Author
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Topic: Knights of the Round Table--or is it Ben Hur?
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JosephF
Non-Standard Userer
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I watched the Knights of the Round Table (Miklos Rosza) a couple of weeks ago, and as I was watching, I kept hearing this theme over and over again, and I was thinking, "Where have I heard that?" Then, out of nowhere, my little brother said "That music sounds like Ben Hur," and I realized that it not only sounded like it, but the theme was basically the same!!! So here's this Ben Hur theme playing through the whole movie, and then, they have a big parade and lo and behold, a variation on "Parade of the Charioteers." And I thought only James Horner did stuff like this. I haven't heard much of Rosza; did he do this a lot?
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posted 10-30-2006 08:19 PM PT (US) ip
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sean
Standard Userer
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All the time! Rozsa is the Super Chief of rip-offs, worse than James W. Horner, and not only that, every score he wrote post-Ben Hur is actually badly written (his notes are wrong--except for Time After Time, now that's a score homeboy!) and they are all written in Z-minor-perfect 4th, which, if you're musically gifted like me means that he isn't very diverse.Lou Goldberg: attack!
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posted 10-30-2006 09:05 PM PT (US) ip
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Gae
Standard Userer
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Hey, like many composers, Rozsa spent many years developing a unique Film Music "voice". Once he had attained it, he used it to great effect for the rest of his life. Being an "auteur" or having a distinct "voice" like no other is the mark of true genius in my opinion. Beethoven and Mozart are totally recognisable but no-one doubts their genius. I am speaking as a hack part time composer too, so I know how difficult it is to create something uniquely your own.
With regards to Rozsa's music, once you've reached a perfection of style for particular genres, why change it? Just my humble opinion.  Gae [Message edited by Gae on 10-31-2006]
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posted 10-31-2006 03:46 AM PT (US) ip
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Dr Lenera
Non-Standard Userer
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As I love Rozsa's music,I certainly wouldn't agree that his scores after Ben Hur are badly written. I can't deny that he copied himself quite a bit-the Knights Of The Round Table main theme was re-used with only minor changes as the main theme for El Cid,and there are some passages of his late scores,such as Last Embrace and Eye Of The Needle,that are pretty much identical to each other. Mind you,he was around 80 then.But is this self-plagiarism more than any other composer? You keep hearing Herrmann re-use the same bits every now and again too.
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posted 10-31-2006 10:45 AM PT (US) ip
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John C Winfrey
Standard Userer
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Well. lots of his last several scores are very similar but Providence is very nice as is Eye of Needle. Time After Time has some great themes too. But there are a lot of similarities in several scores and he did reused that waltz from Bovary a lot in his Fifties scores. J.
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posted 10-31-2006 07:24 PM PT (US) ip
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