The cinema and the composer.

It began in 1927, with Al Jolson's immortal claim "You ain't seen nothin' yet!" In that moment, sound came to the cinema. Now, this burgeoning new art form truly came into its own and took over the world. And perhaps the most significant element sound brought to cinema was a much older art form: music. It's worth emphasising here that the original cinematic icon, Charlie Chaplin, despite being a resolutely silent filmmaker, was actually himself an accomplished violinist and composer (and even won his only competitive Oscar as a composer).

In recent years I've become quite an avid collector of film scores (or, at least, of the scores to my favourite films) on soundtracks; I recently bought those of The Lord of the Rings (2001-2003) and Schindler's List (1993) and collectively, those two albums are currently my pride and joy. (Hence, maybe, why I'm writing this entry.) But I digress. Even a dreadful or overrated film can have breathtaking music, and some scores are great by themselves whatever their movie's overall merits. Cinematic history is rife with scores that have become iconic themselves, from Max Steiner's love theme from Gone with the Wind (1939) to Bernard Herrmann's shrieking violins for Psycho's (1960) shower scene (which so impressed Alfred Hitchcock, who initially planned to have the scene with no music, that he doubled Herrmann's salary) to John Williams' legendary intergalactic compositions for the Star Wars saga (1977 onwards), and dozens more.

I love listening to film scores by themselves because it exposes me to qualities in them that I might've missed while watching the actual films, although if you've seen the movie enough times you can hear the music by itself and then recall and picture the scenes as the music plays. Even so, I find the experience absolutely intoxicating and transportive.

My list of the greatest-ever film composers: John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, Howard Shore, Gustavo Santaolalla, Thomas Newman, Lisa Gerrard, Rachel Portman, Vangelis, Alexandre Desplat and Thomas Newman.

Finally, here is a stunning performance from the 2002 Academy Awards of some of the screen's most celebrated themes, under the baton of Maestro Williams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_0g3tEcM0w