[78-L] Marvin Hamlisch dies

[David Lennick]

Hey, going back to the days of the pit piano, some films were provided with 
scores and sometimes you got 15-year-old Fats Waller or 83-year-old Mildred 
Hammerschlager playing whatever made a noise. By the way, once upon a time I 
interviewed two very wise lyricists who said that movies should NEVER use music 
that was already well known. That was about 32 years ago when there were still 
a few composers writing full scores. Their names? Marilyn and Alan Bergman. 
Can't remember the big hit song they wrote with this guy Hamburger..

dl

On 8/7/2012 9:24 PM, neechevoneeznayou at gmail.com wrote:
> Alex North's music for "Spartacus" is a perfect example. There are only
> a few instances, if that, where music is actually performed by the
> characters in the film. One is when Antoninus, played by Tony Curtis,
> sings a "song," which is actually spoken free verse, with no musical
> accompaniment, perfectly plausible for that period.
>
> When I was in music school so many years ago, I recall from Music
> History class that there are no examples of Roman music. Little to
> nothing is known about the music of ancient Rome. So a composer can
> really do whatever he wants, with no one to point to an example and say
> "this is anachronistic."
>
> Unless something has turned up since then, and it was 36 years ago.