Writing music for films has its charm for composers – it reaches vast audiences. The payment for one film may exceed the income from several years of royalties and performances. However, creating such music is completely different from that of serious music for concert halls. So what makes these pieces so extraordinary? We are looking for an answer to this question as part of our FILM-HARMONY concert series in May.
Film composers work on absurdly busy schedules, often with only a week or two to create massive amounts of music. It is almost always influenced by visual effects, dialogues and sound effects. Scenes are cut out, and compositions arranged to fit the new ones. Directors or producers can even throw out entire scores at the last minute. Composers are at their mercy.
Aaron Copland (1900-1990) is one of the composers who mastered the subject of film music best and fastest, winner of an Oscar in 1949. Among the many scores created not only for the big screen but also for the theatre stage, Copland chose those that, in his opinion, could also be successful during concerts, departing from the principle that music is to help the image, making it an independent work.
We will complement the program with a composition by Karl Jenkins "Palladio", inspired by the 16th-century Italian architect Andrea Palladio, whose works embody the Renaissance love of harmony and order. The two characteristics of "Palladio" are mathematical harmony and architectural elements borrowed from classical antiquity and philosophy. The composer adapted the first part for the needs of "Shadows: A Diamond is Forever" – one of the most famous advertising campaigns in the history of television.
