American Film Music: Major Composers, Techniques, Trends, 1915-1990 - Softcover

Darby, William; Du Bois, Jack

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786407530 ISBN 13: 9780786407538

Publisher: McFarland Publishing, 1999

Synopsis

From the neighborhood pianist of silent movie days to the synthesized effects and "music video" sequences of the 1980s: the great and not-so-great moments in film scoring. Scores from countless films, from Birth of a Nation (1915) through Top Gun (1986), are painstakingly analyzed: how does the score relate to onscreen activity? How does it follow or depart from tradition? How does it represent the strengths and foibles of its composer? The book includes discussion of trend-setting work such as Max Steiner's King Kong (1933-an early instance of music carrying a significant portion of onscreen action), Bernard Herrmann's Psycho (1960, with its unusual, high, scraping strings-only support of the famous shower scene), and Alex North's A Streetcar Named Desire (1951-the first essentially jazz-oriented score), as well as remarks on the work that followed within the resulting trends. Discussions are enhanced by musical reproductions of significant themes and motives. Chapters on 14 individual composers working largely within the United States are given perspective by summary chapters on the silent and early sound years, the decades 1930-1980, and the work of composers outside the United States.

About this title

About the Author:

William Darby professes English in Detroit. Jack DuBois teaches and lives in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan.

From Library Journal:

In this hefty survey, the authors, teachers and film music fans, skim the careers of nine of the 11 men so well covered in Christopher Palmer's Composer in Hollywood ( LJ 4/15/90), along with Victor Young, Hugo Friedhofer, Henry Mancini, Jerry Goldsmith, and John Williams. Some films earn a sentence, others several pages of comment. Scattered musical examples provide thematic incipits (opening notes). Each chapter devoted to a single composer is followed by a filmography, with catchall chapters filling in the gaps (e.g., "Studio arrangements" and "Foreign composers"). An appendix lists Academy Awards for music, and the book has a very well-annotated bibliography. High in price, superficial in parts, but inclusive and nontechnical, this uneven book is necessary only in comprehensive film or music collections as a supplement to Palmer.
- Bonnie Jo Dopp, Dist . of Columbia P.L.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: McFarland Publishing
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0786407530
• ISBN 13: 9780786407538
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 623