Is movie music "serious music"

Welcome to Nick's Notes on the LSO website! This is my first blog...I hope you enjoy it! People often ask me: is movie music "serious music"? I say yes! In the early days of the movies composers like Walton, Korngold and Hermann wrote stirring orchestral scores, which were often finely crafted and and intricate. Prime examples include scores for Captain Blood by Korngold, Henry V by Walton and Hermann's Vertigo, which the LSO performed excerpts from last season. All of these scores stand up to much of the ballet music and symphonic music of the 20th Century. They deserve to be heard more often in concert halls. When the L.A. Philharmonic opened Disney Hall a few years back, Maestro Salonen chose to include music by Hermann on the opening program. He also recorded music from Psycho, Marnie, North by Northwest and Vertigo, among others, shortly thereafter. While sweeping symphonic scores were popular prior to 1960, they began to fade away in the next two decades, often replaced by pop/jazz/rock scores. John Williams changed that with the first Star Wars film in 1977. Who can forget the opening theme at the beginning of the first film? It is said that Williams used the theme of Born Free (backwards) as an inspiration...who knows. What is important is that George Lucas asked Williams to write an orchestra score based on tonal and traditional sounding orchestral music for the first three movies because he felt it would sound more "familiar" to people than more complex or contemporary music. The rest is history... We had a ball at our recent John Williams concert.  Check out the pictures posted below!...I look forward to hearing from you! Next month our topic is: Why should we be "mad about opera"? Maestro Nick