Saturday, April 21, 2007

Theremin Love!

Open Source » Blog Archive » Passion: The Theremin(-)

A family favorite! (Yes, what a family!) This instrument sounds great in the Tiomkin (I think) score to Forbidden Planet and the The Simpsons's "Treehouse of Terror" episode introductions.
En-Joy!

CORRECTION: Information on the score of Forbidden Planet provided by users of the Internet Movie DataBase:

  • First mainstream film to have the music performed entirely by electronic instruments.

  • Louis Barron and Bebe Barron worked on the electronic soundtrack music "tonalities" for only three months, the length of time given them by Dore Schary, head of MGM. He authorized the studio to send them a complete workprint at Christmas 1955. They received the complete 35mm Eastmancolor workprint at New Year's 1956, a week later, still with many visual effects sequences missing and timed in with blank leader by editor Ferris Webster. From January 1, 1956 to April 1, 1956, they worked on the soundtrack score in their Greenwich Village studio in New York City while the film was in post-production in Culver City. The score was completed and delivered to MGM on April 1, 1956, and the film was released for a studio sneak preview soon afterward. The musician's union, however, objected to the soundtrack, and blocked the Barrons from being credited as "composers", hence the term "electronic tonalities".

  • Apart from the electronic tonalities composed by the Barrons, the music score known to many as "Forbidden Planet Fanfare - Parts 1 & 2" on the original 1956 theatrical trailer was composed by André Previn, and pieced together seamlessly by an MGM music editor. The music was originally written by Previn for the MGM films Scene of the Crime (1949) and Bad Day at Black Rock (1955).
I was thinking of the score of another great favorite, The Thing from Another World, 1951, as being by Dmitri Tiomkin.

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