1990 and John Barry is back again. The year that saw millions watch, on live TV, the release of Nelson Mandela, sees the release of another Barry classic, the delicious John Dunbar's Theme for Dances with Wolves.
Right, we're up to 1998, the year the frequencies 100 to 102 opened up with classical music, calling itself Classic PM. Bit of a shock, it's got to be said. The man off 'game for a laugh' telling you to bet on 'Battling Beethoven' in the 2.30 at Sandown. But still, it worked. 1993, and the score is John Williams 2, Michael Nyman, 1.
John Williams - Schindler's List. This one is a corker. John Williams couldn't really have been anything else, really, other than a film composer, could he? He has the amazing knack of being able to write the perfect music to match the film. His music always sounds like the film. That may sound obvious, but some composers don't get it, it can just sound grafted on. That's why the theme from Schindler's List SOUNDS black and white, somehow. It's a perfect match for Spielberg's film masterpiece, while something like…
John Williams - Jurassic Park… well, this may sound daft, but I think it sounds like dinosaurs. It's… towering and lofty and epic, with undertones of 'Don't mess with me!' If you know what I mean!
In sharp contrast to John Williams is Michael Nyman, and The Piano. Nyman is a sort of Jack Nicholson of movie composers. By that I don't mean smiling and weird, I mean he always plays himself. A Michael Nyman score is a Michael Nyman score is a Michael Nyman score. As they say in the world of triple-entry bookkeeping. As they say in the world of triple entry book-keeping. As they say in the world of triple entry book-keeping.
Ah, now this is a cute one. 1994. The Channel Tunnel opens, Tony Blair is elected leader of the Labour Party, and playwright/former angry young man John Osborne dies at the age of sixty-five - all as the surprise film hit of the year produces an Oscar for the composer Luis Bacalov,? Postino, or, as it's now known, II Consignio.
1995. An interesting year, I think. Nick Leeson single-handedly brings down Barings Bank, Nelson Mandela becomes president of South Africa, and John Major wins the Tory leadership challenge -'Oh yes'. I don't know, if only we'd known about Edwina, he might have lasted a lot longer. Also, though, the year of Patrick Doyle, with the Oscar-nominated soundtrack to Sense and Sensibility. A gorgeous score. Also in 1995 we got a taste of things to come. I remember it staying in the Classical Charts for what seemed like months. And long after the film died down, the score was still topping the charts. Yes, it was the start of the uileann pipes craze, namely… James Horner - Braveheart.
The year after Braveheart, as the Globe Theatre is finally opened after some years of campaigning by Sam Wanamaker, there were Oscars for Rachel Portman for Emma; and Gabriel Yared for The English Patient, which scores a direct hit, particularly with its delightfully ursine title, Rupert Bear. Ahh, bears. Don't you just love 'em? Yummy. Anyway, 1997. Princess Diana is dead, Hong Kong is returned to China, and the Titanic does anything but sink. I always love hearing a composer playing his own music, whether it's Peter Maxwell Davies playing Farewell to Stromness - readily available -or even Robert Schumann playing his own 'Traumerei' - a little more rare - there's something about it that makes me listen with fresh ears. James Horner's recordings of some of his own music to the Titanic are in this category.
Now, in 1997 Stephen Warbeck had had some success with the music to Mrs Brown, but his 1998 offering brought him a nice, shiny, golden Academy Award. And very lovely it is too. Great film. Great score. It is Shakespeare in Love. Gorgeous.
Now, skipping on to the year… 8300. A new millennium. By now, we've had the Clinton-Lewinsky saga, Elgar has got himself on the back of the amp;Z0 note - good thing too - and we are in the age of the Euro. All this, and a cult hit for Tan Dun with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Beautiful yet haunting music it is. To 8001, though -foot and mouth, 9/11. A testing year. Plagues and terror - it was ever thus. The films of the year, musically speaking, are possibly… Stephen Warbeck - Captain Corelh's Mandolin Howard Shore - The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring John Williams - Harry Potter
Three of the films of 2001 further signalled the rise and rise of movie music. In terms of Oscar honours, while John Williams is the second most nominated and rewarded Oscar composer, with thirty- seven nominations and five awards, it is Canadian Howard Shore who has appeared to come out on top, recently. Shore's scores to both The Lord of The Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring and The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King'both won him Oscars at the 74th and 76th annual Oscar ceremonies.. • «r: l/\Pf
ALL MOD CONS
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o, there it is. Some of the film music of the nineties and noughties. Is it the new classical music? Well, it could be. But, as I said a litde earlier, there has been the 'obligatory backlash' to the crash-bang-wallop music of the avant garde, the 'what the***!' music of the arch-modernists. And this, too, has created a whole new, different, more accessible breed of composer. Some of them new, some of them old, but all of them with a different outiook. Film composers? They're done and dusted. Allow me now, if you will, to quickly zip back to 1992. Classical music 'post' Classic FM, if I could be so bold. Where is it going? What's it all about? And so on, and so forth. Well, let's crack on and find out.
Hang on to your G strings and clasp tight your bow - we're off. 1992 was the year Classic FM launched and it didn't take long before the first discernible 'Classic FM hit' was born. And wow, was it a intriguing one.
It actually came in 1993. Steffi Graf beat Jana Novotna to win her third consecutive Wimbledon title; and Roddy Doyle won the Booker Prize for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Hal When Gavin Bryars recorded a down and out singing an odd little ditty to the glory of God on the streets of London, he didn't quite know what to do with it. So, he went back to his studio - you see, that's already pretty different to the composers of old, isn't it? - and set about looping it, over and over again, with an increasingly loud and insistent string backing. The result was strangely moving and frequently leaves many people in tears. Again it stayed in the charts, week after week, haunting the airwaves. Sadly, the singer is now dead, but every time we play him, the phone lines light up with people wanting to know who's singing. The name of the piece is the enigmatic Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Tet and I think it is up there on a par with Mozart's Ave Verum for sheer beauty.
Still, in 1993, another 'curve ball' here. As I said earlier, the somewhat obscure Polish composer, Gorecki, actually wrote this piece in 1976, just as One Mew over the Cuckoo's Nest was sweeping the board with five Oscars at the Academy Awards. Then he just put it in his bottom drawer, in his home town not far from Auschwitz, and largely forgot about it. In 1993, however, a new recording was released, featuring the soprano Dawn Upshaw and the London Sinfonietta. This time round, though, it was a different story. The melancholy wailing of this Symphony of Sorrowful Songs seemed to strike a chord, and it went on to sell by the million, and become one of the music stories of the nineties.
As the tide of classical music began to take a turn for the better, the new year of 1994 dawned: a year in which the World Cup was scheduled for its quadrennial return. High up on the list of many people's concerns was not just 'Will Germany Win it Again?', but also, 'What are we going to do for a theme tune?' Four years earlier, in a stroke of genius, the powers-that-be had decided to ride the wave and harness the surge in popularity of classical music. And so, for their football World Cup theme of 1990, they'd looked to both Giacomo Puccini and Luciano Pavarotti. 'Nessun dorma' might sound like a Japanese people carrier but in 1990 it put Puccini on to the football terraces. I think Giacomo, the people's composer of Italy, would have loved it.