Intrada Soundtrack Forum

2/13/2022

Woodwinds. Cleopatra. A random comment perhaps but both are on my mind as I write. While others may be thinking about which current score should/will take home a 2021 Academy Award, I’m thinking in the other direction. Yes, I appreciate the craft that goes into writing music for today’s pictures and I will be excited for Hans Zimmer or Jonny Greenwood if either of them win the coveted award. But I’m having more fun listening to Alex North’s Cleopatra (1963) right now. Seemingly not relevant to today’s scoring scene, it’s just where my musical mind is currently tuned towards. And none of the current scores of today really play in that league these days in my opinion. North scored the spectacle, the drama, the battles, the personal conflicts, the dialogue, the romance. There was even a “Main Title”, something mostly absent today. In other words, North scored just about everything in that movie. His music was part of the storytelling, another often ignored component nowadays.

And woodwinds. As Laurence Rosenthal stated to me once, trumpets are the “princes of the orchestra”. And he’s right. Brass get my vote. Many folks I know dwell on strings… ok, and percussion too. But right now, perhaps because of Cleopatra, I’m just admiring the woodwinds. Not to bore, but listeners might not always realize what an incredible array of colors the woodwinds offer. And North took advantage of those colors. In a nutshell, you get piccolos, flutes and E-flat clarinet way up there, and usually two or three B-flat clarinets underneath. You have alto flutes and bass flutes. And adding underneath the higher clarinets are the bass clarinet and contrabass clarinet, getting you sonorities way down under. And we’ve just begun. You also have those distinct doubles reeds, from oboe and oboe d’amore down to the English horn. And there you arrive at the bassoon, followed even further down by the contrabassoon. Saxes? North knew how to integrate them into his symphonic texture as well, from soprano and alto saxes through tenor and baritone saxes. So take a step (or an ear) back and just ponder the incredible sonority that comes from all those guys. Ok, add the brass, strings and percussion and voila! Cleopatra. Not just a film score but a musical work of lasting merit. Sure, I recognize the cliche of looking back on the classics, the great composers and whatever. Recently I had a lengthy philosophical conversation with Chris Young along this topic and enjoyed him discussing the challenges of getting young composers of today to look back and learn the history of the craft, to recognize that North or Bernstein or Steiner or whomever actually tackled the same dramatic issues that composers of today are confronted with. Writing for drama, love scenes, dialog, comic situations, the assassination of a key character, whatnot… all are scenarios that vintage composers needed to tackle and musically solve. History matters. And if one desires to learn more about the possibilities afforded by the woodwind section of an orchestra… yep, listening to Cleopatra will certainly fit the bill.