A composer for screen gets a stage debut
Website data: Weekend Edition - Sunday, February 27, 2005 · Guest
host Sheilah Kast speaks with composer Danny Elfman. Elfman is best known for
his many TV and film scores—including the music for The Simpsons,
Batman, Good Will Hunting and Men in Black. But this past
Wednesday, Elfman was recognized as a composer for the concert stage. His Serenada
Schizophrana received its world premiere at Carnegie Hall in New York by
the American Composers Orchestra.
Radio programme:
[Opening of The Simpsons main title]
SHEILAH KAST: From early in his career composer Danny
Elfman scored big in the world of mass-market entertainment. He wrote the music
for The Simpsons, Batman, Men in Black, Good Will Hunting
and Spider-man to name just a few. This past week, though, Danny Elfman
has not been focussed on the run-up to the Academy Awards—he was in New
York City, attending the world premiere of his Serenada Schizophrana, performed
by the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
[Excerpt from Serenada Schizophrana]
KAST: Danny Elfman joins us from our New York bureau.
Congratulations Mr Elfman.
DANNY ELFMAN: Thank you very much.
KAST: So why did you decide to take on a work for the
concert hall.
ELFMAN: Err, because it was there?
KAST: Like a mountain?
ELFMAN: Yeah, like a mountain. I mean, I never would have
taken a commission for the big hall, Carnegie Hall, as a first commission. I
accepted a commission for the basement underneath. There's a little room under
the big hall, at carnegie, that's only about 350 seats. I said, "That's
perfect, it's way off the radar, and I could just do something fun for small
orchestra and noone will even know that I did it, and that's a kinda good way
to wet my feet, you know what I mean?
KAST: M-hm.
ELFMAN: Many months went by and we had that scheduled,
and I found out at a certain point that my wife was expecting a baby. And I
couldn't tell anybody, 'cause it was really fresh news, and gonna wait three
months, as people often do, you know, until you really know that it's really
gonna happen, 'cause sometimes it doesn't. So you can't tell anybody, and I
had this terrible secret. However, [snipped interruption by interviewer] the
due-date was the same week at the scheduled concert for Carnegie, and I was
trying to cancel it, I was trying to get out of it, but I couldn't tell anybody
why, 'cause suddenly I was going "I really can't do this", and [people
were going] "why?".. and I couldn't come up with a good reason, so
I'd just go "ooh, alright". And then at a certain point they came
and said "Danny, you know, if you're interested, we'll bounce you upstairs.
We're interested in putting you in this programme that would be in the big hall."
And I said, "No, absolutely no way. Really I'm not ready for that."
And they said, "Well, and it also moves your schedule back from January
to february" and I said "I'll-take-it".
KAST: [Laughs] So by this time they think you're crazy,
right?
ELFMAN: Yeah, so really I owe the entire concerto to my
now six-week-old son Oliver.
[Excerpt from Serenada Schizophrana]
ELFMAN: I came out about six weeks ago to hear the hall
and take a look around, as I was beginning to write the piece, and I found myself
intimidated to the point of paralysis. I almost went into a coma. The Hall is
so amazing, and the history there is so... thick. And I went home terrified
with this feeling of, "I'm in the playground of the big boys now. This
isn't the little sandbox that I'm used to." So it kind of froze me up for
a couple of weeks then I finally shook it off and started writing.
KAST: So you started writing this piece about six weeks
ago.
ELFMAN: More like started eight-ten weeks ago, I guess.
My time-frame is always bad.
KAST: That's still not a lot of time to write a concert
hall piece, I think.
ELFMAN: Well for me that's a normal amount of time. You've
gotta realise that I'm in a profession where I have to come up with big huge
monstrous works in usually about ten weeks.
KAST: Well, what was the technique you found to get you
started on this project?
ELFMAN: Well what I started doing - because I was really
sure what I wanted to do - what I started doing was: for two weeks I forced
myself to write a small composition every day. After about 14-15 days I had
15 or 16 little compositions, mostly about a minute-and-a-half long. So now
I ended up with all these little fragments and I let pieces start evolving,
and I found that some fell by the wayside and some started expanding and taking
off. And now I ended up with about ten longer pieces. I said "ah, this
is getting interesting; how do they fit together?; I don't know; what do they
mean?; I don't know, but.. and then I ended up with six that were now ranging
six-seven-eight minutes long a-piece. They were taking off on their own in crazy
ways that were surprising me and I just found that one went into the next went
into the next. I was resolved that I didn't want this concerto to either be
too much of a whimsical frollick or too serious, so one piece kept bouncing
me into the next, and then bounced over to a third direction and bounced back
to the first, and that schizophrenic approach is what fuels me.
[Excerpt from Serenada Schizophrana] ca5'00 now
ELFMAN: I'm throwing together all these influences. There's
not a single orchestral idea that I did out there that wasn't expressed before
1950. My inspiration comes from film composers of the Golden Era of the 40's
into the 50's - Alex North and my God Bernard Herrmann. My inspiration comes
from Russia, and when I heard Prokofiev for the first time I felt like I had
an arrow shot into my heart that I could never remove. It hit me that strong
and that suddenly. I'm just a cornball for early 20th century Russian composition.
I don't know why. The first time I heard Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat
I didn't want to listen to anything else for two years - I mean that's how strong
it was for me. And there's a lot of Duke Ellington influence and early jazz
all mixed together, but that's where I love to be.
[Excerpt from Serenada Schizophrana]
ELFMAN: I am for 20 years now.. if I see picture, I see
music. Period. I always work visually, and I did have on the back-burner an
emergency plan - if I went too far - that I would put on some silent movie footage
or even some non-silent movie footage just playing silently, and just start
composing to it. Put on some W. D. Griffith, put on anything and start composing
to it. I knew that if I ran into trouble I could put on anything and begin composing,
but I also felt that that was cheating, and I never did have to do it.
KAST: So what were the pictures you were seeing as you
wrote this time.
ELFMAN: Well, for example, one of them is called Quadruped
the Troll - I kept picturing a large dog trotting along, and how a dog is trot-trot-trot-dndndndn
- there was a big dog and a little dog, and how they look right and they look
left, and this dog was very serious, had very strong intent but was still never
breaking stride with his trot. I had so much fun with it because I never could
stop seeing a big dog and a little dog.
[Excerpt from Serenada Schizophrana]
ELFMAN: If you listen to it you'll hear bombombombombom
big dog trot trot d-d-d-d-d that's the little dog trotting up alongside. It
gets very dramatic because there's inevitably a confrontation about who's going
to dominate - the big dog or the little dog.
KAST: Who wins?
ELFMAN: The little dog.
[Excerpt from Serenada Schizophrana]
KAST: Now along with the American Composers Orchestra
you also had the ACO Singers.
ELFMAN: Well, it's erm.. the fifth movement (I knew as
I was writing it) had voices, and I called them up kindof sheepishly going ('cause
I kept asking "can I have another percussionist pleeease" - "eer
alright" - "I really need an extra trombone and extra French horn"
- "[untranscribable]" - I know they're ona tight budget. They say
"right, one trombone, one French horn, one percussionist. That's all you're
gonna ask for?" - "Yeah-yeah.. except for those two electronic instruments
that have to be playing" - "ahh, okay, we have a third keyboard..
how many pianos? We'll have one piano, right" - "Well, actually two
pianos - it's kind of two/double piano concerto the first and sixth movement".
So they're already, like, I can see them going so miserable, and I say...) "please,
I need a choir".
KAST: [Laughs]
ELFMAN: And I knew.. I was, like, wincing, waiting for,
like, the melt-down. And they said, very calmly, this Michael Gellar: "How
many voices do you need?" I said, "How about twenty-five?" He
said: "How about six?"
KAST: [Laughs]
ELFMAN: He says, "Alright... eight."
[Excerpt from Serenada Schizophrana]
ELFMAN: All I can say is that it was far from being a
perfect evening. I actually, sitting up in the balcony, I only heard (really)
the woodwinds for the first time because I couldn't hear them in the rehearsal
hall up at Columbia, and I heard a couple of mistakes that I hadn't even heard
going by. It was like "oh my God, that was mistake that just went by, and
so was that." I was like, mmk, okay, next time, let it go. It was a mixture
of whimsical fun, like being out of my body watching it, going, [earnest baritone
voice:] "How amusing". And then occasional bursts of terror, like
"Oh my God, what's that that just happened." And then back out of
my body like "Well, what difference does it make? It's not like they're
going to hang you after the show! I mean, the worst is they're going to say
is that you overshot and did a poor job, and you can live with that." I
actually had fun because, you know, once there was nothing else I can do to
it for the performance, once I reach that point, where I can no longer do anything
more, I've given it as much as I could do through the dress rehearsal.. now
it's time just to have a Martini and sit there in the box and enjoy it.
KAST: composer Danny Elfman and his Serenada Schizophrana,
commissioned by the American composers Orchestra received its premiere at Carnegie
Hall on Wednesday. Thanks very much.
ELFMAN: You're very welcome.
[Excerpt from Serenada Schizophrana]