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Utopian Turtletop. Monsieur Croche's Bête Noire. Contact: turtletop [at] hotmail [dot] com

Sunday, October 10, 2004

WAGNER AND MICKEY-MOUSING AND HOLLYWOOD

Disney gets credited for the innovation of having music exactly echo the action on the screen in early animated films. Carl Stalling at Warner Brothers took this technique to delirious virtuoso heights; film-music people have called it “Mickey-Mousing.” But Wagner beat Disney & Co to the punch, with his slapstick scene of Alberich tripping over his feet as he chases the Rheinbabes while the music makes bumptious bassy galumphing tripping noises.

The influence of Wagner’s dramatic (non-Mickey-Mousing) music runs all through Hollywood, especially ‘30s and ‘40s swashbucklers and tragedies and heavily heaving romances. I’ve been listening to Lorin Maazel’s “The Ring Without Words” on and off all day, and it’s gotta be the greatest soundtrack album ever, not only because the score predated the other great soundtrack albums by 6 or 7 decades, but because the music has spectacular range and power and tenderness and beauty and awe.

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