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Film Music Is Bad Bruckner
Film music has its roots in European symphonic composers. Anton Bruckner was, to my mind, one of the worst composers who ever lived. Yet he is revered by some as a late romantic master. Bombastic and vastly grandiose, his works are a tempest in a teapot, all signifying nothing.
If you are forced to listen to a Bruckner symphony you'll be subjected to the trumpets going "Ta Da Da Da Da Da" every ten seconds.
It's as if the cavalry had finally come to save John Wayne. It all sounds like music, surely. But it never adds up to anything worthy of the name "masterpiece." Thus Bruckner was insecure, to say the least. Musicians constantly joke about his revisions to his symphonies.
Bruckner Caved Under Criticism
When friends made criticisms of his work, however gentle, he would brood and sulk. Then he would make the change that the friend wanted. You think the trumpets should play that tune more often? You think the last part is too long?
Okay, I changed it. Given the fact that Bruckner's music was so bad in the first place, it is only possible to make it worse with changes offered by anyone.
Like A Cheap Boris Karloff Film
Thus Bruckner's work takes on a Frankenstein-like, stitched together motley quilt quality with lurching, endless transitions. What bothers me about film music is the same thing that bothers me about Bruckner's music. There may be a single composer, but everyone weighs in on what the music to the film or show should be, from the producer, director, star and editor.
The Effect Of Music By Committee
This dilution of creative force makes the music into less than what it could be. This quasi-music is sort of like Velveeta, which is and isn't cheese. And this is true of pop music, where you can hear the composer trying to make something that sounds "commercial," killing any originality they had in the first place.
REFERENCES
Music History
What Killed the Golden Age of the Piano
Carl Tausig Cooks His Cat
I Meet Aaron Copland
George Sand Killed Chopin
Why Brahms Must Have Been Fat
Artur Rubinstein Was A Vampire
Igor Stravinsky Loses His Cool
Vladimir Horowitz Goes To The Racetrack
Beethoven Was No Beauty
The World’s Largest Blue Danube Waltz
Was Mozart Murdered?
Beethoven’s Rage Over A Lost Penny
Franz Schubert, The First Bohemian
Chopin’s Singing Piano Tone
Stravinsky’s Good Luck
Tchaikovsky’s Greatest Fan
Hector Berlioz and the Orchestral Train Wreck
Piano Lessons with Papa Bach
Piano Lessons with Frederic Chopin
The Great Piano Craze of 1910
The American Piano Wars
Why Hugo Wolf Went Insane
Rachmaninoff and the Evolution of Pop Songs
Musical Feuds
Piano In The Past Was Better
The Master’s Hands
Einstein’s Piano
Einstein’s Violin Improvisations In Gypsy Style
A History of Piano and Numbers
Ryan Seacrest’s Piano Concerto #2
