On Film Scores

I’m not a huge moviegoer, but one thing about movies I find very interesting is the original music that is composed for them. In general, with basically all forms of music, but especially classical-type music, I am intrigued by original (especially contemporary) compositions (although I don’t have a lot of time to seek them out these days) and I like to hear analysis of new music by critics, musicologists, etc.

NPR has a fairly long running tradition in its Weekend Edition Sunday (WESUN) program each Oscar season with music critic Andy Trudeau (couldn’t find a blog or website about him) discussing the Oscar-nominated film scores from that year and picking his favorite. (Aside: This feature is one of the only positive things I’ve found about NPR in the last decade or so. This is a national radio network that has truly lost its way and its soul in order to conform with inside-the-Beltway politics, but that is a discussion for a different post and perhaps even a different blog.) I never miss this and recommend it for those interested in music composition and especially the process of using music to tell stories, which I feel all music in some way does whether it intends to or not. This year’s first of three installments can be found here. The others are/will be on the WESUN page.

Some nominated scores in past years that I really liked (independent of the movies, some of which I have not even seen) were: The Constant Gardener, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and The Red Violin.