A Score Complete Without Themes: Henry Mancini and the Frenzy Experience
A SCORE COMPLETE WITHOUT THEMES: HENRY MANCINI AND THE FRENZY EXPERIENCE. PATRICIA CLARE WHEELER-CONDON A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN MUSIC YORK UNIVERSITY, TORONTO, ONTARIO APRIL, 2013 © Patricia Wheeler-Condon, 2013 ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the musical features of, and circumstances surrounding, the film score composed in 1971 by Henry Mancini for director Alfred Hitchcock's ( penultimate work, Frenzy. Mancini's music was rejected by Hitchcock, and replaced with a markedly different work written by British composer Ron Goodwin. A summation of characteristic traits emerging from Mancini's compositional style is herewith considered, as recurring features found in his thematic writing - aspects of melody, harmony, rhythm, timbre, and form-were most apparent to the non-musician film directors who engaged his services. This summation also includes an examination oft4e composer's dramatic underscore writing; an aspect of film music often overlooked in its minutiae by viewers and filmmakers alike, and, in the case of Mancini's Frenzy music, characteristic of his scores for Laslo Bene_dek's 1971 production, The Night Visitor, and Terrence Young's Wait Until Dark, from 1967. Mancini's Frenzy cue sheets, holograph, and recording were supplied by the composer's estate, allowing for an analysis which considers cue placement and length, systems of pitch and rhythmic organisation, aspects of arrangement and orchestration, and conducting and recording methods as practised by this composer. A comparison to the Goodwin score, reproduced by way of transcription from the film, is undertaken in order to explore aspects of filmic point-of-view as they play on the composer of its accompanying music, and to attempt a rationalisation of .Hitchcock's displeasure with Mancini's music.
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