Musical Meaning Blog_Lam Vo

 TOPIC: MUSIC AND DRAMA

1)  Tara's theme - Max Steiner - Gone with the wind

 Wells Cathedral School Symphony Orchestra perform Tara's Theme from Gone With The Wind by Max Steiner. 

I think this piece is related to the topic we learned for this module because of how iconic it is in the movie industry. The song was composed by Max Steiner who wrote over 300 film scores and was nominated for 24 Academy awards while winning 3 of them. The score composed by him in "Gone with the wind" is one that he is best known for. Thus, when talking about music and drama, I think it is fair to talk about such an important figure as Max Steiner and his iconic score.

The reason I chose this piece is due to its meaning to me. The book that the score was written for is one of the most famous love novels of its time. While in the novel, the protagonist never managed to love the right person and marries 3 people she didn’t love, in my opinion, this only adds contrast and makes people yearn for true and passionate love more. This can also be seen through the protagonist’s constant yearning for her love interest, believing him to be the ideal romance, and how angry she became when he married her cousin and consider him to be far from being the ideal romance. However, time and time again, the novel has shown it to work and to be something that makes the protagonist constantly yearns for. The yearning for an ideal romance is also shown through the protagonist’s loveless marriage, even though she didn’t love them, when marrying them she also believes she will be happy (except for the first marriage when she did it out of spite). All in all, for the love aspects of the novel, we can see a yearning for a passionate, fulfilling, and ideal love that will make you complete.

In my opinion, the meaning I talked about is reflected in the musical element of the song. The song is articulated with a wavelike contour, the beat is simple triple and the harmony is consonant. All of this helps the score to give off a feeling of gentleness mixed with passion and perfectly suits the theme of Tara which is the birthplace of the protagonist and where is gain her strength from and also the place where her yearning for love begins.

2)  The Imperial March - John Williams - Star Wars

John Williams & Vienna Philharmonic – Williams: Imperial March (from “Star Wars”)

The second piece I wanted to talk about is “The Imperial March” by John Williams. I think this piece deserves to be talked about with this topic because this is one of the instances of a piece that is so iconic that it is only associated with only one thing or image. On the other hand, the composer John Williams, in my opinion, is also an important figure in the music and film industry since he is the second most nominated person after Walt Disney with 52 nominations.

The meaning that this piece holds for me and I believe for many other audiences as well is the image of an army marching down in Star Wars. This piece coupled with the image really gives off a sense of majesty and momentum that is impossible to defy. This piece is always used when the scene is transitioning to the Empire or when the Empire is marching down, as true to the name of the Imperial march. I don’t know if it is the image or how well the music was edited, the image of a giant and majestic empire and the music has become a synonym for all fans and even some people who don’t watch the film.

All the elements of music that are involved in this piece contributed to the success of the score. The range is composed of many small leaps and is conjunct. This matches with the sound of people marching in many conjunct small steps. The rhythm is articulated as you would expect from a uniformed march of a well-trained army. The beat is simple quadruple which makes sense since this is in line with the music that is commonly marched. The texture is polyphony and the harmony is consonant which again corresponds to the uniformed march of an army. The tempo is fast to make it more imposing and majestic while the dynamics are loud and heavy to once again make it grand and striking. All in all, you can see that all the elements of this score are used to demonstrate a grand, majestic, and imposing army. This coupled with it being used whenever the film is focusing on the Empire or its army really enforces the connection between the image and the piece and has become iconic over time.