Miceli, Sergio
(ed. and transl. by Marco Alunno)

The rite I am referring to is the concert rite, that is: bringing film music to the ‘serious’ music hall. The myth, instead, is the myth of cinema with its directors, actors and actresses who have already passed away and whose acting skills and charm we miss.

It is now a well-known fact that one the first prestigious conductors who performed film music concerts after WWII was Arthur Fiedler (1994-1979). For half a century he conducted the Boston Pops Orchestra, a symphonic orchestra that specializes in popular and light music. His successor at the podium was John Williams. Fiedler’s arrangements were often effective and always able to highlight the virtuosity of his musicians. To conduct film music in the second half of the 1940s was somehow like studying and transcribing the result of the audiovisual analysis of that music. This was true at least until the 1990s. But between now and then there is a quite important difference: at that time, no one would read those analyses, whereas many would listen to Fiedler and his recordings. On the other hand, there has always been an immeasurable distance between ‘scientific’ and ‘artistic’ performances concerning the same subject. Thanks to the word ‘Pops’ in the name of his orchestra, Fiedler’s repertoire could range from the Eine kleine Nachtmusik K525 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Dmitrij Tiomkin’s music for the film Duel in the Sun (dir. King Vidor and other, 1946), Broadway musicals and Beatles’ songs. Therefore, with regard to the Liverpool band, it was not Luciano Berio the one who elevated their songs to the rank of high culture (this is at least what a certain Italian-centric tradition believes), but rather Fiedler.

The protagonists of this kind of show are mainly Ennio Morricone (1928-) and John Williams (1932-), both very different from each other but, presumably, equal in talent and fame being the two film music composers who stand out from the other. Usually, the beginning of Morricone’s concert activity is considered to be the concert at the Arena di Verona (Sept. 2002).³¹ However, as early as 1987, he performed, with Duch Light-Orchestra Metropole, a film music concert in Antwerp “in front of an audience of 12.000 fans.” (CD Sabam T8710).³² Anyway, keeping to tradition, let us consider the first Verona concerto as the beginning of Morricone’s uninterrupted activity (suspended at the moment in 2014 for health issues) as a film music conductor. In the last thirteen years, instead of composing film music (except for requests from a few old friends), he mostly devoted himself to bringing his music all over the world. After his debut at the Arena di Verona, many important concerts came along. I can recall here at least two: the concert recorded in Rome on November 7, 9 and 10, 1988, for the Morricone’s 70th birthday, and the concert at the UN Headquarters in New York in February 2007.

Among many composers who conducted their own music, the other name to mention is undoubtedly John Williams. Judging from the large amount of his scores available on the market - one for all: the Suite Adventures on Earth from E. T. The Extra Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 1982) — one can evince that William’s attitude is completely different from Morricone’s.³³ Morricone is so ‘jealous’ of his music that he rarely and unwillingly gives it to other interpreters. As an exception: the cellist Yo-Yo Ma³⁴ and, before him, the outstanding German components of Trilogy.³⁵ First of all, though, there are ‘his’ soloists, the only ones for whom Morricone made arrangements of his film music themes: Gilda Butta (piano), Luca Pincini (cello) and Paolo Zampini (flute), all of them musicians of the Roma Sinfonietta Orchestra.

The concert activity of the two most important living film music composers is large enough to allow a partial evaluation of their work. In the Conclusions, though, I will also consider the production of other composers. Williams³⁷ has the undeniable vantage of letting his scores circulate freely in the market. Of course, they might be tarnished by many amateurs, but they are also available to the best performers. For example, one can listen to The Imperial March from Star Wars episode V played by one of the best orchestras in the world: the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Franz Welser-Möst.³⁸ Unfortunately, after the last chord, two bass players started dueling with laser swords (a detail the broadcast direction could have omitted). Cheaper gags are sometimes set up by many other ‘minor’ orchestras that played this same piece. For example: when the Prague Film Orchestra (Pražský Filmový Orchestr) interpreted the Imperial March in 2010, the conductor George (Jiří) Korynta dressed up like the ‘dark side’ emperor. Fortunately, three years later in Bratislava, he decided to take off the costume. However, not everybody regrets these sketches. In fact, Bramwell Tovey conducted the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra first with a baton and then with a lightsaber. There is no need of more examples. Just remember that there have been many concerts where Darth Vader replaces the conductor, especially in Ukraine.³⁹

John Williams acquired an enviable conducting experience being the principal conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra since 1980. As the successor of Arthur Fiddler in that position, Williams has conducted music of the most important composers between XVII and XIX century. Audissino wrote:

As it can be evinced from the words of one of the sharpest scholars in Williams, even in North-America there are some prejudices against film music as a whole. And they cannot invoke any typically Italian mitigating circumstances as Italy can do by recalling that musicologists and composers have been dominated by the Crocian idealism.

In the DVD collection released for the 20th anniversary of Steven Spielberg’s E. T. (1982), John Williams conducts a large orchestra in a live performance of the soundtrack during the film’s screening. Here he composer shows deep dedication and skill in an endeavor that would intimidate anyone. The result reveals that Williams is one of the most experienced and talented film and concert music composers of our time, one who thoroughly practiced music since childhood (his pianist skills are proof of this). The DVD collection also features many short bonus videos such as, for example, Spielberg and Williams preparing the soundtrack to E. T.

Comparing Williams and Morricone, there is much more seriousness in the Roma Sinfonietta Orchestra and Morricone himself, who is very far from appreciating the above mentioned gags (try to picture him conducting L’estasi dell’oro while wearing The Good’s poncho). Although Morricone’s conducting gesture is mechanical, ripetitive and most of the time unnatural,⁴¹ he is even too conscious that a concert is the place where his music can achieve a higher status, certainly higher than being ‘just’ film music. It actually makes of it an ‘absolute’ music (which proves again what I have been contending for years: what Morricone composed for film has always been somehow ‘absolute’ music).⁴² The humor, the sarcasm and the self-irony that Morricone was fully able to deliver in the music of, for example, Elio Petri’s films, completely lack in these concert venues. After all, Morricone conducting his film music was something unexpected when one considers that up to the mid-1980s he kept the two compositional activities (concert and film music) well apart. Thus, nowadays Morricone is not ashamed anymore of his work, so much so that he proudly presents it in a concert hall.

Williams, instead, does not even seem to be touched by this train of thoughts. From his golden island — Hollywood — he conducts with no dilemmas whatsoever what he defines in a disparaging manner “little marches.” Williams seems more relaxed, maybe because he knows that in the end it is just a game (although a very sophisticated one), whereas Morricone has devoted a great deal — the last twenty years — of his professional activities and image in conducting film music.

Besides Morricone and Williams, many other composers brought their film music in the concert hall: Nino Rota, Trevor Jones, Franco Piersanti, Luis Bacalov, Alexandre Desplat, David Arnold, Paul Glass, Nicola Piovani etc. On the other hand, it is not very common that a film music composer plays the music of another film music composer. From this point of view, US composers are the most altruists or, at least, those who show a remarkable sense of corporatism. Specialized composers in film music are also helped by conductors who frequently devote their time to this kind of music: above all John Mauceri, David Newmann and Adriano, but also, although less frequently, Michael Tilson Thomas, Esa Pekka-Salonen, Riccardo Muti, etc. In addition to them, there are also scholars-conductors who apply philological methods to the reconstruction of the original music of important silent films, i.e.: the musician, musicologist and director Gillian B. Anderson, perhaps the best, Berndt Heller, and the film historian Enno Patalas.⁴³ There is, finally, who accepts some risk and tries to be more ‘inventive’ with silent film music; for example Timothy Broch, who is often invited to Italy at the Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone.

Among the most recent examples of film music played in a concert hall there is Giuseppe Grazioli conducting the Orchestra Sinfonica Verdi in Milan in 2014 for Robert Wiene’s film Der Rosenkavalier. The score was Richard Strauss’ original reduction for salonorchester on the screenplay Hugo von Hofmannsthal, author of the opera’s libretto, prepared for the film version.⁴⁴ The simple fact that Strauss was not a film music specialist (in fact, this is the only work he composed for cinema) muffles the enthusiasm for Grazioli’s choice quite a lot. This can be explained when one thinks that between 1880 and 1980 the aesthetic attitude of most Italian musicians and musicologists toward film music was compromised by a neo-idealistic, very abstract stand that was totally uninterested in the audience’s opinions and reactions. At best, such a position led them to close the discussion after having watched one movie and read one book. Many misunderstandings originate thereafter: the only film considered was a copy, often in need of restoration, of Aleksàndr Nevskij (Александр Невский, by Sergej Ejzenštejn (Сергей Эйзенштейн), with music by Sergej Prokof’ev (Сергей Прокофьев), 1938); the only book was the 1969 re-edition of Komposition für den Film by Theodor W. Adorno and Hanns Eisler (but without the latter, who by then had passed away).⁴⁵ Very few either knew the importance of Eisler in and out of cinema or bothered to question Adorno’s colossal absurdities about film and film music,⁴⁶ but the book was highly praised anyway because of the German philosopher’s illustrious name. If Adorno’s sociology applied to film music caused damages that are still detectable nowadays above all in the United States (where even the most skilled scholars seems to feel a sort of uncritical subjection for the Marxist sociologist), Italian neo-idealism of the XX century had seriously heavy consequences for applied music and music in general. In fact, Italian specialism in composing film music began only at the end of the 1950s, right after Neorealism and very late with respect to such countries as the United States, the USSR, Great Britain, Japan and pre-Nazi Germany.⁴⁷

Among the different ways of organizing a film music concert, there is the booming trend of reinterpreting famous silent films in a contemporary style in part by soloists and, more rarely, by ensembles.⁴⁸ It would take too long to list them here; therefore I will mention only one that towers above the others: the Gruppo Live Electronics Edison Studio formed of four composers (Mauro Cardi, Luigi Ceccarelli, Fabio Cifariello Ciardi and Alessandro Cipriani).⁴⁹ The high quality of their output in musicalizing silent films is partially due to the fact that they also work in other compositional fields.

With regard to the acceptance of film music in the world of concert music, interpreters are usually more open minded than theorists and musicologists. However, at least since the last decade of the XX century, such an open-mindedness could also be the result of an unscrupulous and unbiased attitude that is no longer rare to see in our time. But it has not always been like this and my memory still keeps quite an unpleasant recollection of it. It was back in 1983 when Luciano Alberti, at that time artistic director of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, asked me to propose some ideas for a thematic program on music in cinema. My cautious and well-accepted proposal came down to the Symphonic Suite op. 18 that the young Šostakovič (Шостакович) derived from the music⁵⁰ for the silent film The New Babylon (Новый Вавилон) directed by Grigorij Kozinčev (Григорий Козинцев) and Leonid Trauberg (Леонид Трауберг) in 1929. Although the music was composed by a true Šostakovič and matched the style of other compositions of the same period like The Age of Gold, op. 22a, 1929-32 (Золотой век) and the Suite The Bolt, op. 27a, 1933 (Болт), many musicians of the Florentine orchestra refused to play it because they did not want to compromise their dignity.

It is also true, though, that some of us, a few years earlier, had read and reflected on Umberto Eco’s Apocalittici e integrati.⁵¹ In that book, Eco made an example of Kitsch by referring to some film music (but not only that) performed in a concert venue.⁵²

I will come back on this important point in the Conclusions to Part I.

Concerts entirely dedicated to film music have exponentially increased in the last years. Just to make an example: the music of Lord of the Rings, performed by bands and small provincial ensembles or used even as didactic material in several junior high schools, is something with which the composer of the score, Howard Shore, has little to do.

James Horner, instead, has much to do with a curious circumstance that I will mention here and I will not comment further on: on a different scale from the provincial performances, successful film music is frequently played all around the world, e.g.: Hollywood a Vienna 2013, a concert of the Wiener Konzerhouse with the ORF Radio Symphonie Orchester Wien conducted by David Newman. In this kind of show music by different composers is usually performed and images from related films are often screened, perhaps in order to exorcize a ‘stone guest’ atmosphere that some concerts reluctantly offer to their audience.⁵⁴ However, in Hollywood a Vienna 2013 all the music played (from Star Trek, Gattaca, Braveheart, Avatar, Titanic and so on) is by James Horner, but the Gala program does not say it explicitly. This might be understandable because that concert was performed to award Horner with the Max Steiner prize that every year is granted to a distinguished film music composer. Horner certainly deserved it, but why not say it clearly?

Before closing this chapter, I will mention some of the ‘altruist’ musicians who performed film music: David Raksin, who conducted his and other music, the Moscow Soloists conducted by no less than Yuri Bashmet (Юрий Башмет), and Michael Nyman with his Band. A roughly complete list would take the space of a long essay, therefore the few examples above are just a small part of the whole group.

Original VHSs and TV video recordings, LP, cassettes (mostly from the Archive E. M., Rome), home-recorded 1/4-inch tapes, films in DVD and multimedia CD, musical CDs (from the Archive E. M., Rome), downloaded movies and soundtracks, several⁵⁵ video clips of Ennio Morricone and John Williams.

Ennio Morricone conducting the Roma Sinfonietta Orchestra, the Arena di Verona Choir, Video Director Giovanni Morricone, (28.09.2002), Soloists: Dulce Pontes (voice), Suanna Rigacci (soprano), Gilda Buttà (piano). DVD Euphonia 2013, Warner Music Vision, Pal 16:9, All Regions, Dolby Surround 5+1, Dolby Digital 2.0, language: Italian, dialogues subtitles: English. With extras. No other available data.
Archive S. M., Florence.

John Williams conducting a live performance of E. T.’s soundtrack.
Italian release 3 DVDs Amblin - Universal Pictures 907 025 2 (2002). The soundtrack is digitally remastered [i.e., it is not the original version conducted by Williams for the 20th anniversary]; there are also some computer graphics’ image editing.
- Disc 1: Introduction by Steven Spielberg; Feature Film (20th Anniversary edition); John Williams at the Shrine; Auditorium 2002 Premiere.
- Disc 2: Evolution and creation of E. T.; The reunion; The music of John Williams; The 20th Anniversary Premiere; Space Exploration; Designs, Photographs and Marketing; Trailer; DVD-ROM Features Including Total Axess [only for Microsoft Windows].
- Disco 3: E. T., the Original Film; A Look Back; The Original Trailer; DVD-ROM Features Including Total Axess [only for Microsoft Windows].
Available subtitles: Italian, English, Croatian, Serbian, Slovenian. Content Audio: Italian-5.1-EX; Italian-5.1-dts-ES; English 5.1-EX; Polish 5,1 EX (only disc 3). Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1, PAL 2.

CD John Williams, E. T. The Extra Terrestrial, The 20° Anniversary, 21 tracks, 1982, Music Composed and Orchestrated by John Williams, online version, Apple iTunes. No other available data.
Archive S. M., Florence.

John Williams, Adventures on Earth. Full Score from the Universal Picture “E. T. The Extra Terrestrial”, New York: MCA Music Publishing [Geffen Records] 04490009, 1982/2002.

Ennio Morricone, Concerto alle Nazioni Unite, New York, February 2, 2007, Video Director Giovanni Morricone, PAL 4:3, All Regions, PCM Stereo DTS, Dolby Digital 5.1 DVD Ars latina. No other available data.
Archive S. M., Florence.

Many other symphonic and choral ensembles in previously, live concerts in different locations.