Ups and downs in the repertoire

[soundwave106]

Film music is the only place I can think of where there actually are "towering giants". For instance, I think it would be fair to characterize John Williams as a "towering giant" of film cinema scores. His scores from the late 1970s / early 1980s (Jaws, Star Wars, Close Encounters, Superman, etc.), are widely seen as spearheading the revival of the "Golden-Age-Of-Cinema" (1930s-1950s) style of symphonic score. This (often late Romantic in nature) style ended up dominating cinema for a couple decades. (Somewhat outside the Romantic / orchestral realm, I'd also say Hans Zimmer is a "towering giant" with his influence on the modern symphonic-electronic hybrid score, beginning with 1995's "Crimson Tide".)

Film music is not always made for casual listening, as Alan says, though. And I have no idea about it's durability. Generally speaking, most of the film scores of Golden-Age-Of-Cinema composers (eg Max Steiner, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Miklos Rozsa, Bernard Hermann, Franz Waxman, etc.) have largely faded away in the popular mind, after all.

The few exceptions I can think of are where both a film has staying power, *and* the music had a key thematic hook or went beyond pure pictorial. Something like Max Steiner's score to Gone With the Wind comes to mind here -- the "Tara's Theme" portion is fairly well known in popular culture even now. You aren't usually going to hear "themes" in concert halls (the only thing that seems to pop up there regularly from the above Golden Age group is Korngold's Violin Concerto), but a few "big themes" might live on in popular culture regardless. I'm pretty sure we can say this is the fate of, say, the well known leitmotifs of Star Wars.

As far as the future of pure concert hall music goes, though, I honestly have no idea. There are many modern composers, but none really seem to catch the public imagination in the concert hall realm, even if they are also successful in other composition areas. Our local orchestra did play Tan Dun's "Water Concerto" once, but in the popular mind Tan Dun is more associated with the soundtrack of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

[MartinH]

Many modern composers there sure are, all vying for their 15 minutes of fame with music that warrants the little attention it's going to get. Didn't music history go down this road some 100 years ago? The feeling was that traditional forms had been written out, that there was nothing new to say. So after 100 years of the musical horror show, there are some contemporary composers who try to write music audiences can relate to but then comes the realization that at their best, they cannot begin to compete with the masters of the 19th c. They are incapable of writing music that captures the minds of the audiences and performers alike. Orchestras are doing so much film music now - accompanying films like in the olden silent movie days. So locally we're getting Star Wars IV, Casablanca, Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter and others. I'm playing an all film music concert in a few weeks - all newer stuff from Batman, Jaws, Star Wars, James Bond. Not the classic scores of the Golden Age. The conductor I know hates the idea. He spent most of his career conducting Italian opera and the European classics, and now he's reduced to playing 2nd rate music to entice audiences and sell some tickets. It's happening everywhere. When I see some of the programming of Beecham's Royal Philharmonic it makes me quite sad. What would he have thought of it all?

If there's anything worse than this trend to movie music, it's another concert type on the rise: Video Games Live in Concert! The millenials love it. Orchestras hate it. The portion of the population that truly appreciates classical has likely always been pretty small. But given the current state of affairs, how much longer before we're extinct?

[semloh]

The portion of the population that truly appreciates classical has likely always been pretty small. But given the current state of affairs, how much longer before we're extinct?

Careful not fall into the trap of treating "classical" music, and its appreciation, as a distinct form with fixed boundaries! "We" are not a separate group of people with a special definable capacity for appreciating a particular form of "music" (whatever that is!). What is widely thought by classical music aficionados to be cacophonous nonsense may eventually become standard concert repertoire. It's happened in the past, and is happening before our very eyes!

[Ilja]

Well said. I'm always amazed at the hatred directed at composers such as Philip Glass, Ludovico Einaudi and Yann Tiersen, whereas most people outside of our circle of specialists probably consider it as much "classical music" as they do most of Beethoven.


The other day I was re-reading Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward All the President's Men. It contains a revealing quote:

"Woodward put on some music. A Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto. Bernstein noted what awful taste Woodward had in classical music."

This observation is part of the way in which Woodward is characterized as a the establishmentarian, in contrast to Bernstein's spiky, rebellious character. Such snobbery directed against Rachmaninoff was so prevalent that Harold Schonberg even felt he had to address it in his Lives of the Great Composers (although unfortunately, Schonberg sought to somehow remedy it by rather unfairly pointing out Medtner's and Taneyev's shortcomings). That was the 1970s; such condescension towards Rachmaninoff has pretty much evaporated, and I would be amazed if the appreciation of Glass's oeuvre wouldn't evolve in the same way.

[eschiss1]

Glass seems a more unfortunate and ill-chosen example than Medtner, but (wherever you are,) there ya go. (I don't "hate" PG's music, I just don't care for any example of it I've heard- unlike Steve Reich whose music has over time been able to convince me.)

[sdtom]

 I'm currently listening to the raucous music of Leonard Bernstein ie West Side Story, On the Waterfront, On the Town. Bernstein prepared concert versions of these fine works for  the public and they're performed for classical and pops concerts, an interesting bridge? Bernstein doesn't get the credit he deserves.

[Ilja]

In fact, I think Bernstein is a rare case of a composer who does exactly get the credit he deserves. Many of his works are very popular, and he's represented quite well on recordings; but you couldn't say he was over-appreciated either. One might argue over critical appraisals, but even there I don't think Bernstein can post-humously complain, to be honest.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I like both Philip Glass and Steve Reich, but whereas I think Glass is somewhat overrated I think Reich is underrated. I agree with Ilja about Bernstein. Lenny is well represented on disk and in the concert hall - and not just for West Side Story of course. He was a consummate musician and adept at writing in more than one style while making each style also his own: different as they are, West Side Story and the Chichester Psalms could only have been written by Bernstein.

[Alan Howe]

Bernstein doesn't get the credit he deserves

Oh yes, he does! He's never been out of the limelight as conductor or composer since his death in 1990. 

[MartinH]

But as an author, lecturer, and TV personality he's been lost. When I was a kid in the 50s and 60s, Bernstein's presence on CBS Television in the Omnibus and the Young People's concerts were something to look forward to. That's where I first heard a note of Bruckner, unusual for Bernstein. Granted, there were only three networks in those days, but how many potential listeners did he reach? We could really use someone like him now, but he was one-of-a-kind, and the networks no longer have any use or interest in orchestral programming. PBS rarely runs it either. Does any youngster read his books anymore? The Joy of Music was important to me, as was The Infinite Variety of Music.

Bernstein's music is well represented on disk, and especially this year in concerts. But the music being played is such a narrow amount: Symphonic Dances from WSS is everywhere, but even in non-Centennial years they're pretty popular. The symphonies are getting heard, and of course the film music. Seems like Candide is getting a lot of time, too. But after this year I wonder how much of his music will have real staying power? Chichester Psalms will stay, for sure. I wish Slava! and The Dybbuk would get played more often.

[Alan Howe]

Remember, though: we're talking about the repertoire here, not (for example) Bernstein's other fields of activity.

[sdtom]

With the exception of Aaron Copland Bernstein was the only other one to bridge the gap between film and classical. I've never heard his "On the Waterfront" performed but I once heard an evening of Copland including "The Red Pony," the thrill of the evening for me. John Williams is all about film music.

I think what I wanted to say was Bernstein bridged a gap with his material from classical to film to jazz. Others can't day that and it is for this reason he is under appreciated.

[soundwave106]

As far as film music goes, in the past a few of the late Romantic composers did make some film scores, some of which actually still get replayed from time to time (Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky, and Ralph Vaughan Williams's score of Scott of the Antarctic via the "repackage" in Symphony 7). Others that I know had a finger in both pots include Shostakovich, William Alwyn, and William Walton, although I don't think you hear the film scores played too often from these composers these days. The converse also is true: some "Golden Age" film composers also tried to write more serious concert hall pieces, most of which are also largely forgotten. Though maybe undeservedly so (I remember liking Rozsa's concert works for instance.)

John Williams actually has a couple concert hall pieces! None of them I've heard stuck with me, to be honest.

Korngold's the major exception from this time (of what I remember): he's someone who primarily composed for film, but he also has one established concert hall repertoire piece too (which borrows a fair bit from his film scores, of course).

But I'll add that IMHO a lot of Korngold's concert work -- his pre-film compositions in Austria etc. -- is honestly quite "unsung" in my mind. Die Tote Stadt gets occasionally noticed, but the rest you hardly hear at all. The little bit that I've heard of his other work (particularly his other operas) seems quite attractive to me.

Within Bernstein's time period, I think you are right that he and Copland were the only two that successfully (from a "creating works that are still played today" point of view) had their hands in many pots at once (film, musicals, concert hall pieces, etc.)

[Ilja]

Korngold's the major exception from this time (of what I remember): he's someone who primarily composed for film, but he also has one established concert hall repertoire piece too (which borrows a fair bit from his film scores, of course).

But I'll add that IMHO a lot of Korngold's concert work -- his pre-film compositions in Austria etc. -- is honestly quite "unsung" in my mind. Die Tote Stadt gets occasionally noticed, but the rest you hardly hear at all. The little bit that I've heard of his other work (particularly his other operas) seems quite attractive to me.

The Sinfonietta gets a fair bit of exposure these days; not a warhorse by any means, but I've seen at least two performances in the years past. The same goes for the Violin Concerto, Sursum Corda, and the Symphony in F#, although that is obviously a later work.

[sdtom]

If interested Naxos has a film music series available. His Hamlet is quite good as well as The Gadfly.