Danny Elfman: Concert Music
I first became aware of Danny Elfman in 1985 when I went to see PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE. While I had seen Pee-wee Herman perform his delightfully odd standup on TV, I was excited to see what he’d do with a full-length feature, and I was not disappointed. The tale of a boy and his bike was supported by music that amazed me. Scoring comedy is very difficult, and here was a composer, with clear roots in Bernard Herrmann, knocking it out of the ballpark with the perfect quirky musical accompaniment for Pee-wee’s epic cross-country quest. I next noted Elfman’s work in 1989, deftly underpinning Tim Burton’s sweeping BATMAN, wherein a driving, leitmotiv-driven score perfectly captured The Dark Knight, his nemesis, The Joker, and the milieu of Gotham itself. And thus began my love of this very skilled and prolific composer’s works. I began looking for his name as composer when movies were released, for I knew there’d at least be a fine score, even if the film wasn’t otherwise fully up to snuff, likely with a soundtrack album to enjoy by itself. The many soundtrack CDs in my library composed by Elfman are often in rotation. They have provided me with hours of fulfilling listening.
To my surprised delight, in 2006 I discovered Serenada Schizophrana, commissioned by the American Composer’s Orchestra and written in 2004—Elfman’s first exploration of writing a concert piece for orchestra. It is a quirky suite of six movements and lasts about 42 minutes. In the program notes he presents quite clearly that his influences include Bernard Herrmann, Nino Rota, Dimitri Tiomkin, Max Steiner, Erich Korngold, Sergei Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Dmitri Shostakovich, Carl Orff, Kurt Weill, Duke Ellington, Harry Partch and Philip Glass. Much like Herrmann often did, the large orchestra (including voices) is used both selectively and deftly amongst the movements for coloristic purposes. The entire ensemble does not continually play, but various instruments are called-out to match the mood for each separate movement. There’s an almost Lewis Carroll sensibility in the progression of ideas—whimsical, perky, but at times ominous and even threatening. A unique beginning!
In 2008, Elfman was commissioned to write a ballet score for Twyla Tharp: “Rabbit and Rogue.” Once again, in six movements there’s a wide range of styles and colors to be found, of particular interest is the Gamelan sensibility which evokes the earlier works of Colin McPhee, and there are even ragtime piano passages! This piece is about 46 minutes in length and certainly the aficionados of his film scores will find familiar riffs and textures, but these flow in an ongoing stream of propulsive ideas that clearly could provide the impetus for dancing.
2017 was the year in which Elfman’s Violin Concerto “Eleven Eleven” was composed and premiered. Violinist Sandy Cameron brought her technical expertise to the composer so he could craft a piece that was both playable and challenging for the soloist—as is expected of a fine concerto. The title is derived from the fact that the piece is 1,111 measures long, and that corresponds to the fact that the composer’s surname means the “11th man” in German. It is a hefty work of four movements that lasts over 50 minutes, and, that Elfman listened to many violin concerti but was primarily drawn to those by Prokofiev and Shostakovich, is heard quite clearly by a knowledgable listener. The orchestra is huge and there’s even a cadenza in the second movement for violin and percussion. It does not end with an upbeat finale, as is often the case with traditional concerti, but comes to a massive climax and then retreats to the dark, pensive mood of the opening.
In his liner notes to the recording of this concerto, Elfman explains that his compositional goal is to create a fusion between 20th-century “post-Romanticism” with the rhythms and harmonies of late 20th-century classical works. He has stated that he loves a challenge and feels that writing concert music that follows his continually evolving and gear-shifting musical “stream of consciousness” is liberating, and a way to bring the worlds of listeners to concert and film music together. His concert scores clearly bear his film scores’ musical characteristics, but he works to bring a complexity and structure to these efforts that can satisfy those who enjoy the great masters of classical music. That’s a hell of a challenge, but Elfman is evolving quite well to meet this concept and crafting some potent tonal music that goes from the intimate to the opulent.
I also note some Mahlerian influences, but that could have come in via both Shostakovich and Korngold, who were both deeply studied in Mahler’s works. There are even some aspects of Leonard Bernstein, in the jazzy flavor and rapidly shifting meters and uneven beats in measures, as well as some characteristics of the richly scored works of Respighi, particularly his manic “Feste Romane.” Ultimately, Elfman has distilled these many influences into a style that, in its almost schizophrenic progression, immediately is recognizable as his own, and that is a hallmark of a great composer.
The Piano Quintet, premiered in 2018, is a more intensely intimate work in which once again the shade of Herrmann hovers over the typical blend of Elfman’s circus of rapidly shifting ideas. There was also a Percussion Quartet premiered in 2019, which I’ve not yet heard. Via BMI in March of 2019, Elfman announced his upcoming roster of concert works:
“I have accepted a symphonic commission for the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain for next summer’s Proms festival in London 2020. Should be wild! One hundred and sixty-five extremely talented young musicians, all on stage together. I’ve also accepted a concerto for percussion and orchestra written for Colin Currie who’s an amazing British percussionist, to be played with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in London, spring of 2021. I’m also hoping to finalize plans for a cello concerto that I’m super excited about, but it’s not finalized yet. I’m also working on a “semi-secret” personal project that involves a chamber orchestra and my own voice.”
So, there is much to look forward to for the concert hall from this remarkable composer, who’s progress reversed the course of one of his influencers—Erich Korngold (1897-1957). Korngold began as a child prodigy, writing concert music and operas and eventually, after escaping the Nazis and settling in Hollywood, he became one of the most influential masters of film scoring. His concertos for violin and cello as well as his powerful Symphony have been both recorded and played in concert halls with increasing frequency as time passes.
I have hopes that Elfman might try his hand at a symphony at some point, though a concerto for orchestra might more likely suite his temperament—rather like Bartók’s masterful effort from 1943 which in five movements has a similar gamut of moods and colors as one now finds in Elfman’s efforts. Its timing of close to 40 minutes is also in the realm of Elfman’s current compositions. But, I could also see him writing something along the lines of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3. That six movement symphony is a vast canvas using a huge orchestra and vocal soloists to depict an evolutionary progression from insensate Nature through the evolution of plants and animals to the arrival of human consciousness and both the sorrows and ecstasies inherent in our species. The movements vary wildly in mood and in orchestration, and the work lasts roughly 105 minutes, being one of the longest symphonies in the standard repertoire. I suspect, if Elfman could find the right subject matter to inspire his thinking, that he too might create something along those lines in scope and scale. Whatever he is moved to create, I’ll be eager to hear all that he produces, for he is certainly a master musician who works very hard to compose pieces that will challenge, thrill, and, in so many ways, deeply move his listeners. I’m certain his film and concert scores will be cherished for many years to come.
