Howard Who?

Hans Zimmer is likely the 300-pound gorilla of any room he walks into. Okay, so he’s not a movie star, but he’s a pop star and more importantly a movie scoring genius.

I recently attended a film scoring conference where he joined an amazing panel for a discussion. Of course, his voice rang the loudest and with good reason. His films earn billions of dollars. His films win Oscars, and he has one of his own for The Lion King. He is a brand name…his company called Remote Control Productions is a breeding ground for lots of film composers who go on to have major careers. While John Williams is best known for sitting at a piano and orchestrating a score by himself, Zimmer is the ultimate team player (kind of like being in a band, say The Buggles). What he does works.

But this doesn’t always produce the most original music, as I blogged earlier here regarding the Pirates of the Caribbean score. And it also manifests itself in the infamous example of True Romance. That film featured the track “You’re So Cool” to the strains of a near-copy of Gassenhauer. If you trace the history of this music back, you’ll find that it is included in Carl Orff’s series of pieces to teach children how to play instruments. Dig deeper and you’ll find that Gassenhauer was actually written by Gunild Keetman who was Orff’s collaborator on the project. And actually, Keetman arranged the music for percussion from the original lute tune by Hans Neusidler who himself wrote it in the 16th Century.  There’s an excellent post and discussion about it at Aurgasm.

Does this excuse Zimmer’s copying, er, homage to Orff/Keetman/Neusidler? Is this excused because True Romance was an homage to Badlands, which itself had the Keetman arrangement? Well, it wouldn’t be the first time a film composer ripped off a classical work and it certainly won’t be the last. And it certainly doesn’t diminish the fact that the music works.

Gassenhauer (mp3) - Keetman, Neusidler Buy

You’re So Cool (mp3) - Hans Zimmer Buy

Video Killed the Radio Star (mp3) - The Buggles Buy

Tangerine Dream did something similar to Reich in the Risky Business score, except there it seems a lot worse because Reich himself only wrote the original music seven years earlier. He was clearly upset, and even once said that he should sue the group. But he saw the light and realized that use by a pop group would only help get his signature sound out there, ultimately helping his sales. I think it’s worked…I mean, I’m blogging about it right? Reich’s understanding of how music is changing in our world is probably unparalleled by any other composer I know.

Section VI from Music for 18 Musicians (mp3) - Steve Reich Buy

Love on a Real Train (mp3) - Tangerine Dream Buy

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 23rd, 2006 at 8:15 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, Classical Music, Film Music, Pop Music, Minimalism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.