Thor Joachim Haga
Forumsvar Lagt Inn
-
Innlegg
-
Great story, Alan.
I do remember a discussion we had in one of the Zoom chats, about how you were more into television in your formative years, than films. GET CARTER, for example, which would be right there in that period, but which never played any particular role in your life. When you talk about solitary existences and television, that kinda makes sense, because cinema-going is a very social activity. So whereas I automatically thought a film like GET CARTER (or its great Roy Budd score) would be a cornerstone of your early years, it really wasn’t. Please correct me if I’m misremembering here.
It’s one out of several LPs I got from my dad. Great stuff. Also love the inclusion of Wendy’s electronic musings. And no, that’s not OUR John Williams, but the guitarist.
I’ll check that out, thanks! Good to hear that he’s keeping busy. There haven’t been any buzz scores by him lately, AFAIK.
I never ordered from Soundtrack Corner. I keep confusing it with another site from yesteryear — Henk’s something or other. Does anyone remember that?
I was asked by someone editing a magazine issue on “pop music in films” recently, if there ever was a pop hit that came out of THE TORN CURTAIN? There isn’t, is there? Does it say anything about it in the liner notes, GerateWohl?
I love De Maeyer’s work on TORPEDO and THE RACER, so I’ll check that out, thanks for the recommendation, Alan!
And now there’s a new one featuring Goldsmith’s THE CHAIRMAN. Will be interesting to see how that progresses.
Composers are now “taking over from Williams” all over the place, with all the new films and TV series coming out. So it’s a somewhat different situation than when this thread was first created in 2018. Interesting. But sorry to say, I’ve largely been disappointed with most of what has come out, score-wise, from these new films and TV shows.
My taste hasn’t changed that much since 2018, but I’ve grown more and more fond of the calm over the rambunctious action stuff.
Maybe my top 5 would look like this:
1. THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS
2. Apollo 13
3. Legends of the Fall
4. The New World
5. House of CardsOr something.
I really wanted to squeeze more of the calmer, explorative Horners in there, but it would be disingenious. And I had to let go of some teenage favourites (APOLLO 13 and LEGENDS OF THE FALL stay on).
I sometimes think about who is the “greatest” living composer within each Nordic country. Of course, what ‘greatest’ means is in the eye of the beholder. But some international exposure is needed for my parameters, I think.
NORWAY — no doubt, the greatest living legends of Norwegian film music are Bøhren & Åserud. But they never had much exposure outside Norway, and they’ve not been very active in the last 20 years. I’m tempted to choose Knut Avenstroup Haugen — based on the immense success of his videogames scores, especially AGE OF CONAN. But soon also a new DUNE game.
DENMARK — Per Nørgård is still alive, age 92, and probably the greatest composer living in Denmark at the moment, but he only did a few scores. Again, I’m tempted to go to videogames and choose Jesper Kyd. He’s a big shot in that industry.
ICELAND — after the passing of Jóhann Jóhannsson, there’s no doubt that the greatest living Icelandic film composer is his protegée, Hildur Gudnadottir. No offense to Atli Örvarsson, Olafur Arnalds and others.
FINLAND — this is tricky. There was a time I would say Tuomas Kantelinen, but these days I’m more tempted to choose Panu Aaltio.
SWEDEN — this is easy. Johan Söderqvist continues to dominate throughout the Nordic countries (he also does lots of Norwegian films). He’s probably the greatest in the Nordic countries right now, after the death of Jóhannsson.
I will never be able to remember the specifics of this thing, like so many other people do with apparent ease.
But I’ve come to terms with a theory that goes thusly:
When I “graduated” from kiddie records to proper music listening in the mid 80s, it was influenced by my dad’s music, and whatever cassettes he donated to me. Things he had taped off of his friends’ LPs, for example. 50’s rock’n’roll, 60s pop music, 70s prog rock/art rock etc.. That became my first real passion. I hated the classical music that my dad constantly played (especially opera!), and was only sporadically interested in whatever was current at the time.
In the late 80s, I started to discover things on my own. Electronic music via (primarily) Jean Michel Jarre, orchestral music via (primarily) those “London Symphony Orchestra Plays Classic Rock” albums.
Then came TWIN PEAKS, ca. 1990. Adored the show, wrote a mini-novel inspired by it and made a cassette copy off of a friend’s CD, with my own, hand-drawn cover. My first instrumental soundtrack, I think. A mild soundtrack curiousity was trigged. Around the same time, I saw THE ABYSS on VHS, and remember lying on the floor as the brilliant end credit music rolled, wondering if soundtracks had the same kind of “concept album” feel I loved in electronic music and prog rock. The film music awareness was properly born. Then with JURASSIC PARK in ’93, the interest was cemented once and for all. So TWIN PEAKS, THE ABYSS, JURASSIC PARK…those are the three scores I credit with my film music interest.
Interestingly, my soundtrack album interest ran parallell to my film interest, but they didn’t have much to do with each other. I wanted soundtrack albums because they were concept albums, whereas film-music-in-context was part of a wider interest in filmatic tools. Hence why I’ve never had any interest in C&C releases.
I think that’s about it, truncated to be as short as possible, like an OST release. 😉
