Okay Mr. Goldenthal, thank you so much for having a few words with us in Montage. You know this – we met just a few months ago in Ghent, and so could you jokingly say that you're now travelling to old traditional European cities for concerts? Is that your new thing now?
Well, I especially love the architecture and the old European cities that wasn't destroyed by the Second World War. It’s especially beautiful to see the architecture and the music that goes along with the architecture. And the commonality of Ghent and Krakow, they're both huge university towns. There's 250,000 students in Krakow. And there's something about the youth, exuberance, and looking forward to life, or even being angry politically or being angry personally. There's so much energy because of the youth and the concern that people have in the university age.
And what about having the concert in a steel mill or a steel factory? That must give a certain ambience to the music as well I presume.
Well certainly because the steel mill and myself are rusting away. [laughs]
That's your opinion, but okay. If we just pick up a little bit since we last talked, because then you were going to India for a location scout for “Transposed Heads”?
No, I was there to give a conference, in a TED India conference in Rajasthan. And then after my lecture I travelled throughout learning about various Indian traditions of music. Very complicated, very very very sophisticated. And went down to the south in Kerala also to hear the Carnatic music which is almost mathematical.
In its precision or in its...?
Precision as a teaching and its actual permutations of rhythm. It's like higher math as well as soulful and beautiful music.
You know, one of the reasons, or not one of the reasons, but you are here with your wife Julie Tamer and that whole collaboration. And I've been looking at your work together because you all talk about the freedom and all that, but you also did a stage play about Titus Andronicus back in the ’80s.
Yes, of course.
Are there any musical links between that one and the film? Because that's not often talked about.
One fragment remained as a slow trumpet solo that appears in the movie. However, I scored it on the stage with only two trumpets and an electronic synthesizer. All the rest was, you know, so
Some of it remains. And I also saw a film recently called “Fool's Fire”.
Where did you see it?
You want to know?
Yeah.
I saw it on YouTube.
Really?
Yes. A poor VHS copy or something.
Julie can't find it!
She can't find it? It was a TV broadcast or...
The print is lost.
Because I was fascinated by the whole thing and your music as well. But someone called it “Spitting Image” on acid. If you know the British series “Spitting Image”, it had some of that element.
Yes. Of course it was Edgar Allan Poe and it was one of his most outlandish stories.
Will the music ever see the light of day, do you think, in some form or fashion?
I think so, at one point. I have a record label now, my own record label, Zarathustra Music.
Zarathustra Music.
There is a possibility that it will be re-recorded, but…
Should we take a break now if you want to go?
No, no, no. Until it gets completely quiet.
OK, great. There’s one element that I forgot to talk with you about last time, and that was the, not musique concrete, but sound collage that is apparent in “Titus” and other things.
“Alien 3” is one.
Yeah, as well. And you use your own baritone voice as part of those elements. What fascinates you about that whole eclectic collage thing in the scores that you do?
Well, musique concrete has an organic reason for being born. It's not taken from libraries, it's not second-hand sound. Somehow it comes out of a musical need, like Gebrauchsmusik.
What’s the English word for it?
I only know the German.
But you see that as a –
It has a particular use.
You see it as a recurring element in your scores. So that must be a conscious thing that you think of.
Yes, yes.
OK, so we are here. There is an “Alien” concert tomorrow. And of course I have to ask one question about “Alien”, even though we have talked about it a lot and I'm sure you're dead tired of talking about it. But I wrote an article once; it was a Freudian reading of the first film. Not only the first film, but all of them, the sexual aspect of it. How much of that is in your score as well, if you understand what I mean? The romance and the horror and everything.
Well, Freud said sometimes a cigar is just a cigar [laughs].
True. Sometimes.
But the horror and the beautiful was something that we were after in “Alien 3”. The idea of isolation and resurrection was one of them.
Life cycle.
Isolation and resurrection.
Those are the two main themes from the film.
Yeah. The men were in a prison, they vowed chastity, and all of a sudden one woman shows up and their whole structure of philosophy and morals was shaken. As well as the specter of death by the alien. But that wasn't as important as their whole structural social gestalt that was interrupted by the appearance of a woman. And the fact that she was impregnated by an alien, and that she gave up her life as jumping in the lead. And that was very profound as a sense of resurrection.
There are big mythological themes that you are actually in, and that's why you have the ‘Adagio’ and the ‘Lento’. You're going to have a boys’ choir?
No. “Interview with the Vampire”.
That's also a recurring feature that occurred to me in your movies, the boys and the boys’ choir.
To the listeners, we just saw some young boys passing, so you're going to use them in your concert.
Yeah. You should never forget the child within yourself.
No. The beast within.
Sonically. Yes, that’s right.
The child within. All right, we're getting to the end. But soundtrack albums is very interesting for some of our listeners. How should they be presented? All of the music, or should they be rearranged for listening? That applies especially –
Rearranged for listening. Because the function of music in the movie is completely different from the structure and function of listening in terms of architecture.
So, rearranged for listening.
Absolutely. Unless you have someone who wants extra money in this world like Greece for example.
The country of Greece.
They can turn out two albums. One with the exact way it was in the movie. And the alternate one from the perspective as a composer. But along with Greece and Spain and Italy and the United States and so many countries. North Korea etc., etc., etc. there's no money for that type of thing.
No. Sadly. So we're going to wrap it up with a final question which I always have to ask at the end now. What's next? You have “The Transposed Heads”, which we've talked about.
“Transposed Heads” and also a recording of my opera Grendel.
Really? Is that now official?
We were recording it last week.
Ah, fantastic.
Because Wagner's Ring, Niebelungen, was recorded and performed at the Met. And Abricht was played by our Grendel. And Siegfried was Unferth. And we had so many singers from that production that we decided to make a separate piano vocal of the... whereas we can add an orchestra to the vocal. So we have a vocal rendition of the opera. It was very difficult and took many hours. But we have 70% of the opera now with the original cast.
And when will this be available to...
I think about a year and a half.
Into the future.
Yeah.
Thank you so much, Mr. Goldenthal.
You're welcome.