On February 27th I attended one of the 3 performances of the Hollywood's Golden Age Program by the Orange County Pacific Symphony, at the Renee & Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, in Costa Mesa.
This was to be a concert featuring the music of Bernard Herrmann, Erich Korngold, Miklos Rozsa, and James Newton Howard, with Raymond Kobler on Violin, Timothy Landauer on Cello, and even a narration by John David Keller.
Herrmann, Korngold, Rozsa, & Howard are all well know for their film scores, and it is from that aspect of their careers that we would be hearing from tonite, in regards to the first 3 composers, but not that alone.
We would be hearing classical pieces by them, not used in film and, in the case of Herrmann, a West Coast Premiere.
As for Howard, what we would hear would be a World Premiere of a Classical Composition, his first major symphonic work.
Another interesting aspect of this program was that Conductor Carl St. Clair, & his Orchestra, were performing the non-film score concert pieces for the first time.
I arrived a bit after 6pm, and while in the line, before the hall opened, I chatted with a young couple who were kind enough to take my picture.
He was an Art Student, at Vanguard University, attending as part of a class assignment, and I was interested to learn that a relative of his had played a role in the way the famous "Vomit" scene, in the Exorcist, made it to the screen.
Once inside I chatted a bit with a nice young lady who took my photo in front of a poster for the film Kings Row.
I also chatted with one of the female ushers about our respective tastes in music.
Unlike me, this child of the 30's like the same music her peers did, but grew up to love classical music even more.
Soon it was time for the Pre-Show discussion, which featured Mr. Howard, and concert and film composer Paul Chihara.
Under discussion was the new piece written by Howard, and composing for film as opposed for the concert hall.
Howard is the award winning composer of scores for films such as Blood Diamond, Pretty Woman, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, I am Legend, Michael Clayton, Defiance, and many others.
Howard talked about how he found the experience of spending 8 mo. creating a symphonic piece radically different than composing for film.
Once the piece was written the performing of it is handed over to a conductor and his orchestra, for better, or worse.
He said he found it challenging because there is no director to tell him how to structure a 20 min. piece for orchestra, when it's not made for film storytelling.
Mr. Chihara felt that, as a composer, he has a dual creative personality, one as a film composer, and another as an orchestral composer.
Chihara comes from a generation that considers the 60's the "greatest period in the history of mankind".
Before you ask me if I asked him what he smoked back then, and just how much, consider what he said next about coming from an orchestral music composing backround to the world of film composition at the end of the 60's, and into the early 70's...
He felt it was a revelation for a guy like him. He felt that composing for film allowed him to write music that "people actually like!".
Film composition caused him to lose his identity for a while, but allowed him to have fun writing music for the ordinary public.
He is well known as the composer of the music for the film Farewell to Manzinar, Prince of the City, The Morning After, Crossing Delancey, among others, and was recelty named Composer of the Year by the Classical Recording Foundation.
He did Farewell with the backround of having spent time as a toddler in a WW2 Relocation Camp for Japanese Americans, in Idaho.
He said that that experience was, to him, "4 years of summer camp with no school", and also influenced a 1996 work for chamber orchestra that he wrote, called Minidoka.
30's and 40's concert music by film composers was often ignored by the influential poeple of the eastern establishment, and it was only later that those folks are getting recognition thru retrospectives such as this performance.
As the discussion continued the fact is brought up that the 3 other composers on the program all have very strong compositional identities which menas that you can usually tell that a piece is by one or the other just by the style of the composition.
HERRMANN: 51 films, including Citizen Kane, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Psycho.
KORNGOLD: 21 American Films, including Captain Blood, Green Pastures, Adv. of Robin Hood, Sea Hawk, Devotion, and Of Human Bondage.
ROZSA: 97 films, including Thief of Baghdad, Jungle Book, Spellbound, Asphalt Jungle, Ben Hur, King of Kings, Green Berets, and Time after Time.
Chihara said that his generation of composers was often apologetic about being a film composer.
Howard said that film music today is in a state of decline, in his view.
He feels that film music tries to sell caviar at the same counter as tacos. ;-D
(To much audience laughter Chihara chimed in with "What's wrong with that?")
Technology, it seems, is a blessing, and a curse, as people with no music backround push buttons to get a sound, and that degrades music for all of us, in his view.
Chihara says that technology means that we are embracing methods, sounds, and idea, unheard of before, "like with tacos, and that's a good thing."
He says that the first responsibility of a composer for film is not to be a musician, but a dramatist.
On that note there was a bit more discussion, and then the talk ended, and we all traipsed off to find our seats for the performance.
