Friday, November 3, 2017

Conductor's 8 x 10: Jerry Goldsmith



When I was nineteen or twenty years of age I decided to collect some eight-by-tens of orchestra conductors. Back in the days before the Internet the process of getting mailing addresses for the various orchestras was not too much of a problem. My local library, like most of the kind, had reference books for such a task. I collected several contacts. In the name of good public relations I always got a response, a large-size envelope containing an eight-by-ten glossy.

While he did guest-conduct symphony orchestras, Jerry Goldsmith (1929 - 2004) was one of the greatest composers of movie music. His scores for films such as Seconds, The Sand Pebbles, Planet of the Apes, Patton, The OmenStar Trek: The Motion PictureUnder Fire, and The Mummy demonstrate not only his keen dramatic sense, but his ability to go chameleon.

In the pre-Internet early 1980s I did not know to get in touch with Mr. Goldsmith's agent, so I did the next best thing; something that I knew would work: Lionel Newman was 20th Century Fox's music director and a friend and colleague of Goldsmith's. "Mr. Lionel Newman c/o 20th Century Fox...."

Perhaps Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane said it best on a recent BBC radio interview:
"(Goldsmith was) an insanely talented guy."

2 comments:

Jon said...

Oddly enough, Seth Macfarlane is doing more to continue Trek with "The Orville" than anyone else, and sometimes the music gets suspiciously...Goldsmithy. A tip of the hat, perhaps?

Simon St. Laurent said...

Yeah, I've heard that "The Orville" is more Trek than is "Star Trek: Discovery".

Why am I not surprised?

Thanks for the notes!