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https://wp.me/p2YnZH-nuL
Written originally for Roger Hall's prestigious "Film Music Review," and subsequently showcased by "Hugo Award" winning web magazine "File 770" (with Mr. Hall's gracious consent), here is a thoughtful compilation and deeply personal look at my choices for the twenty most profoundly significant, enduringly influential film scores of the past nearly one hundred years.
https://wp.me/p2YnZH-nuL
Steve Vertlieb
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I also thought the list would be works that heavily influenced film music trends, but when I saw The Ghost and Mrs. Muir at #1, I realized the list was more personal. The Ghost and Mrs, Muir is my favorite Herrmann score, but I wouldn't call it influential.
Many on this list were influential: Magnificent Seven, King Kong, Adv of Robin Hood, and so on.
And, of course, influential doesn't necessarily mean good.
Off the top of my head, influential film scores that affected trends include, in addition to the few already mentioned:
Citizen Kane
The Bride of Frankenstein
A Streetcar Named Desire
The Man with the Golden Arm
Goldfinger
A Fistful of Dollars
Bullitt
Star Wars
Chariots of Fire
Midnight Express
and so on
Steve, great list of scores, many of my own favorites and a couple I haven't heard--the William Alwyn, for instance.
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Roger Hall at "Film Music Review" asked me to write about what I considered the "twenty greatest film scores of all time," along with an examination of each score, as well as its particular significance. Realizing that the assignment was nearly impossible to achieve, covering some ninety years of film music, the task quickly became the scores that meant the most to me. Had the assignment been to list the one hundred greatest or most significant scores since sound began, it would have been a far easier task. The selections, hence, are decidedly more personal, in that these scores have always meant a great deal to me individually. Rather than called the piece "my favorite scores" (which, frankly, anyone could do), I chose to call them "influential" scores, in that they were each sublimely influential in their own way in my emotional and intellectual development from youth to my currently elderly involvement in the community of film music aficionados. Sorry for any confusion, guys. Just trying to explain what is, of course, virtually unexplainable. In so doing, I've probably succeeded in confusing the issue all the more.
Steve
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One that I missed from my quick list was Psycho.
And perhaps To Kill a Mockingbird, because it is essentially a chamber-sized more intimate Americana score without jazz elements, paving the way for scores like A Patch of Blue.
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Off the top of my head, influential film scores that affected trends include, in addition to the few already mentioned:
Citizen Kane
The Bride of Frankenstein
A Streetcar Named Desire
The Man with the Golden Arm
Goldfinger
A Fistful of Dollars
Bullitt
Star Wars
Chariots of Fire
Midnight Express
This is an insanely concise and well-thought list.
Hmmm I would dare say that Chariots and Midnight Express only had limited appeal insofar as their impact on other scores. They were very popular at the time but I'm not sure how far reaching their sound was into the 80s and beyond.
I would swap out Bride of Frankenstein for Alexander Nevsky which influenced a whole bunch of composers decades past its original release.
The rest of the list is solid however. Really solid.
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