Monday, February 24, 2014

My Music Monday

If you've been following my blog, let alone the My Music Monday segments, you've noticed it's mostly pop / rock / bluegrass selections.

It's not all I listen too - though I would say it is the majority of what shuffles through my iTunes playlists.

I do have others - some classical, some "dance", some jazz-like...well, you get it, I'm more well rounded than you think.  Honest.

I also have some movie music. Say what you want - one of 710's and my first movie dates was to see Out of Africa. I was totally taken by John Berry's score. I was a weirdo for Raiders of the Lost Ark and yes, bought the soundtrack.

The problem with John Williams is, he basically plagiarizes himself. And with 49 fucking Academy Award nominations (yes, I looked it up), how could he not copy himself?

There is little difference between Raiders and Temple of Gloom Doom and the other Indiana Jones disks. Even with the Star Wars films, "Princess Liea's Theme" isn't all that different from Raiders' "Marion's Theme.

Jaws might have been a bit different, though except for those few famous notes, does anyone really know the rest of the score?

Hell, the NBC Nightly News theme isn't far off from some of those scores.

Even with the main theme of Schindler's List (this week's selection), the first 15 seconds could have been easily lifted from Raiders, Star Wars or Harry Potter (ok, 10 years later).

So then why am I picking the main theme from Schindler's List?  Easy:  Itzhak Perlman.

I won't go as far as to say Willams' piece is 'pedestrian', as it clearly resonates with me, but in lesser hands than Perlman, I don't believe the music would have picked away at my soul - or at least where my soul should be.

When I hit 'play' that first time in 1993 - not yet having seen the movie - it was just one of those pieces that evoked an immediate emotional response.

I know there are a number of great violinists out there, but I've always been drawn to Perlman's work, even seeing him play with the Cleveland Orchestra a few times. He a master at his craft for a reason and I have to believe he put more into his Schindler's List pieces than even Williams could have imagined.   ....at least I like to think that.

Not surprisingly, Williams won an Oscar for his work.

3 comments:

anne marie in philly said...

this is one person I would love to see live in concert. he can evoke such passion from his instrument.

Anonymous said...

....beautiful.

Greg said...

If you really listen to Williams' score for Star Wars, he borrowed heavily from Gustav Holst's The Planets.