Here are the year's scores nominated for an Oscar:

Anna Karenina (2012) Dario Marianelli

Argo (2012) Alexander Desplat

Life of Pi (Mychael Danna)

Lincoln (2012) John Williams

Skyfall (2012) Thomas Newman

I realized that I did not do an Oscar reflection list since 2010.  The last couple of years have been interesting in their choices of scores.  In fact, sometimes one can find a common thread in the nominees overall.  Normally, I try to look at each score and try and find 5 reasons why it deserves an Oscar, but I will forego that analysis this year for more general reflections.

The composers this year essentially continue a tradition of several non-American composers being nominated in the Best Score category.  You have to go back a decade to find selections entirely from American composers and even then you could see things were changing as the 2003 scores included the last film score of Elmer Bernstein, and music by Philip Glass, Elliot Goldenthal, Thomas Newman, and John Williams.  Two of those composers are among the 2013 nominees so we shall reflect on their scores first.

It is hard to think that Thomas Newman’s Skyfall is from the same composer of scores such as American Beauty.  His tenth nomination is for a score in a genre that he is least associated with, the blockbuster action film, and is essentially for a British franchise.  And yet, his score manages to work quite well to support the inner character tension that occurs in one of the best Bond films in some time…and that is saying something since Daniel Craig’s helming of the role.  His nomination is the first since Wall-E (2008), itself a far more fascinating and important score as it has to really carry the picture in a totally different way.  In Skyfall, Newman’s original orchestration approaches are melded into a more traditional Barry/Arnold fabric quite well and perhaps this suggest an “international” musical style.

Interestingly, the other four scores all bear on thing in common in that they have music that occasionally references global or folk music.  In the case of Lincoln, this results in Americana folk music moments.  As much a John Williams’ fan as I am, Lincoln is a score that demonstrates a master composer excelling at his craft.  The score is a blend of other Americana Williams’ scores (The Patriot, Amistad, The Reivers, etc.)  In fact, the violin melody here sounds like a variant of the primary theme from The Patriot while the lighter folk material is a warmer approach reminiscent of The Reivers.  The score is another that approaches ways to communicate inner conflict of primary characters, thus holding something in common with each of the scores represented this year.

Dario Marianelli received his third nomination this year.  I remember hearing Pride and Prejudice in 2005 and remarking that this was Oscar-worthy material and its nomination was well-deserved as was his nomination and win for Atonement in 2008.  The latter score is actually full of amazing ways that music works both diagetically and non-diagetically to help create a strong narrative flow in a dramatic film.  With Anna Karenina, he is again on that firm historical drama footing but the music seems less striking here than in previous films.  And as much as I like Marianelli’s score, this one feels like the wrong one to receive this sort of attention.

Another recent favorite composer of mine, Alexander Desplat, received his fifth nomination with Argo.  Sometimes it feels as if Desplat will soon take over from John Williams for having to have a score in the list of nominations each year.  Would that the scores nominated would actually be the composer’s best work of the year.  Most found his work on Rise of the Guardians to be far more interesting than Argo.  And the use of the score is actually quite minimal in the film.  The result is that the score is sort of swept up in the fervor of nominations for a film more than for what it brings to the end result.  Such a reality has made it possible for less worthy scores to end up winning (Brokeback Mountain, Babel, Slumdog Millionaire, The Social Network, for recent examples).  At least if that were to occur, an actual composer would receive the Oscar.

Finally, Mychael Danna’s score for Life of Pi comes from a recent Golden Globe win.  Danna may be the first Canadian composer to receive an Oscar nomination, and it is his first recognition by the AMPAS.  This score too has some truly wonderful musical moments that have to carry the picture as it revolves around a small group of characters.  His use of world music is integrated well into the fabric of the music and may be the one attraction for those who will choose which score deserves the Oscar this year.

Overall, then we have essentially five scores that on their own are not terribly interesting or memorable overall.  The Desplat falls into that category of films like The Hurt Locker, The Constant Gardner, and Babel where the music is less used than normal or incorporates Arabic-influences.  Both Marianelli and Williams have scores that do not stand out in their overall body of work but are well-crafted scores for their types.  Williams by now I think has almost as many nominations as Walt Disney and surpassed Alfred Newman last year when he had two scores nominated.  He is essentially one of the Deans of American Film Music, but Lincoln winning seems slight.  The last Bond score to receive a nomination was 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me by Marvin Hamlisch, so even on a good night Skyfall is perhaps a dark horse.  Of course, this is exactly the way scores end up winning in the end so it would not surprise me should it receive the Oscar this year.  I think Danna’s work is likely to win and if it does it will be the fifth time in a row where a composer and score won both the Golden Globe and the Oscar. 

Regardless, it feels good that for the second straight year, AMPAS has nominated 5 scores all by established composers each with distinct voices and approaches to film scoring.  It will be great to see who comes out on top, but really that has already happened to have been nominated in the first place.  Good luck to all this Sunday!

Here is take one of what will likely be a future updated release of music taken from the first four films of the popular Twilight film series.  For Silva's  present release, their house orchestra, the City of Prague Philharmonic, tackles this music featuring conductors James Fitzpatrick and Evan Jolly on the podium.

It certainly makes for a nice bookend that Carter Burwell’s music opens and closes the disc with seven selections from Twilight and five from Breaking Dawn.  The disc opens with a strong performance of “Edward at Her Bed/Bella’s Lullabye” though with some tentative high string playing.  The latter melodic idea casts its shadow across the selections here.  One is reminded in the selections from Twilight how intimate Burwell’s score is for this film with delicate scoring often quite exposed in its simplicity and the composer’s unique harmonic choices.  The addition of electric guitar textures alternating with piano passages works well here.  Some electronic ideas can be discerned in these recordings adding extra texture to tracks such as “I Know What You Are.”  In the selections from Breaking Dawn, Burwell continues to build on his material quite well.  “Love Death Birth” has moments that recall his score for Miller’s Crossing with its Irish-like melodic scoring and a new thematic idea that rises up.  Interestingly, some of the menace of the music also has a decidedly Shore-like sense to it at times and like it belongs to an indie-Western in other places (“A Nova Vida”).  “A Wolf Stands Up” is the first semi-action cue in the collection here which starts off with pulsing percussion that moves under a stop-and-start melodic idea.  Oddly, the most horror-music like moment occurs in “You Kill Her You Kill Me,” the final track which sets up the story for the next film.  While it makes for a fitting close,  it is a bit jarring after the lulling music which essentially preceded it.

Alexander Desplat’s score for New Moon essentially fills out the arpeggiated ideas of the first film with a couple of unique melodies heard in the title track which is quite good here.  One is struck how Desplat’s music honors Burwell’s approach and layers in his own style for this score.  The orchestra responds well to this slightly larger scale approach.  The music though tends to be rather repetitive over the six selections here even for Desplat with hope that at least something would happen to break up the monochromatic feel of the music.  (Of course, there are some who would say this is the fault of the story and film itself.)  The music choices are mostly of the melancholic romantic mode with more of Bella’s theme in fuller sound and with a bit more unsatisfied longing.  A piano performance of “The Meadow” simply repeats the previous music traversed in a fine performance by Stanislav Gallin if the data received is correct.

The choice of the piano selection makes for a fine segue into Howard Shore’s “Compromise/Bella’s Theme” from the third film, “Eclipse.”  From the opening bars, it sounds as if Shore reconfigured some of the intervals and musical gestures slightly to create his own thematic material.  Pianist Evan Jolly tackles the music from this score that continues in that dreamy new age sound.  Shore keeps up the arpeggiated idea with some lyric lines carrying thematic material over the top.  “Jasper” is the most like a Shore musical work with scoring and harmonic shifts reminiscent of the composer’s other fantasy work.  It is certainly the closest to overwrought danger that appears musically here.

This is a fairly good compilation presenting key music from the series, though by nature the album tends to be a rather melancholic collection.  It does allow for a rather quick comparison of compositional styles from three quite different composers.  Both Despat and Shore manage to stay true to their own styles while reusing some of Burwell’s primary material.  Fans of the scores will be interested in this release with its representation of music in smaller chunks.