The State of the Art
Written by Jonathan Shearon
July 1, 2003

In every genre of music, the issues of longevity and relevance are persistent. This is particularly true in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, because recording technology and an explosion of interest in widely varied types of music has made it a crowded marketplace both intellectually and commercially. Making matters worse is the fact that musical funding has shifted away from a patron system, which was the norm in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to a commercial system that depends on individual consumers rather than a state or wealthy benefactor. While it was once enough to simply make music of artistic worth, the musician and composer is now in direct competition with other genres of music and its musicians.

This notion has struck fear into the hearts of many a film composer and their appreciators. If genres like rock and rap are in competition with the audience’s ear, what chance does the music of Franz Waxman or Miklos Rosza have of surviving? Will the classic film music we have all cherished and spent years collecting simply be forgotten in time, only to be cruelly replaced by the music of the moment?

Of course, these kinds of concerns are nothing new. The music of Johann Sebastian Bach was largely forgotten for almost a century after his death, known by only a few scattered composers and musicians. Though his is certainly a name familiar to even the most musically illiterate person today, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries he was remembered primarily (if at all) as a church organist. The wonders of his compositional skill were resurrected only when his St. Matthew Passion premiered in Berlin under the baton of an eager young musician named Felix Mendelssohn in 1829.

Music, like other cultural artifacts, has a cyclical nature. What was once in vogue may now be passé, but the tide always comes back to shore. In the 1960s and 1970s, pop songs and the avant-garde music of the day had replaced big, bold orchestral scores. Then of course young Johnny Williams wrote sweeping, neo-romantic scores to a couple of little independent films called Jaws and Star Wars and effectively re-shaped film music for the next two decades.

The film score fan has much to be thankful for in 2003. There is an unprecedented resurgence of interest in adventure and comic book films, which often yield some of the most interesting and exciting scores. Some of the traditional barriers and prejudices that have separated the concert hall and the film score community are breaking down, as evidenced by the increased performance of concert works by composers like Don Davis and John Williams. Many modern concert hall composers like Philip Glass and John Corigliano are finding work writing film scores, often outdoing some of their fellow composers in the process. There has also been an avalanche of scholarly books and articles published in the academic world of late, most written by a new generation of thinkers weaned on movie music in addition to more traditional forms. Most importantly, the legacy of a century of film scoring is being made available at a rapid pace thanks to boutique specialty labels like Film Score Monthly, Intrada, Varese Sarabande, and Screen Archives. Because of their valiant efforts, there is arguably more historic film music available on record now than ever.

While many traditionalists may see it as a decline in quality, many composers of the new generation are experimenting with new sounds and ideas. Don Davis’ scores for the Matrix films have an interesting postmodern slant that, combined with his collaboration with trip-hop techno artists Juno Reactor, give the films a very unique sound that could very well be the genre-defining film score, a la Star Wars, for generation-y. Veterans like John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith are still surprising us with exciting scores for films like Minority Report and The Sum of All Fears, and experienced composers like Alan Silvestri are making the best of the schlock they are often forced to score while simultaneously giving us a taste of old Hollywood, as in What Lies Beneath and The Mummy Returns. Younger directors are beginning to see the value of re-interpreting older films and their idiosyncratic scores, as Todd Haynes did in Far From Heaven, which featured a beautifully old-fashioned and melodramatic underscore by Elmer Bernstein.

Rather than think of these times as dire for the world of film music, we should realize that we are in the middle of its renaissance. Change is inevitable in any art form, and rigorous stylistic restrictions only result in creative stagnation. Rather than see this new film music as an enemy of the old, we should embrace it without forgetting about its rich heritage. Change can be good. Coupled with a sense of history, it can be even better. All in all, it's a good time to be a film score collector.

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