A History Of Film Music Mervyn Cooke Pdf Download Free
I have argued that the use of the music of Accattone in Mamma Roma cannot satisfactorily be explained merely by reference to the critical reputations of Bach and Vivaldi, or in terms of the original and modern cultural contexts of their compositions. Accounts such as those, beguiling and valid as they may be, direct us away from the more important consideration of the commonalities of the repertorial choice. I have instead focused on the stylistic features of Baroque music, a repertory used only rarely in narrative film, usually in limited contexts and for very specific reasons.
A History Of Film Music Mervyn Cooke Pdf Download
Clearly both Accattone and Mamma Roma draw on and thereby underline the affective properties of Baroque repertory. Music is used to make an appeal for empathy for the underclass, imbuing its subjects with dignity and nobility, a process that some commentators were unable to accept, insisting instead that the music itself was degraded. Persuasive or not as the strategy may be, the stitching together of musical material to provide a sort of eighteenth-century vamp-till-ready that we occasionally find in Accattone challenges the integrity of the musical work. However, the film demonstrates a more nuanced if embryonic appreciation of the formal features of Baroque music, an approach which Mamma Roma develops. This later film manifests a more considered awareness of musical form, one that appropriates the symmetries of Baroque music and corrals its balanced phrases and predictable small-scale structures to more integrative ends. An equilibrium is achieved whereby the music, rather than seeming to exist in a parallel and ultimately indifferent space, is braided with narrative and film form, collapsing and marginalizing the temporal and cultural distance between the original music and its new context.
Pasolini would not recreate the exercise. Aside from the use of Bach in Il Vangelo, occasional uses of Mozart in Teorema (1968) and Il fiore delle Mille e una Notte (1974), the Messe de Tournai in Il Decameron (1971), Chopin and a very small section of Bach in Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma (1975), and a handful of very short extracts from other composers, the director moved away from the Western art music canon towards folksong or more obscure music from Indonesia and Japan, amongst other countries. He also commissioned composers like Ennio Morricone to write music for his films. In so doing, he perhaps accepted that the specific meanings and cultural baggage of extant music too readily distracted spectators and commentators alike.
donald greig is a professional singer with a specialization in early music and an independent scholar. He is a co-founder and current member of the Orlando Consort, and was a member of the Tallis Scholars for over twenty-five years. A former lecturer in film studies and semiology, he received his doctorate in music from the University of Nottingham, where he is an Honorary Research Fellow. He is currently writing a book on the intersections of early music and cinema.
49. James Wierzbicki points out that film-music studies have tended to conflate leitmotif and theme, the former being properly a smaller musical element from which themes will often be developed. See James Wierzbicki, Film Music: A History (New York, 2009), 144.
Life and music of Benjamin Britten; film and television music; jazz; twentieth-century opera; traditional music of Japan and Indonesia; Frank Martin; Stephen Sondheim; Astor Piazzolla and tango nuevo; composition; performance (keyboard); conducting
At undergraduate and Master's levels, recent teaching has included modules in film music, music on stage and screen, jazz, fusion and crossover styles, composition, dissertation and research techniques.
Applications for PG research places are warmly welcomed in any of the following subject areas: Benjamin Britten; early twentieth-century music; film music; jazz; and music on stage and screen (including topics relating to film, theatre, radio, television, opera, and ballet, with a special interest in stage and film treatments of Shakespeare's plays).
Mervyn's primary research interests are the music of Benjamin Britten, film music, and jazz. He is the author of a handbook on Britten's War Requiem (CUP, 1996) and the monograph Britten and the Far East (The Boydell Press, 1998), and editor of The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Britten (CUP, 1999); he also co-edited (with Philip Reed) an Opera Handbook on Billy Budd (CUP, 1993) and worked for The Britten-Pears Foundation as co-editor (with Donald Mitchell and Philip Reed) of the multi-volume edition of Britten's correspondence, of which the sixth and final instalment was published in 2012. As part of Britten's centenary celebrations in 2013, he organised and performed (as pianist) in premiere recordings of two of Britten's unpublished theatre scores from the 1930s, which were released on the CD Britten to America, an NMC disc nominated for a Grammy Award in 2014. He edited The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Opera (CUP, 2005), to which he contributed a chapter on opera and film. He has authored two illustrated books on the history of jazz for Thames & Hudson -- The Chronicle of Jazz and Jazz (World of Art) -- and co-edited with David Horn The Cambridge Companion to Jazz (2003). His books on jazz and film music have variously been translated into French, German, Spanish, Czech, Polish, Chinese and Korean. He is the author of the New Grove article on film music, and has written book chapters on the film music of Dave Grusin, Duke Ellington, George Fenton, Bernard Herrmann, and John Williams. His substantial A History of Film Music was published by CUP in 2008, and his The Hollywood Film Music Reader by OUP in 2010. His most recent books are The Cambridge Companion to Film Music (co-edited with Fiona Ford; CUP, 2016) and an analytical monograph on the ECM recordings of jazz guitarist Pat Metheny (OUP, 2017). His chapters in other books include studies of music in ocean documentaries, Britten's collaborations with his librettists, and music in the British war film. He is also the co-editor (with Christopher R. Wilson) of The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Music, to be published by OUP in 2021.
Frey, Mattias. Who Owns History? Notes on Cultural Appropriation, Authenticity and the Historical Film. The International Association for Media and History, 13.4.2017. -history-notes-cultural-appropriation-authenticity-historical-film/.