Who is your favorite film composer?

[pegastar]

I want to expand my breadth of knowledge so I have been asking everyone, who is your favorite film composer? What is your favorite score? Mancini? Hermann? Elfman? John Williams? John Barry? Howard Shore? Morricone? Michael Kamen?

Just found out Michael J Lewis who is one of my favs and did the score for the animated The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is making his own movie and has samples of the score on his website http://www.youmakemydaythemovie.com definitely worth checking out. Wrote songs for it as well, can see music video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMvqfxsyYQs

[DavidRoss]

I want to expand my breadth of knowledge so I have been asking everyone, who is your favorite film composer? What is your favorite score?

Nino Rota. Probably the score for 8 1/2.

[Bellelettres]

John Barry.

[Wallingford]

I believe Elmer Bernstein has as worthy (or better) a shot as those mentioned above.

[kairos]

I love the soundtrack from A River Runs Through It - music by Mark Isham and Elmer Bernstein.

[Ted]

Max Steiner
King Kong
Since You Went Away

Bernard Herman
Cape Fear
Psycho

Jerry Goldsmith

The Omen 1 & II

Star Trek
Too many others to mention

Nino Rota for the Godfather

Too many other film composers to post now

[sherief abraham]

there are many that keep on a list of to check when they release something new but for now it would have to be in this order.

jerry goldsmith
john williams
john barry.

[karlhenning]

Who is your favorite film composer?

Don't think I have one (just saying).

Cheers,
~Karl

[smitty1931]

Alfred Newman- his score for CAPTAIN FROM CASTILE is magnificent. It sounds like he took lessons from Richard Strauss, the orchestration is so lush. There is a CD of the symphonic suite that will knock you out of your chair, it is so beautifully recorded. CD/FACET/8103

[Lance]

More and more, it seems to be Bernard Herrmann. I especially enjoy Gulliver's Travels.

[Sylph]

Alfred Newman- his score for CAPTAIN FROM CASTILE is magnificent. It sounds like he took lessons from Richard Strauss, the orchestration is so lush. There is a CD of the symphonic suite that will knock you out of your chair, it is so beautifully recorded. CD/FACET/8103

It was orchestrated by Edward B. Powell.

[moreno]

Alberto Iglesias.
Some of my favorite works:
Talk To Her
All About My Mother
The Kite Runner
Che
The Constant Gardener

[Lance]

Ah, TALK TO HER ... it was introduced to me a year ago and I fell in love with the music, enough to go out and get the DVD.

Alberto Iglesias.
Some of my favorite works:
Talk To Her
All About My Mother
The Kite Runner
Che
The Constant Gardener

[Corlyss_D]

When I think back over all the film composers whose work I have come to love, I'd have to say that Miklos Rosza is No.1 in my book. Take a look at his list sometime on IMDB.

[Ralph]

The composers who fled Nazi Germany made their mark in Hollywood and much of their work remains very attractive.

I would add Dmitri Tiomkin to the list. Rarely has a song and a soundtrack so well complemented a story as does his for "High Noon."

Fast forward to the present. Rachel Portman has emerged as one of the finest film composers working today. She won an Oscar for her score for "Emma."

[Febnyc]

Erich Wolfgang Korngold - and I'd choose, from among his masterpiece scores, Of Human Bondage. The greatest film music of all.

Today's batch? I would go with John Barry - and, probably, his Out of Africa score.

[Fergus]

Zbigniew Preisner’s scores for the “Three Colors” trilogy: I have the DVDs but I also own the three CD set of the soundtracks. There is also a great score to “La Double Vie de Veronique”.

[Brendan]

Nick Cave.

[stenka razin]

Erich Wolfgang Korngold wins hand down.............Nobody even comes close..... But I will give distant second place honors to Bernard Herrmann, Miklos Rozsa and Nino Rota.......all tied for that coveted runner up position.

[Corlyss_D]

Alfred Newman- his score for CAPTAIN FROM CASTILE is magnificent. It sounds like he took lessons from Richard Strauss, the orchestration is so lush.

I just have to add my admiration for Newman. There was a romatic comdey series on CBS in the 80s - Scarecrow and Mrs King. The premise was a boy spy who needed help occasionally from an amateur girl spy. After a couple of seasons, the show did a special in Munich, I believe, or Salzburg, and the score for that episode was written, adapted really, by Newman from many themes in Rosenkavalier. I was charmed beyond words.

[jserraglio]

Jerome Moross - Ride the High Country - for me, the greatest Western film score of all.

Jerry Fielding - The Wild Bunch

Georges Delerue - Jules et Jim, Contempt, King of Hearts, A Man for All Seasons, Anne of a Thousand Days, Platoon, Day for Night, etc . . . .

I also like Herrmann. The movie scores have been mentioned above: add his opera Wuthering Heights and chamber music (Clarinet Quintet "Souvenir de Voyage" and String Quartet "Echoes")

[John F]

Sergei Prokofiev.

[stenka razin]

Sergei Prokofiev.

John F......Brilliant choice, mate!......How did I ever forget about him....

[Corlyss_D]

Sergei Prokofiev.

John F......Brilliant choice, mate!......How did I ever forget about him....

Yeah, but can one or two films justify including him in a list of "movie composers?" Good, yes, but not a pro at the genre.

[stenka razin]

Sergei Prokofiev.

John F......Brilliant choice, mate!......How did I ever forget about him....

Yeah, but can one or two films justify including him in a list of "movie composers?" Good, yes, but not a pro at the genre.

Corylss, if the films in question are :

1-Alexander Nevsky
2-Ivan The Terrible
3-Lieutenant Kije

then I guess Prokofiev belongs in the pantheon of film composers....Right?

[John F]

If the films in question are :

1-Alexander Nevsky
2-Ivan The Terrible
3-Lieutenant Kije

then I guess Prokofiev belongs in the pantheon of film composers....Right?

You said it - quality, not quantity. Anyway, the question was not "Who's the most prolific film composer?" or even "Who's the best film composer?" It was, "Who is your favorite film composer?" For me, no one else comes close.

Prokofiev was very serious indeed about his collaboration with Sergei Eisenstein in their two movies. For "Alexander Nevsky" he was in the recording booth overseeing balances and even sound quality - he wanted an overloaded, distorted, nasty sound for the Teutonic knights' trumpets, and got it. Eisenstein considered Prokofiev the co-creator of "Nevsky," getting him to compose some of the music before shooting scenes and then shaping the scenes to the music. Hard to think of any other film composer with that kind of influence on the film as a whole, or of an important film director who would have wanted or allowed it to happen.

Virgil Thomson is another important composer who did a few film scores, but they are generally acknowledged as outstanding:

1. The Plough That Brooke the Plains
2. The River
3. Louisiana Story - Pulitzer Prize for Music

But he's not my "favorite film composer." Prokofiev is.

[stenka razin]

If the films in question are :

1-Alexander Nevsky
2-Ivan The Terrible
3-Lieutenant Kije

then I guess Prokofiev belongs in the pantheon of film composers....Right?

You said it - quality, not quantity. Anyway, the question was not "Who's the most prolific film composer?" or even "Who's the best film composer?" It was, "Who is your favorite film composer?" For me, no one else comes close.

Prokofiev was very serious indeed about his collaboration with Sergei Eisenstein in their two movies. For "Alexander Nevsky" he was in the recording booth overseeing balances and even sound quality - he wanted an overloaded, distorted, nasty sound for the Teutonic knights' trumpets, and got it. Eisenstein considered Prokofiev the co-creator of "Nevsky," getting him to compose some of the music before shooting scenes and then shaping the scenes to the music. Hard to think of any other film composer with that kind of influence on the film as a whole, or of an important film director who would have wanted or allowed it to happen.

Virgil Thomson is another important composer who did a few film scores, but they are generally acknowledged as outstanding:

1. The Plough That Brooke the Plains
2. The River
3. Louisiana Story - Pulitzer Prize for Music

But he's not my "favorite film composer." Prokofiev is.

John, another gem has been uncovered. I wish I had thought of Thomson. His documentary scores are supurb. Good thinking, mate.

[lmpower]

These are all fine suggestions. Although I don't really have one favorite film composer, I want to put in a good word for George Auric, who wrote the music for Symphonie Pastorale.

[James]

Carl Stalling

[John F]

Carl Stalling

Great choice!