2. Early Film Music Films shown starting in 1890s
Projectors were noisy for silent films
Live music added to cover noise
Piano used with film in Paris, 1895
In 1908, Paris company, Le Film d’Art, commissioned Camille Saint-Saëns to compose music for L’assassinat du Duc de Guise; live musicians played during film screeings
Work by Saint-Saëns was a success, but increased expense for theaters 2

3. Early Film Music
1909
Edison film company produced list of classical works that would fit specific moods
1912
Max Winkler created cue sheets
1926
Warner Brothers produced vitaphone system
Vitaphone films included Don Juan and The Jazz Sing 3

4. Film Composers 4 Max Steiner became one of the first movie composers
1933, King Kong
1939, Gone With the Wind
1942, Casablanca
Bernard Herrmann
1941, Citizen Kane
1958, Vertigo
1960, Psycho
Several other Hitchcock films
Aaron Copland
1948, The Heiress 4

5. Later Film-Scoring Practices
Use of previously recorded music
2001: A Space Odyssey uses music by Richard Strauss; Johann Strauss; Ligeti; Khatchaturian
Music is essential to film; only 40 minutes of dialogue
Composing new music and existing music
John Williams wrote score; music included in 88 of 121 minutes of movice
Williams used a main theme that functioned like an opera overture
Williams used leitmotif technique for each character, like Wagner 6

6. Featured Listening : “Main Theme” from Star Wars by John Williams
Composed for film in 1977
Movie music
Moderate tempo, slows near the end
Orchestra
Quadruple meter with some triple meter
Listen to the opening fanfare, heroic theme, battle music, and Princess Leia’s leitmotif
Listening Excerpt from CD 2, tracks 38, p

7. Listening Guide: The Main Theme from Star Wars (contd.)
Fanfare
Heroic theme played by brass and percussion, then entire orchestra
Light and soft transition
Strings build intensity
Battle music (triple meter), then syncopated punctuations obscure meter
Heroic theme returns in quadruple meter
Princess Leia’s leitmotif is played by cellos and basses
Heroic theme in high brass
Fanfare-like statements in brass
Tempo slows and intensity drops
Closes with music from Elgar’s The Coronation March 8

8. Trend in Movie Music: Synthesizer
1964, synthesizer developed by Robert Moog
Popular with rock bands
Synthesizer improved through 1970s
Synthesizers produced sounds like an orchestra and generated sound effects
A composer could produce soundtrack without live musicians 9

9. Synthesizer Academy Award Scores
Midnight Express (1978) by Giorgio Moroder
Chariots of Fire (1981) by Vangelis

10. Composers Writing for Live Orchestras
John Corigliano
1980, Altered States
1999, The Red Violin
Philip Glass
1983, Koyaanisqatsi
2002, The Hours
James Horner
1989, Field of Dreams
1995, Braveheart; Apollo 13
1997, Titanic 10