[Fmpro] FMPRO Latest Rant: "Where are the Distinctive Voicesinscoring?"

[Ted Peterson]

Let's take Williams. If you look at the credits for Catch Me if You  
Can, you see some interesting things. This is why I took such issue  
with your statements. You are, of course, entitled to your opinion  
however it may be. The music world is on of style, acceptance and  
other such non-musical issues. However, I find your  
overgeneralizations to be the same I have heard from great masses of  
ignorant posers who want to sound impressive. If your opinions come  
from a graduate course centered on Bach, I would be surprised. The  
courses I took stripped the simple explanations away and we were  
encouraged to get an accurate reading of a composer's time both  
socially and musically and how that composer was appreciated or not  
in his/her time and after.

Of course, most of the time, a fascination with the past wasn't quite  
as prominent as it is in our time. Many scholars consider Ockeghem to  
be a better composer than Bach but the music is too far removed from  
our aesthetic to be appreciated in a general level. So Bach, aside  
from being a genius, was writing in a way that we still find value in  
studying because so much of our music is a reflection of what he was  
doing.

But back to the credits. There are some listings here that lead me to  
place Williams and other decent composers on a lower tier than say,  
Tomasino Albinoni. If you look down the list I have provided below,  
you see some interesting job assignments.  First, let's look at the  
scoring crew. There are no less than 5 people doing something with  
the score which may have been something as simple as a piano score or  
a mockup with instrumental suggestions. We don't know. Then we have a  
couple of orchestrators. I have worked with some pretty good  
orchestrators and have worked on some things myself. So I know how  
much an orchestrator can add to the overall "sound" of a piece of  
music. A simple piece that is well orchestrated sounds a lot better  
than a great piece but poorly orchestrated. The whole "Pictures at an  
Exhibition" is a good example. We have the Mussorgsky piano score,  
some of his orchestrations, the Ravel orchestrations and the Rimsky- 
Korsakov orchestrations so we have a lot of things to compare all  
based on the same music. It's a good piece for study just because of  
all of these elements around it.

Now, orchestration and a composer's choice of instruments,  
instrumental color and tone can define the composer as much as the  
music in the sense of notes. I have worked on some absolutely horrid  
scores that are little more than melodic lines with some suggestions  
of basic harmonies and have watched as good orchestrators make a  
quite stunning piece of music. So do I call this the product of the  
composer or the orchestrator?

I think that a composer like Stravinsky, or Beethoven or Mendelssohn  
are better composers than Williams will ever hope to be. For a  
contemporary look, take a sample of the works of Elliot Carter.  
Absolutely wonderful and incredibly inventive. Or take Hans Werner  
Henze. I can post a hundred names who are really expanding the  
musical art in a way that Williams, as good as he is, can only copy.  
Not to mention the amount of "classical" music he uses as the genesis  
of some of his music. However, I do find his music effective as  
supporting material for a primarily visual experience. Mozart also  
wrote music for visual programmes and Shikaneder was adept at staging  
wonderful fantasies of which "The Magic Flute" is the most notable.  
But the music for the play in the form of an opera is certainly on a  
level that Williams cannot approach through a system of sound cues.

Don't get me wrong. The music for "Jaws" and the themes are really  
effective. They have become cultural Icons that have transcended the  
film and have become part of our culture. But as a purely musical  
expression, an effective background theme is hardly "The Queen of the  
Night."

I wonder if "The Rite of Spring" would have the same impact if  
Stravinsky hired a crew of orchestrators to orchestrate his dual  
piano score.


Here are the credits:

Music Department
Ramiro Belgardt
....
assistant music editor
Sandy DeCrescent
....
orchestra contractor
Mark Eshelman
....
scoring crew
Alan Estes
....
musician: vibraphone solos
Dan Higgins
....
musician: saxophone solos
Todd Homme
....
music executive
Jason Lloyd
....
scoring crew
Susan McLean
....
scoring crew (as Sue McLean)
Adam Michalak
....
scoring crew
Shawn Murphy
....
music scoring mixer
John Neufeld
....
orchestrator
Kenneth Wannberg
....
music editor (as Ken Wannberg)
Pat Weber
....
scoring crew (as Patrick Weber)
Karen Bennett
....
assistant music editor (uncredited)
Mark Graham
....
music copyist (uncredited)
Conrad Pope
....
orchestrator (uncredited)
John Williams
....
conductor (uncredited)
On May 31, 2008, at 7:10 PM, Alain Mayrand wrote:

Ted Peterson