Description
Although often dismissed as mere "light" music, scores for film have become an integral genre in the 20th and 21st century. Not only is such music more likely to garner a much larger audience than music written expressly for the concert hall, but it is also a genre that challenges composers to engage in real dialogue with other creative visionaries. Even in the years leading up to World War II, important mainstream composers were working in this medium, including Sergey Prokofiev for the unforgettable Sergei Eisenstein film Alexander Nevsky, while Dmitri Shostakovich wrote some three dozen film scores over the course of his life. Meanwhile, many of Hollywood's most memorable films would not be the same without iconic music written by such composers as Bernard Herrmann, Alex North, Franz Waxman, Miklos Rozsa, and Elmer Bernstein, nor would the golden age of Italian film be complete without Nino Rota's collaborations with Federico Fellini and other directors.
More recently, composers from Ennio Morricone to John Williams have written film scores that bear a unique and instantly identifiable imprint; think of Morricone's work for the first two Godfather films or Williams' nearly anthemic Jaws theme. Other composers such as Howard Shore (Lord of the Rings), and Danny Elfman (Batman and nearly every Tim Burton movie) have created lavish scores that have become instant favorites as well.
