McClelland, C (Cover date: 2014) Of Gods and Monsters: Signification in Franz Waxman’s film score Bride of Frankenstein. Journal of Film Music, 7 (1). pp. 5-19. ISSN 1087-7142
Abstract
James Whale’s horror classic Bride of Frankenstein (1935) is iconic not just because of its enduring images and acting performances, but also because of the high quality of its film score. At a time when the cinema soundtrack was still in its infancy, and often reliant on pre-existing music, Waxman’s large-scale through-composed score underpins the action with masterly control and effect.
As a classically-trained composer in the German Romantic tradition, Waxman consciously drew on a musical language long associated with the supernatural, now known as ombra. Composers of theatre and even sacred music wanting to generate feelings of awe and horror introduced discontinuous musical elements such as a slow tempo, flat minor keys, tonal uncertainty, unusual harmonies (especially chromatic chords), fragmented or wide-leaping melodic lines, insistent repeated notes, tremolando, syncopated and dotted rhythms, sudden pauses or contrasts in texture or dynamics, and dark timbres with unusual instrumentation, especially trombones.
Waxman would also have been familiar with the cue books for silent film – the so-called Kinothek – which included numerous examples of music from the same tradition suitable for accompanying scenes of awe and terror. Another aspect of Waxman’s score is his systematic use of reminiscence motifs for different characters and ideas, a practice most commonly associated with Wagner’s leitmotif, but in fact deriving from much earlier in the nineteenth century. The combination of these techniques strongly contributed to the success of Waxman’s score, and provided a template for composers of horror movie music in subsequent generations.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Editors: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © Copyright the International Film Music Society, published by Equinox Publishing Ltd 2017, This is an author produced version of a paper published in the Journal of Film Music. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Music (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 27 Jun 2017 09:14 |
Last Modified: | 26 Nov 2019 16:03 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Equinox Publishing |
Identification Number: | 10.1558/jfm.27224 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:118268 |