to explore works I might otherwise have overlooked and find composers I otherwise might not have paid much attention to.

When it comes to music, and film music, I tend to be very composer oriented. I don’t listen to film scores so much as I listen to certain composers. Either a composer speaks to me, or they don’t. There isn’t a single composer where I love 60% of their output and hate (or dislike) 40% of their output. It’s usually closer to 0% or 100%, with the occasional outlier of course where I only warm to a small corner of their catalogue, other maybe I don’t like some of their work. That does not mean I like all of their work the same, that also does not mean I have to own all of their scores, but it usually means that if I find a composer worthwhile, I tend to find all or most of their output worthwhile. (There is exactly one Jerry Goldsmith score I really don’t like and have listened to only once(!) but I do like all the other ones. Of course the one I don’t like is nevertheless still in my collection.)

So these “canons” have helped me immensely over the years to broaden my scope. When I first started to “seriously” investigate classical music, I was somewhat at a loss… where to start? What to listen to? I knew that I liked certain composers and had some works (like Beethoven Symphonies, some Richard Strauss or Bartók, Wagner, etc.), I wasn’t a total newbie, but there was so much… what would I like, how should I listen? I came across Aaron Copland’s Book “What to listen to for in Music” when I was 20 or 21, and that book helped me to really discover, appreciate and unlock a lot of works I was previously unfamiliar with.

When I encounter a film score (or a piece of classical music) that is widely appraised and regarded as “great” and I don’t connect with it right away, my first instinct isn’t to dismiss it. I tend to assume the flaw is mine. Not in a self‑flagellating way, but in the sense that the piece clearly works for a lot of people, often times people who seem more erudite and knowledgeable about the subject than I am, so maybe it was the wrong time for me to hear the piece, or my sensibilities are at the time differently oriented. More often than not, the door eventually opens. When I started and in my early years, I did not gravitate towards composers such as Bach, now I can’t get enough Goldberg Variations and have easily over a dozen different recordings.

So no, to get back to the original question: I never listen to anything because I “have to”, and I have no film score in my collection because I “have to”. Music is a passion of mine, and I keep it free from homework and duty. But I’ve learned that many of the pieces that history has elevated to “masterpiece” status actually earned that position for a reason. Sometimes you just need the right angle of entry.

I still have my battered copy of Gramophone’s Film Music Good CD Guide; it came out in 1995, with an “Editor’s Top 40” list. That list nudged me toward composers I had ignored seek out film scores I otherwise might not have. I was film musically more or less, somewhat loosely “locked in” to a certain set of composer, so that book back then helped me open up and discover many film scores and composers I previously ignored. Some of those scores (and composers) have became favorites. So the exercise of listening to the scores I “should” listen to was valuable: it widened the map.

Just this month, I did a “pie chart” on the fly for the FSM board in a thread, a “visual” representation of my music collection… was somewhat revealing to me… considering how “big” Bach has become, yet it was a composer who didn’t do much for me in my younger years.

So do I own classic film scores because I “have to”? No. I own them because I’m curious. These canonical “great” scores, they were reference points for me that helped me navigate the alien landscapes of previously unexplored musical territory. I don’t even think in term of just “liking” or “not liking” them when I first approach such a work, because sometimes a door doesn’t open on the first try, but simply as markers and reference points of territory on the “musical map”. Because I knew very early on that often a movie, a symphony or a film score you once shrugged at may suddenly reveals its inner logic, and you realize such “canons” (ha, a musical pun) aren’t a burden at all, they are an invitation.