Michael Giacchino's score for Lost.
This New York Times article covers a lot of ground, but I'm thrilled to see the score to the television show Lost mentioned. I find that music very atmospheric and totally effective. I have joked about "the Lost theme song," which seems to be one complex and haunting chord. But I do love it.
Bernard Herrmann is also mentioned, and his work is what the music from Lost reminds me of. Which, in my book (or my blog, as it were), is the highest of compliments. Composer of music for Psycho, Citizen Kane, and Taxi Driver, Herrmann was capable of extracting the emotion from a scene and making it a sonic poem. These were not songs you listen to, these were moments crafted carefully that you remembered.
Taxi Driver, in particular, starts with a huge, full swell that suggests New York City, or Bickle's anger, or a dozen other things. Whenever I think of the film Taxi Driver, I think of that music.
If Michael Giacchino is inspired by Herrmann or making an homage or simply just trodding some of the same paths, that is a wonderful and special thing. It is a marvelous thing to bring to television. The article suggests that the makers of Lost will have a tough task to make the terrors of the island equal to Giacchino's score, and I agree.
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8 comments:
I should have bet someone before I looked at it that the article would contain the words "Philip Glass" somewhere. Why can no one talk about innovative scoring without bringing Glass into it? (Not a fan.)
Oddly, I love John Cage, which many would argue is much more of a wank than Glass's stuff. I have to plead music school snob on this one. The difference largely is, I've met Mr. Cage.
He was the guest composer at my very first Fall Festival at NEC and I actually got to meet with him for 10 minutes because I had a part to fulfill in one of his works that week, and no one was doing it but me. So there I was, 18 years old, talking to John Cage about his philosophy of how to approach sitting in the audience, watching the orchestra play, standing up precisely eight minutes in and starting to sing.
I think I shook the whole time, but he was a lovely, elderly, soft-spoken man who was so earnest about what he intended that, even if you thought it was bullshit going in, you were a believer coming out.
Maybe I'd like Glass more if I'd met him in person. (shrug)
(This comment may be longer than your post. Whose blog is this, anyway?)
And I should have bet someone that you would respond with a long post to anything that linked to anything that said Philip Glass.
I think he's a poseur, like Pollock, not really creating art but a kind of "anti-art." I certainly know that his stuff stinks. I can understand, maybe, why someone would compare him to Herrmann, but I would never mention them in the same sentence (he said, carefully using only relative pronouns).
Meeting the artist certainly changes your opinion. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. I can't remember meeting an artist (author, musician, artist) that blew me off, but I have heard stories. My experience has almost always been, "Hey he's a cool guy and I appreciate the time he spent."
It's important to note that this is not threadjacking, because I knew full well that Kathy would respond like that. Not only hunters lay traps. :)
Michael Giacchino has also provided the score for every episode of Alias, and for the movie The Incredibles.
As you note, his music for Lost -- though brilliant -- is really quite married to the action on screen. I get jazzed listening to soundtrack albums of Alias and The Incredibles. I don't think I'd want one for Lost. Out of context, it seems like it would be too quiet and amorphous for active listening. In context though, it's brilliant and perfect.
I don't like Glass for Glass' sake, but Koyaanisqatsi would be nothing without his music and I like the two David Bowie albums he "interpreted" too.
John Cage is the guy with the silent piece, right? 3 and a half minutes, or whatever it's called.
It's actually called 4'33".
The most brilliant pianist at our school did that piece, and if I remember correctly, he took it quite seriously. The same guy also did the pieces for "prepared piano", in which you have to stick things into the body of the piano in certain places to change the sounds it produces.
It was a wild week, especially coming about two months in to my college career. I went from doing a medley of 50's songs in show choir in high school to doing John Cage's stuff about 6 months later.
The next year we did works by Gyorgy Ligeti, which would have blown my mind the year before, but it seemed tame in comparison to Cage. This is when I had my little accident and fell off the back of the risers when my chair slid back, so I can quite accurately say that I nearly killed myself in the presence of Mr. Ligeti. I think I still have the get well card he sent me somewhere.
Sometimes I regret not getting a real degree, but some of these stories are just priceless.
Cool stuff, Kathy. I remember the Ligeti piece from 2001. I'm glad you weren't killed.
I'm almost certain the orchestra did that piece from 2001. Oddly, a lot of his other stuff is nothing like that.
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