Film Music

Music has always played a crucial role in the cinema . Even during the earliest days of filmmaking , silent films often depended on live musical accompaniment to enhance the action and drama in the absence audible dialogue . The concept of musical underscoring for film took several years after the introduction of sound to establish itself , but by the mid-1930s , underscoring was an accepted convention . Master film composers like Max Steiner , Dimitri Tiomkin , and Erich Wolfgang Korngold specialized in thickly orchestrated , Wagnerian thematics that could make even bad films watchable , and because of the

music 's considerable emotional power , good films great . Composers like Franz Waxman and Bernard Herrmann adopted less emotional but theless evocative techniques . In the 1950s and 1960s , tastes changed and full orchestra scores went out of fashion , replaced by song scores or more tinkly , less bombastic confections . Jazz also became popular in movies for a brief period . But , the orchestral score made a comeback in the 1970s and 1980s , led by composers like the inventive Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams , who appropriated many orchestral techniques from composers like Korngold and Steiner (Eyman and Gianetti 155 . And , while conventional film scoring has created musical scenes and themes that are ingrained in the collective consciousness , innovative film composers like Bernard Herrmann , Gyorgy Ligeti , and Erik Satie used avant-garde techniques to create some of the most memorable music in cinematic history

Avant-garde style is a case of existence preceding essence , as the ideals of experimentation and innovation have existed for millennia , but essence of the avant-garde has only truly been recognized in every aspect of art , music , and social movements for just over a century Considered as almost an accompaniment to modernism , avant-garde artists were praised as well as condemned for their innovative techniques and break from the traditional styles of the time . While many mainstream critics and fans of art were quick to recognize the social significance of the avant-garde as a statement of the breakneck speed of the ever-changing modern world , others rejected its innovation and politics However , the avant-garde continued to permeate every aspect of society throughout the twentieth century , eventually losing some of its impact as so many avant-garde artists entered into the mainstream . While this newfound acceptance went a long way in illuminating the creative aspects of the avant-garde to the masses , it also robbed it of some of its greater social meaning . Regardless of the mainstream acceptance avant-garde and popular artists continued to push the boundaries of art and challenge their audiences to continue expanding their tastes and minds . Some of the greatest success from the avant-garde came in the collaboration between filmmakers and musicians , who would often combine their talents to create some of the most memorable images and sounds in cinematic and music history

Bernard Herrmann scored films of some of the greatest directors in film , including Orson Welles , Alfred Hitchcock , and Franzois Truffaut The first film Herrmann ever scored was Citizen Kane , considered by many film critics to be the best film...