Schizophrenia and Me

Posted by mwblogger

June 5, 2009

<!– /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:”"; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –>

In the last few days I’ve been listening to a slightly older Sony release—Danny Elfman’s Serenada Schizophrenia, which I actually think is quite wonderful. First, the selection of John Mauceri to lead the charge is really perfect, ingenious even. He is the conductor who did such amazing work at the Hollywood Bowl for years, so he really knows that moment where concert music and film music intersect, even overlap. I used to thrill to the Bowl concerts when I was young, a great time to hear bits of The Rite of Spring crossed with little chunks of, say, Franz Waxman. The Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto plus Picutres at an Exhibition with the inevitable fireworks. All wonderful.

As to Elfman’s piece, I love—LOVE—the Prokoviean insistence of “Pianos,” the first movement, and the gorgeous lushness of the subsequent “Blue Strings.” And Elfman’s signature “haunted house” sound is never more apparent than in the movement “A Brass Thing.” I think he’s got a stunning gift for pacing (this is what one learns when working with films, I think, how to make your music match quickly shifting moods, and there’s few better at it than he), knowing when to drift off into la-la land and how to get back to the potent stomp from where one came. And minor keys were never more playful, even whimsical, save maybe for the odd Hungarian Rhapsody.

What to me is most accomplished about this piece is its constancy—his idea of the menacing ostinato continues to arrive and depart throughout the entire work, which means that, while some would say he’s thinking filmically (if that’s a word), I would argue that he’s thinking symphonically, considering a narrative that for once has nothing to do with swelling scenes but rather only to do with itself. The great film composer who built these ideas into the pictures (and I’m talking about everyone from Bernard Hermann to Franz Waxman, Miklos Rosza to Elmer Bernstein) were taking their cues not from the movies, but from Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Copland (who were themselves fine film composers as well). This is Elfman’s tradition, and he is unafraid to wade in deep.

I suppose one of the great compliments one pays to a film composer is that the music goes unnoticed, so hewn to the film it is. I’ve never bought this (does the score to Psycho not play? Do Hermann’s amazing opening moments of Citizen Kane just read as pure story? Does even the work John Cale did for American Psycho come off as pure wallpaper?) and now that Elfman does not have the ballast of Burton behind him to lend his spookiness a visual component—which tends to be the only component that most people, even very cultured people, understand at all—we can bring him to the fore and evaluate him for what he actually does. And that is to create music that has such a strong profile, such an insistent and individual “sonic fingerprint,” that his name is destined to be one of those “esques” composers will be annoyed by for generations. He’s got a style, he sounds like himself, and those are two things a lot of contemporary composers cannot boast.

I hope a lot of orchestras take this piece up, I really do. Its worth it.

<!– /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073750139 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:”"; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;} h1 {mso-margin-top-alt:auto; margin-right:0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; margin-left:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; mso-outline-level:1; font-size:24.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”;} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {color:blue; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} span.EmailStyle16 {mso-style-type:personal; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-ansi-font-size:11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; color:black; font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; text-decoration:none; text-underline:none; text-decoration:none; text-line-through:none;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –>