The struggle between high and low ranges in the orchestra is never in doubt; the deep bass strings, bass woodwinds, and timpani are dominant. The opening sections of the score are ambiguous and understated, leaving the visuals to speak for themselves.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljtq...
Exotic instruments such as three Ondes Martenot and a cithera were integrated into the traditional orchestra to provide this unique soundscape. The Desert Theme underpins its narrative and speaks of the vast desert vistas with a sweeping romanticism.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP8Z...
"The River Kwai March" is a march composed as an orchestral counter-march to the "Colonel Bogey March", which is whistled by the soldiers entering the prisoner camp in the film and again near the end of the film when the bridge is formally dedicated.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEP_...
Essential is composer John Dankworth, whose cool jazz score sets the appropriate mood. He appears uncredited in a nightclub as part of a jazz band. His soundtrack helps anchor the piece in the early sixties.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtOM...
Thomas Newman brings the full orchestra back into play and the effect is startlingly good. The instruments are used, along with mandolins and a hurdy-gurdy amongst others throughout the score, but their effect is more subtle and used as color and flavor.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqUZ...
Riz Ortolani was hired in Rome as a pianist in a dance hall and later joined RAI as an arranger for radio orchestras. Ortolani wrote over 200 film scores, including a host of westerns and many Italian thrillers.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0etu...
The iconic main theme, “Thunderbird,” is a lonely, bluesy, languid Haycock electric guitar solo which somehow captures the essence of the landscape and the feeling of the American southwest, with its towering rock mesas, endless deserts, and hardy people.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynfO...
Mikis Theodarakis 'Main Title' recalls a military parade performed by bouzouki, harpsichord, trombones and busy percussion instruments which introduce the audience immediately to the politically charged atmosphere and mood of the movie.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tPB...
Piero Piccioni was an Italian film score composer and lawyer. We have him at his best with powerful groove sound on “Underground Sketches”, “Magic of New York”, “Sad Tales” and “Burning Point”. Plus two great jazz tunes with vibraphone “Red Shift I & II”.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDXT...
Howard quickens pace with thicker orchestral colors, more prominent percussion rhythms. His scores climactic showdown with riveting action music. Here, exciting, aggressive French horns get the spotlight with thundering percussion right up front with them.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha6G...
The Top Gun Anthem combines Faltermeyer’s keyboard with an electric guitar performed by Billy Idol’s guitarist Steve Stevens. From the echoing drums and synthesized tubular bells it evoke the hyper-enhanced bravado and swagger of the main characters.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-DA...
Nicola Piovani is an Italian pianist, composer and conductor. His collaboration with Bellocchio, which will last more than a decade, will be the beginning of a career, which led the composer to meet almost all the great authors of Italian cinema.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU_g...
It was the first major Hollywood action score in the career of composer Mark Isham. Although his primary instrument was the trumpet, Isham was also very comfortable writing for synths and keyboards. The Opening captures the might and power of the ocean.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Altd...
The Titanic theme evolves into a Love Theme and achieves a sublime lyricism in Céline Dion’s singing of the End Title’s song “My Heart Will Go On.” The theme is articulated by violin and kindred strings, piano, synth choir and Sissel’s timeless vocals.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQj6...
Miklós Rózsa's music for the main titles and opening scene irradiates tension in terms not of volume but of complex, agitated rhythms. All around those mean and desolate streets, the music tells us, a world is waiting to pounce.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irmi...
Morricone’s main theme is actually quite lovely, with a pastoral tone and a lilting melody carried by strings, guitars, and almost imperceptible finger-cymbals like sound like dripping icicles. The vocals are adding a layer of warmth and humanity.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmNi...
Laurence Rosenthal captures the gamut of historical drama and power, ranging from the playful and colorful adventures of youth through love, conflict, hate, trials and penance. Opening with his dramatic main title for full orchestra and male chorus.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQKx...
Piero Piccioni was born in Turin on December 6, 1921. Self-taught, at thirteen, when his father took him to Florence to listen to orchestras, he was already writing songs. Among his most famous soundtracks there is that of IL CASO MATTEI.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x_w...
Elmer’s score had to adapt to the style of the language, as well as meet all the additional and more usual dramatic requirement of composing for the screen. "When we laid in the score the first time it flowed over the narration like a clear-running brook".
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxTQ...
The most singular moment was the long sequence of the parade of ecclesial models. The configuration of this music is that of a ballet that progressively acquires more grotesque tonalities, parallel to the amazing display of the costumes.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLQO...
The main title is an unusual staccato march that incorporates bizarre sound effects – duck quacks, highly processed gunfire that often morphs into a fluttering effect, that becomes robust and rhythmic as it progresses.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJoQ...
This is one of Elmer Bernstein's more experimental scores. "The City" introduces the main theme that is an insanely catchy, jazzy piece written in Bernstein's unmistakable style. It's light and breezy and yet powerful and memorable at the same time.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyNm...
Ernest Gold did manage to infuse the sounds of the bongo, tambourine, E-flat clarinet and a treble recorder into his soundscape. In terms of the score, he created an astounding main theme, which perfectly captured the film’s emotional core.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEDO...
Alan Parker had been an admirer of Trevor Jones’s all-electronic score for Runaway Train, and thought that something similar would work well. It is performed mostly on a synclavier synthesizer, with special performance by saxophone virtuoso Courtney Pine.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnfk...
Eric Demarsan's compositions for Le Cercle Rouge draw from the orchestral spirit of the Modern Jazz Quartet. The french composer created a suspenseful and hypnotizing audio landscape which elegantly underlines the tense atmosphere of unavoidable fate.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=efmc...
Recorded on a budget of only nine musicians, Hans Zimmer’s True Romance score features percussion instruments xylophones and marimbas to create with an innocent noise, a reflection of the lead characters. This is the main theme "You're so cool".
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmlt...
The D'Ancona and Mandalari song "Amuri, amuri", of which the soundtrack is a major part, was recorded for Carlo Lizzani's film by Otello Profazio, who better harmonized the first four verses and followed up with three completely new verses.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ug3...
This is clearly a film score, in both execution and intent, with all the pieces backing up scenes. This is a real surprise, very relaxing, supremely cool. The music is composed by the legendary Jack Nitzsche and features Miles Davis and John Lee Hooker.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE9d...
Elmer Bernstein provided an astounding Great Escape March, which serves as the score’s main theme. The march is long-lined at thirty-three notes and propelled by woodwinds or horns animato set to a tuba-cello-bass cadence along with snare drum percussion
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZPn...
Born in Carpi, Carlo Rustichelli is one of the most prolific and eclectic composers of music applied to the image. The music of the film is very reminiscent of that of "Amici mei". It is no coincidence that the composer of both films is Carlo Rustichelli.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OkK...