Erich Wolfgang Korngold
was born on May 29th, 1897 in Brno and grew up in Vienna where his fame of
child prodigy was approved by great masters as Gustav Mahler and Richard
Strauss and his compositions were interpreted for renown virtuous of the early twenty
century. although Being so young Korngold's
music was accepted for the public and critics and was compared with Mozart.
His composition of that
time cover a wide spectrum of genre from camera music to opera, piano sonatas,
symphonies and adaptations of already composed music demonstrated the
flexibility and skills of the young composer to attempt almost any form and
genre of artistic expression. The increase of political tension in Europe and
the beginning of the persecution of Jewish accelerated his decision of move
with his family to America where he helped
to establish a language and method of composition to films.
His wisdom to maneuver
dramatic elements, his knowledge and experience in opera and his extraordinary
richness of orchestration makes his scores the landmark of the Golden Age of
Hollywood alongside with Max Steiner and others European Composers.
Captain Blood (1935),
Anthony Adverse (1936), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), The Prince and the
Pauper (1937), Juarez (1939), The Sea Hawk (1940), The Sea Wolf (1941), Kings
Row (1941), and Deception (1946) scores
are examples of the prolific genius of Korngold
to write incidental music and in my opinion are truly masterpieces that should
be included more often in the programming of symphonic orchestras around the
world as other great pieces of film music.
Everyone has his own opinion about averything and that is right, in this case the list is about the most influential original scores of all times (not necessary the bests), and this kind of point of view always raises controversy, but I have wanted to share my own preferences on that subject . I know many of you probably will disagree with more than one of the choices , but here we go, feel free to leave your comments or your own list.
1) 2001 a Space Odyssey, 1968, Richard Strauss, Johann
Strauss Jr. Aram Khachaturian y György Ligeti: Director Stanley Kubrick used music by classical composers instead of the score that Alex North composed for the film, and used Ligeti's works without his consent, sparking a great controversy. In spite of all this the soundtrack is wonderful, because Kubrick created a kind of poetic dance between its filmic vision and the music of the great masters, in my opinion the use that the director does of the introduction of Thus I speak Zarathustra by Strauss caused such a association with dawn that it became a cliche..
2)The Godfather 1972, Nino Rota: Another classic of film score, the Italian composer Nino Rota better than anyone could draw the world of the Italian mafia through music , and two years later he won an academy award for his work to the sequel of this film.
3)Psycho 1960, Bernard Herrmann: Whatwe can say about this super classic of the movies?who has not listened the music of the shower sequence that has become a suspense genre standard imitated and parodied countless times in film and TV.
4)Jaws 1975 John Williams: The great composer John Williams won his very first academy award for this extraordinary score that could keep everyone under suspense until the end of the movie.
5) Gone with the wind 1939 Max Steiner: Marvelously lyrical and romantic this beautiful score belong to the golden age of Hollywood films written by the extraordinary Austrian composer Max Steiner.
6)Chariots of Fire 1981, Vangelis: Despite it is not my favorite style of sound I have to recognize the enormous contribution that this soundtrack has made to improve and enrich the vocabulary of film music and that is why is here.
7)The Good, The Bad and The Ugly 1966, Ennio Morricone: This Score is the fruit of the collaboration of Master Ennio Morricone with the director Sergio Leone and it helped to establish a genre (Spaghetti Western) absolutely recognizable and distinguishable using among other important elements, an unusual orchestration that combine traditional symphonic instrumentation with guitars, whistling, gunshotshuman voices and noises.
8)The Lord of The Rings Trilogy: 2001-2003: Master Howard Shore created a Sound Landscape dark and deep to accompany the colossal trilogy that was based on the books written by J.R.R. Tolkien.
9)The Dark Knight 2008, Hans Zimmer: A masterpiece of film scoring, in my opinion Master Hans Zimmer has redefined the concepts of film composition with his work along the years and this extraordinary score is an example of that.
10) Star Wars 1977, John Williams: I think this is one of the most recognizable Scores in the History of films, and is undeniable its impact in the popular culture of our times. The uses of Leitmotiv as an emotional anchor to every of the principal characters is one of the multiple reasons that makes this score unforgettable to the great audiences.
Many composers
from Europe arrived to USA in the 1930s
persecuted for their political or religious thought. They had a deep training
in composition, orchestration and conducting with high levels of knowledge in
the music of the 18th and 19th centuries specially opera, symphonic and chamber music.
Men as Max
Steiner, Enrich Korngold from Austria, Miklos Rozsa from Hungary, Branislav
Kaper from Poland and Franz Waxman from Germany are great examples of composers
that emigrated to America and contributed to establish an industry that was
constantly expanding and they helped to
arrived to its "Golden Age"
(1930-1950).
Max Steiner
Erich Korngold
This
contribution was, in my opinion determinant to develop a film score language
that became the hallmark of Hollywood and that is the base of all we have and
enjoy now. I think the knowledge and expertise that these men had in the
dramatic path of opera was very important to establish the creative canon and
criterion that composers follow
today in order to write an
appropriate score to a film production.
The way
these Masters composed, orchestrated, conducted became the standard of the industry and was imitated and enriched
by the next generations of composers.
Miklos Rosza
A lot of
compositing techniques and styles have been added to the film scoring language
from these years until now, but we have to recognize that these Masters have a
great place in the Olympus of film composers.
His composition of that
time cover a wide spectrum of genre from camera music to opera, piano sonatas,
symphonies and adaptations of already composed music demonstrated the
flexibility and skills of the young composer to attempt almost any form and
genre of artistic expression. The increase of political tension in Europe and
the beginning of the persecution of Jewish accelerated his decision of move
with his family to America where he helped
to establish a language and method of composition to films.
