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Okay, being an orchestrator myself I’ve put some stuff together for you guys. Analysis is, anyhow, the greatest form of flattery. I think I’ll make this a routine thing:
Elfman’s Orchestrational Timbre – Part I: The Harp
by The Dawg Man“Danny Elfman has always been fond of the harp in his scores. This most likely stems from his admiration of Bernard Herrmann’s music, and that composer’s fondness of the instrument. Herrmann often employed interlocking glissando patterns in much of his work (especially the ‘The Twilight Zone’ — which also used the vibraphone quite extensively). Elfman — himself — uses the glissando very frequently in his scores. The ‘Batman’ films, in particular, were filled with quick upward glissandos to accentuate the action of motion or descending to accentuate falling. ‘Beetlejuice’ and ‘Night Breed’ (track 3) were incredibly close to ‘The Twilight Zone’ in their employment of the technique. ‘Black Beauty’, as well, was packed.
In ‘Red Dragon’ Elfman made ingenious use of the harp my muting the strings, or (more precisely) preparing them (as John Cage called it). Preparation is done by placing cardboard (or some foreign object) over the strings to create something very dry and different (almost like muting on a violin). During the ‘End Credits’ of that movie one would understand, once the interlocking harps kick in, why the preparation was so desired.
Perhaps, though, Elfman’s most brilliant use of the harp was in ‘Batman Returns’, where most of us wouldn’t even recognize the instrument as a harp to begin with. The Penguin Theme is played very low on the instrument in that movie and with a French technique dubbed ‘sons pres dé la table’ or ‘played near the resonating body’. This makes for a very crisp and dark — almost Guitar or Banjo like — sound that is not at all reminiscent of the traditional Romantic Hollywood Harp. To take it a step further, in some locations of the score Elfman even directs the harpists to perform ‘sons étouffés’ or ‘damped’, wherein the player immediately muffles the strings with his or her hand after they are plucked. This makes an even drier sound that, when combined with the now trademark ‘pres dé la table’, rivals the ‘prepared sound’ of Red Dragon in darkness.
In Batman Returns, the Penguin, as I’m aware of, was a tragic villain. Not all of his music was that of the dark and villainous type. There were actually two motifs for the Penguin but not of the melodic type. The tragic side was played naturale vibrer on the harp while the dark side was played… well, I already went over that. The finale where the Penguin dies is big proof of that. The soft stuff engulfs the score.
We see it even better in the scene where Batman watches the Penguin looking through the Hall of Records. Both motifs are present, one running into the other. The music starts off as normal on the harp (naturale vibrer), indicating innocence, but suddenly descends lower and darker, as the hero discovers that things are not as they seem. The harp was the only instrument this character could be made clear on I think. This is a testament to both Elfman’s brilliance and the Batman Returns score it’s self, which (clearly superior to its predecessor) made musical connections everywhere (especially Catwoman).
Next Time: The Elfman Strings (The Bastard Child of Avant Garde and Traditional Hollywood)Forgot to say: Naturale Vibrer is “Normal”
Nice! Can’t wait for the strings!
Great ! We really need this kind of topics around here !
Do some wind instruments!
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