基本説明
A study of the British contribution to film music, detailing the idiosyncracies of British film, and showing how the differences between it and Hollywood affected composers on both sides of the Atlantic.
Full Description
Jan Swynnoe's study is concerned with the special British contribution to film music, detailing how the idiosyncracies of British film, and of the British character, set it apart from its Hollywood counterpart. She shows how the differences between the two industries in all aspects of film making variously affected composers on both sides of the Atlantic.In the mid 1930s, when film composers in America were perfecting the formulae of the classical Hollywood score, film music in Britain scarcely existed; within a year or so, however, top British composers were scoring British films. How this transformation was brought about, and how established British concert composers, including Vaughan Williams and Arnold Bax, faced the challenge of the exacting and often bewildering art of scoring for feature film, is vividly described here, and the resulting scores compared with the work of seasoned Hollywood composers. JAN SWYNNOE researched the material on which her book is based over several years, at the same time pursuing her musical life as pianist, percussionist and composer.
Table of Contents
List of plates vi
Acknowledgements viii
Note ix
Introduction xi
Differences between British and American 1 (19)
films: a historical perspective
Formulae in the classical Hollywood score 20 (11)
A comparison between British and American 31 (9)
composers in their approach to film scoring
British composers' use of themes for 40 (22)
narrative development
Arnold Bax's musico-dramatic treatment of 62 (27)
Oliver Twist
Three other first attempts at feature-film 89 (30)
scoring: 49th Parallel, The Halfway House and
Blue Scar
Dialogue scoring of British films of the 1930s 119 (17)
The impact of the Second World War on British 136 (22)
films, and developments in dialogue scoring
in the 1940s
A look at some British films scored by 158 (15)
foreign composers
The decline of British cinema in the 1950s, 173 (20)
and the consequences for British film scores
Appendix A: The author in conversation with Roy 193 (22)
Douglas, 4 August 1993
Appendix B: `The True Story of The Warsaw 215 (3)
Concerto'
Roy Douglas
Appendix C: Interview with Doreen Carwithen, 2 218 (11)
July 1997
Sources of musical examples 229 (2)
Filmography 231 (4)
Bibliography 235 (3)
Index 238
