Red Riding Pictures Proudly Presents (2012)
Instrumentation: oboe, clarinet, violin, cello, double bass, piano
Duration: 8 minutes
Commissioned by Musical Upcoming Stars in the Classics (M.U.S.i.C.)
Duration: 8 minutes
Commissioned by Musical Upcoming Stars in the Classics (M.U.S.i.C.)
Program Note:
Red Riding Pictures Proudly Presents is a retelling of the Red Riding Hood fairy tale in the style of music composed for silent films, a genre known as photoplay music that flourished from 1913 to 1929. My composition is based on a variety of historical sources, namely the Sam Fox Moving Picture Music composed by John Stephan Zamecnik. Zamecnik was a Cleveland-born composer who traveled to Prague to study with Antonín Dvořák. When he returned to America, he served as the music director for the Hippodrome Theater in Cleveland, composing music for screenings of silent films. His film compositions were published in the 1910s by the Sam Fox Publishing Company, the first company in the United States to publish original music for films.
Red Riding Pictures Proudly Presents is further based on the 1920s orchestral film music, Kinothek, by Giuseppe Becce—an Italian-born composer of German cinema music—and Ernö Rapée’s Motion Picture Moods for Pianists and Organists, an anthology of pre-existing classical music (Chopin, Grieg, Beethoven, etc.) categorized to fit more than 50 possible moods and settings on screen.
Beyond silent film music, there are inspirations and motivic snippets from Max Steiner, Franz Waxman, and Bernard Herman, composers who were integral to that classic, American movie sound during the golden age of Hollywood (1930s to 1960s). Writing a piece about movie music, I had to include a small nod to the most recent master of film music, John Williams.
In writing Red Riding Pictures Proudly Presents, all these film score influences are synthesized into my own compositional style. After a brief fanfare for the opening credits (a must!) the music follows the Red Riding Hood story as told by the Brothers Grimm: one morning, she learns of her ill grandmother and journeys to the woods; she encounters a devious wolf who eventually eats her; and lastly, Red Riding Hood is rescued by a heroic, passerby huntsman.
Red Riding Pictures Proudly Presents is a retelling of the Red Riding Hood fairy tale in the style of music composed for silent films, a genre known as photoplay music that flourished from 1913 to 1929. My composition is based on a variety of historical sources, namely the Sam Fox Moving Picture Music composed by John Stephan Zamecnik. Zamecnik was a Cleveland-born composer who traveled to Prague to study with Antonín Dvořák. When he returned to America, he served as the music director for the Hippodrome Theater in Cleveland, composing music for screenings of silent films. His film compositions were published in the 1910s by the Sam Fox Publishing Company, the first company in the United States to publish original music for films.
Red Riding Pictures Proudly Presents is further based on the 1920s orchestral film music, Kinothek, by Giuseppe Becce—an Italian-born composer of German cinema music—and Ernö Rapée’s Motion Picture Moods for Pianists and Organists, an anthology of pre-existing classical music (Chopin, Grieg, Beethoven, etc.) categorized to fit more than 50 possible moods and settings on screen.
Beyond silent film music, there are inspirations and motivic snippets from Max Steiner, Franz Waxman, and Bernard Herman, composers who were integral to that classic, American movie sound during the golden age of Hollywood (1930s to 1960s). Writing a piece about movie music, I had to include a small nod to the most recent master of film music, John Williams.
In writing Red Riding Pictures Proudly Presents, all these film score influences are synthesized into my own compositional style. After a brief fanfare for the opening credits (a must!) the music follows the Red Riding Hood story as told by the Brothers Grimm: one morning, she learns of her ill grandmother and journeys to the woods; she encounters a devious wolf who eventually eats her; and lastly, Red Riding Hood is rescued by a heroic, passerby huntsman.