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Favorite film composer
- Hans Zimmer
- Thomas Newman
- Bear McCreary
- James Newton Howard
I liked Bear McCreary work on the updated battle star galactica series, most of Hans Zimmer cept interstellar which had too much organ for me. Liked James Howard Signs score. Overall Thomas Newman my fav..whats yours of these?

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AndrewH said
John Williams, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and Sergei Prokofiev (yes, he was a film composer too!) are obvious choices for me, but other favorites include Miklos Rozsa and Patrick Doyle.What films did Thomas Newman score? I'm not familiar with the name at all.
Shawshank redemption, green mile, road to perdition (really good), also think a film called white oleander. Several others. Check him out. Really like the "so was red" i think its called at the end of shawshank.

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Never heard of any of them. Probably your list is way too small and limited to a tiny piece of Hollywood.
Normally I hate Philip Glass, but I like what he wrote for The Truman Show.
On the whole, I'm not a fan of film music, although Les Six (Darius Milhaud? Georges Auric) were responsible for a lot of older French films, to good effect. And the bebop in Zazie Dans le Metro is very effective.
There, has that broadened the discussion?
Andrew
Verified human - the ignominy!

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Gordon Shumway said
Never heard of any of them. Probably your list is way too small and limited to a tiny piece of Hollywood.Normally I hate Philip Glass, but I like what he wrote for The Truman Show.
On the whole, I'm not a fan of film music, although Les Six (Darius Milhaud? Georges Auric) were responsible for a lot of older French films, to good effect. And the bebop in Zazie Dans le Metro is very effective.
There, has that broadened the discussion?
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Philip Glass is ok. Didnt he do some ambient type music as well? Never heard of the others until you brought up. What films are they in?

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GregW said
What films are they in?
It's been a while. We'd both have to look them up in IMDB. Partly I was teasing you a little bit because they are a much older, but not lesser, generation.
All sorts of movies by Jean Renoir, Cocteau, etc.
I have a friend I tease because he loves Buñuel and Dalí with a Wagner soundtrack and he won't give you tuppence for anything French, so I tell him the French are subtler than Wagner, so he wouldn't understand.
I'm a bit puzzled why you haven't even bothered with John Williams or Danny Elfmann.
And don't forget Bernard Herrmann. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm00.....fn_al_nm_1
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm00.....f_=nv_sr_1
Andrew
Verified human - the ignominy!

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Hey Gordon.. I just kept the list short.John Williams I figured everyone liked. There are so many. Wanted to see what you guys felt about those 4 which have been my favorites. Fishing to see how many like minded taste and maybe get some pointers to others I wasnt aware of which I have. Liked the droning strings at the beginning of prince igor that Bob suggested...havent heard it before. Ill have to listen to more of the Korngold tracks to get a better feel. Also will have to listen to Bernarrd Herrman. I havent heard of him either.
EDIT..Seems like Herrman did every movie in the 50s 60s era... Somewhat like John Williams too eh? What Im hearing so far.

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Every era had giants. Korngold was the biggest name in film music in the 30s and early 40s. Herrman and Rozsa were the two giants of the late 40s and 50s, and Herrman continued to be the leading Hollywood composer in the 1960s after Rozsa semi-retired from film scoring to concentrate on concert music.
I think Patrick Doyle's best work has been in his collaborations with Kenneth Branagh, though his awards have almost all been for other films. My local classical station has occasionally played selections from Hamlet and Henry V. Interesting thing about him: the earliest five credits in his filmography are as an actor rather than as a composer. Since then, he's been known to make cameo appearances in films he scored.

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If you've seen the musical Kismet, literally all of the music in it was arranged from Borodin's music, 70 years after his death.
Borodin has been one of my favorite composers for a long time (I may be biased because he's a distant relative). The YouTube video that Bob posted was the Polovetsian Dances from his opera Prince Igor. Here's the overture to the same opera:
And here's his 2nd Symphony, which is also very cinematic:
Borodin was arguably even more world-renowned as an organic chemist than as a composer. Many scientists know his name but are completely unaware that he was also a musician! This includes both of my parents, who only learned about his music a few years ago. He composed only on weekends and so wrote very little music (his entire life's output is just over 10 hours) but almost all of it is outstanding.

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@AndrewH I think the 2nd sounds alot like Dvorak that Ive heard.. And to me Hans Zimmer always reminded me of him. I like it! Its like BAM..in your face..lol .Zimmers stuff is like that to me. All this is probably like sayin..yeah really liked that group called the Eagles. Here come the "who are the Eagles jokes"
My classical knowledge is very shallow.. glad you posted Andrew.

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Heh. Not really. IIRC, my 19th century Russian ancestor was a distant cousin of Borodin who moved to China to tutor some aristocrat's sons. Most people are related to someone famous if you look hard enough because family trees get very large very quickly. The fact that every US president has been related to British royalty is much less meaningful when you notice that the relations being cited include 10th cousins or the like.
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