Re: Pastorale Symphony

[Jost Ammon <Jost.Ammon@t-online.de>]

The german Pastorale derives via italian pastorale from latin pastor, the
shepeard and means in music an instrumental piece in 6/8 bar, mostly played
by hautbois or Schalmeyen - the registers that on our - german - organs are
called "Zungen" (reeds).

> Most people
> will remember the absolutely incredibly _right_ use of the The Beautiful
> Blue Danube for the docking of the space craft in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
> Kubrycht was a master when it came to choosing music for films.

Yes, yes, yes: in that very docking scene, An Der Schönen Blauen Donau plays
when the space shuttle, in circleing moves, docks at the orbit station and
the pencil dances out of the jacket of the sleeping commander, in a
congruent circling movement of the same rhythm as the music plays. Or think
of Clockwork Orange, the violation scene to the music of Rossini's opera "La
Gazza Ladra", again movements and music in a congruent rhythm. To my
knowledge Kubrick is the only director who repeatedly tried - and achieved -
to put audible and visible rhythms in such a congruent relationship.

But there are still other wonderful examples of merger of music and film:
Visconti's Tod in Venedig (following the novel by Thomas Mann) with the
music of Mahler is such an example. Or - not in the classical realm - think
of Wim Wender's movie Paris, Texas. What powerful and evocative use of Ry
Cooder's simple 12 string guitar motif along with the gorgious pictures of
Travis walking across the desert or the nocturnal view from the house to the
twinkling city lights of L.A. with an aeroplane landing.

Jost