H: Do you ask for a singer who recorded an original Donaggio song, or one who covered one of Donaggio's works?

Can't answer your other question, but as you probably know, there's a third "John Williams" in the music business, the guitarist. He can be heard e.g. on the "A Fish Called Wanda" score. I think I even saw a CD where he played several works by "our" John Williams, including "Schindler's List". Should be interesting.

Timmer: I second that - Where's Chris? I actually already intended to ask this question. Maybe we should e-mail him.

The internationally famous singer I mentioned recorded an actual song by Donaggio, not a cover of a movie theme, if that's your question -- I guess you could CALL it a cover, I presume Donaggio wrote the original in Italian, but there's an English version too.

I DID know about John Williams the guitarist (worked on DEER HUNTER, didn't he?) but didn't even think about it when I wrote the original question.

We know John Williams scored Spielberg's SUGARLAND EXPRESS, but the sentiment has been expressed that he more or less tossed a coin. Who was the other composer he considered? (This one is pretty simple, but it's late and I'm tired and I'm kind of out of better questions.)

As for "Sugarland Express", I think I remember that it was that guy named Jerry...

And "Star Wars"... You don't mean Holst and Rozsa, do you? Don't know anything about other original composer considerations.

No, seriously I think it was Jerry Goldsmith and Elmer Bernstein?

No, seriously I think it was Jerry Goldsmith and Elmer Bernstein?

The John Barry's have been mentioned.

There's also Alan Parker the composer and Alan Parker the director.

Yes, Jerry Goldsmith was the other composer Spielberg considered for SUGARLAND. He had just done the music for ACE ELI AND RODGER OF THE SKIES, for which Spielberg wrote the original story. (Has anyone heard ACE ELI? It flopped big time, way back in 1973. I'm not even sure it's on video.)

H, ol pal your slipping!

Does 'Vllage' have a Ron Goodwin score H??

As far as the other composers considered for STAR WARS: said Gary Kurtz: Jerry Goldsmith and Elmer Bernstein. You got it, bud. Good night, you princes of Maine, you little kings of New England. SOMEBODY'S gotta rule. I'm going to bed.

You have my heart felt sympaphy.

Re Goldsmith and Bernstein on "Star Wars"... That doesn't quite fit into the story as I know it from the liner notes to the expanded score releases, and other sources as well. From what I know, Lucas always intended to use existing pieces, e.g. Holst's "Planets" and something by Rozsa (and I bet Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring", just listen to "Jawa Sandcrawler"), until his pal Spielberg introduced him to Williams. So at what point did they consider to have the movie scored by Goldsmith and Bernstein?

Nobody could answer my question, so here's the solution: In his youth, Donaggio worked with Claudio Abbado, who was also only a beginner back then. At least that's what I read in the liner notes to the compilation "Brian De Palma - Pino Donaggio" on Milan, though they also say Donaggio has scored all Brian De Palma films since "Carrie"... However, it was my source to answer H's question, so the infos seem to be not entirely wrong.

Name the modern British classical composer who did the orchestral parts of THE KILLING FIELDS!

Now I've got to confess a pathetic inability to think of any "modern British classical composers" -- hey, it wouldn't be you, would it?

I've never seen THE KILLING FIELDS, though perhaps I ought to, I adore the work of its writer Bruce Robinson (WITHNAIL & I!!!!!!!!!), but I still have flashbacks to when I tried to read Oscar-winning-supporting-actor Haing S.Ngor's autobiography, which was so awesomely hideous, even I couldn't get through it. (I'm speaking of what the poor fellow underwent, not the writing.) (It probably didn't help that I had food poisoning at the time -- and this in Japan, the most careful and conscientious country I've been to as far as food preparation. And no, it wasn't the raw fish.)

Great score. I love the "Etude". Even though Oldfield didn't write that either. This movie really got to me when I saw it in the theatre. I remember walking out and going immediately and looking for the score.

NP-The Matrix score

H, I've got a brilliant hour long program on video all about Bruce Robinson which was shown here a while ago before a t.v. night's showing of WITHNAIL AND I and HOW TO GET A HEAD IN BUISNESS, WOW!,What an amazing character!, I would send you a copy but there are 2 problems.....
1. I don't have video to video recording equipment.
2. British format VHS is different to U.S. as I found out 10 years ago when I bought a copy of CLOCKWORK ORANGE in Los Angeles.

any idea's????

starblade, If your interested in the Bedford piece it's on an album simply called DAVID BEDFORD on NMC DO49, It's very VERY film music like and memorable too!
I recommend it to anyone reading this.

timmer

Nobody caught my previous question, so I'll just drop the answer: there is the composer Maurice Jarre whom we already know, and there also is a production designer named Maurice Jarre.

Composer Jarre worked with the aforementioned Bruce Robinson on JENNIFER 8; a dear friend of mine, an assistant to replacement composer Christopher Young, was assigned the job of transcribing Robinson's scabrous instructions on RE-scoring ("And NOW, you might put in the music where it SHOULD be, instead of A MINUTE LATER as MAURICE would have done it ... ")

Here's an insanely esoteric question, which perhaps I've given the answer for away elsewhere: What score of Christopher Young's made Bruce Robinson want to hire him for JENNIFER 8? (He heard the music editors playing it and sprinted down the hall: "THAT'S what I want!")

Not sure what Franco said to Bruce, but the line in WITHNAIL & I is spoken, "Are you a SPONGE or a STONE?"

You're correct, it was THE FLY II that got Robinson's attention.

Hmm, I guess I should think up another question now ...

Okay: Why did Martin Scorsese hire Howard Shore? (No, not just because they both live in New York.) (The answer isn't really interesting or exciting or even surprising, since this one's come back to life I'm trying to jumpstart it.)

He won 1!, ...For Screenplay!

Paul Dehn later wrote the scripts for all the sequels to PLANET OF THE APES (he's credited only as "storywriter" to BATTLE FOR THE ...) and MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS. He was a brilliant writer with distinctly Communistic leanings. Also a reknowned poet. (My mom has one of his books lying around someplace.) His original script for BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES is way better than the final version -- at that time he was calling it PLANET OF THE APES REVISITED. It would have been beyond spectacular, but I imagine they just couldn't afford all of his ideas, although the final picture is certainly lavishly appointed. (Recently watched the letterboxed version, and as crazy and schizoid as the story is, it is VERY handsomely photographed and framed.)

ummm, let's keep the quiz going ... For what turned out to be Hitchcock's final film, FAMILY PLOT, John Williams wrote the score. A nice enough piece of work. But I suspect Williams was more or less thrown at Hitchcock in the wake of the success of JAWS. (He was a stockholder at Universal, and in the last years, some argue, did pretty much whatever they told him to.) Can anyone name at least one composer Hitchcock was considering? (No, not Goldsmith ... unless he DID consider Goldsmith, but that's not the name I'm waiting for. Goldsmith and Hitchcock, though, THAT would have been interesting ...)

Good, you got it.. Have you ever heard some of the out-takes from the Patton recording sessions? (some of it is on the DVD)
There's Jerry with his crew trying to record the echoing trumpet chords but the timing has to be fairly precise so they do it over and over again till Goldsmith is satisfied. Something like that shows you the massive amount of hard work that goes into making these scores.

Anyways, here's another...
Q: Paramount and the Executive Producers of 'The Godfather' originally wanted a score that had a fair amount of source music (aka songs), which Composer did they commission to write the music for the film?

At one point after Rota wrote his classic score, Paramount tried to get Cappola to through it out but the matter was settled when Cappola offered "Okay, if at a preview the audience all say that the music is lousy, then let's get rid of it."

I say thank god for that bloody audience!

Can't think of another question.