Edgar Beach wrote:

>Because of this, film music can best be appreciated while viewing and
>listening to the actual film, IMO.

For most stuff yes.  It is a means of augmenting the cinema experience.
If you have a decent composer doing it though, you would probably benefit
by listening to it with no distractions.

>I am wondering, have the composers and/or arrangers ever taken a film
>score and retructured it in symphonic or sonata form, thereby allowing it
>to stand on its own.  If so, do you agree with such restructuring and are
>there any recordings of such music you can recommend?

Yes, many times.  It will usually be called 'Suite from XYZ'.  I believe
there is a Suite from Starwars.  It does have a structure unto itself but
its not a very successful one as far as I am concerned.  Very repetitive
and quotes between movements are entirely unsubtle.  But that's what you
get if you try to copy Elgar when you haven't the capacity.  Walton's Suite
from Henry V is nice.  Stands very well on its own too.  I think Sibelius
wrote a Tempest Suite which for a film of the Tempest unsurprisingly.
Vaughan Williams 7 'Symphonia Antarctia' is the classic example.  It
started out as a score for a film about Captain Scott in the Antarctic.
He very successfully converted it into a symphony.  I don't know if it is
a symphony you want to revisit many times.  It is very, very, bleak.  He
Also turned an incomplete opera into his Symphony No.  5.  Bernstein made
a Symphonic Suite from 'On the Waterfront' which was a film, I believe.
Elgar wrote incidental music to a play about King Arthur.  I don't know
how successful you would be at trying to make a Suite from Speed 2 Cruise
Control though.

David Stewart
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