Film Score Buffet

November is a very big birthday month, namely because it's nine months after February. So, a very happy birthday to everyone who has a November birthday! 

I thought I would write about music today, because I feel like it. Each paragraph talks about one or two composers, and gives musical examples, so feel free to skip to whichever looks interesting! I just like talking about music.

Well, I saw the movie Ponyo (yes, the English dubbed one) over the weekend, which happens to be absolutely adorable, and it had an excellent soundtrack by Joe Hisaichi (who composes for anything that Miazaki dicrects).  Here are some of my favorite soundtrack composers:

• Joe Hisaichi
• Hans Zimmer
• James Horner
• Yoko Kanno
• Howard Shore
• Philip Glass
• Michael Giacchino
• Danny Elfman

I'm sure I've left some out. But the point is that Hisaichi definitely makes that list. His Princess Mononoke soundtrack is particularly interesting-- it's very epic-sounding and varied, with instruments ranging from taiko drums to adagio strings, and pieces written for full symphonies pieces solely for vocals. Here is an example of one of my favorites-- Lady Eboshi-- set to a solar eclipse, no less! (no, seriously, I just liked the quality of the track here). On the subject of Japanese soundtrack composers, find a copy of Yoko Kanno's soundtrack to the TV anime series Wolf's Rain, which is simply exquisite. If you only get one track, Leaving on Red Hill is beautiful, simple, and calming (and it has a gorgeous oboe, and I just love oboes).

Leaving the subject of mellow music, Zimmer and Elfman have something in common, which has to do with the catchy and dramatic themes that seem to follow in their wake. Zimmer is, of course, most well-known for his score to Gladiator and the Academy Award-winning The Lion King, while his protege, Klaus Badelt, wrote the score to Pirates of the Carribbean (any soundtrack lover or movie enthusiast will be able to point out the similarities in the scores of Pirates and Gladiator). I'm going to share a more obscure piece of his-- Roll Tide, from the movie Crimson Tide. The first few minutes are a crescendo of the main theme, and the last few minutes contain a beautiful and haunting rendition of the Navy Hymn tune Melita, or Eternal Father Strong to Save. Elfman (most known for The Nightmare Before Christmas, any Edward Scissorhands, and the recently Academy Award nominated Milk), tends to fall away from Zimmer's grandiose style and focus more on the smaller, quirkier styles, namely synthesized vocals. Elfman also wrote the TV themes for Desparate Housewives and The Simpsons. Here is a piece from one of his rare independent works-- a soprano/alto piece in Spanish called "I Forget", part of a six-movement symphony (the Serenada Schizophrana). I always associate them together because of the appeal they often seem to have for people only vaguely interested in the music industry.

Another composer along these lines is James Horner, who of course wrote for Titanic (the best selling film score soundtrack of all time) and most recently Avatar which along with Titanic ranks as the highest grossing movie of all time. Despite the criticism he has received for his music being overly popular/plebeian, I thought because of his amazing success (and luck), he was worth mention. And I'll say it: I like his music. His first Academy Award nomination was for the Alien movies, which is remarkably different from his massively epic later works-- very quiet and eerie (matching the tone of the movies, of course). This is an amusing comparison that I found on youtube of several of his soundtracks. As much as I love him, I have to agree with another large criticism about how he tends to repeat his themes throughout movies. This just compares Glory, Titanic, and Avatar; however, I've noticed a theme almost note-for-note that repeats in Avatar from the movie Troy-- for example, compare the part where Troy is being destroyed to the part where the Hometree falls. Exact same theme.  Anyway, overall, I do love James Horner.

Philip Glass has always been an independent composer before a soundtrack composer. He follows the school of minimalism, which usually means music with a very repetitive structure. An iconic soundtrack example of his music is The Illusionist, during which you can hear how the structure doesn't change much throughout each track (and arguably during the entire movie), and yet it doesn't grow old or tiresome. It keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very end. This is a violin concerto that he wrote in the last years of the twentieth century. The first three minutes build up to a beautiful climax of swiftly played motif, and in the fourth minute, multiple violins are added to create an exquisite symphonic picture. 

Lastly, I tend to put Giacchino and Shore in the same group as well because of their versatility-- both are Academy Award winners who have scored an astonishingly wide range of soundtracks. Shore is most well known for his Lord of the Rings Trilogy, but since he composed for this trilogy, his career has gone uphill. He composed for recent positively received movies since then such as Doubt, Eastern Promises, The Departed, A History of Violence, and yes, the recent Twilight movie Eclipse. Similarly, Giacchino, who is perhaps is currently most well known for his award-winning score to Up, also scored for the entire TV series Lost, the recent Star Trek movie, Mission Impossible III, and the very well-received score to The Incredibles. To celebrate his recent Oscar, I'm going to post the main theme to the movie Up, called Married Life.

My track for Shore going to be from LOTR, but it is not going to my favorite track or even what I think is the most popular track.  This is just the music that I feel like posting right now, so I'm going to go ahead and post it. It's one of the best parts of the trilogy for me, from both the book and the movie. 

Anyway, I realize this was a long post, but I hope anyone reading this will enjoy even just one or two tracks of the music!