John Barry
Mark Isham
James Newton Howard
Mason Daring
Howard Shore
Alex North
Debbie Wiseman

Maybe you could give me some reason to like their music, and give your own picks for composers that you don't get.

Have you heard JN Howard's earlier works such as ALIVE or DAVE? He has been experimenting lately, and his works are more atmospheric. If you have only heard these recent scores, you should try his older stuff.

My recommendation, in the case of Barry and North, is to rent some films they scored and watch them.

For Barry, have you seen "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," "Goldfinger," "From Russia With Love," "The Lion in Winter," "Somewhere in Time," "Out of Africa" or "Dances With Wolves"? Those represent some of my favorite Barry scores.

For North, watch "A Streetcar Named Desire," "Viva Zapata," "Spartacus,"
"Cleopatra," "Dragonslayer," "Shoes of the Fisherman," "Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf," or "The Agony and the Ecstasy." All these movies boast brilliant scores, although they are not all great films. In my opinion, "Spartacus" is the score of a lifteime...it is so unique and perfect for the film that it ranks as one of the top 10 scores ever written in my book.

Actually "getting" a composer requires watching the films they scored as opposed to just listening to the CDs. The music should always -- first and foremost -- support the film for which it was commissioned. I agree many scores are good listens without seeing the films, but that doesn't really work as a parameter for appreciating a film composer's work. Watch the films.

I'm into Classical big time!, as a freind of mine say's 'You don't like Mozart, you don't like music'!

1. Where the composer has scored numerous films, but a listener has seen fewer than all of them. I reckon that few people have seen each of How to Steal a Million, Conrack, The Fury, The River, Last Crusade, Rosewood and Stepmom. But most film score fans can listen to those soundtracks and perceive the development of John Williams's composing quality, especially in light of the films of his that they have seen.

2. Where the film composer is a recognized composer in other genres of music (e.g., Sir Malcom Arnold, Philip Glass, Korngold). In these instances, the composer's film compositions really can be meaningfully assessed in light of his or her work as a whole, and thus "judged."

3. Where very few of the composer's movies can be viewed by an interested fan. I know that there are many Golden Age afficianadoes who can meaningfully tie in Rosza's, or Waxman's, or A. Newman's work with their movies. But to many of us (either because we're younger, or not as resourceful) their movies are mostly inaccessible. We're not likely to see Korngold's Another Dawn, or Devotion, or Ernest Young's Bright Leaf, on TV very often, or even in a video store. How, then, are younger fans supposed to "judge" the works of the masters?

Isham: I love his Cool World CD (Varese). It's a very fun CD with some big band, one of Isham's strengths.

Wiseman: Went totally ignored on the women composers thread, except by yours truly. She is developing an amazing talent, though her scores are repetitive repetitive. I highly recommend HAUNTED (lovely piano theme) and WILDE.

JNH: quickly becoming one of the best; can lay it on thick sometimes, though. Check out DAVE, SIXTH SENSE.

Howard Shore: Well, he's not everyone's bag, baby. Suggest PHILADELPHIA, DOGMA, and eXistenZ.

As incentive for you to take action, I'll point out that I, too, have never really gotten into North, except for parts of DRAGONSLAYER (and then because I loved the movie so much -- according to North himself, though, a lot of the music was rearranged in the finished picture because unofficial post-production supervisor Walter Murch didn't like one of North's basic concepts: the waltzlike idea for Vermithrax, preserved on the album. North wanted to suggest at the outset "maybe this really ISN'T an evil dragon." I'll never forget Liberace [Liberace!!!!] playing the DRAGONSLAYER theme at the Oscars in early '82 ... )

In fairness to North, I was sent the old Bay Cities reissue of one of his theme compilations, and some of that was quite nice, particularly "Unchained Melody" (not the vocal version. What did Maurice Jarre say when he won the Golden Globe for GHOST? Anything like "I'd like to thank Alex North"?)

Shaun

NP---Papillon (sniff, sniff)

All right, I'm not done. I wish there was some way (as Jeff Bond attempted in a recent FSM; by recent I mean 8 months ago, but 3 issues ago....hee-hee.....) that we could all tell Goldsmith that we don't want to hear Star Trek: Insurrection and that the greater cue to perform would be "The Enterprise", which is as close to ballet as a "space" score can get (an ORIGINAL space score; do not bring up 2001!). I probably shouldn't label Star Trek as a "space score",as last time I did that in reference to Alien, I was stomped upon by Thaxton. The film takes place in space! I don't care about the psychological aspects that the score was REALLY scoring, in the end it's a Science Fiction (which I guess rarely involves space as a subject or backdrop) film. Anyway.......

It'd be quite amazing to hear "The Artist Who Did Not Want To Paint" in person. But there are so many things I'd love to hear that there's no point in listing them. I just wonder if he's going to juggle his playlist over the weekend (I'm going to at least two of them.)

I'd CERTAINLY rather hear "The Enterprise" than anything from INSURRECTION in Detroit ... but you might be surprised how much you basically give yourself over to whatever he's willing to do. It's not just about being a fan: he's a mesmerizing presence. I don't know what it might be like at any concert if the orchestra didn't like him -- I've read a couple of anecdotes about that kind of thing happening. But in New York, Goldsmith was so obviously fond of the Carnegie Hall orchestra AND audience that he was kind enough to give us an encore of STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT (he most definitely hadn't planned it in advance ... I still remember how he said "But I don't HAVE anything else!" after his encore performance of SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION. I'm just as glad he finished with FIRST CONTACT, that was a more majestic and fitting finale to the day.)

JNH - I like his comedy scores(DAVE, SPACE JAM, DIGGSTOWN) and his action scores(THE POSTMAN, WATERWORLD, WYATT EARP). It's just that I find his dramatic scores hard to grasp.

North - The only score I've heard from him is THE BAD SEED(which I liked).

Barry - I want to get into his work, I really do, but I seldom get around to watching films with his work...even though they're EVERYWHERE(The Bond series on TBS, SOMEWHERE IN TIME on TNT, etc.)

Isham - I also like COOL WORLD, but then I hear everyone gushing about FLY AWAY HOME.
Just how good is it?

Shore - Same case as JNH, though I lean more toward his comedy scores(ED WOOD, DOGMA)

Any more thoughts?

Oh, and Nicolai? I don't have any pets.

it's one of the most enjoyable CDs I have, and a good western score. I even love the source cues!

As for JNH, he's really a very "on/off" composer in my book - WATERWORLD is one of my alltime favourites, but something like CEDARS really bore me.

North is a master. I especially love his non-jazz work.