Thor Joachim Haga
Forumsvar Lagt Inn
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Innlegg
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But be that as it may, liner notes often to go beyond that, and do comment on the subtext of the scene or explore what and how the music does to communicate.
Sometimes, but far too seldom, IMO.
That’s a good one. I’m soon on to Rachel Portman myself. The master of writing a beautiful theme, and then repeating it over and over again.
I see that BSX just reissued Jack Nitzsche’s RAZOR’S EDGE, a score I have yet to check out.
But it reminded me of this thread, since Nitzsche has some controversial elements in his personal life – like attacking his own wife in 1979 (the wife was the late Carrie Snodgrass, who – incidentally – I saw on TV just last night, as I’ve started watching X-FILES again; she appeared in an early episode there). More details on his Wiki page.
That still doesn’t make me like things like STARMAN or ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST any less, though.
This topic highly corresponds with my one hit wonder thread.
You’re right. My bad. I just wanted to open up for more than one, but less than five — but we could have expanded that other thread to include that. Oh well. What’s done is done. Some good suggestions so far that wouldn’t fit in that, anyway.
It all started when I played FLOWERS OF WAR by Qigang Chen, as mentioned in the “What are you listening to?” thread – a composer that has only THREE film scores, AFAIK. The rest is concert music.
But speaking of Chinese people, I think Tan Dun would qualify too, with five film scores?
This sumptous orchestral score totally blew me away in 2011. Chen is Chinese, but moved to France in his early 30s and became the last student of Olivier Messiaen, no less. He’s mostly written concert music, but a few scores as well. I should really set aside time to explore his other work some day, based on this brilliant effort. Plus, it’s given me an idea for a new topic.
As I’ve said before in this thread, I don’t play videogames anymore. However, I do latch on to new videogame scores quite often, especially if they’re electronic.
Two favourites in recent years are FAR CRY 3: BLOOD DRAGON (2013) and TRIALS OF THE BLOOD DRAGON (2016) by the Australian duo Power Glove. I believe the first is an expansion pack to FAR CRY 3 (FAR CRY is a popular adventure game series). TRIALS is a spin-off of BLOOD DRAGON again. Or something like that. It’s all rather complex for someone like me who’s no longer in the loop.
But it’s the music that counts. They’re not only wonderful synthwave, but have many direct references to Faltermeyer, Fiedel, Vangelis etc. Well worth checking out for other fans of these:
That theme from PASSION (Perversions & Diversions) is wonderful.
Sure is. In fact, I love Donaggio’s synth stuff just as much as the orchestral.
There are many to choose from (and there is quite a bit in the three erotica scores that I will share later, in that thread), but here’s another one – the track “Giú dal cielo” from DON CAMILLO (1984). It sounds like a take on TOP GUN, but was actually composed two years earlier:
This is what HF has been doing recently:
Wow, that was awful.
But glad he’s keeping busy, at least (and Johnny Logan, for that matter).
Oh, and in case you missed it, Jon & Tim had a brief interview in 2023 with the man himself. And Jon has provided a very thorough filmography here.
Interestingly, there is very little CGI in ALIEN 3. The alien is mostly puppet (even that famous shot of it at the top of the ceiling). But the slick and somewhat jittery effect does make it look like early CGI a bit, and I even thought it was for years.
Totally agreed! Now if the liner notes could, instead, speak about the SUBTEXT of the scene, and what the music does to communicate it, that would be something else altogether. That would be ‘future scenario 2’ from the post above.
I think subjective evaluations can open up a whole new room of understanding of a work.
A sort of related example is featurettes on DVDs and Blu-rays. Most of the time, they’re straightforward featurettes about the nuts and bolts of the production (sometimes casually, sometimes more in-depth), and they can be both enlightening and useful. But they don’t really widen my horizons.
Vice versa, you have something like the feature-length ‘making of’ on my old DVD of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, which is more of a ‘film essay’, really, that contains vibrant, almost poetic language and plenty of interpretations. These (often subjective) observations have led me to a deeper understanding of the work; things I hadn’t noticed on my own. Doesn’t mean I have to agree with everything (I have my own interpretations as well), but they’re gateways into a work. Liner notes can fill that function too, but they rarely do.
Yes, we seem to appreciate different things there. Per what we were discussing in the Williams book thread, I think a text automatically gets more “life” when there are subjective interpretations involved (whether I agree with them or not). The superficial-technical-contextual descriptions may be more timeless, or have added value when one needs sheer information, but it’s often also boring as hell as a reading experience. Like a manual.
For example, if I read a text where the author describes why THAT particular instrument creates THAT particular association or meaning in a work, that’s life and energy right there. Keeps it interesting. Or the shift in timbres or rhythms as they pertain to other parts of the work. Etc. This is fairly common in liner notes about non-programmatic works.
But context can be many things. Whole institutions exist that research and analyse music. It’s one thing to describe – in technical terms – the music on a superficial level, but the best analyses provide interpretation. Many classical album liner notes have this (in addition to all the other things, like the circumstances of the work’s creation). I would love it if soundtracks had that too; just describing and interpreting what the music does on its own. But that’s all very unlikely, of course.
