Film Music

In Memoriam — Jerry Goldsmith
1929—2004

Film music fans around the world are saddened by the death of Jerry Goldsmith, one of the greatest and most reverred film composers of all time. It was his highly influential score for The Omen that first compelled me to buy a film soundtrack album and psychological character study of Patton remains, in my view, one of the most important scores by any composer. He will live on though his music.

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y special interest is film music. Like most kids of the 1970s, I had two records — a compilation of the great James Bond movie themes, and the Star Wars soundtrack. I always loved music in the movies, especially my beloved 007 films. But it wasn’t until I saw The Omen, with its remarkably haunting score, that I felt compelled to buy a film’s music on record. Once started, I just couldn’t stop.

Who are the great film composers?

Most film music is, frankly, inconsequential. There are, however, a few composers who consistently write film music of distinction. These are the ones who write film music that stays with you long after leaving the cinema.

Any list of choice composers is a matter of taste. I’m not into the golden age. I find it a little overbearing. There are exceptions of course, such as Steiner’s King Kong and Waxman’s scores from Rebecca and Bride Of Frankenstein. Nor do I favour the new era, where everything seems written around a drum machine and is pasted thickly and thoughtlessly like a gaudy wallpaper. Though immensely popular I dislike most action film scores, especially muscle movie scores. I don’t like busy, chatty music, especially that which tends to have a crash-o-cymbals on every bar. And I’m tired of the pretension of two hour long film scores using 120-piece orchestras and 60-piece choirs.

I prefer a score that stirs my inner romantic. I like themes. I like stateliness. I like serenity. I like melody, I like lushness. Most of all, I like music that is used pointedly, not excessively. I especially love beautiful music that is tinged with a delicious sense of mystery, melancholia or menace. My era is the sliver age, the 1960s and 1970s.

Composers of principal interest

John Barry

Yorkshire born John Barry has, in my opinion, the strongest stable of sound in film. I first loved his music through the James Bond movies, with their staccato brass and easy jazz; their vivid, spacious themes, exotic location music and silky lounge sound. He has written some of the best known film scores of our time (Born Free, Midnight Cowboy) and many a masterful score for a variety of minor films. I still love Bond, but what keeps me interested is that I simply love sad music, and Barry is its master. Nudged one way, his music might be saccharine. Some say it is anyway. Others find him slow and self derivative. But for me his broad strokes and perfect counter point are gorgeous. In one moment he takes us inside the characters and their frailties, and in another sweeps us away with rapturous outward expression. Barry writes with character and distinction every time.

Click here for my specialist page on John Barry.

Ennio Morricone

Creator of the quirky, operatic sound of the Spaghetti Western, the cult Italian composer is ingenius. Not all of his amazing 400-plus filmography is enjoyable. Indeed, some is quite alienating. A great deal of his music is simply wonderful, however. He is as original, distinctive and addictive as they come. He writes moving themes and uses everything from guitars to harmonica; sopranos and vocal groups to whistlers. Audiences cried at the nostalgia of Cinema Paradiso. They were spiritually uplifted by The Mission and who in the world does not know his famous coyote theme music from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly?

Bernard Herrmann

Reverred by all, the tempestuous Herrmann was described as the archetypal 19th century manic depressive romantic. As famous for his self destructive temper as scores such as Vertigo, his music is noted for its dark romance and suspense. He moves you to tears with the sweet, plaintive longing in Fahrenheit 451; he jolts you with the harshness of Cape Fear; and hypnotises you with his repeating, unresolved chords of Psycho. The favoured composer of Orson Welles, Hitchcock and Scorsese, his credentials speak for themselves.

Lalo Schifrin

The sound of Warner Brothers in the sixties and seventies, Argentine composer Lalo Schifrin has brought us some of the grittiest jazz and jazz-orchestra crossover scores in modern film — including Dirty Harry, Enter The Dragon and his fantastic peak, Bullitt. He wrote the famous Mission Impossible theme and has a number of superb orchestral scores to his name too, such as The Amytiville Horror, The Fox, THX-1138 and his unused avant garde music from The Exorcist.

Georges Delerue

Delerue is, for me, the French John Barry. Like Barry, he is a master of romantic melody with a genius for sweeping strings. There is an equal genius in his tender introspective music. He has a classical style which, in many ways, makes him more refined than almost any other composer here. His music from Platoon is exemplary of his ability to sweep up the emotion of the listener.

Jerry Goldsmith

Jerry Goldsmith has a special place with me because of The Omen. I love a great deal of his work, greatly. Not all of it, though. I’m not into his muscle movie scores like Rambo and Total Recall, his family movies like Dennis or even his Westerns, which others of his fans love. He was, however, a varied, energetic and musically virile composer with many truly great scores to his name: Legend, Alien, Islands In The Stream to name just a few. I count Patton as one of the most brilliant scores of all time. Goldsmith had a wicked talent for spy and heist movies too, In Like Flint, The Chairman and The Last Run all being quite delicious.

Composers of secondary interest

John Williams

Williams, the great multi-Oscar winning composer who has scored many of the world’s most successful films (ET, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Close Encounters, Jurassic Park, Jaws, Harry Potter) is in many ways the greatest film composer of all time. He is certainly the most classically masterful. His Korngoldian Star Wars give rebirth to the symphonic film score. I love this and the rousing march of Superman greatly. The only drawback with Williams is that he doesn’t touch me on an emotional level like Barry, Delerue or Morricone do.

James Bernard

Being objective, James Bernard was a more limited composer than some named here but I find his music for the gothic theatre of the Hammer films quite enigmatic. There’s something about the gutsy drama, suspense and warm romance of his Hammer scores that is compelling and quite unique. I simply adore it. The opening bars of The Devil Rides Out, Dracula Has Risen From The Grave and Taste The Blood Of Dracula still send a chill down my spine. Before he died, he topped all of these with a wonderful score the silent Murnau classic, Nosferatu.

Barry Gray

Barry Gray didn’t score many movies but his work on the Gerry Anderson TV shows (Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Space:1999) was outstanding. Okay, that’s kids stuff, I hear you cry. Fair enough. But kids television is a valid craft too and, come on, Gray’s music for those shows is nothing less than fantastic.

Alex North

Though most famous for epic film music such as Spartacus and Cleopatra, North’s real strength is music that gets inside the drama of a relationship. His absorbing scores for Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? and A Streetcar Named Desire are among the most brilliant of all time.