#miklós rózsa

[courseyoulovemeyoudontknowme]

Spellbound (1945, Alfred Hitchcock)

07/09/2024

[genevieveetguy]

. It's a whole different business now. The kids with beards have taken over. They don't need scripts, just give 'em a hand-held camera with a zoom lens.

Fedora, Billy Wilder (1978)

[nofatclips]

A sequence from Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound showcasing Miklós Rózsa's score

[lesser-known-composers]

Miklós Rózsa (1907-1995) : Sonata for Two Violins, performed by Simone Porter and Blake Pouliot

[abs0luteb4stard]

W A T C H I N G

[omnivorouscinephilia]

The World, the Flesh and the Devil: An Early Example of Existentialist Afrofuturism

The World, the Flesh and the Devil is a fantastic yet underseen film that explores race in the after math of nuclear holocaust, and stars the late great Harry Belafonte. Please give it a watch and check out my review for the film.

Harry Belafonte’s passing has struck a chord within varying circles dependent on your primary artistic outlet of choice. While best known for his calypso music and activism, Belafonte was also an actor with an eclectic body of work. Through fifteen narrative feature films made over six and a half decades, Belafonte worked with major talent, including behind and in front of the camera, often in…

[ulrichgebert]

Ein gutes neues Jahr allerseits. Es beginnt gleich mit stark hinterherhinkender Berichterstattung. Aus dem letzten Jahr ist noch Dead Man Don't Wear Plaid, Carl Reiners fabelhafte und massiv mit alten Film-noir-Stars besetzte Verfilmung des Krimireißers, den Raymond Chandler nie geschrieben hat nachzutragen.

[mariocki]

Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (Blood on My Hands, 1948)

"Listen to me. There's nobody else I wanna be with. Nobody else I wanna talk to. What's wrong with that?"

"I'll tell you what's wrong, you're wrong. You're a coward. There was one of him and one of you; he was a much older man, I suppose if you - if you hit a child, you'd say the same thing. What's the matter with you? Why can't you be decent? Why can't you be like everybody else? You're nothing but a cheap, vicious bully."

[sunset-supergirl]

Happy birthday Miklós Rózsa

[beyourselfchulanmaria]

Ph. by ARIO @outoftimesblog

The Waves Of The Danube (1995 Digital Remaster) · Miklós Rózsa · The Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra

By Me

Danube

[konyvboritok]

[adhd-merlin]

Highlights from Rohan Stevenson's Interview with The Ladies of Lake (podcast)

Listen on Spotify

Note: I've included some rough timestamps if you want to listen to a specific bit of the podcast. They're not accurate to the second, but they will get you to the relevant bit.

"Temp Love"

[6:30] Rohan says he and Rob Lane (the other composer) sometimes had a lot of trouble shifting the directors away from the temp music (the placeholder music used to establish the mood/tempo of a scene in the early editing stages). The directors often got attached to the temp music and found it difficult to go for something too different (a phenomenon known in the industry as “temp love”). Temp music used for Merlin included scores from Lord of the Rings, Batman, and other music with an epic feel — but, as the series went on, the temp music used was often Rob and Rohan’s own music from previous episodes. That is why a lot of music ended up being re-used, which Rob and Rohan found frustrating (it was also one of the reasons why they were not involved in season 4 and 5).

Crazy Schedule

[9:50] Merlin was a surprise success and the schedule got “pretty crazy”. The composers ended up working with some incredibly tight deadlines (Rohan mentions sending stuff off "on 5 o'clock on a Friday for a dub due to be screened the following day"), which was very stressful. [12:50] Since the editors used temp music for the cuts, the composers would need to match the tempo of the temp music when writing their cues(*) in order to make the edits work (“temp chasing”). Given the tight schedule, this wasn’t always a negative thing, as it could save a lot of time during the ideation/writing process.

Finding Inspiration 

[14:30] Rohan describes Merlin as “operatic” — which is why they drew inspiration from anything with a kind of operatic vibe, such as John Williams's music and his Star Wars score ("space opera"), and The Lord of the Rings — even Donnie Darko was used as temp music, and Rohan used it as a starting point to write his own version of an ominous beat. The producer of episode 3x06 (The Changeling) told Rohan that the vibe to go for in that episode was “Princess Bride”, which helped him immensely.

Going on Set

[18:00] Rohan and Rob didn't actually get to go to the set much. Occasionally, they did some recording in Prague, which was an opportunity for them to get together. When they were still working on S1, Rohan very nearly missed a recording session in Prague after missing his flight due to a fire at Heathrow. Apart from these occasions, the co-working process between him and Rob consisted mostly in “a lot of shouting down the telephone” (“There were some shouting matches” he recalls, laughing). Rohan was however invited to the set by Anthony Head, whom he describes as “a lovely man”.

[20:00] Generally, composers don’t need to be present on set, unless it’s for something like music supervision, when there is music being played live. He talks about working on a documentary on prehistoric sounds and having to go to Stonehenge to supervise some drummers during a midnight shoot, which was great (it was "all set with mysterious lightning and smoke going through Stonehenge", something you probably wouldn't be able to do now).

Meeting the Cast

[21:15] When asked about his favourite memory of working on Merlin, Rohan recalls being invited to the BFI (British Film Institute) for a Merlin presentation, where he played "the wrong kind of music" on the piano to accompany Arthur and Gwen’s scene in 2x02 (“I played it a bit like a tango, for a laugh”). On that occasion he met the Merlin cast, including Katie McGrath, whom he describes as “mad as a bat — but gorgeous”.

Favourite Composers

[27:00] Rohan and Rob grew up idolising the great “operatic” film composers, such as John Williams, Bernand Hermann, Miklós Rózsa, Gerry Goldsmith. In fact, it was Star Wars that got Rohan into composing. Rohan gave Rob a handwritten score of Return of the Jedi for his 40th birthday – and a little bit of Parade of the Ewoks, a piece from this film, “found its way into the score… just a little bit, about four bars.”(**)

[30:00] Rohan says his all time favourite film score is How To Train Your Dragon (“It’s unbelievable. It’s genius from bar one to the end”). Other all time favourite scores are Signs and, of course, Star Wars.

[31:50] Rohan says he was always into music, but when people ask him what inspired him to become a composer he loves to tell the story of how he became obsessed with the high-hat part in Dancing Queen (the bit “just between the chorus and the verse”) when he was 3-4 years old, and how he begged his mom to get him some cymbals because he wanted to reproduce that sound (“They won’t produce that sound – you need a high-hat, not cymbals. But she didn’t know that”). When asked if he found inspiration in classical music, he says he was “very taken with the whole story of Beethoven, to the point that I used to take myself off for walks in the countryside because that’s what he did”.

The Original Theme

[31:50] The opening theme we all know and love wasn’t the one originally written for the show – there was an alternative one. The opening theme Rob originally wrote sounded very close to Buckbeak’s Flight from the Prisoner of Azkaban – so much so that Rohan told Rob: “You’re not going to get away with that!” So Rob wrote a theme similar to the one we know, but in a major key. Eventually they settled on that theme in a minor key (“it was more dramatic”).

MIDI vs Live Instruments

[42:00] Bit of a technical question from a fan about using MIDI for the soundtrack instead of recording players and singers. This was partly due to the budget but also to the huge amount of music that needed to be produced – it’s a huge undertaking to prepare all parts, get them to the performers, record them, etc. They tried to use live instruments as much as possible, mostly to play the lead line or to play over the MIDI (a practice known as sweetening). Sometimes they also did it in reverse, by sweetening an orchestral performance with MIDI. But it was easier and quicker to tweak the music as needed to suit a scene when using samples. “A lot of the score is actually sampled – probably more than you think.”

Arthur and Gwen’s "Love Theme" and the Producers’ Influence

[50:00] Arthur and Gwen’s “love theme” was originally written by Rohan for Lancelot in episode 1x05 (note: it can be heard towards the end of the episode, when Lancelot leaves Camelot). Rob and Rohan would often expand on each other’s themes while working on an episode, and this is what happened here, since it was Rob who worked on episode 2x02. Rob’s “little touch” to Rohan’s original cue was to put the violin “over the top”, to give it more of a romantic flavour for Arthur and Gwen’s kiss scene(***).

Originally, Rob had written something different for this scene – a piece with a choir. The producers decided they wanted to use the theme Rohan had previously written for Lancelot instead. “They got a lot of confidence out of making that call, because it was the right call – it worked really well.” Unfortunately, from that moment on the producers started to make more calls about changing some of Rohan and Rob’s music “a little too often”.

[55:00] To cite the most egregious example of this, Rohan says that at the end of S3, when Arthur retakes Camelot, the producers used as temp music a cue Rob had previously written, played on a loop. Later, they decided to keep this looped cue as the final music rather than the “beautiful” replacement music Rob had written for this scene, which – in Rob and Rohan’s opinion – would've worked much better. Rohan described the music for this scene as “one of the nicest things [Rob] had written in the series”.

[58:00] Rob wrote a few cues for S5 but, apart from those, the producers mostly re-used music from previous seasons.

Rohan’s Opinion of the Music in 2x02

[1:00:00] Despite "a couple of really great moments" and an iconic romantic theme, he doesn’t think 2x02 is his and Rob's best episode. He would give it a 2.5 out of 5.

Current Projects

[1:00:02] Rohan is now working on developing his own style of music, which he calls “epic steampunk” — “Steampunk is a genre with a very distinct visual style, but no one has really defined a musical style for it”. (He says the score for Loki leans towards it, a little bit.) You can look for Dr Ignatius Cole and the Brassknuckle Steampunk Sinfonia if you're interested – there are 3 albums out already, available on Spotify and Youtube.

Footnotes:

(*) A cue is the basic building block of a film score. Essentially, it is one complete piece of music from start to end, meant to play against a scene or sequence. (Source: x)

(**) It’s not in Fighting in the Market, although that’s the scene Rohan mentions right before saying this, but in the Meeting Arthur cue. Compare 0:44-0-54 to 0:48-1:00 in The Parade of the Ewoks. I suppose this was already obvious to someone familiar with the Star Wars soundtrack – in fact, someone already wrote a piece of meta about this and other similarities between Merlin’s OST and John Williams’s score. (I won’t link to it, but if you Google “Merlin soundtrack Star Wars tumblr” you should find it easily enough).

(***) The cues in ep 1x05 and 2x02 sound pretty much identical to me, to be honest, except the sound of the violin is a bit “louder” in 2x02? I suppose that’s what Rohan meant.

[weast-of-eden]

if you haven’t seen The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, then you probably haven’t heard her soundtrack. but Miklós Rózsa is a damn genius and deserves to be heard like just listen!! this is the final theme and literally this is one of the best compositions ever, period. the violin solos in this film are AMAZING and i love all the cello (i think) coming in underneath to flesh out the music. whenever there were parts of the movie that i thought i would sleep through, Rósza took me by surprise and said “no bitch you need to hear this” and put out banger after banger for the score.

tldr; just listen to the first 15 seconds and you’ll be hooked. also watch tplosh.

[lesser-known-composers]

Miklós Rózsa (1907-1995) - Violin Concerto, Op. 24: I. Allegro non troppo ma passionato ·

Robert McDuffie · violin

Yoel Levi · Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

[sgiandubh]

Holy Monday - Dagger Man

Sidenote: it's horrendously late, in my own time zone and Holy Monday is gone for good. Hoping yesterday's wonderful SC news are enough for you to forgive me, I go ahead with my short personal notes on what is perhaps one of the most complicated stories of this week.

Enter Judas Iscariot, whose name is perhaps a local corruption of the Latin term for 'dagger man': sicarius.

Who is he? We are told he was one of The Twelve chosen ones, but our Bibles are, to say the least, not very talkative when it comes to this man. We do not know what his merits are and many risk a seriously tragical confusion with the other Judas, 'son of James'. Perhaps in the same way Mary of Bethany is still mistaken by many for Mary Magdalene herself.

Today's episode is a throwback: 'Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead' (John, 12:1)'

We don't know very well where the following episode happens (in Lazarus' house? somewhere else?) and for the first two days of the Holy Week, the Evangelists' reports are either vague or even conflicting. A woman named Mary approaches. Clearly, more than a sympathizer, yet barely tolerated by what clearly is a gender segregated assembly, where women serve a dinner they never join in. Something still very much happening in the Mediterranean world, by the way:

'Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. (John, 12:3)'

Is she a prostitute? A rich patron? I have always thought, perhaps wrongly, there was something very erotic in that choreography, for hair is a very strong sexual symbol and even more so in the Ancient World (think Egyptian wigs and also, heh, Samson). Something that also reminded me of Salome's fateful dance of the seven veils.

Experts have calculated, for dry amusement probably, the cost of that 'ointment' in today's money, which is disingenuous, to say the least. Nevertheless, that's easily the price tag of a brand new Mercedes, with all the bells and whistles. Judas immediately puts things into context and speaks like a corporate CFO: 'Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?' (John, 12:5)

You think this is what a good manager would do, right? Well, think twice. John does not like Judas. At all. He immediately tells us who he thinks that strange man really is: 'Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him' (John, 12:4). And, which is perhaps even worse, a corrupted treasurer of sorts: 'not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein' (John, 12:6).

Jesus' answer to this apparent practical dilemma is very clear: ' Let her alone (...), for the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always' (John, 12: 8-9). Judas' enormous mistake is to transform what obviously is a spiritual matter into a vulgar, political one. Throwing money into the mix, instrumentalizing it for what we would today call 'propaganda purposes' is at complete odds with His entire message.

But sometimes even the voice of Heaven has trouble making itself heard. This is why I have chosen for today a simple, short shofar sound, from Miklós Rózsa 's original soundtrack for Ben Hur:

[fornaxvoid]

My next piece will feature a YM3812 cover of Miklós Rózsa's "Palace Music" from his Soundtrack for El Cid (1961).