Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Plates
- Acknowledgements
- Dedication
- Introduction : Music in the Shadows
- 1 A New and Foreign Land
- 2 Experiment, Experiment, and again Experiment
- 3 Enter Mathieson
- 4 Intoxicating Documentary Days; First Feature
- 5 An Art of Persuasion
- 6 “Pulling Together”
- 7 The People’s War
- 8 Ordinary People
- 9 The Success of the Season
- 10 War’s End
- 11 Reconstruction
- 12 Launder and Gilliat: Soundtrack as Art Form
- 13 A Big Score
- 14 Outcasts and Idioms
- 15 Pennies from Hollywood
- 16 Reed again, and Asquith
- 17 Péllisier, a Forgotten Talent
- 18 Kitsch or Art?
- 19 “Choosing my Palette”
- 20 Seeing Another Meaning
- 21 Swashbucklers and Noir
- 22 Music and the Spoken Word
- 23 Music My Task-Master
- 24 I Labour On …
- 25 And On …
- 26 Dark Themes
- 27 Endings
- 28 Utopian Sunset
- Glossary of Musical Terms
- Filmography
- Discography
- Select Bibliography
- Index
19 - “Choosing my Palette”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Plates
- Acknowledgements
- Dedication
- Introduction : Music in the Shadows
- 1 A New and Foreign Land
- 2 Experiment, Experiment, and again Experiment
- 3 Enter Mathieson
- 4 Intoxicating Documentary Days; First Feature
- 5 An Art of Persuasion
- 6 “Pulling Together”
- 7 The People’s War
- 8 Ordinary People
- 9 The Success of the Season
- 10 War’s End
- 11 Reconstruction
- 12 Launder and Gilliat: Soundtrack as Art Form
- 13 A Big Score
- 14 Outcasts and Idioms
- 15 Pennies from Hollywood
- 16 Reed again, and Asquith
- 17 Péllisier, a Forgotten Talent
- 18 Kitsch or Art?
- 19 “Choosing my Palette”
- 20 Seeing Another Meaning
- 21 Swashbucklers and Noir
- 22 Music and the Spoken Word
- 23 Music My Task-Master
- 24 I Labour On …
- 25 And On …
- 26 Dark Themes
- 27 Endings
- 28 Utopian Sunset
- Glossary of Musical Terms
- Filmography
- Discography
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Despite a heavy feature schedule, there was time for a television score – William Alwyn's first – for John Read's Henry Moore : Sculptor, transmitted in April 1951. Filmed documentaries were uncommon, and critical praise went to Alan Lawson's fluid circling camera movement of Moore at work on an eight-foot reclining bronze figure for the Festival of Britain. The film went on to win a prize at the Venice Film Festival, although its viewer reaction was the lowest of the period. For the music Alwyn composed a Passacaglia for string quartet, bass clarinet, and vibraphone, linked to the sculptor's actions. Moore commented to Alwyn afterwards, “I am glad you didn't write ultra-modern music for my film. I regard myself as a classic sculptor.”
Many film composers prefer a small orchestra – Alwyn and Malcolm Arnold among them. Alwyn put the matter succinctly:
I would often far rather use a small group of players than a full symphony orchestra - primarily because I like to choose my palette to fit my canvas. Unhappily the Symphony Orchestra is like the All-Star cast, it provides a sort of Hollywood gloss and a pseudo-prestige value to the Film. To put it at its worst – important sounding title music makes the picture sound important (How often I’ve had that said to me). However, if I am hoist with the symphonic petard, I can tactfully disband it during the action of the film. Of course, there are some films which demand a large orchestra - a massive effect can only be obtained by massive means (The Fallen Idol for instance).
Why do I like few players rather than many? Simply because, on the whole, it records better, and because one can make a small body really “tell”. I am sure that it was for reasons not entirely economic that such a practised dramatic composer as Benjamin Britten chose to score his operas The Rape of Lucretia (1946) and The Turn of the Screw (1954) for a chamber ensemble. Britten, like myself, was trained in the cinema in the early years of documentary under the inspiration of people like Grierson, Rotha and Basil Wright. A limited budget led to unlimited ingenuity, and taught us to search for our effects by the simplest means.
- Type
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- Information
- William AlwynThe Art of Film Music, pp. 234 - 240Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2006