I wrote

>>By the fifties or so, however, classical music turned more atonal/serial,
>>replacing the more romantic fare of Korngold, et al.  I suspect this new
>>music that turned off so many people from the fifties through the eighties
>>turned off moviemakers, as well.  Whatever else you want to say about that
>>music, I would bet that most directors, etc., did not think it conducive
>>to the moods they were trying to create in their movies.  I'd suspect,
>>too, that they were afraid of it, believing that if it turned off concert
>>audiences, it might turn off movie audiences as well.

And Steven Schwartz, who konws a lot more about movie music history than I
do, replied,

>Actually, "advanced" music was always a part of the movie business,
>especially if you remember that Herrmann, Rozsa, Waxman, Elmer Bernstein,
>Copland, and Eisler were considered wild moderns for their time.  Many of
>these composers slipped in their most modern music into "horror films,"
>where it was perfectly acceptable, even sought after.  This was, after all,
>a genre designed to make your flesh creep.  Film noir of the Forties also
>used highly dissonant music.

Before replying, I hope I made clear in my previous post that I was
speculating in my remarks.  I'm no expert in this area and am writing
my perceptions and, dare I say, my feelings as to what is going on.  I'm
continuing to do so here and trust I'll learn something in the process.

Regarding Steven's comments here, I'm not a fan of horror films, and so
I wasn't even thinking of them.  Steve is obviously right.

Also, I wasn't contending that composers/directors etc.  were averse to
dissonant music, though I guess that was the impression.  I was thinking
more of the drier, what I perceive to be the less emotional, music that we
heard so much of in the Sixties and Seventies.  Babbitt, Cage, Stockhausen,
Crumb, and a host of others whose music I don't know very well, mainly
because when I do hear it, I don't care for it and therefore don't
investigate further.  (Yes, that was a long disclaimer.) I have no doubt
that there are movie scores, even good ones, that used music in the style
of these composers but how many and how much of it is mainstream--and
mainstream is what I'm concerned with?

The composers Steven mentioned probably were "advanced" for their time,
but they were still writing orchestral music that people responded to, and
more importantly, orchestral music that is still listened to by relatively
impressive numbers of people now.  Maybe that will some day be the case
with the composers I mentioned in the previous paragraph, but it hasn't
been so far.

>There well have been this fear on the part of studios and producers (most
>directors with creative control tended to seek out the wildest of the wild
>men, John Ford being the great exception), but it's really a baseless fear.

Probably true, but I do recall two famous exceptions, as far as directors
are concerned.  One was Hitchcock's conflict with Herrmann over the
latter's brazen (and I thought brilliant) score to Torn Curtain.  I'm sure
most people have heard the story of how Hitchcock heard some of it played,
was shocked at the orchestral complement, etc., and ordered a new, mediocre
score by John Addison.  Herrmann had something similar happend to him in a
film with Truffaut (sp).  There was this scene of a handkerchief (I think)
falling slowly to the ground someplace in Italy.  Herrmann wrote exquisite
music to accompany it, but Truffaut demurred, thinking the music too
intrusive in sound.  He replaced it with some "harmless" Vivaldi.

There was a remarkable documentary about Herrmann that described these
incidents.  It included one scene from Torn Curtain that was scored with
Herrmann's music, and the scene from the Truffaut film was also available.
In my opinion, both directors made a terrible mistake.  (The Herrmann score
to Torn Curtain was recorded on London years ago.  It was not his best
music, but it was striking, inventive, and, far better than Addison's.
It might have made a great deal more of that movie, too.)

>Unfortunately, this isn't the way film music works or the attitude toward
>film music on the part of directors.  Most of them don't know enough music
>to tell what's a serial score.  They are interested only in whether the
>music is dramatically effective and appropriate.  Given the proper subject,
>I don't see why a priori 12-tone music is a non-starter.

Again, I guess I didn't make this point very well.  Not 12-tone as such.
There is too much great 12=tone music around for such a contention.  But
the kind of 12-tone (or any other music) that has generally flopped with
most classical audiences.  I'm afraid it's kind of like the Supreme Court's
definition of obscenity: one knows it when one hears it.

In the end, however appropriate my efforts to slog around in this area
may be, something killed the big orchestra score--until recently, anyway.
Maybe it just was the cheapness of the rock scores, the need for a hit song
(didn't Hitchcock fall prey to that in his later films?), etc., or just the
development of a trend started by some famous rock, folk or synthesizer
score(s).  But I couldn't help but be struck by the coincident occurrence
of what I at least preceive to have been the decline of the big orchestral
score and the paucity of "appealing" big orchestral scores that were being
written (or at least played) at the time.

Roger Hecht