The Score of Cinema Paradiso

One of my favorite movies of all time, written and directed  by Giuseppe Tornatore and released in 1988 is the story of Salvatore Di Vita (toto) a filmmaker who returns to his hometown for the funeral of his friend Alfredo and there he recalls the memories of his childhood and youth. The soundtrack was composed by maestro Ennio Morricone with collaboration of his son Andrea Morricone and in my opinion has some of the most beautiful and tender themes that have been written for film.

 

Although a simple orchestration,( very different from the large format of Hollywood blockbusters) its evocative power, charm, beauty, and deep emotional connection with the story make it a masterpiece of film music until  the point of turn it transcend even the movie itself, as it has been popularized by many artists who have adapted the melodies (especially the love theme) to play in different formats to  audiences that probably don't know the film.
 

Maestro  Morricone also is well known for his scores for films of spaghetti western as A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and Once Upon a Time (1968) all of writer-director Sergio Leone with whom he helped develop the genre.

 

 

 

 This link will take you to a synopsis of the film.

The Influence of Classical Music in Film Score

We all know that the written music for film makes use of clichés as an anchor point for a necessary emotional connection with the public. And well known are the gadgets that composers used to convey emotions, based on preconceived relationship that the viewer already have about what this or that musical passage can mean, for example: A clarinet in descending scale evokes a dizzying fall in the style of cartoons, a slow melody in a minor key assigned to cellos and basses suggest mystery or an ostinato rhythm in seconds playded by the  violins could take us into a scene of horror as Alfred Hitchcock´s Psycho (composed by Bernard Herrmann)

But how these clichés are born? Who have taken the risk to innovate and contribute new sounds that enrich the palette of harmonies and musical textures applicable to the movies?

Many composers have opened the way, and one of them in my opinion is Igor Stravinsky and especially today I want to name his ballet Petrushka as a contribution not only to music for film, but the incidental music in general.

 This is the story of Petrushka, a puppet that comes to life influenced by the spell of the the Charlatan (a magician) who runs the small theater where he also lives with the Ballerina and the Moor.

Ballerina

The Master Stravinsky created a masterpiece for this story using among other things polytonality (his famous Petrushka chord for example) creating numerous gestures and textures that were, in my opinion as inspiration for many composers. In this work we can enjoy wonderful local color Russians in great dances and incidental music samples as well.

Stravinsky with Nijinsky as Petrushka

 

This link will take you to a synopsis of the piece 

My Favorite Star Wars Themes

Being a symphony orchestra musician  admirer of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Mahler ,Puccini and many other great masters, special place in my preferences has the music master John Williams has written for the Star Wars saga.

The harmonic treatment, wonderful themes that features each of the characters making use of Wagnerian leitmotif, the rich and varied orchestration and that special ability to effectively mix the score with the film attest to the mastery of John Williams to music for film.


  Of all the films so far we have my favorite is The Empire Strikes Back .Its darker and deeper tone, the path each character takes, also the fact that it left in expectation to The Return of the Jedi made it similar in my opinion to a second movement of a symphony that attacca toward the next movement.

 It is in this film which is introduced for the first time the Imperial March one of my favorite tracks and I think one of the most if not the most famous of the whole saga.

 To animate waiting until December 18 when a new chapter of the saga will premiere,I wrote a quartet for basses using two of the most famous themes of the series, I hope you like.