Opera Today

Between the 1930s and the 1950s, Hollywood composers pumped out tens of thousands of scores for what we now call “classical Hollywood films.” These films often contained an hour or more of music, but few viewers would have realized this. Certainly, many of these scores included themes that became very well known–Casablanca and Gone with the Wind come immediately to mind; however, much of the music was played quietly and inconspicuously. In classical Hollywood films, music is subservient to the narrative, and generally played two main roles. First, it served the film’s central narrative by heightening the emotional content of important scenes (e.g., ominous music when characters approach an abandoned castle) and revealing characters’ hidden feelings (e.g., love music while two characters are fighting). Second, music gave the film a greater sense of continuity by smoothing over cuts and moving slower scenes along.

Giovanni Bononcini (Modena, 1670 – Vienna, 1747) is best known today for his dozen years in London, which began when he was 50 and Handel was 35. Five years later, a well-known epigram likened them to Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee . Londoners then had to decide whether Handel, compared to Bononcini, was “but a Ninny,” or whether Bononcini, when matched with Handel, was “scarcely fit to hold a Candle.” For many Londoners, the more luminous composer was Bononcini, since he had served munificent patrons for four decades before his arrival in England: duke Francesco II of Modena (1680s); two immensely wealthy noblemen – Filippo Colonna and Luigi de la Cerda, the Spanish ambassador – in Rome (1690s); two emperors – Leopold I and Joseph I – in Vienna (1700s); and an immensely wealthy Viennese ambassador in Rome (1710s).