Concert Master: Danny Elfman
The composer's scores for the films of Tim Burton are the focus of this weekend's NSO Pops performances
Asked to shed light on the final, perplexing moment of Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes, composer Danny Elfman just laughs.
“I would never attempt to explain anything in any of Tim’s films to anybody.”
Directors often work with the same composers, but the creative relationship between Elfman and Burton is unique, even by film industry standards.
“We’ve had 28 wonderful years and 16 films,” says the 61-year-old Elfman, sounding a bit like a proud husband. “He not only gave me my career by choosing me to do Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, but he has allowed me to express myself in so many different ways. How could I not be happy with that?”
Elfman has scored all of Burton’s films, from Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas to both Burton-helmed “Batmans” and the more recent Alice in Wonderland and Dark Shadows. The full oeuvre will be performed this weekend by the NSO in a special Pops event entitled “Danny Elfman’s Music from the Films of Tim Burton.” Commissioned a year ago by Britain’s Royal Albert Hall and spearheaded by world-renowned conductor John Mauceri, the concert has since been performed everywhere from Los Angeles to Tokyo to the Czech Republic.
“I hate to talk about the concert from the point of view of it making money because…in the classical music world people use that as a stick to denigrate it,” says Mauceri. “I would rather say there’s a really large audience for it, which is a core audience that most orchestras really want to have — an audience of people who are in their late teens up to their middle fifties.”
Elfman personally rearranged all the suites, setting aside 3 months to complete the work. “I didn’t want the show to be a hit parade of just main titles. I wanted each suite to encompass the whole score.” The process turned out to be a challenge — but one Elfman enjoyed taking on.
“When you’re writing for a recording studio you’re orchestrating in a different way,” says Elfman, who will not be appearing at the D.C. performance. “If I want a solo to come through, there’s a microphone in front of the viola and I can [turn up the volume]. On the concert stage, you can’t do that. It meant taking everything apart.”
Elfman disagrees with claims that movie scores are the classical compositions of our times. “When you write for film you still have to serve the needs of the film,” he says. “It doesn’t matter what sort of extravagant ideas I may have in my head, you don’t force them down the throat of a film. It’s not the same as sitting down and creating a piece of work that only exists as a piece of music. And that’s classical music as I see it: Purely from the imagination, to the paper, to the instruments. Its reason for being is only to be heard and to be experienced in concert.”
Danny Elfman’s Music from the Films of Tim Burton is Thursday Oct. 23 at 7 p.m. and Friday and Saturday, Oct. 24 and 25 at 8 p.m., in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Tickets are $20-$88. Call 202-467-4600 or visit kennedy-center.org.
Check out Goldstar’s special discounted offer for this show here.
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