[Nicolai P. Zwar]

If it is some consolidation, I enjoy BRAVEHEART the movie but did not even get any anti-English resentment or hatred from the movie. I have the highest respect for the British history and culture even after seeing that movie. It was just one particular King even in the movie, so it’s not as if the movie had a blanket statement that “English are bad”.

it got worse in THE PATRIOT

Well, that was Emmerich. 🙂

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

I’m generally “pro” M. Night Shyamalan, he’s done some great movies and takes some risks, at least he tries some new things. However, he’s really done some awful duds as well, that tarnished his reputation. Unbreakable was my pick as favorite score of 2000. It’s a great score for an excellent movie, that’s a top pick.

I mean, on the plus side we have:
The Sixth Sense (1999)
The movie that started it all. Great movie, holds up super well. Works even if you already “know” the twist (which happened to be the case for me, even though I saw the movie when it originally came out.)

Unbreakable (2000)
Great follow up. One of Shyamalan’s best.

Signs (2002)
Pretty interesting… more like a Twilight Zone episode. Ending a bit weird, but it worked. Haven’t seen it since it came out. Maybe time for a re-watch.

The Village (2004)
Far out premise, yes, some people may laugh at it, but it’s a beautifully done movie. One of Howard’s most beautiful scores, and the movie works for me.

Lady in the Water (2006), The Happening (2008), The Last Airbender (2010) (didn’t see that one), After Earth (2013)
This is were it all comes apart… some of these movies make no sense at all. Lady in the Water, After Earth, they are just plain stupid. The premise doesn’t work, the resolution doesn’t work… Shyamalan is still a good director here, but an awful screenwriter. Didn’t see the last Airbender yet.

The Visit (2015), Split (2016)
With these two movies, Shyamalan is back in form. The first one is a low budget, slow burning horror movie, and the second one was a terrific kidnapping drama, which — surprise, surprise, Shyamalan did what no one has done before: a stealth sequel. That’s the “real” Shyamalan twist here, that the movie turns out to be a sequel to UNBREAKABLE. I don’t think that’s ever been done before, to secretly make a sequel to a successful film and explicitly not market the movie as as such. Boss move!

Glass (2019), Old (2021), Knock at the Cabin (2023)
This is where it gets bad again. GLASS was a disappointing letdown after UNBREAKABLE and SPLIT, OLD wasn’t very good either and had a lame resolution, and KNOCK AT THE CABIN was then totally bad beyond all hope.

I haven’t seen Trap (2024), so not sure where that one falls.

I am very much looking forward to a new M. Night Shyamalan movie scores by James Newton Howard. I’ve seen James Newton Howard in concert a few years ago, and he spoke highly of Shyamalan and called him his “friend”, so there seemed to be no riff between the two, even though Howards had not scored any of his later movies.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

And Horner’s Irish pipes.

As you said, it doesn’t matter. However, the Irish pipes were a logical decision and conscious choice, not a mistake. Irish pipes give the same basic sound sensibility as Scottish pipes, but are much better suited to be integrated within an orchestra. So that was not an fallacy but an obvious choice, as it gave Horner the coloring that he wanted without the problems of Scottish pipes within an orchestra setting/studio. Since Horner’s music was underscore anyway and not within the narrative, it didn’t matter what he used anyway.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

AMISTAD is wonderful. Good score.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Yes TÁR is a good movie, I thought of mentioning it, but then I thought of Lydia Tár primarily as a high-profile conductor in the movie, that’s where the focus was, but yes, she was also a composer.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

As I noted, I’ve seen A.I. – Artificial Intelligence three times so far, once in its original theatrical run, once on DVD, once on Bluray. I do have my issues with the movie, but it’s also a tremendously interesting film. I wish I would be able to enjoy it more than I do.
It was a Stanley Kubrick project which Kubrick himself thought was more suitable for Spielberg. Spielberg took many things from Kubrick’s pre-production, so the idea of a Kubrick/Spielberg collaboration alone is fascinating. The concept of an “A.I.” child is an interesting one, though I wonder if it is really about “Artificial Intelligence” or rather “Artificial Emotions”, or “Programmed Emotions”, because that seems to be at the root of David’s struggle and problems… in any case, an interesting subject.
I think the setup of the movie is great, and the middle part has some of the best scenes Spielberg ever did, the scenes with Jude Law have a wonderful quality, a mix of hard science fiction and dreamlike fairy tale story telling. John Williams’ music is terrific. Yes, it obviously takes its starting points from John Adams and Philip Glass (some parts feel like almost quotes from Glass), but it’s still 100% Williams, he weaves the inspirations into a new whole, excellent score, one of his finest. (I was never happy with the original soundtrack album though, which really shortchanged Williams’ music.)

But the ending… sheesh… the ending of the film undermines so much. I don’t mind the idea of that ending, but the execution. If ever the rule “show, don’t tell” was heavy-handedly broken, it’s this. I remember the first time I saw the movie… I mean, there’s David, under the ocean in New York, before the Blue fairy statue from Coney Island… and then centuries pass by (I love those batteries these things have… Supertoys last all Summer long)… ice covers New York, and when David awakens, it’s a new world, humans are long gone, Mechas have far, far evolved and are now the dominating species… and for them, David is of course of enormous interest and value, since he springs from a time of their origin. So far so good… but then… then the talking starts… it’s Ben Kingsley’s voice, a great voice, and I really love to hear him narrate as the gentle super-Mecha, but the kind of cringy nonsense he is babbling tests my patience.

They love David, he’s so important for them, but he cannot become human, but they can reconstruct the Swinton family home from David’s memories… and then goes on, explaining they have learned to recreate humans from genetic materials, including apparently their souls, but only for one day (what kind of a weird cloning science program is that?), and once they have done this, they cannot do this ever again (WTF… why not?) and conveniently, Teddy has a strand of hair from Monica, so they can now do what they just told us they could do, and then David spends his happiest day with Monica, and as she falls asleep in the evening, Monica tells David that she has always loved him. David lies down next to her and closes his eyes as Teddy watches over them. That last image with Teddy watching is really sweet, but the entire scene before that is just awful.

I am willing to accept a lot in films, but not once did I buy anything that Ben Kingsley Mecha told David. And the movie really spreads this out and let’s the Ben Kingsley Mecha talk this nonsense for what seems like as long as David must have been under the ice. What is he saying? I mean, they can clone humans as grown adults (okay, weird, but an old sci-fi trope, so far I can go along), get the memories of these humans somewhere from outer space (what??), insert these memories into the grown clones (stop it, please!), but these clones live only for one day (say again??), and that entire procedure can only be done once(WTF??)? I really did not buy any of this… that is just suddenly a complete nonsensical magic explanation out of nowhere, it sounds completely insane. That’s so totally far fetched ridiculous, it would have been less magical fantasy if the Blue Fairy just had suddenly become real and made David a boy. That’s the issue I have with the ending, and it undermines a lot for me.
The ending fails because it strived for an emotional resolution the film’s own logic and terms didn’t earn and didn’t want.
But the rest of the movie is very good.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Not near a keyboard, so it’s short ’cause I type this from a phone:
A.I. – Artificial Intelligence has always been a problematic movie for me. From the day I originally saw it (big screen on its original theatrical run), I wished I could like it more than I do, because parts of it are so great. I’ve seen it twice more, once on DVD and once on Bluray. It features some of the greatest and some of the worst scenes in a Spielberg movie I have ever seen.
John Williams music is one of the finest of his career though.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Cloud Atlas

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Braveheart (Mel Gibson) — 8/10
Whoa, haven’t seen this for 30 years, but this one still packs a lot of punch. The historians have been sharpening their knives over this film for decades, of course… with all kinds of things wrong… what’s it again? The tartans are wrong, the timelines are wrong, the kilts are basically time‑traveling fabric. But who cares? Well, ok, I do care, a little, so there goes a point from the review, Mel. But I care just a little, not enough to stop enjoying the thing. Because the story, the emotional sweep, the sheer operatic gist of what is being told still works. It is doing what Mel Gibson is really good at doing: telling a myth and landing it hard. The movie is well made and thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end, great Horner score too. It’s even better than I remember it. FREEDOM!!

The Day After Tomorrow (Roland Emmerich, 2004) — 6/10
If ever there was a successor to Irwin Allen, it’s Roland Emmerich, who just loves to destroy cities and buildings and countries. And that’s why I watch his movies when I feel like watching things get blown up. All Roland Emmerich needs is a “McGuffin” that he uses to stomp all over things, be it Godzilla, Aliens, the moon…
Here it’s climate change… or better climax change, because the weather here changes on a dime and becomes the monster! I had not seen this one, for some reason I never got around to it, so I finally caught up. The movie switches from sun to hailstorms to freeze‑over‑hell temperatures within hours. This is climate out to hunt you down and kill you. As will the escaped wolves, by the way (yes, there are killer wolves in this movie too!) At least that makes climate change fun. Instead of waiting a thousand years for it to happen. Go, climate, go! Get them pesky humans!

The problem is that the story, as so often with Emmerich, really makes no sense. I didn’t get the main plot. I mean, I accept that winds and storms and cold weather is all out to get you and that climate turns deadly within hours, fine… (I mean, I believed that a man can fly back then, so…). But even given its ludicrous but fun premise… why do the people do what they are doing in this movie?
We’re told the entire northern half of the United States is frozen solid, temperatures lower than Antarctica on a bad day and then some. Yet a handful of students survive in a New York library by burning books. Books! Not the furniture, which is mostly made of WOOD and therefore slightly more effective at producing heat than, say, paperbacks? At least they stopped at the Guttenberg Bible. Meanwhile Dennis Quaid decides to walk to Manhattan on foot, through a continent‑wide death blizzard, to do… what, exactly? He’s not bringing a rescue team. He’s not carrying supplies. He’s essentially going there to hug his son, and does so to Harald Klosers (pretty good) music, which is sweet, if you ignore the part where it’s also completely deranged. Ah, and when he arrives, the weather gets better. Always take the weather with you, I guess… (they should have played that song over the scene!)

Still, the film has its moments, Emmerich has a knack to get the most out of his budgets…. the movie cost 125 million dollars and really looks like it. The images and catastrophes are spectacularly done, and that’s why we’re here for, not for the story arcs character development. And the movie delivers on spectacle, that’s for sure. Lots of fun with evil weather gods there. Ah, yeah and those scenes of Americans fleeing south to Mexico. Haha… we get the joke, Roland, perhaps a little too on‑the‑nose? But it’s Emmerich… so it’s everything and the kitchen sink thrown in. Fun popcorn stuff.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Well, I’m off to a good start. Picked “Le Jaquar” as a starting point… instead of charming nice melodies I got big sweeping nice melodies. Bigger sound than I expected from Cosma. Turns out, as I check the booklet, it’s the London Symphony Orchestra… OK, they’re good, I’ve heard (of) them before. Melody and orchestration, if I compare to other composers, a bit Silvestri, a bit Barry mix, which isn’t the worst. Good start. Excellent sound quality. Wow, if the rest is as good as what I’m listening to now as my first pick on a whim (Disc 6 from Volume 1), it’s pretty good. Nothing groundbreaking or disturbing the force, but solid, well composed adventure film music.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

These boxes are available digitally.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Did Cosma ever do avantgarde? Interesting. I always considered him, like Malte said, very melody centric, smaller scores, pleasant, no doubt, but nothing I ever sought out apparently. He did a lot of lighter movies and comedies as well. One thing I remember all the way back from childhood days is the TV miniseries “Kidnapped/The Adventures of David Balfour”. Cosma’s title theme became very famous because the Kelly Family picked it up and made a song (“David’s Song”) out of “David’s Theme”. I paid less than 100€ for BOTH boxes.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Michael Kamen died way too soon, at only 55 in 2003. He’s a bit hit and miss, but I’ve always liked him.

Same here. He started out great, my first encounter was THE DEAD ZONE, which I thought was great. He then did a lot of action scores in the 80s and 90s which I — at the time — considered boring. However, I have come to re-evaluate a lot of them since and my esteem for Michael Kamen has only risen. For example, the LETHAL WEAPON scores are really excellent. And he did some truly wonderful work with scores like THE WINTER GUEST, MR. HOLLAND’S OPUS, and many others.
Also, he seemed to have been an all around great, likeable guy, heard only good things about him. So he’s deeply missed.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

(There you go, now you’ve got Mike Post & Pete Carpenter’s theme music as earworm.)

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

That’s why I use a the Silvestri piece of music as a ringtone: it’s totally suited for it, it almost feels like a ringtone, and it’s unique (no one else has it). I switched off many notifications on my phone, but customized those that I want. My phone doesn’t ring too often, but when it does, I usually want to notice it. Custom ring tones prevent it from confused with anyone else’s phone. Some people even have their own ring/message tones, so I know right away it’s them.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Okay, here’s now the final decade (apart from the current one)

Like with Lord of the Rings, you’ve got the Hobbit scores in that decade. Now they are not on the same level as THE LORD OF THE RINGS, and the movies are certainly not nearly as good, but Shore’s score lacks only in comparison but is still is quite a very good score and achievement. So it gets a full mention:

2012  The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Howard Shore)
2013  The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Howard Shore)
2014  The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (Howard Shore)

But here are my takes “Hobbit-free”. I just did a cursory look through my collection, quite possible I would fine tune this (like any other list) or switch and change things, if I think a bit more about it.

2010  Tron: Legacy (Daft Punk)
2011  Drive (Cliff Martinez)
2012  Cloud Atlas (Tom Tykwer, Johnny Klimek, Reinhold Heil)
2013  Oblivion (M83)
2014  Interstellar (Hans Zimmer)
2015  Jupiter Ascending (Michael Giacchino)
2016  Arrival (Jóhann Jóhannsson)
2017  Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (Alexandre Désplat) (or BLADE RUNNER 2049 by Benjamin Wallfisch & Hans Zimmer… I couldn’t really make up my mind)
2018  First Man (Justin Hurwitz)
2019  A Hidden Life (James Newton Howard)

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

The last two minutes of the JURASSIC PARK theme is an obvious rip-off of Rupert Moonfacer’s Symphony for Monkey Smoothies.

Gee, I’ll be darned, I had never noticed that before.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

This is purely atonal – it’s an example of 12-tone serialism – but, to me, its sound could hardly be further from dissonance, let alone horror.

I never found Webern’s music particularly dissonant or “horrific” either. Webern was an extremely economic composer, whose music has an ethereal, beautifully mysterious quality to it.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

PLAYING BY HEART plays indeed like a stand alone concept album, there are three cool jazz tracks by Chet Baker, and John Barry takes these as a starting point to and fuses his own lush orchestral romantic jazz‑infused film music style and adds cool jazz sensibilities with Chris Botti’s excellent trumpet playing. Great album. Not a “romantic orchestral dramatic film score” though.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Okay, I’m at an age where a sudden win of 100 Million Dollars would be most welcome, but would not destabilize me. Obviously, I would not have to worry about money any more.
If I won 100 Million dollars today, there is a house I would look into buying that I fell in love with a few years ago in Italy, at Lake Garda. I’d try to buy that house, renovate it and bring it technically up to date. Then I’d sit in that house and ponder what else I should do with that money. 🙂

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Films is different… I was looking primarily at scores I enjoy to listen to apart from the movie, though I enjoy a lot of the movies on my list (but not all). I’ve never even seen THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR or THE RED PONY, yet the scores made my list. 🙂

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

There could be something vaguely similar in the perception of primitive musical phenomena such as the special intervals (octave, perfect fifth, etc.).

There could be. Or not. Fact is: we really do not know. By that I mean: there is no conclusive evidence that can even proof why we like music or why it effects us so much. A few years ago I looked into some studies and found it quite interesting. Bottom line is: there is currently no conclusive proof that fully explains why humans like music, why it can affect us so deeply, or why one person is profoundly moved by Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata while another feels little or nothing. Most current theories circle around what seems to be a growing body of evidence pointing toward a combination of innate biological mechanisms and learned cultural influences. One of the strongest findings I remember is that pleasurable musical experiences are associated with dopamine release in reward-related brain regions, in much the same general reward circuits that involved food, social bonding, and other pleasurable experiences become active during music listening. And some people react more to music like that than others. That’s also an obvious fact. Some people are just profoundly moved by certain pieces of music, while others — even with more or less the same cultural and educational background — are indifferent to it. I mean, while you can learn about music, it’s functions, and with that knowledge may come an admiration from a technical point of view, you may appreciate and grant it’s worth, in short, you may learn to “admire” a piece of music, but it’s much harder to learn to “like” a piece of music, especially if you don’t just enjoy listening to it to begin with.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Yeah, as I said, I tend to group things and see sometimes the scope and body of work. I even hesitated to include THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, because while I see the individual scores for these films, I can also view STAR WARS as one single body of interrelated compositions. It’s even more extreme with THE LORD OF THE RINGS, which literally is just one long film and not even a “real” trilogy. (Just like the original novel eventually had a preface that began with “The Lord of the Rings is often erroneously called a trilogy, when it is in fact a single novel” just because even before the movie(s) came out, people sometimes thought of it as a trilogy, which it definitely isn’t.)
So THE LORD OF THE RINGS is one film and one film score, it’s just very long (it’s a long book too).
But I agree that A.I. – ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE is a great score too, as are the others… which is why I annotated my selections. 🙂

As I noted, my choices are of course subject to change at any time. I might just suddenly change something or think “gee, why didn’t I include X instead of Y?”. Obviously, some years were easier than others…. 1960? Dang, what do I put in there. THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN by Elmer Bernstein? SPARTACUS by Alex North? I put in PSYCHO by Bernard Herrmann, but these other two were just as good and at any other day….

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Okay, and now let’s bracket it with the 1940s and the 2000s… not sure I can go any further in either direction…

So for the 1940s:

1940  Rebecca (Franz Waxman)
1941  Citizen Kane (Bernard Herrmann)
1942  The Jungle Book (Miklós Rózsa)
1943  I Walked With a Zombie (Roy Webb)
1944  Double Indemnity (Miklós Rózsa)
1945  The Lost Weekend (Miklós Rózsa)
1946  The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (Miklós Rózsa)
1947  The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Bernard Herrmann)
1948  The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Max Steiner)
1949  The Red Pony (Aaron Copland)

And the 2000s:

Now this decade demonstrates the need to “group” some things, otherwise it becomes boring.

The best film score of 2001 is Howard Shore’s THE LORD OF THE RINGS, but it extends to 2003. It’s basically just one long film score released over three years, so I could just insert:

2001 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
2002 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2003 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

and be done with it. But I guess that’s not so interesting, so I pick an alternative title for each year. In any case, THE LORD OF THE RINGS is the winner of the decade.

So here we go with a “Lord of the Rings” free selection of the decade:

2000  Unbreakable (James Newton Howard)
2001  A.I. Artificial Intelligence (John Williams)
2002  Star Trek – Nemesis (Jerry Goldsmith)
2003  The Last Samurai (Hans Zimmer)
2004  The Village (James Newton Howard)
2005  Kingdom of Heaven (Harry Gregson‑Williams)
2006  Pan’s Labyrinth (Javier Navarrete)
2007  Zodiac (David Shire)
2008  The Dark Knight (Hans Zimmer)
2009  Avatar (James Horner)

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

I’m doing this on the fly, as you can see… just a few minutes for each decade… not too much thinking about it… so these lists are of course subject to change without notice, they could be fine-tuned or updated or changed at any given time… but you have to start somewhere…

So let’s go with the next “surrounding decades”… (now I slowly start to realize why starting with the 1970s was a good idea… it enables me to branch out forward and backward… didn’t consciously start out with that intention, but seems to make it easier and quicker to just compile these lists without spending too much time pondering on it. Interestingly enough, it seems also to become less composer centric than the 1970s…

Here we go with 1950s:

1950  Sunset Boulevard (Franz Waxman)
1951  The Day the Earth Stood Still (Bernard Herrmann)
1952  High Noon (Dimitri Tiomkin)
1953  Beneath the 12‑Mile Reef (Bernard Herrmann)
1954  Godzilla (Akira Ifukube)
1955  East of Eden / Rebel Without a Cause (Leonard Rosenman)
1956  Forbidden Planet (Louis and Bebe Barron)
1957  Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (Dimitri Tiomkin)
1958  The Big Country (Jerome Moross)
1959  North by Northwest (Bernard Herrmann)

And the 1990s:

1990  Edward Scissorhands (Danny Elfman)
1991  Cape Fear (Bernard Herrmann / Elmer Bernstein)
1992  Bram Stoker’s Dracula (Wojciech Kilar)
1993  Tombstone (Bruce Broughton)
1994  Wyatt Earp (James Newton Howard)
1995  Braveheart (James Horner)
1996  Last Man Standing (Ry Cooder / Elmer Bernstein)
1997  Kundun (Philip Glass)
1998  The Thin Red Line (Hans Zimmer)
1999  American Beauty (Thomas Newman)

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Pretty dominated by two composers there, as one would expect.

Yes, and I could have easily done lists more varied, with different composers, or such self imposed limitations as “just name each composer once per decade”, or something like it. Here I thought I just go for it and don’t care if I mention the same composer many times.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

And while I’m at it, I tried to do the surrounding decades.

The 1960s:

1960  Psycho (Bernard Herrmann)
1961  El Cid (Miklós Rózsa)
1962  Lawrence of Arabia (Maurice Jarre)
1963  Cleopatra (Alex North)
1964  Marnie (Bernard Herrmann)
1965  A Patch of Blue (Jerry Goldsmith)
1966  Fantastic Voyage (Leonard Rosenman)
1967  The Flim‑Flam Man (Jerry Goldsmith)
1968  Once Upon a Time in the West (Ennio Morricone)
1969  The Wild Bunch (Jerry Fielding)

And the 1980s:

1980  The Empire Strikes Back (John Williams)
1981  Body Heat (John Barry)
1982  Blade Runner (Vangelis)
1983  Twilight Zone – The Movie (Jerry Goldsmith)
1984  Once Upon a Time in America (Ennio Morricone)
1985  Legend (Jerry Goldsmith)
1986  The Mission (Ennio Morricone)
1987  Empire of the Sun / Witches of Eastwick (John Williams)
1988  Rain Man (Hans Zimmer)
1989  Glory (James Horner)

Again, the “two scores” indicate just a “flip of the coin” choice, though I tried to do that only if it’s at least the same composer.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

OK, I have to break this down into decades, or I never get around to it… let’s start with the 1970s for some reason….

1970  Tora! Tora! Tora! / Patton (Jerry Goldsmith)
1971  Lawman (Jerry Fielding)
1972  The Other (Jerry Goldsmith)
1973  Papillon (Jerry Goldsmith)
1974  Chinatown (Jerry Goldsmith)
1975  Jaws (John Williams)
1976  Taxi Driver (Bernard Herrmann)
1977  Star Wars / Close Encounters (John Williams)
1978  Superman/Jaws 2 (John Williams)
1979  Alien / Star Trek – The Motion Picture (Jerry Goldsmith)

The years were I mentioned two movies are just indicative of that these are always “flip of the coin” picks, I don’t have a clear preference, and it’s sometimes this, sometimes that one.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

It’s funny that Thor mentioned his craving for potato chips, for example, because I was just thinking about the food analogy as well: no doubt there are certain predispositions of food that we particularly long or crave, on the other hand, there are a lot of what is usually called acquired tastes, such as Roquefort cheese, which is not something I would have even tried as a kid and now love.

There are, or better there used to be, as no biologist really believes that anymore, the theory, that when human beings are born, they are basically “blank” beings, and then only their nurturing, parents, society, etc. shapes them into who they are, but we know today that’s not really true. Quite the contrary, when human beings are born, they are totally “individual”, babies have very different personalities and predispositions to things totally independent of any outside influences. However, when they grow up, nurturing, parents, family, society, school etc. has a tremendous influence on how their personalities develop. So there is a part of our personality that is “ingrained”, and a part of our personality that is “learned”, but since we are complex biological beings, we cannot just cut clear lines to determine what is what.

For example, while I was always having music around and found music enjoyable, it was when I was 14 that I seriously started to collect records and had a more than passing (obviously) interest in music. It’s also funny Thor mentioned Stockhausen and Webern and Penderecki, as those were composers I had no issues with. Those interested me early on. I found certain types of music appealing early on, including Beethoven, Stravinsky, Schönberg, Bartók, etc, while I needed much longer to warm up to Brahms or Bach, both of whom are now among my all time favorite composers. So Brahms and Bach were more of an acquired taste for me than Schönberg or Stravinsky or Bartók… I’m sure there are those for whom it is the other way around.

One thing I considered a musical insult to my taste was just about anything with the label “easy listening”. I despised the kind of albums Henry Mancini produced out of his film scores, that was just bland, boring, meaningless drivel to me. It wasn’t until I had some exchanges with the late Guy McKone that I reconsidered and at least partially revised my abhorrence. It took me a long time to really get into Ralph Vaughan-Williams… I bought my first album of his music in 1999, and it took me until 2014 to really branch out… but then I was hooked. Now I have several symphony cycles of his work and other stuff, he’s a fascinating and great composer, but back when I was a teenager or in my 20s, I wondered why anyone would listen to this old-fashioned British guy when there was so much exciting “new” music by the likes of Stockhausen, Boulez, Ligeti, etc… that sparked my interest more.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Wow, was THE BURBS $75.-?
I remember indeed buying many film score CDs (it seemed to effect only film scores) back in their day simply because it felt like it could be the only time in history a score might be released. But I missed out on the original release of THE BURBS, though I got the Varese Deluxe and even later the La-La Land.

But that’s about what I came out to pay for RUNNING MAN.

[Author]

Posts