The Music of Film Composers

Film music began as a solution to a problem. Early film
projectors were really loud, therefore something was needed to
cover up all the noise.  In addition, silent movies
apparently seemed a bit awkward without any musical
accompaniment.   Enter, usually, a pianist, who would
improvise musical accompaniments to the events on the screen.
None other than Dmitri Shostakovich got his first job as a cinema
pianist, honing his improvisatory skills, and sometimes receiving
cat calls and boos for his fantasy filled musings that tended to
stray away from the action on the screen. Music in the silent
film era had to help the audience in pointing out important
moments to the audience,  enhancing the emotional effects of
the story, and most importantly, it had to give a certain musical
line to every character, giving to them the emotional depth that
the audience couldn't get since they weren’t going to hear their
voice.  To do this, early film composers turned to the idea
of the Leitmotif, an idea developed by the opera composer Richard
Wagner. This idea would take hold even once "talkies" took over
the screen, with composers such as Max Steiner, Charlie Chaplin,
and others setting the stage for a century of brilliant music, by
composers like Bernard Herrmann, John Williams, Dmitri
Shostakovich, Rachel Portman, Hans Zimmer, Erich Wolfgang
Korngold, Christopher Willis, and dozens and dozens more. Today
on the show we'll talk about this development of film music, and
also hear some of the greatest and most recognizable film music
ever written. We'll also talk about why film music is sometimes
looked down upon in the classical music world, and how we might
begin to change that perception. Join us!