Post by egoodstein on Dec 23, 2006 12:32:51 GMT -5
Not sure where to put this 
, but 'movies' I guess are what come to mind. A nice article 'bout the often overlooked film composer in conjunction w. retrospective of films featuring his music at Museum of Md. Art in NYC. From Wall St. Journal. Ed
SIGHTINGS
Oscar-Winner in the Background
Why you've probably heard -- but not heard of -- Franz Waxman
By TERRY TEACHOUT
December 23, 2006
NEW YORK -- The Museum of Modern Art is currently paying tribute to a composer whose name is not a household word, even though there's a better-than-even chance that you've heard his music. Franz Waxman, who died in 1967, wrote some of the 20th century's most familiar pieces of orchestral music -- none of which was premiered in a concert hall.
Puzzled? Don't be. Waxman was a German-born musician who immigrated to the U.S. in 1934 and settled in California, where he quickly established himself as one of Hollywood's top film composers. He moonlighted as a symphonic conductor, leading the West Coast premieres of Britten's "War Requiem" and Stravinsky's "L'Histoire du soldat," and even managed to write a handful of concert pieces of his own. Most of the time, though, he spent his days grinding out the music for movie after movie, including such box-office smashes as "The Philadelphia Story" and "Woman of the Year."
The German-born Waxman outside Royal Festival Hall, London, in 1962
So why is a man who won two Oscars so little known? Because he spent the bulk of his career writing well-made music for fair-to-poor films. Such is the fate of most of the musical craftsmen who set up shop in Hollywood: No matter how gifted they may be, it is the artistic quality of the movies on which they work that is ultimately responsible for the extent to which their work will be remembered.
Take Bernard Herrmann, the most famous of Hollywood's golden-age composers. He was lucky enough to work on Orson Welles's "Citizen Kane," Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" and "Vertigo," and Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver," which is why even the least musical of film buffs can usually be counted on to recognize his name. Waxman worked with Hitchcock, too, but mainly on such lesser efforts as "Rebecca," and most of his best music was lavished on competent but unmemorable studio films like "Peyton Place" and "Sunrise at Campobello."
Only once did he hit the double bull's-eye and score a film that was both highly distinguished and hugely successful. That film was "Sunset Boulevard," Billy Wilder's 1950 masterpiece, for which Waxman won a well-deserved Oscar (he also won the following year for "A Place in the Sun"). Interestingly enough, his music is the least familiar part of a classic movie whose sharpest lines ("It's the pictures that got small") long ago entered the common stock of pop-culture reference. Though I've seen the film many times, it wasn't until 2002, when Varèse Sarabande released a recording of the complete score by Joel McNeely and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, that I first paid careful attention to Waxman's score, realizing as I did so just how subtly it contributes to the film's total effect.
Listen, for instance, to the explosive main-title music. The harsh brass, furious string tremolos and sweeping piano arpeggios grab you by the throat and plunge you at once into a world of sound far removed from the luscious post-Straussian romanticism of "Rebecca," composed 10 years and a world war earlier. It's an amazingly powerful piece in its own right -- but when you hear it in the context of the scene for which it was written, you'll be amazed in a different way by the skill with which Waxman uses it to support and comment on William Holden's off-screen narration. "Yes, this is Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California," Holden says, and suddenly Waxman shuts off the orchestral fireworks and cuts the volume in half, intertwining his acid harmonies with Holden's edgy, bitterly wry voice in order to underline the horrific irony of the fact that we're listening to a corpse. That's one of the marks of great film composers: They always know when to get out of the way and let the script do the talking.
MoMA's film department is showing "Sunset Boulevard" tomorrow afternoon at 4:30. It's the latest installment in "Franz Waxman: Music for the Cinema," a month-long, 21-film retrospective. Some of the other films to be shown are Fritz Lang's "Fury" (Dec. 27), "Rebecca" (Dec. 31), Raoul Walsh's "Objective Burma!" (Jan. 4) and "Taras Bulba" (Jan. 14), the 1962 costume drama to which Waxman contributed what Bernard Herrmann, one of his greatest admirers, called "the score of a lifetime."
Like so many of Waxman's films, "Taras Bulba" isn't very good, and there's not much reason to see it other than to listen to the score. Alas, most of the many recordings of his music that have been made over the years are now out of print and hard to find, but iTunes users can download "Sunset Boulevard: The Classic Film Scores of Franz Waxman," a 1974 album that contains excerpts from "Taras Bulba" and seven other scores, all of them brilliantly performed by Charles Gerhardt and the National Philharmonic.
In addition, Mr. McNeely's "Sunset Boulevard" CD is still in print. Listen to it by all means, but when you're done, sit down and watch the movie again. If, like most people, you've never listened closely to the music playing in the background of your favorite films, you're likely to come away saying, "Wow! How come I've never heard of this Franz Waxman guy?"
Well, now you have. He was one of the masters of the complex craft of using music to heighten and intensify the dramatic power of a cinematic narrative, and it is more than fitting that MoMA's film department should be celebrating his remarkable, insufficiently appreciated life's work.
Mr. Teachout, the Journal's drama critic, writes "Sightings" every other Saturday and blogs about the arts at www.terryteachout.com1. Write to him at tteachout@wsj.com2.
, but 'movies' I guess are what come to mind. A nice article 'bout the often overlooked film composer in conjunction w. retrospective of films featuring his music at Museum of Md. Art in NYC. From Wall St. Journal. EdSIGHTINGS
Oscar-Winner in the Background
Why you've probably heard -- but not heard of -- Franz Waxman
By TERRY TEACHOUT
December 23, 2006
NEW YORK -- The Museum of Modern Art is currently paying tribute to a composer whose name is not a household word, even though there's a better-than-even chance that you've heard his music. Franz Waxman, who died in 1967, wrote some of the 20th century's most familiar pieces of orchestral music -- none of which was premiered in a concert hall.
Puzzled? Don't be. Waxman was a German-born musician who immigrated to the U.S. in 1934 and settled in California, where he quickly established himself as one of Hollywood's top film composers. He moonlighted as a symphonic conductor, leading the West Coast premieres of Britten's "War Requiem" and Stravinsky's "L'Histoire du soldat," and even managed to write a handful of concert pieces of his own. Most of the time, though, he spent his days grinding out the music for movie after movie, including such box-office smashes as "The Philadelphia Story" and "Woman of the Year."
The German-born Waxman outside Royal Festival Hall, London, in 1962
So why is a man who won two Oscars so little known? Because he spent the bulk of his career writing well-made music for fair-to-poor films. Such is the fate of most of the musical craftsmen who set up shop in Hollywood: No matter how gifted they may be, it is the artistic quality of the movies on which they work that is ultimately responsible for the extent to which their work will be remembered.
Take Bernard Herrmann, the most famous of Hollywood's golden-age composers. He was lucky enough to work on Orson Welles's "Citizen Kane," Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" and "Vertigo," and Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver," which is why even the least musical of film buffs can usually be counted on to recognize his name. Waxman worked with Hitchcock, too, but mainly on such lesser efforts as "Rebecca," and most of his best music was lavished on competent but unmemorable studio films like "Peyton Place" and "Sunrise at Campobello."
Only once did he hit the double bull's-eye and score a film that was both highly distinguished and hugely successful. That film was "Sunset Boulevard," Billy Wilder's 1950 masterpiece, for which Waxman won a well-deserved Oscar (he also won the following year for "A Place in the Sun"). Interestingly enough, his music is the least familiar part of a classic movie whose sharpest lines ("It's the pictures that got small") long ago entered the common stock of pop-culture reference. Though I've seen the film many times, it wasn't until 2002, when Varèse Sarabande released a recording of the complete score by Joel McNeely and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, that I first paid careful attention to Waxman's score, realizing as I did so just how subtly it contributes to the film's total effect.
Listen, for instance, to the explosive main-title music. The harsh brass, furious string tremolos and sweeping piano arpeggios grab you by the throat and plunge you at once into a world of sound far removed from the luscious post-Straussian romanticism of "Rebecca," composed 10 years and a world war earlier. It's an amazingly powerful piece in its own right -- but when you hear it in the context of the scene for which it was written, you'll be amazed in a different way by the skill with which Waxman uses it to support and comment on William Holden's off-screen narration. "Yes, this is Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California," Holden says, and suddenly Waxman shuts off the orchestral fireworks and cuts the volume in half, intertwining his acid harmonies with Holden's edgy, bitterly wry voice in order to underline the horrific irony of the fact that we're listening to a corpse. That's one of the marks of great film composers: They always know when to get out of the way and let the script do the talking.
MoMA's film department is showing "Sunset Boulevard" tomorrow afternoon at 4:30. It's the latest installment in "Franz Waxman: Music for the Cinema," a month-long, 21-film retrospective. Some of the other films to be shown are Fritz Lang's "Fury" (Dec. 27), "Rebecca" (Dec. 31), Raoul Walsh's "Objective Burma!" (Jan. 4) and "Taras Bulba" (Jan. 14), the 1962 costume drama to which Waxman contributed what Bernard Herrmann, one of his greatest admirers, called "the score of a lifetime."
Like so many of Waxman's films, "Taras Bulba" isn't very good, and there's not much reason to see it other than to listen to the score. Alas, most of the many recordings of his music that have been made over the years are now out of print and hard to find, but iTunes users can download "Sunset Boulevard: The Classic Film Scores of Franz Waxman," a 1974 album that contains excerpts from "Taras Bulba" and seven other scores, all of them brilliantly performed by Charles Gerhardt and the National Philharmonic.
In addition, Mr. McNeely's "Sunset Boulevard" CD is still in print. Listen to it by all means, but when you're done, sit down and watch the movie again. If, like most people, you've never listened closely to the music playing in the background of your favorite films, you're likely to come away saying, "Wow! How come I've never heard of this Franz Waxman guy?"
Well, now you have. He was one of the masters of the complex craft of using music to heighten and intensify the dramatic power of a cinematic narrative, and it is more than fitting that MoMA's film department should be celebrating his remarkable, insufficiently appreciated life's work.
Mr. Teachout, the Journal's drama critic, writes "Sightings" every other Saturday and blogs about the arts at www.terryteachout.com1. Write to him at tteachout@wsj.com2.
