Examining how music can direct our emotions through some of the most revolutionary film scores of the 20th century.

 

 

When music is attached to film, we tend to forget it's a seperate entity. It's sonic subtext. It directs how we interpret a scene regardless of what is on the screen, firmly rooted in the work of opera greats like Wagner and Puccini.

Our first selection this week, we explore this most powerful tool of emotional manipulation through the work of greats like Max Steiner, Erich Korngold, Bernard Herrmann, Hans Zimmer, among others. In BBC FOUR's production Sound of Cinema: The Music That Made The Movies, composer Neil Brand takes us on a whirlwind journey through the last century of film scoring.

 

 

I have always been enchanted by the way Bernard Herrmann sculpts emotion in his sound. From Citizen Kane to Psycho to Taxi Driver; Bernard Herrmann seduced us with sonic subtext. Our second selection this week comes from Howard Goodall, another British composer, who confers Herrmann's station as a 20th Century Great. The third episode in this four part series for Channel 4 dives deeper into the hyper-effective compositional devices pulled from the classical avant-garde and pierced through our ears and minds.

 

 

Tune in every Wendesday for another episode of Mid-week Musicology here on Classic107.com!