jwilzewske: Jo van den Booren Chamber Music for Films: Musical Narrator, ‘Third-Person-Limited’

T here are three ways to play the drama: (1) you can play through a scene, establishing a mood that will ignore specific moments of greater or lesser intensity; (2) you can phrase a scene, carefully acknowledging both obvious and subtle shifts in emotional tone and dramatic content; and (3) you can hit the action, accenting specific moments in the drama with the music... ‘Playing through’ is really the earliest film scoring technique, dating back to the pre-sound era of silent movies. In those days the local pianist selected different pieces of music for each dramatic section and simply played through each scene until the next section.”
— Fred Karlin & Rayburn Wright, p. 238.

S hortly before Patelson’s closed last year, I was in there rummaging through what was left on the shelves. I found a copy of a peculiar score for brass quintet, entitled ‘Potpourri’, by the [now 75 year-old--] Dutch composer Jo van den Booren. This 10-minute piece is filled with surprising dynamics and exchanges between the players. The rapidly changing polymeter time signatures tell a story—mystery! a thriller!

W hat a fantastic find! I had never encountered any of van den Booren’s music before. I began to explore, to see what recordings of his works might be available. Sadly, the result was meager. But he has received a number of awards in Europe; his compositions in Donemus’s catalog number more than 200...

R eally marvelous, van den Booren’s sense of timing and suspense—in the brass quintet, and in other of his music. Not surprising, then, that he has done scores for films, including chamber ensemble works to accompany old silent films—his 1985 score for the 1928 silent ‘La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc’, directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer and starring Maria Falconetti, is highly regarded...

W e get natural competition between the visual gestures and actions in the silent film. By contrast, in contemporary films sound-effects compete with the music. But in silent films the sound-effects are implied by the on-screen action and, to some extent, by the sub-titles. Visual effects as surrogates for sound-effects. Sometimes, the musician(s) ‘tread water’ before the cinematic effect; at other times, they come smacking in with something ‘new’ right after the visual effect...

T rumpet-led ostinato ‘processional’ music; tuba-instigated ‘introspective’ music; trombone gone wild...

V an den Booren considers each scene as though it were a philosophical question, to be considered from multiple angles. This adds to the character development and serves as a stimulus for the viewer to engage her/his imagination. As such, van den Booren is a wonderful teacher to learn from. The composer, acting as an impromptu companion to the viewer, should regale the viewer with honest musical remarks. The viewer sees the wheels inside your head working; you are a kind of narrator, third-person, ‘limited’. Your remarks are not ‘inexplicable’; they are spontaneous but explicable. Most of the time, your remarks are friendly; but sometimes you can be difficult...

B efore you phrase a scene you’ll need to select a tempo and rough-in the cue, putting correct timings at the top of every bar or two... consider adjusting the tempo slightly to accomodate any ‘hits’ that need to be precise. Compose your thematic material for the scene, or, if you already have the material, play it against the video without trying to fit it exactly to the scene. Place the thematic material roughly where you would like it to play. This may leave silent bars on one or both sides of the thematic statements, which you can fill in later. Now shift the material slightly and try playing it in several different places. When its location seems most compatible to your music in terms of your selected ‘hits’ or phrase-timings, lock it in. Use the SMPTE timecode to identify the start coordinate... Adding a soft string-pad under the theme as the heroine turns and says, ‘I love you,’ can be enhancing to the scene without disturbing the flow of the music.”
— Fred Karlin & Rayburn Wright, p. 307.

jwilzewske

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Jo van den Booren Chamber Music for Films: Musical Narrator, ‘Third-Person-Limited’

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