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A study of the British contribution to film music, detailing the idiosyncracies of British film, and showing how the differences between it and Hollywood affected composers on both sides of the Atlantic. Jan Swynnoe's study is concerned with the special British contribution to film music, detailing how the idiosyncracies of British film, and of the British character, set it apart from its Hollywood counterpart. She shows how the differences between the two industries in all aspects of film making variously affected composers on both sides of the Atlantic. In the mid 1930s, when film composers in America were perfecting the formulae of the classical Hollywood score, film music in Britain scarcely existed; within a year or so, however, top British composers were scoring British films. How this transformation was brought about, and how established British concert composers, including Vaughan Williams and Arnold Bax, faced the challenge of the exacting and often bewildering art of scoring for feature film, is vividly described here, and the resulting scores compared with the work of seasoned Hollywood composers. JAN SWYNNOE researched the material on which her book is based over several years, at the same time pursuing her musical life as pianist, percussionist and composer.
In the first book-length consideration of the topic for sixty years, Kevin Donnelly examines the importance of music in British film, concentrating both on musical scores, such as William Walton's score for Henry V (1944) and Malcolm Arnold's music for The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), and on the phenomenon of the British film musical.
This book offers a fresh approach to British film music by tracing the influence of Britain’s musical heritage on the film scores of this era. From the celebration of landscape and community encompassed by pastoral music and folk song, and the connection of both with the English Musical Renaissance, to the mystical strains of choral sonorities and the stirring effects of the march, this study explores the significance of music in British film culture. With detailed analyses of the work of such key filmmakers as Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, Laurence Olivier and Carol Reed, and composers including Ralph Vaughan Williams, William Walton and Brian Easdale, this systematic and in-depth study explores the connotations these musical styles impart to the films and considers how each marks them with a particularly British inflection.
This book is a major new study - dealing with notions of film music as a device that desires to control its audience, using a most powerful thing: emotion. The author emphasises the manipulative and ephemeral character of film music dealing not only with traditional orchestral film music, but also looks at film music's colonisation of television, and discusses pop music in relation to films, and the historical dimensions to ability to possess audiences that have so many important cultural and aesthetic effects. It challenges the dominant but limited conception of film music as restricted to film by looking at its use in television and influence in the world of pop music and the traditional restriction of analysis to 'valued' film music, either from 'name' composers' or from the 'golden era' of Classical Hollywood. Focusing on areas as diverse as horror, pop music in film, ethnic signposting, television drama and the soundtrack without a film- this is an original study which expands the range of writing on the subject.
Mobilizing Music in Wartime British Film examines the preoccupation with art music and total war that animated British films of the 1940s.
In Music Hall Mimesis in British Film, 1895-1960, Dr. St. Pierre examines strategies of representing British music hall performance (1854-1919) and the performance of the body in British cinema in the silent era (1895-1927) and the sound era (1927-60). The focus is on films of Fred and Joe Evans, Frank Randle, Will Hay, George Formby, Arthur Lucan and Kitty McShane, Cicely Courtneidge, Jessie Matthews, Norman Evans, Max Miller, Stanley Holloway, Jack Warner, Gracie Fields, and Charles Chaplin. Consideration is given to themes such as war propaganda and gender impersonation.
Ian Johnson's evaluation of Alwyn's film music places his achievement in the context of wider movements within the film industry. William Alwyn was a leading composer of British film music in the 1940s and '50s, a time when the British film industry was at its peak. His scores ranged from documentaries to almost 80 full-length feature films, including classics such as Fires were Started, Desert Victory, Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol, and The History of Mr Polly; he was adept at any musical genre, from classical to cartoon slapstick, and in the process worked with legendary directors, including Carol Reed, David Lean, Humphrey Jennings, and Anthony Asquith. Alone with Vaughan Williams he was granted the distinction of a separate title credit; columnists mentioned him alongside Bliss, Bax and Walton. However, as the reputation of the British film industry declined in the 1950s, so musical snobbery against those who were its leading lights became unpleasantly raw. In recent years, however, with sensitive performances of hisfilm and concert music available on CD, this most appealing of composers has enjoyed something of a renaissance. In this long overdue reassessment, Alwyn's films are analysed and put into the context of his biography,the film industry, and of society at large: the author shows in particular this remarkably versatile composer developed a hitherto unrecognised grammar of film music which enhanced every film on which he worked. He also examines his work for war propaganda, radio, and the concert hall. The volume is enhanced by the most complete filmography, discography, and bibliography of the composer's works yet published, as well as listings of his concert and radio music.