The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films | Doug Adams' Blog

Classical KUSC

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:09:00 +0000

Howard Shore sat down with Jim Svejda on Classical KUSC Radio last night to talk about Hugo, A Dangerous Method and more. You can stream the audio on KUSC's site right HERE (mp3 downloads are also available).

From KUSC's writeup:

Oscar Nominee Howard Shore 2012

Best Score Nominee Howard Shore stopped by to discuss his collaboration with Martin Scorsese on HUGO, staying authentic with the 1930's musical & how Borat almost stole the movie. In addition, they discuss his other collaboration from last year, the Wagnerian inspired score to David Cronenberg's A DANGEROUS METHOD.

LA Times

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:31:00 +0000

The LA Times spoke with Howard Shore today regarding his recent Academy Award nomination. Included was a little nugget I think you might find interesting. Excerpts below:

Some things never get old. Just ask composer Howard Shore, who woke to a phone call very early Tuesday morning in Hawaii and learned he had earned his fourth Academy Award nomination. "It's always thrilling," Howard said of being nominated, this time for his original score for Martin Scorsese's "Hugo."

The film, about an orphan living in a train station in 1930s Paris, leads the Oscar pack with 11 nominations, and it marks Shore's sixth film with Scorsese. "It's a wonderful collaboration," Howard said of working with the director. "I think [Scorsese] works with music the way he works with all his other collaborators: I think he casts well, and then he shapes and guides and inspires."

In writing the music for "Hugo," Shore drew inspiration from the film's time and setting, 1930s Paris. "It's a very rich period of music," Shore said. "It's the exuberance and the thrill of making movies in this early period with this new technology. … It's a very rich world to write in and compose in, and it's very inspiring to me."

[...]

After his layover in Hawaii, Shore is headed to New Zealand, where he is working on "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" with director Peter Jackson.

Read the full piece HERE.

Oscar Nomination for Hugo

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:56:00 +0000

The Academy Award nomination for BEST SCORE of 2011 are in:

Ludovic Bource THE ARTIST
Alberto Igelsias TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY

Howard Shore for HUGO

John Williams TINTIN
John Williams WAR HORSE

HUGO, incidentally, also garnered nominations for BEST PICTURE, DIRECTING, ADAPTED SCREENPLAY, ART DIRECTION, CINEMATOGRAPHY, SOUND MIXING, SOUND EDITING, COSTUMES, FILM EDITING, VISUAL EFFECTS.

Congratulations to all nominees!

Zaz - Coeur Volant (Hugo Soundtrack Live in NYC)

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:00:00 +0000

BAFTA Nomination for Hugo!

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:48:00 +0000

ORIGINAL MUSIC

THE ARTIST Ludovic Bource
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross
HUGO Howard Shore
TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY Alberto Iglesias
WAR HORSE John Williams

More Palm Springs

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:21:00 +0000

This is slightly out-of-date, but video interviews are always fun to watch.

Palm Springs Red Carpet

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:54:00 +0000

Howard Shore and Elizabeth Cotnoir discuss their work on the award-winning score to Hugo.

Palm Springs Followup

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 16:37:00 +0000

MyDesert.com has a nice little followup on the Palm Springs Film Festival gala, which was held last night (January 7):

"It's wonderful to be back," Shore told emcee Mary Hart backstage.

Shore is being honored for the score he composed for "Hugo."

"For me, composition is ... a way to take things that I love and express them through music," Shore said as he accepted the award.

Read the full piece HERE.

As previously reported, Shore was on-hand last night to receive the Frederick Loewe Music Award for his work on Martin Scorsese’s Hugo.

Ongoing Discussion [January 2012]

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 06:17:00 +0000

Happy New Year, everyone!

We're finally here: 2012. Every new year is full of exciting possibilities, but if you frequent this blog, you know that this year looks to be especially promising. I was a little quieter than usual during the final months of 2011, and will probably remain a bit guarded through the beginning of 2012, but I have much to say, and will proclaim it all soon enough. In the meantime, let's all enjoy the unlimited promise of a year not yet lived!

While I certainly don't wish to burden the light mood, I do feel we should take a second to recognize the passing of Bob Anderson. If you don't know who Mr. Anderson was, please take a moment to read the linked Wiki page. His artistry contributed not only to The Lord of the Rings films, but also to The Princess Bride, Star Wars, and more. I had brief contact with Mr. Anderson's daughter in September of 2010. He was living in London at that point, and his daughter had heard about the Royal Albert performance of The Return of the King: Live to Projection. Plans were made for him to attend, but he was ultimately not well enough to do so. Nevertheless, this gentleman touched many lives, and I know we'll all send our thoughts to his family.

On a lighter note, today (it's officially just past midnight on January 3 in Chicago) marks the 120th birthday of J.R.R. Tolkien. TheOneRing.net is reminding everyone of the usual 9:00 p.m. salute. I may be a bit early -- and a bit digital -- but: "The Professor!"

Salude!

Shore Honored by Palm Springs Film Festival

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Excerpted from THIS Hollywood Reporter article:

"Shore will be given the Frederick Loewe Music Award for his work on Martin Scorsese’s Hugo. He previously received the same award in 2005’s for composing the score for The Aviator. “Howard Shore is a master composer who has consistently delighted audiences of the more than 80 films that he has scored,” Matzner said. “In Hugo, the labyrinthine setting of a Paris railway station, where a young boy lives alone, doing what he must to survive, and the discovery of an aging filmmaker gifted with a second chance provide the perfect inspiration for Shore’s haunting score."

The Palm Spring Film Festival will run from January 5 to January 16, 2012. Click HERE for more information.

Hobbit Production Diary #5

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:50:00 +0000

Coeur Volant Lyrics

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 16:23:00 +0000

Howard Shore's official website is now running the lyrics to Hugo's "Coeur Volant" in both French and English. Also note that the song, as performed by Zaz, is now available as a single on iTunes.

If you'd like to learn more about Howard Shore's work on Hugo, please be sure to check out our three Clockwork articles.

“Coeur Volant” (Performed by Zaz)

Music and lyrics by Elizabeth Cotnoir, Isabelle Geffroy, Howard Shore

Animer, à la vie, les songes, les couleurs,

voir la lune, les étoiles, tout se retrouve à nouveau.

Serpentant les ruelles,

dans l’oubli, dans la peur,

petit génie aux doigts de fée,

fixant les heures,

ouvrant ses ailes,

un cœur qui pleurait, qui s'envole

l'amour a soigné ce qu'il manquait.

Elle était inconnue, curieuse et puis amie

un clin d'œil en offrande

petite sirène aux yeux de nuit

sa clé a porté le rêve vivant

un secret qu’ils partagent à présent.

Il était magicien d'images de poèmes

dompteur de rêves,

caché dans l'ombre,

seul avec son jeu brisé,

son cœur cassé

les choses en morceaux se réparent a nouveau.

Rêve …

N’oublie pas les rêves!

Rêve …

“Coeur Volant” (Performed by Zaz)

Music and lyrics by Elizabeth Cotnoir, Isabelle Geffroy, Howard Shore

English translation:

Open to life’s dream and colors,

Watch the moon and the stars.

All that is lost can be found again.

Winding in shadows,

Fearful and forgotten,

A little genie with nimble fingers

Fixing the hours.

Wings opening,

His broken heart takes flight.

Love heals everything.

She was a stranger, a helper, now friend.

A little mermaid with eyes of the night,

Her key brought the dream to life.

His secret now shared.

He was a magician of pictures and poems.

A dreamer of dreams,

Hiding in shadows,

Alone with his broken playful things.

Then his broken heart flies.

Things in pieces can mend.

Dream…

Remember to dream…

Dream…

Plan 9 Interview

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 16:10:00 +0000

This wonderful piece was sent in by Earl, who has set up his own website to house it, but has given his permission for us to run it here. It's a fascinating view at the creation of the diagetic music in The Lord of the Rings Films. Enjoy -- and thank you, Earl!

THE PLAN 9 INTERVIEW

December 2011 marks 10 years since the release of the first of the films in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and although many stories have been told concerning those who worked on them, both on camera and off, not much has been said about Plan 9 and David Long.

And so it was my great pleasure to be able to interview them on the occasion of this anniversary.

Just as The Lord of the Rings was a tale that “grew in the telling”, so too has this interview grown to become one of the most comprehensive accounts, if not the only one thus far, of Plan 9 and David Long's work on the films.

It was a pleasure conversing with David Donaldson, and I thank him along with Steven Roche, Janet Roddick, and David Long for being not just approachable but also generous with their time and information.

Onward to the interview...

QUESTION I Many stories have been told about the collaborations on The Lord of the Rings. One of them says that Peter Jackson had shot Bilbo's birthday party scenes to "Flaming Red Hair," a piece of music that you both composed and performed, and that he thought the tune fit in so perfectly that he decided to use it for the film. Is this how Plan 9 came to be involved with The Lord of the Rings?

PLAN 9 Some Background: The 4 of us all knew Peter and Fran for quite a few years before LOTR and worked on a number of their earlier films in various capacities. David Long was part of the band (The Muttonbirds) who Peter chose to play the end credits track on The Frighteners and Plan 9 (Steve Roche, Janet Roddick and David Donaldson) had scored Peter’s mockumentary Forgotten Silver. Although 3 of us work under the name Plan 9, the work we did on LOTR was very much a 4 way collaboration between Janet, Steve, myself and David Long. For the purpose of this work we called ourselves the Elvish Impersonators. The 4 of us have been making music together for over 25 years now. We all originally played together in a band called the Six Volts. Here’s us on a kids tv show in the 80s: Around the time that the films were green lit it occurred to us that there are many instances of songs and music in the books that are specific to the various peoples of Middle-earth and that there might be a place for us to create what we termed “cultural” music. This would mostly be source music ie. audible to the characters on screen and in some cases would be required on set for the shoot. We would endeavor to create distinctive and authentic feeling folk music for each race, be they Hobbits, Elves. Humans etc. We approached Peter and Fran about this and they commissioned us to come up with some ideas for the Bilbo’s birthday scene. I think we originally came up with 6 demos and once the more eccentric ones (Chopsticks played on Banjo, Uilleann Pipes etc) had been whittled down Peter and Fran settled on the 2 songs that were developed into Flaming Red Hair and Flowers for Rosie. We didn’t originally go as far down the Celtic route as it ended up but the brief became something along the lines of “the songs need to be really catchy on the first listen and we need to know these are the good guys straight away”. I believe they shot to both songs but by the time the scene was cut they only needed Flaming Red Hair. Once they started editing the film and Flaming Red Hair had sat in place for a while I guess it was doing the job well enough and it just stayed there. Following the contact we had with the production re the cultural music we were then employed as temp score/music editors, right from the animatic/preproduction stage of the trilogy.

QUESTION II How did the track title "Flaming Red Hair" come to be? 

PLAN 9 The original title was “Flaming Red Hair, (On Her Feet)”.

QUESTION III Many people do not know this, but you had also composed a song called "Flowers For Rosie" for Bilbo's birthday party scenes that was eventually never used. Can you tell us something about this? 

PLAN 9 As I’ve said above, they wanted to make sure they had enough music to cover what they might want to shoot, so wanted a second song as backup. Flowers For Rosie is another Celtic type piece using the same band lineup: Hurdy Gurdy, Rommel Pot, Jaw Harp, Bodhran, Fiddle, Whistles and Indian Harmonium. I seem to remember we also did a piece for Hobbiton Market that didn’t get used.

QUESTION IV The complete scores for The Lord of the Rings, including all of your work on the films, have now been released on the Complete Recordings, but "Flowers For Rosie" still remains unreleased. Is there hope that fans will one day get a chance to listen to this track?   

PLAN 9 We would be happy for all of our LOTR music to be released but it is not up to us. We would have liked our music to be released on the original soundtrack album. I think it was a New Line decision to release just the score.

QUESTION V Your version of "A Elbereth Gilthoniel", titled "The Elvish Lament"/"The Passing of the Elves", is interesting compared to the rest of the score in that it is an almost exclusively vocal piece. How many singers were on this track, and were there any instruments used?     

PLAN 9 The Elvish Lament was sung by Janet and Steve, The women’s voices were achieved by laying up numerous parts by Janet and the male parts layered up with Steve. The original demo was sung by Janet but they had wanted a male voice as lead in the film version. We auditioned and recorded several really good male singers but in the end they wanted the demo version they had grown to like. There is some very light musical backing, from memory it is Bowed Double Bass Harmonics and Bowed Banjo making up a shimmering bed.

QUESTION VI Talking about instruments, Howard Shore determined which instruments would represent each culture in Middle-earth and wrote music pertaining to those cultures using these specific instruments. Did you follow a similar process for the cultural music you composed?     

PLAN 9 One of our starting points was to imagine the musical instruments for each culture. We began by investigating the types of materials available to make their instruments. Hobbits seemed likely to have wood, animal skin and gut strings where the Elves may have had more access to different metals. From there we considered the elegance and design sensibilities of the Elves and how that might potentially influence the look and therefore the sound of the instruments. We felt the Elves more intellectual outlook could mean they had studied the science of harmonics and so used them in their composition. As we weren’t necessarily thinking the Hobbit music would be particularly Celtic sounding initially we ranged widely in what instruments and style we used. We were slowly reined in and in conjunction with Peter and Fran settled on the style and sound of the Hobbit music. The Elvish music was informed by different musical scales. We listened to a lot of different European folk music and the scales it was built upon and devised our own scale which had it’s own special ascending and descending scale. The correct Elvish Pronunciation was taught to us by video from David Salo and the dialect coaches who were here in NZ during the shooting.

QUESTION VII Moving on to The Two Towers... how did you approach composing the music for "The Lament For Théodred" sung by Éowyn, a piece that was significantly different from your overall work on The Fellowship of the Ring? 

PLAN 9 Eowyn’s Lament has a different sound to it because it is sung by Eowyn, one of the Rohan, a race of people. We were aware that all the different cultures needed to have a distinct character and sound to their music. In addition we had to compose the melody to the pictures that had already been shot. The actress had chanted the lines and we devised the melody for the main voice and then for the chorus of women supporting her. It was re recorded by the actress, Miranda Otto, plus a small group of female singers during post production.

QUESTION VIII You also contributed to the sound design for The Two Towers and The Return of the King. What aspects did you work on? 

PLAN 9 Our musical sound design work was mostly based around the influence of the Ring on the different characters. In film 1 the Ring was voiced by Alan Howard. For film 2 and 3 Peter and Fran wanted to try and give the Ring a more seductive voice as it started having influence and control over the characters. They were aware of Janet’s distinct vocal talents and wanted us to use her voice to give the Ring more variety in how it interacted with the characters it came into contact with. It was a fantastic opportunity for us to help give the Ring a strong character. As well as layered and effected vocal elements including wordless voice and ‘black speech’ we augmented these with textures and atmospheric layers. A lot of time was spent bowing, scraping, effecting and producing all sorts of “instruments” to get the required results. The start of film 3 with Smeagol and Deagol fighting is a good example of this as is the final confrontation between Frodo and Gollum leading to the Ring’s destruction. We also created some musical sound design for the Ents and the Dead Marshes. It was our dream job really.

QUESTION IX Finally, for The Return of the King, you composed the music for "The Drinking Song" sung by Merry and Pippin in Edoras. You'd also composed music for another version of "The Drinking Song" for The Fellowship of the Ring sung by Merry and Pippin in the Green Dragon Inn. What influenced the tunes for these perfectly hobbity tracks? 

PLAN 9 As the words for the songs came first it influenced how the songs could go. As they were drinking songs they needed to flow and scan easily and be able to be sung by the cast members. Working in conjunction with Fran we just followed our noses on those ones.

QUESTION X It's been 10 years since you worked on these films. Surely every moment of the entire experience was tremendously rewarding. But is there any one memory of your time working on The Lord of the Rings that you specifically cherish? 

PLAN 9 We worked about 6 months a year for 4 years on LOTR in our different capacities: temp score and music editing, cultural music creating and performing and as musical sound designers. It was like doing a degree in filmmaking. We watched and were part of those films right from their drawing board stage through to release. We absolutely loved being part of it. A lot of our work didn’t make it to the release cuts as the areas we tended to work on weren’t necessarily forwarding the story so tended to get cut as the films got too long. That’s filmmaking. They have however tended to turn up on the Director’s cut. It’s great that a number of people have noticed our input into those 3 films. I can’t think of one instance that stands out. It was a pretty special time.

QUESTION XI I've asked you 10 questions to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the release of these films. But I'm going to sneak in one more that looks forward now... ... a prelude to The Lord of the Rings is in the works. Are you involved in The Hobbit at all? And if so, are you at liberty to tell us what your contributions will be this time around?

PLAN 9 I’m not at liberty to tell you of any possible involvement we may have with The Hobbit.

Hobbit Teaser Poster

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 04:16:00 +0000

Hear Anything Interesting?

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 03:09:00 +0000

Cosmopolis Poster

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 12:45:00 +0000

Here's the newly released poster for one of Shore's upcoming 2012 projects: David Cronenberg's adaptation of Cosmopolis. Click the image for a larger version.

Be back here tomorrow evening ... I feel we'll have something to discuss!

Golden Globe Nomination for Hugo!

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:56:00 +0000

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

The Artist -- Ludovic Bource
W.E. -- Abel Korzeniowski
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo -- Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross

Hugo -- Howard Shore

War Horse -- John Williams

Clock Work [Part Three]

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:00:00 +0000

Clock Work

Part Three

The Sound of Silents by Doug Adams

Filmmaking’s beginning was charged with the energy of endless possibilities. The era of the ‘silent’ film lasted from the 1890s to approximately 1929. The historical record places the first matching of music and film in December of 1895, six years before Meilies’ A Trip to the Moon.

Says Rodney Sauer of the Mont Alto Orchestra (an ensemble that specializes in the recreation of film music from this era): “Although A Trip to the Moon had no recorded score, it – like many Méliès films – did have a script for narration, which was provided with the film and expected to be read aloud during the screening. Before film developed a narrative style, theaters often used a narrator or lecturer to describe the action to the audience and put it in context, and some early films don't make much sense without it. (For instance, [in] A Trip to the Moon you'll remember an interminable discussion among academics in wizard hats in the opening scenes. The narration explains what the professors are arguing about.) The tradition of a narrator died out in Europe and America, but in Japan it continued into the 1930s, where it developed into a beloved performance art called ‘Benshi,’ and Japan resisted talking films much longer than the rest of the world as a result.”

By 1908 however, the musical potential of film was enough to draw the attention of Camille Saint-Saëns, who wrote an original score to The Assassination of the Duke of Guise (L'Assassinat du duc de Guise). While the music was successful enough to earn a permanent place in Saint-Saëns’ body of work, it was largely regarded as an experiment. Music for film was rarely original. The variable resources available to these films meant that the accompaniment was generally drawn from classic Late-Romantic concert hall music, and either reduced to piano or small ensemble performance. Usage, too, varied greatly. Sometimes the music accompanied the films themselves, though just as often it backed reel changes – or it was simply played outside theaters to draw audiences in.

Continues Sauer, “There was considerable variability in the accompaniment, and probably not much music synchronized to the action the way we’d think of it today … In many storefront nickelodeons, the only music was from a gramophone blasting unrelated music out into the street to draw in business.” He continues, “According to some manuals of theater operation, if there was a pianist, he was instructed to play to entertain the audience during rewinds and reel changes, not during the film itself (perhaps leading sing-alongs or playing classical or popular pieces). Rick Altman [author of Silent Film Sounds] has an ad for a theater touting a blind pianist, which only makes sense if he wasn't playing to the films. But this seems to have varied widely regionally. There weren't universally established practices, and it seems likely that in other theaters, pianists were playing to the film. Audiences didn't know what to expect, and likely accepted whatever was presented to them until a ‘there-should-be-music-that-supports-the-film’ ethic became established in the early teens.”

Much of Méliès’ financial struggle was due to the unauthorized reproduction of his films in the United States. Thomas Edison, looking to corner the budding film market in the States, copied and distributed Méliès’ films across the country without remunerating the filmmaker. In addition, Edison held nearly every film-related patent in the U.S., which held investors – and the industry itself – largely at bay. In 1908, the same year Saint-Saëns’ first film score was debuting in France, Edison formed the Motion Picture Patents Company, a nine-studio conglomerate that essentially muscled all other investors out of filmmaking.

Méliès’ career in film met its end just as another era in film music was dawning. His final project, The Knight of the Snows, was released in 1913, just as live underscore (or photoplay) music became common accompaniment for films. Only a year prior, Max Winkler had begun to explore the commercial potential in film music retail. Winkler worked at Carl Fischer in New York, and began to make available collections of (in his words) “butchered” classics that could be used to accompany films. In 1913 Sam Fox published his own collection of short compositions by John Stepan Zamecnik – the Sam Fox Moving Picture Music volumes. These pieces were arranged by their intended purpose, and went by such titles as “Western Scene,” “Indian Attack,” “Goodbye Music (For Parting Love Scene),” or “Burglar or Sneaky Music.” Fox had been a successful music distributer, having been the exclusive publisher for John Phillip Sousa, and Zamecnik was a violinist in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra who had studied composition under Antonín Dvořák. The pairing seemed financially beneficial to both, and so it would be.

In October of 1915 a federal decision was passed in the case of United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co. where it was decided that the conglomerate went “far beyond what was necessary to protect the use of patents or the monopoly which went with them.” Their actions were declared an illegal restraint of trade under the Sherman Antitrust Act and by 1918 the MPCC was no more.

Film production proliferated in the United States, as did dedicated theaters complete with elaborate organs and house orchestras. It is estimated that, at this time, 40 percent of film showings were accompanied by theater organs, 25 percent by solo piano, and 25 percent by orchestras of varying sizes and instrumentation. (Ten percent of films remained unaccompanied.) However, the largest, most prestigious theaters all had orchestras, so while only a small percentage of the nation’s showings included orchestral accompaniment, the majority of the filmgoing public was exposed to orchestral rather than organ or piano music.

Musical practices still varied, though codified procedures were beginning to emerge. Many performances were improvised or complied from existing classics. Says Rodney Sauer, “The early movie theater orchestras saw their job not only as entertainment, but also education. Many musicians considered European classical music to be the height of musical culture, and they would perform excerpts of the classics as a way to bring up the musical knowledge of American audiences. The number of symphony orchestras did increase substantially from 1915 to 1930, so they may have had some effect.”

As for the ‘improvised’ scores, Clark Wilson, a member of the American Theater Organ Society, and a specialist in silent film accompaniment, describes that, “there should be little, if any, wholesale improvisation utilized in a good picture. While much ‘off the top of the head’ playing might work for a fast-paced short comedy in which there is no time to develop complex musical themes, such will not be the case for a feature or serious film. Let’s call what we are about to deal with limited or ‘controlled improvisation’ that we include around a solid set of selections drawn from a library of good music …

“Iris Vining, the legendary organist of the flagship Granada Theatre in San Francisco (and later the Fox Theatre, Atlanta) and one of the top film accompanists of the age said the following to her peers in the December, 1924 issue of Exhibitors’ Herald: ‘Don’t do too much improvising. Your audience … will appreciate good music well played. To too many organists, playing is just so much aimless wandering interrupted now and then by a fight or a fire.’”

Other performances depended more heavily on original music pre-composed specifically to suit the needs of the films. Says Sauer, “Many of the musicians, as well as the repertoire, for the early movie theaters came from vaudeville and melodrama theaters, which were two distinct traditions. From vaudeville came percussionists who had played for live comedians – supplying rim shots, drum rolls, and slapsticks – and they tended to play directly to the action of the film. From the melodrama came small orchestras, who preferred to play to the mood of the scenes, using full classical or popular pieces of music that were not strictly tied to the action. A particular theater's approach to music depended largely on what the musicians were doing before they started playing for movies.”

During this same time period, worsening economic and political situations in Europe were causing many composers to look the U.S. for employment. In 1914 Max Steiner, a young Viennese composer who has studied with Brahms and Mahler, came to States seeking work on Broadway. Hugo Riesenfeld, a violinist and composer who once played in a quartet with Arnold Schoenberg, likewise came to the States from Vienna. Although Riesenfeld also did a stint on Broadway as the concertmaster for Oscar Hammerstein’s Manhattan Opera Company, he was already working in film by 1915. Just a few years later, he scored Joan the Woman for Cecil B. DeMille. In 1921 Ernö Rapée, a Hungarian-born composer, created a score for The Cabinet of Caligari by compiling concert works by such composers as Schoenberg and Stravinsky. In fact, the Caligari score may have been the first time these composers’ works were performed by an American orchestra. In 1924, Rapée would publish Motion Picture Moods, a collection of short, film-appropriate compositions not unlike the Sam Fox volumes.

Composers acclaimed for their concert hall works contributed to the young film music industry as well. In 1923 Arthur Honegger scored La Roue; in 1925 Darius Milhuad scored The Beloved Vagabond; in 1929 Dmitri Shostakovich scored Novvy Vavilon.

1926 and 1927 brought two new revelations: In ’26 William Axt and David Mendoza’s score for Don Juan (staring John Barrymore) became the first film score to be recorded. And in ’27 the dam broke. The Jazz Singer brought a whole new dimension to films. For the first time synchronized sound recording was a part of the filmgoing experience.

To take advantage of the new technology, Hollywood flooded the market with musical films. They were expensive and difficult to produce – the orchestra needed to be live on-set for the full shoot. Overdubbing was not yet a part of the process, so it was not unusual for the full ensemble to be required to put in 14 to 16 hours days just to record a two-minute song. But with the new audio gimmick in place, movies were doing record business, and were flush with cash. In 1929 Max Steiner left Broadway, ostensibly to orchestrate Rio Rita, but the allure of the Hollywood musical kept him firmly on the West Coast.

Soon Hollywood was churning out musicals at such a rate that audiences tired of them. Attendance sagged slightly, but was dealt a heavier blow in 1929 when the stock market crashed. However, it was far from a death knell. Prior to the market crash, film theater attendance averaged around 90 million tickets per week, nationwide. During the crash, that number dropped, but never dipped below 60 million. Likely, audiences were anxious to take their minds off the grim realities as hand.

Yet while Hollywood marched on, some belt-tightening was necessary. Live musical accompaniment was one of the first luxuries to be disposed with. The recorded music that had been so popular during the musicals’ brief reign was now applied to dramatic underscores. Performers were hungry for work. Film studios began to build music departments around stables of composers. Film scores were now seen as group efforts with teams of composers creating themes, and then trading them off to one another to create variations and developments. Simply by circumstance a new sound began to emerge. It was rooted in the traditions of European Late-Romantic music, informed by vaudeville and melodrama theater, and polished with the glittering patina of Broadway musicals.

In 1933 Max Steiner composed King Kong. It was one of the first full-length films to be extensively scored. It used the new Hollywood sound, but a single composer created it. It was, in short, a revelation. With its combination of tone, technique, and structure, Kong established film music practices that are still in place today.

King Kong was also a feather in the cap of its producer, David O. Selznick, second cousin twice removed to Brian Selznick, author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret. In The Hugo Movie Companion, Brain Selznick writes, “My grandfather’s first cousin was the famous film producer David O. Selznick, who made the original King Kong, as well as Gone With the Wind, Duel in the Sun, and many other classic movies. He and my grandfather grew up together, and even though they both died before I was born, my grandmother’s house was filled with books about David O. Selznick that I loved to read. Perhaps this is why I’ve always loved movies.” The last act of the film version of Hugo, of course, deals directly with the importance of films and their history. Just as Scorsese’s film pays homage to the history of cinema via both its plot and certain recreated techniques, so does Howard Shore’s score honor the photoplay music that came before it.

Clock Work [Part Two]

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Clock Work

Part Two

Howard Shore Discusses Hugo with Doug Adams

Hugo’s third act reveals that Isabelle’s “Papa Georges” is, in fact, Georges Méliès, one of the forefathers of modern cinema. Here the film’s clock imagery comes into full focus. Hugo Cabret believes that the world and the people that inhabit it are, in essence, one big machine. His place in that machine, just like his place in the train station, is to keep it running – to fix what does not work.

As Hugo sets out to ‘fix’ Papa Georges – to show him that the world did not forget his contributions and that he is not a failure – Howard Shore’s score reveals its own clocklike sense of rotating gears and cogs. The seven themes introduced in the film’s first reel pull together to reveal the subtle connections between each of them. The musette-based themes for Hugo and Isabelle begin to join together to complete one another’s phrases. The theme for the Station Inspector is shown to open with the same three pitches that tick back-and-forth in the clockwork theme. The automaton theme, which begins as a literal representation of the metal figure in Hugo’s makeshift home, turns away from the ondes Martenot and settles on two other instruments related to Shore’s sextet. Guitar develops the figure into a theme for Hugo’s father, who builds and repairs machines, and is the central hub of young Hugo’s world. After Hugo’s father is killed, the guitar theme rotates again and is, at times, applied to Monsieur Labisse, the one person in the train station who seems to know his place and purpose – the only part of the station’s ‘machine’ that it not broken. On the other hand, solo piano, an instrument originally associated with the mystery theme, applies the developed automaton music to the magic of Méliès’ filmmaking, then more specifically to Mama Jeanne’s appearance in the finished films. Here the theme moves beyond the literal to represent a sort of surrogate humanity – the soul of ‘projected’ imagery.

As the musical world of the first half of the film compresses and focuses, two new themes pivot into the spotlight. The first relates to Georges’ halcyon days as a magician, and his first experiments with film. In the story Hugo brings René Tabard over to Méliès’ home. Professor Tabard is a devotee of Méliès’ work and Hugo hopes to prove to Papa Georges that his work has not been forgotten. But Hugo, Isabelle, and Tabard are intercepted by Mama Jeanne, who asks him to please not bring up the past – it will upset Georges too much.

Shore’s nostalgia theme makes it first appearance here. Like Hugo’s theme before it, the nostalgia theme is a gentle French waltz. However, where Hugo’s theme climbs upward with youthful energy and spirit, the nostalgia theme moves primarily by bittersweet descents. It’s not a sad look back, per se, but it’s a settled theme – a fond reminiscence. Says Shore, “It’s a piece that describes Georges and Jeanne’s relationship. It’s woven through the whole last part of the film, but you don’t really hear it until that hallway scene.”

Tabard agrees to leave, but in departing mentions that he remembers Jeanne from Méliès’ films. She is flattered. Recalls Shore, “The kids say, ‘Oh, Mama Jeanne, you were in the movies?’ and she says something to the effect of ‘That was a long time ago.’ A new theme starts right on that line, and that becomes the magic show theme. You hear that when Georges does the levitation trick – it’s all throughout that flashback to his show.”

The magic show theme comes complete with a collection of attendant side figures, many of which are previewed in the armoire scene. As Georges’ past is fully revealed, these same figures return in a sequence that is one part homage and one part recreation of the dawn of filmmaking.

The sextet, Shore’s ensemble-within-an-ensemble consisting of ondes Martenot, musette, gypsy guitar, piano, bass, and drums, is very much like the ensembles one might have encountered in an early period movie house. The use of the tack piano and selections from Saint-Saëns and Satie is in keeping with the tradition of compiled scores drawn from past classics. But it is in acknowledgement of Papa Georges’ history that Shore nods most deeply to the past. Shore’s theme for Méliès’ magic show is surrounded by a number of short motifs, all of which recall the bright, cheerful vigor of photoplay music. “I was going for that theater sound,” Shore describes. Mixer Simon Rhodes worked with Shore to create a very specific timbre that would sound at once modern and period specific. Says Shore, “Simon Rhodes is so good at what he does. He goes well beyond just recording the music. He understands the color and the sound, and what I’m doing, musically, with these new pieces. He created a sound for the last half of the CD that really captured that theater quality. It was very subtle, but so beautiful.

“It was a pretty big orchestra, but it was done small. We didn’t really want to use just the small group, so we used the full orchestra, but they didn’t play that loud. That was part of the key to it – the dynamics. We kept the dynamics under control and that gives it its intimacy – the small sound. A lot of times the orchestra would be playing piano or mezzo-piano, but there would be so many people playing at that low volume that it would sound full and gorgeous – a big, full sound, but without the weight and the loudness.”

Hugo’s metaphorical clock is reset at the end of the film. The story’s ending is a beginning, with each character now renewed and functioning properly – effectively “fixed” – and ready to look into the future. Shore brings the score’s themes together again in “Coeur Volant.” The song fixes Hugo’s theme in the center of its wheel, but places the score’s secondary themes at its edges, each rotating, intermeshing at its appointed turn. Papa Georges has been restored to his proper place in history; the Station Inspector has found love with Lisette; Hugo has a family and a purpose; and Isabelle sits down to commit his story to paper. The ending is a beginning as the clock is wound anew.

Critics Choice Nom for Hugo

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 14:25:00 +0000

Howard Shore's score to Hugo has been nominated for a 2011 Critics Choice Award for BEST SCORE. Congrats and best of luck!

The full list of score nominees is as follows:

The Artist -- Ludovic Bource
Drive -- Cliff Martinez
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo -- Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross
Hugo -- Howard Shore
War Horse -- John Williams

See all the nominations HERE.

Howard Shore in FilmMusicMag

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 22:22:00 +0000

Dan Schweiger has just posted a new interview with Howard Shore in which he discusses Hugo, A Dangerous Method, The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit ... the whole panoply!

Howard Shore: "I’m actively composing now on The Hobbit. I love Tolkien, and I love Peter’s work. He creates such incredible films, which makes it even better for a composer. These films are endlessly interesting to me. I never tire of them, because the Rings films are fascinating worlds to work in. But scoring them doesn’t get any easier, I have to say! You would think after The Return of the King that you’ve done everything. Now there are two films ahead and it’s just a mountain to climb really, but it feels good. The Hobbit is quite inspiring."

Read Schweiger's full piece HERE.

Ongoing Discussion [December 2011]

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 22:13:00 +0000

We've been looking at Hugo a lot during the past month, and we will continue to do so during the coming weeks. However, I didn't want to allow A Dangerous Method to pass without some scrutiny. I spent the better part of last spring preparing Of Rings and Myths -- and have, in fact, been working through a few self-imposed revisions just this last month -- so Wagner has been very much on my mind this year. I knew Shore was working on Dangerous Method at the same time but, other than the Idyll, I didn't know which bits of Wagner would be quoted in the score. When I finally heard the album, I was happily encouraged by just how many common selections we'd made in terms of the motifs.

I'm not sure how many Wagnerians there are on the blog ... though Timdalf certainly fits the bill! Anyway, I thought it might be fun to pick through the motifs that appear in the score. I found the use of the Wagner in this score to be quite clever, since it's often well digested into Shore's writing. For example, the album's first track ("Burghölzli") would appear to begin with an appropriately re-formed setting of Wagner's motif for Mime's obsession.

Some of the Wagner quotes seem to relate to the spirit of Wagner's drama while others relate to the undercurrent and meaning behind the leitmotifs; they're not all simple answers.

So please, have a go at it! And by all means, invite your favorite open-minded Wagner scholars to stop by and contribute. I'm anxious to see what you all pick out!

I'm currently working on a bit of research that's one part related to Hugo, one part inspired by Hugo. I'll talk about that more when the next installment of Clock Work runs. As I've noted on the boards, I'm remaining tight-lipped on all things (well, most things) Hobbit-related until 2012, but when speed picks up on that front, expect it to pick up quickly.

Back soon with more Clock Work.

D

Clock Work [Part One]

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 22:09:00 +0000

Clock Work

Part One

Howard Shore Discusses Hugo with Doug Adams

Hugo takes place in Paris in 1931 and tells the tale of an orphan who lives behind the walls of the Gare Montparnasse railway station. Befriended by a young girl named Isabelle and hunted by the Station Inspector, Hugo seeks to solve the mystery his father left behind – a mystery embodied by an imperturbable automaton. Hugo eventually encounters Papa Georges, who grieves for his own past and, like Hugo, is haunted by what he has lost to time and circumstance.

Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of Brain Selznick’s 2007 book The Invention of Hugo Cabret is many things. It is a love letter to mid-twentieth century Parisian culture; an ode to the early days of film; a tender story about loss, loneliness, and deliverance; and an experiment in modern cinematic technique. But most of all, it is a story of characters and passions. The same can be said of Howard Shore’s score. It is an amalgam of forward-thinking technique and old-fashioned storytelling. It’s both an homage to a fascinating period in the budding art of film music, and a continued evolution of Shore’s deeply personal compositional voice. However, as befits the story, the score’s primary concerns are place, people, and heart.

“Hugo is very detailed in its use of motifs and themes,” says Shore. “It’s an older style as we know, but Hugo had a pretty traditional type of approach to using themes for characters and objects. Marty really got into it. It’s such a nice way to work.

“It started off right away. I wrote the first reel, and it had seven themes in it. And I thought, ‘Oh ok, I know where we’re going!’”

The score’s first theme is built of interlocking fragments of ticking arpeggios, which represent the great clocks behind which Hugo builds his home. “It’s all eighths and quarters working together like the gears of a clock.”

The clockwork theme often underpins Shore’s mystery theme, which depicts the puzzle Hugo inherits from his father. Here the melodic line passes slowly and steadily, falling by recurrent octaves in piano.

“Hugo’s theme is a waltz that turns into ‘Coeur Volant,’” Shore describes. “It was written by me, Elizabeth Cotnoir and Isabelle Geffroy, whose professional name is ‘Zaz.’ She’s a French artist who lives in Paris. She worked with us and performed the song. It was similar to the way we worked with Annie Lennox. We had some melody, we had some lyrics, and then we worked with the artist who was actually going to perform it. Zaz added some nice elements.”

Isabelle’s theme is closely related to Hugo’s in spirit and flavor. Each has a lonely, isolated quality that warms as the score progresses. “Isabelle comes into the toy store and you hear the solo musette for the first time.

“There’s also a theme that’s heard in the tunnels. It’s a traveling piece. I used it in various places in the film for Hugo’s movement.”

The automaton that Hugo’s father left behind is decorated with the most exotic orchestrations in Shore’s score, but they’re subtly applied. The short motif for the machine rotates through and around B minor tonalities, and is often orchestrated for strings, celesta, harp, and the delicate electronic tone of the ondes Martenot, a kind of French theremin that was created in 1928 and employs a standard piano-like keyboard with a sliding metal ring.

Finally, the Station Inspector’s theme is a rigid marche comique featuring cornet, bassoon, and snare drum, which is heightened then expanded into any number of burlesque contortions as the inept Inspector chases Hugo throughout the station. “I experimented with many different trumpet sounds, and I ended up trying a cornet. At the same time I was also experimenting with different mutes – wooden mutes, paper mutes, brass mutes – and found a certain sound that I loved: cornet with a wooden mute. I used that in many scenes.”

With these seven themes assembled, Shore was prepared to start into the 105 minutes of score that Hugo would eventually require – an unusual amount for a Scorsese project.

Doug Adams: There’s a real depth to the writing in this score. At times it feels like it’s a smaller ensemble folded into a larger ensemble. It’s such a beautiful way to do it because it puts you in the mindset of three-dimensional imagery. You think of things in proximity to the listener. Intimate things are close-up, larger-scale things are broader.

Howard Shore: That was one of the things I wanted to do very early on. I had not previously worked on 3D films, but I wanted to make sure I had a lot of depth to the sound of the recording, so I used a pretty big orchestra: triple winds, brass in threes, 60 strings, and percussion.

The orchestra was about 88 total, and then I used a second smaller group, which became its own little band in the middle. It was the sextet: the ondes Martenot, musette, gypsy guitar, piano, bass, and drums. We used an old 30s drum-kit.

DA: That’s great. All the old woodblocks and that …

HS: Right, there’s woodblock, and old cymbals, and snare drum.

I also used a variety of pianos. The tack piano is actually Mrs. Mills’ piano. It’s a very famous piano that McCartney used on “Lady Madonna.” They’ve had it in Abbey Road’s Studio Two for years, so they rolled that out. I used that quite a lot. It’s a beautiful old Steinway. It has a good tuning, but it’s got that ‘tack’ sound. I don’t think they’ve done much to it; it’s just an old beat-up piano!

Mrs. Mills had a TV show in the UK. Everybody knew the piano. They all called it “Mrs. Mills’ piano” and made a whole thing of bringing it out! I actually tried other pianos – small uprights –but we ended up with Mrs. Mills’. A lot of the ivories are gone, and when the ivories are missing the keys are very rough. So Simon Chamberlain’s hands would be raw and sore! He’d be playing all these very fast things, and the piano had no ivory or plastic or anything on the keys.

The sextet was really the core. I did twelve sessions with the sextet on its own before I worked with the orchestra. I did a lot of recording with them over the course of about five months; I would write, and then I would do a live session with the group. Marty never uses temp – he never puts anything in the film that doesn’t belong in the film – so whatever I was writing and recording, he would put in the film. He likes to screen the movie a lot. So it was a way to watch the film with the right music in it.

DA: I loved the use of the ondes Martenot in the sextet, because it doesn’t play a novelty role. You’re just using it as another woodwind; it sits right in that family. It has that beautiful color but it doesn’t draw undue attention to itself.

HS: That’s right. It’s used like a woodwind, exactly. It’s such a beautiful instrument. It’s subtly used.

DA: The sextet is creating a very ‘French’ type of sound, but it still feels like it’s entirely connected to the score. It doesn’t feel like you’re using a different voice and then going back to the score proper. It’s all one self-contained sound. That’s got to be a tough thing to accomplish.

HS: Well, I think that’s just from orchestrating it myself. I get into these grooves. It would have been a hard score to do with a lot of different people. The completeness is why I like to do the orchestration.

DA: The other thing that struck me about the consistency of the score was the harmonic language. If you look at Hugo’s theme, even when it transforms into the song, it never becomes a I-IV-V-I thing. You’re not just doing a folk tune. It still has the changes that are so much a part of your voice, things like the augmented chords and so on. That made it feel like it was an extension of the score.

HS: I think that’s because you’ve heard this music all through the film, so it seems it’s most satisfying to hear a lyric at the end. When you hear that voice come in, it’s like: “Ah, we’re home!” It just feels so good … if you get it right!

DA: It’s a sense of completion, like all the parts came together to make something – a last statement.

HS: Exactly. I love that. The lyric by Elizabeth is so beautiful, and hearing Zaz sing the song in French is just so gorgeous.

DA: It’s such a beautiful language anyway.

HS: Exactly. And it just feels so natural. The lyrics are really beautiful. They’re about the boy and the girl, and about time and healing. It’s a nice completion.

One of the things I love about writing film music is that I can delve into these musical periods. They’re so interesting. Like the world of Naked Lunch, or Ed Wood, or Georges Méliès, or The Aviator. That was always a major attraction – to be able to live in these worlds. I mean, why wouldn’t you want to work in 1930s Paris? Or with the Lumière brothers or Méliès’ in the late 1800s.

DA: The last themes in the score deal with Méliès, yes?

HS: Yes. With Georges Méliès in the last half of the film I started to develop the Nostalgia theme. It has to do with the past. So that’s the theme of his magic show, and the early days of cinema. It’s used all throughout the ending of the film.

You know, people forget that the silent film era was actually over 30 years long.

DA: Yes, we think of that period like a flash in the pan, but it was around a long time.

HS: From around 1895 – that was the Lumière brothers – up to the beginning of recorded dialogue and The Jazz Singer in 1927. But the silent era was never silent. It always had music. That’s fascinating to me. In Hugo they show the Lumière brothers’ film A Train Comes into the Station [(L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat)], and it has a man playing a piano into a tent. It’s in a sideshow, like in a carnival. He’s playing Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre. I really wanted to get Saint-Saëns into the film because, as we know, Saint-Saëns was the first film composer.

DA: That’s right. Just about the very first, The Assassination of the Duke of Guise [(L'Assassinat du duc de Guise]).

HS: You hear his work predominantly in a couple of key spots. Danse Macabre was from 1874, and it was a popular classical piece. It was a very dark piece – people weren’t used to that kind of music evoking rituals.

DA: The figure of death on his violin and all that.

HS: Yeah, exactly! So it was a very popular piece, and of course the Lumière brothers’ silent films were also a popular type of entertainment. And people were frightened by it! A Train Comes into the Station was tremendously frightening to people. People thought the train was going to run them over! That sort of reminds me of 3D. Méliès was an early experimenter with stereoscopic images, and coloring the film, and creating special effects around the turn of the century. It was a pretty unusual thing to be doing, but he was such an innovator.

It’s so fascinating, the silent era. It was the birth of all film music. What was played in those movie theaters became what we associate now with film. It went up through Waxman, Korngold, and Steiner. Everybody that came after the silent films started with this classical idea of music in film.

DA: It’s such a fascinating period. We think of that as such a logical combination now – a film will almost always have music whether it’s an original score, or songs, or source, or whatever. But somebody had to have that idea. They had to think, “We’ll use music, it’ll help the storytelling.” People take that for granted, “Of course it’s there, it has to be.” But somebody thought of that. That was an idea; that was an innovation.

Hugo puts you right back in that world of large productions and traditional narrative music. That’s a good place to be as you move into the next year, yes?

HS: Yes, Hugo was a good lead-up for The Hobbit.

DA: It puts you in that thematic mindset again?

HS: Exactly, yes. It brought me back into that whole process. It was a bigger film score than I had done for a while in terms of the amount of music, and how the music was used in the film. It’s not quite as long as The Hobbit will be, but it was a very similar process in terms of composing. The composition took basically five months, and the production was pretty extensive – two months of orchestration, two months of recording/editing/mixing. So Hugo was like a mini Rings score.

Hugo PR

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 21:42:00 +0000

UPDATE: Track samples available HERE

HOWE RECORDS TO RELEASE HUGO SCORE
NOVEMBER 22, 2011

Music By Academy Award® Winner Howard Shore
Featuring Zaz on the Original Song “Coeur Volant”

(November 15, 2011—New York, NY) Howe Records is pleased to announce the release of the Hugo – Original Score, available in stores and digitally on November 22, 2011. Hugo marks the sixth collaboration between director Martin Scorsese and composer Howard Shore. Like Scorsese’s film, Shore’s score to Hugo is a love letter both to the French culture in the 1930s and to the groundbreaking early days of cinema.

Hugo tells the story of Hugo Cabret, a boy who lives behind the walls of a Parisian train station. Shore’s music is composed for two ensembles – one nested within the other – to create a sense of layering in the musical palette. Inside a full symphony orchestra resides a smaller ensemble, a sort of nimble French dance band that includes the ondes Martenot, musette, cimbalom, tack piano, gypsy guitar, upright bass, a 1930s trap-kit, and alto saxophone. “I wanted to match the depth of the sound to the depth of the image,” says Shore.

The Hugo score is based around a family of primary musical themes. “The themes are used for clarity of storytelling and they develop over the course of the film,” says the composer. The score’s central theme is a Parisian waltz that develops into the song “Coeur Volant.” Howard Shore invited renowned French singer Zaz to collaborate with Elizabeth Cotnoir and him on the song, which captures the lyrical essence of the world of Hugo.

The theme for Hugo’s quest begins the score with clocklike precision in piano octaves. A figure for strings, celesta, and ondes Martenot rotates downward through minor modes to depict the mysterious automaton that Hugo’s father left behind. The Station Inspector is portrayed by a marche comique featuring bassoon and striding snare drum, while the cinematic innovations of Georges Méliès – “Papa Georges” to Hugo and Isabelle – receive Shore’s most theatrical flourishes, which recreate the spirited energy of live theater orchestras and the very first film scores.

Academy Award®-winning composer Howard Shore is among today’s most respected, honored, and active composers and conductors. His work with Peter Jackson on The Lord of the Rings trilogy stands as his most towering achievement to date, earning him three Oscars® and four Grammy® awards. Since 2003 Shore’s music from the beloved trilogy has been constantly performed in concert halls around the world. Howe Records recently released a live recording of The Lord of the Rings Symphony: Six Movements for Orchestra and Chorus, which continues to appear on Billboard Magazine’s classical charts.

As one of the original creators of Saturday Night Live, Shore served as the show’s music director from 1975 to 1980. At the same time, he began collaborating with David Cronenberg, and has since scored 13 of the director’s films, including The Fly, Dead Ringers, Crash, Naked Lunch, Eastern Promises, and 2011’s A Dangerous Method. Shore continues to distinguish himself with a wide range of projects, from Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, The Aviator, and Gangs of New York, to Ed Wood, The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, and Mrs. Doubtfire. He is currently working on his second opera, and is returning to Middle-earth with J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

Through the years, Academy Award® winner Martin Scorsese has transported us to extraordinary places. This Holiday season he will take audiences to a magical time and place as only he can, in his first ever 3D film, based on Brian Selznick’s award winning and imaginative New York Times bestseller, The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

Hugo is the astonishing adventure of a wily and resourceful boy whose quest to unlock a secret left to him by his father will transform Hugo and all those around him, and reveal a safe and loving place he can call home. The film stars Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen, Asa Butterfield, Chloë Grace Moretz, Ray Winstone, Emily Mortimer, Christopher Lee, Helen McCrory, Michael Stuhlbarg, Frances de la Tour, Richard Griffiths, with Jude Law.

Paramount Pictures will present Hugo in theaters on November 23, 2011. The Hugo – Original Score from Howe Records will be available in stores and digitally on November 22, 2011.

A Dangerous Method PR

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Adams) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 21:41:00 +0000

SONY MASTERWORKS RELEASES ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK
OF A DANGEROUS METHOD

ORIGINAL MUSIC BY AWARD-WINNING COMPOSER HOWARD SHORE

FEATURES LANG LANG’S PERFORMANCE OF WAGNER’S SIEGFRIED IDYLL

Available on November 21, 2011

Sony Masterworks is proud to announce the release of the original soundtrack picture soundtrack of A Dangerous Method. Howard Shore, a leading composer for movies, wrote the music for this dark and dramatic tale set in Zurich and Vienna on the eve of the First World War. Available on Monday, November 21, the soundtrack also features a recording of Richard Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll by one of the most exciting pianists of our time, Lang Lang.

A Dangerous Method is the story of the relationship between two of the great pioneers of modern psychology, Carl Jung (played by Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen), and of Jung’s relationship with his brilliant and beautiful young patient Sabina Spielrein, a wonderful role for Keira Knightley. Jung successfully treats Sabina, who with his encouragement becomes a psychiatrist herself, and through correspondence about her case Jung gains the friendship of Freud. When Jung breaks off his love affair with Sabina, she becomes Freud’s patient, and differences on moral and intellectual issues open a gap between the two men.

Director David Cronenberg has chosen Howard Shore to write the score for all but one of his films in the last 30 years. Shore has composed music for more than 80 films in all, also working with directors such as Martin Scorsese and Jonathan Demme, with whom he collaborated on Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia. His outstanding success was the Lord of the Rings trilogy, for which he received three Academy Awards. Furthermore, he is the winner of two Golden Globe and four Grammy Awards for his film scores. He has also composed a number of concert works and an opera, The Fly, which premiered in Paris in 2008.

Featured on this soundtrack is Shore’s arrangement of Richard Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll. Wagner composed the Idyll as a birthday present for his wife Cosima after the birth of their son Siegfried in 1869. It is a highly personal piece of music: its first performance, by a small ensemble in Wagner’s home on Christmas Day 1870, woke Cosima on that morning from her sleep. Later Wagner incorporated music from the Idyll into his opera Siegfried, the third of the four parts of The Ring.

Lang Lang, one of the world’s most renowned pianists, performs the 20-minute Siegfried Idyll on this soundtrack. His meteoric career has taken him around the world for performances in front of huge audiences and even into the White House.

A Dangerous Method with its many-layered story of sexual and intellectual exploration and its star cast has the potential for great box-office success. Shore’s music and the superb playing of Lang Lang will delight listeners who have seen the movie and fans of piano music and Wagner alike.