Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory  

Frank Lehman
Subject: Music, Music Theory Online Publication Date: Aug 2014
DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935321.013.002

Abstract and Keywords

Triadic chromaticism is a feature of much dramatic film scoring, a repertoire that has
previously received little in the way of sustained analytic attention from music theorists.
Neo-Riemannian techniques, while limited in application in most previous studies to nine­
teenth-century music, are eminently suited to exploring this vast musical landscape. Us­
ing passages of characteristically “nonfunctional” tonal logic from scores by Hollywood’s
leading composers, this article demonstrates the relevance of transformational parame­
ters to the investigation of cinematic musical structure and expression. The interpretive
usefulness of neo-Riemannian harmonic combinatoriality and its sensitivity to voice-lead­
ing is highlighted with intuitive but hermeneutically revealing analyses of music from
John Williams, Bernard Herrmann, and Howard Shore. The interaction of diatonic func­
tional and chromatic idioms is broached with examples from Alfred Newman, as is the no­
tion of “tonal agnosticism,” which underlies much neo-Riemannian scholarship. Two larg­
er analyses, of Alan Silvestri’s Back to the Future and Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s The Sea
Hawk, illustrate the power and limitations of symmetry—too often an uncritically as­
sumed desideratum for transformational approaches—for organizing film time. In light of
these analyses, the wider prospects for future research in cinematic transformational
analysis are considered.

Keywords: neo-Riemannian theory, film music, film music analysis, music analysis, transformation theory, chro­
maticism, Hollywood, film score, tonality, Herrmann, Williams, Silvestri, Korngold

Although assembled from diverse and often detachable theoretical components, there is
one thing that has remained consistent in the development and application of neo-Rie­
mannian theory (NRT): its target repertoire of nineteenth-century chromaticism.1 This
specificity owes partially to the genesis of those theoretical components, many of which
were formulated by German theorists of the mid-to-late 1800s such as Moritz Haupt­
mann, Arthur von Oettingen, and most of all Hugo Riemann. As Richard Cohn and other
modern theorists have argued, these imported concerns include harmonic dualism,2 the
combinatoriality of pitch relations,3 and variously configured Tonnetze.4 The urge to
adapt German dualist theories with modern tools and priorities also stems from American
theorists’ interest in Romantic-era music.5 The “Second Practice” of nineteenth-century
harmony has been framed by neo-Riemannians as a corpus problematically resistant to
leading theoretical paradigms for functional monotonality, but highly responsive to trans­
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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

formational approaches.6 These are taken to include any analytic practice that focuses on
group-theoretically specified progression classes, idealized voice-leading patterns, or that
adopts a dynamic view towards musical process such as cultivated by David Lewin in the
1980s and 1990s.7

Without a doubt some of the most perplexing and captivating music of the Romantic era
is singularly compatible with transformational analytic techniques. Nevertheless, there is
little in the toolkit that makes up NRT, or indeed the larger umbrella of transformation
theory, which insists upon its sole application to works from the century of Schubert and
Wagner. In fact, other repertoires may be better suited than this originally intended cor­
pus. If nothing else, a great versatility comes from NRT’s combination of friendliness to
nondiatonic materials and sensitivity to the expressive qualities of chromaticism. Despite
almost three decades of disciplinary solidification, neo-Riemannian scholarship has not
yet witnessed a concerted drive to serve other repertoires that use consonant triads (set-
class (037)) in the ways the theory is eminently comfortable handling. Important excep­
tions in the realm of pop/rock,8 jazz,9 and twentieth-century concert idioms10 demonstrate
a growing interest in widening NRT’s scope. Such extensions not only provide novel tools
for under-inspected musical corpora but also enrich the theory as a whole and clarify its
intellectual bases.11 And no repertoire is so primed to offer itself gladly to the mecha­
nisms of triadic transformation theory as film music.

Example 1 : Bernard Herrmann, “The Nautilus” mm.

1-8, from Mysterious Island.

Image 1 : Discovery of the Nautilus, Mysterious Is­

land.

In film music, tonal language and expressive requirements frequently collaborate to pro­
duce passages like that reproduced in Example 1.12 This excerpt from Bernard
Herrmann’s score to Mysterious Island (1961, dir. Endfield) behaves in a more textbook
“neo-Riemannian” fashion than many canonical NRT passages investigated by Romantic
era–focused theorists. The music accompanies a dialogue-free scene in which the cast­

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

aways on a fantastic island discover a submarine—soon revealed to be the property of

Captain Nemo himself (Image 1). No diatonic prolongation of one (or several) key areas is
present, nor does there seem to be a tonal teleology based on cadential goals or
telegraphed thematic completion. The majority of triad-to-triad motions are chromatic,
linking modally matched triads removed by thirds or semitones, governed by no predeter­
mined scale. Herrmann’s voice-leading is nevertheless quite smooth, and the lexicon of
triadic progressions is actually fairly limited. The organization into two-bar, three-chord
units allows certain melodic motifs (such as permutations of the melodic intervallic pat­
tern T1∙T3) to come to the fore. It is music that does have to it a sense of order, though
the full nature of that order awaits discovery.

Despite the fact that Herrmann’s passage is clearly not a random assemblage of pitches,
the tendency in film musicology with regard to passages such this—which are extremely
common and characteristic of scores for “genre”—has been to fall back on analytical non-
explanations. Abundant and audience-understood progressions are cause for the invoking
of “nonfunctional” harmonies, “constant modulation,” “polytonality,” and “unrelated keys/
chords.” The last is a particularly flagrant abdication of analytical rigor, as it supposes
that the only way two harmonic objects could be meaningfully related is by a diatonic in­
terval or process. A transformational approach can show that what seems erratic by dia­
tonic logic may exhibit a perfectly sturdy logic by other relational parameters. Transfor­
mation theory is sensitive to matters of process and development. At the same time, it is
less committed to static or a priori musical architectonics—the stuff that has come under
heavy and sometimes deserved fire following the New Musicological regime, the same
shift that opened the door for the current explosion of film musicological research. Neo-
Riemannian theory’s bottom-up emphasis serves the perceptual realities of music for
screen well, where salient musical features customarily occur close to the surface or shal­
low middle-ground, only very rarely relying on overarching tonal structures.13 The neo-
Riemannian evaporation of classical tonal design expectations proves particularly liberat­
ing for the analysis of screen media.14

In this essay I provide an overview of this promising avenue for transformational re­
search. Without question the flow of theoretical scholarship on film music analysis is
steadily growing.15 With few exceptions, there is not yet a literature on neo-Riemannian
analysis of film, however.16 For this reason, my efforts here are directed at outlining the
ways in which neo-Riemannian tenets apply to the analysis of chromatic film music. Chro­
maticism based on the structure of the consonant triad (pan-triadicism, after Cohn 2012)
is capable of serving a number of cinematic ends and has accordingly been well exploited
by those involved in scoring films, from the earliest compilation scores to the latest sum­
mer blockbuster soundtracks. In the sections to follow, I consider four elements of NRT in
relation to this repertoire: combinatoriality, parsimony, tonal agnosticism, and symmetry.
While most of these investigations apply the tools and priorities of NRT and film musicolo­
gy in a fairly conventional fashion, the two final analyses of this essay assume more het­
erodox perspectives. My investigation of the use of minor third sequences in Alan
Silvestri’s score for Back to the Future jettisons the apparent foundational units of NRT
analysis— its algebraic operators and directed networks— and instead uses a linear-re­
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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

ductive approach in considering harmonic cyclicality in film scoring. For my analysis of

the meticulous hexatonicism of Korngold’s The Sea Hawk, the thing abjured is the need to
immediately relate musical design back to drama. Formalistic analysis is an understand­
ably taboo approach among film musicologists as it would seem to marginalize the very
element—drama—that makes its subject distinctive. Yet if it is done conscientiously (and
without making undue claims about composer intentionality or aesthetic value), analysis
of film music-qua-pure music can be instructive on matters such as musical style and de­
sign, and its findings can be appreciated on their own or, often, related back to the film.

This narrative-neutral investigation of the Sea Hawk will be the exception however, and
film music’s expressive purposes will in all other cases lie at the forefront of my analyses.
Admittedly my attention does not primarily fall on the aesthetics or stylistic evolution of
cinematic triadic chromaticism.17 But despite setting aside a full semiotics of pan-triadi­
cism, one important lesson regarding tonal signification becomes clear from my analyses:
musical meaning habitually arises from a deliberate play with the parameters singled out
by transformation theory, those seemingly well suited to NRT analysis and those that slip
outside its analytic comfort zone. Signification in chromatic film music are often the up­
shot of calculated maneuvers between binary categories such as parsimony/roughness,
unary/complex, and tonal/atonal. That meaning in multimedia turns out to be dialectical
in character should come as no surprise to theorists of film or music. But that it does so
within the framework of this particular theoretical paradigm holds the promise of analytic
mutual beneficiality: that investigating film music may provide insights back into the na­
ture of transformation theory at large.

II. Combinatoriality
The transformational “alphabet” of any neo-Riemannian analysis consists of operators
that alter triads in distinct and readily definable ways. Example 2 presents the inventory
that will be employed in this study. For clarity’s sake, transformations are defined in
terms of both inversion and pitch-displacements.18

Example 2 : Transformation inventory.

All are “dualistic” in the sense that they act in equal and opposite ways on triads of op­
posing mode. For example, R transforms a major triad into a minor one rooted a m3 up,
and transforms a minor triad into a major one a m3 down.19 The inventory is organized in­
to two families. The first comprises the “canonical” neo-Riemannian operators (NROs),
being P, L, and R. The second family includes two inversional cousins of the canonical
group (S, N); these can be composed from combinations of P, L, and R, but occur with

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

enough frequency and bear sufficient “absolute” sound in film music to occasionally war­
rant unary treatment.20

There exists some combination of Ls, Ps, and Rs that models any conceivable relation be­
tween the twenty-four major and minor triads.21 (In fact, L and R alone are sufficient).
These atomic transformations assume the status of NRT’s absolute progressions. A har­
monic motion that requires more than one NRO for its description will bear a compound
transformation composed under the rules of algebraic associativity. From this potential
for combinatorial description come two of the most useful properties of neo-Riemannian
theory within the context of film musical analysis: the linkage of transformational com­
plexity with aural distance, and the capacity to interpret one progression in terms of an­
other.

The length and voice-leading work of a transformation—that is, how many constituent op­
erators generate it and by how many semitones they shift—is useful in informally assess­
ing distance and pitch-space pathways between triads without relying on a naive diatonic
model.22 The more transformations included within a compound, the more complex it is.
Two triads related by L are therefore “closer” than two related by LPL, and even closer
than LPLPLPL (despite the fact that they produce exactly the same pair of chords). This
distance metric can be used to capture intuitions regarding proximity vs. remoteness as
well as familiarity vs. strangeness, both of which are important expressive parameters in
film music.23

Image 2 : Clark of the Arctic.

Example 3a : John Williams, arctic progression in cue

“Fortress of Solitude,” from Superman.

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

Example 3b : Analysis of progression from “Fortress

of Solitude.”

Example 3a reproduces an illustrative extract from John Williams’s 1978 score to Super­
man (dir. Richard Donner). This reduction is paired with Example 3b, a short diachronic
network that demonstrates the way in which transformational length maps neatly onto
perceived tonal distance. Like the example from Mysterious Island, this material accom­
panies a character as he explores a strange and wondrous landscape. In this case, it is
Kansas farm boy Clark Kent making his way across a barren arctic plain (Image 2).24 The
dozen chords involved in this progression are untethered to even the loosest sense of a
governing tonic, but not every motion between them feels equally harmonically alien. The
first four harmonies coincide with medium-distance shots of Kent. As if to match the rela­
tively tight visual perspective in this portion of the scene, the transition from F to D and A
minor is accomplished by relatively simple binary transformations, first a PR and then an
RL. Both compounds retain triadic mode and involve only one intermediary chord, F ma­
jor, increasing their sense of relatedness. As though to cement the background role of the
implicit linking triad, Williams’s next chord is F itself, a tiny adjustment via the unary L of
the previous A minor. F major matches a swell in orchestral volume and a newly
awestruck look in Kent’s eyes.

The object of telegraphed wonder is revealed in the next shot and corresponding chord
change—an impressive wide shot of the sprawling wilderness (depicted in Image 2) and a
thickly scored C♯ minor. The PLP that accomplishes this cut is a particular ternary com­
pound singled out by theorist Richard Cohn as historically associated with moments of
musical uncanniness—the hexatonic pole, the most distant progression available between
M3-related triads.25 The camera returns to Kent through the next four triadic steps
through the progression, repeating the pattern of moderate⇨short⇨lengthy transforma­
tions as anticipation builds over what he will remove from his backpack (a magical crys­
tal, it turns out). When the film’s perspective once again dilates to present the entire
frozen landscape, another ternary transformation synchronizes with the cut. Williams
lands now on G major, far-flung relative to its immediate predecessor G♯ minor as well as
a parallel event within the scene’s cutting rhythm, C♯. In my analysis, a dotted nonlocal
RPR transformation from those two emboldened chords captures this connection. And, to
further associate the sight of that yawning landscape once again with the hexatonic pole
relation, Williams launches G to D♯, albeit now with an intermediary of E minor that
makes the transit even more extreme. Harmonically speaking, we are most assuredly not
in Kansas anymore.

This musical paragraph from Superman demonstrates how the analysis of transformation­
al complexity can reveal filmically significant patterns of aural proximity and remoteness.
However, the number of operators involved in a transformation will only ever be part of
the story of how a progression is heard.26 As important to analysis is the process of choos­

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

ing a transformation in the first place, and—of particular relevance for the reading of a
film score—the interrelationships between multiple transformations. This is the second
boon of NRT’s combinatorial inclination: the ability to interpret one harmonic progression
in terms of another. The decomposability of any tonal move into some concatenation of
harmonic atoms allows the analyst to refer complex or novel sounding harmonic events
back to simpler or accustomed motions and vice versa. This has great utility in tracking
the shift of harmonic material across a cue or whole score as a function of an underlying mod­
el. For instance, if the motion C-maj⇨A♭-maj (PL) is motivic in a score, then a latter occur­
rence of, say, F♯-min⇨B♭-maj could be interpreted in terms of the original transformation­
al motive, as PL∙P. In another situation, that same move may be heard as a variant of a
different parent, say F♯-min⇨B-min (LR), in which case Fs-min⇨B♭-maj could garner a
less intuitive but perfectly justifiable LR∙S description. Such interpretive underdetermi­
nation opens the avenue for a hermeneutics not unlike that commonly applied to tradi­
tional leitmotifs, and bears the same potential for charting gross or subtle shifts in dra­
matic representation across large spans of film time.27

Example 4a : Herrmann, “The Nautilus” analysis.

Analysis of “The Nautilus” from Herrmann’s Mysterious Island illustrates the interpretive
upshots of neo-Riemannian combinatoriality. Example 4a assigns neo-Riemannian opera­
tors to the opening of the cue, with the coloristic but transformationally inessential vibra­
phone part reduced out. Note that some of the motions between triads are analyzed with
more complex relations than are strictly necessary given our full inventory of NROs. The
switch from B♭-min to E♭-maj in m. 2–3 could be interpreted as a ternary compound,
PRL.28 Yet the analysis describes it through the considerably more elaborate
(PL∙PR)∙PLP. Why the complexity?

Example 4b : Herrmann, germinal three chord fan­

fare found throughout Mysterious Island.

The rationale for this decision stems from the thematic derivation of the harmonies in
“The Nautilus”: the cue, like many in Mysterious Island’s score, is based on a germinal
motif heard in the opening credits, and twenty-nine (!) additional times prior to “The Nau­

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

tilus.” The three-chord fanfare is shown in Example 4b, where it is analyzed as a succes­
sion of 3rd-relationship spawning RP and LP progressions, combined and reversed so as
to return to the original B-min triad. By virtue of the sheer amount of repetition it under­
goes, this fanfare cannot help but assume the status of a referential harmonic cell in
Herrmann’s score, such that passages with similar but nonexact melodies, textures or
progression types are all eventually heard in terms of it. The listener is accustomed to
hearing minor triads at the end of three-chord units as progressing via PL∙PR back to the
place where the units began. Since “The Nautilus” initiates an identical pattern in its first
two measures, whatever pathway the third chord will take to the fourth will invariably be
perceived through the lens of the expected first. Transformational analysis brings out this
feature in a way no other analytic apparatus can. When E♭ major is heard in m. 4, it is
through B minor that it must be referred. The analysis has the progression first “pass
back through” B-min en route to E♭-maj, a step that garners PL∙PR, the normative trans­
formation. The difference between expected and actual destination is represented by a
further modification to E♭, through a PLP transformation. The result is a compound trans­
formation that derives its intelligibility from the larger context of the score, rather than a
rote application of the simplest combination of Ls, Ps, and Rs.

Example 4c : Transformational network for “The

Nautilus.”

Analyses of this sort, which rely on a normative transformational frame against which
variants and excursions are measured, are most elegantly represented through visual net­
works.29 Example 4c produces a network for the entire “Nautilus” cue that captures each
sounding and possible progression in terms of that basic harmonic frame from the three-
chord fanfare. The bolded right triangle consisting of B-,D-, and B♭-min triads is the trans­
formational basis for the cue, while triads E♭-maj and D♯-min are shown attached as har­
monic supplements off to the left side. Directed arrows indicate the path taken during the
first eight measures, and dotted edges suggest implied but untaken pathways during this
segment. A noteworthy aspect of the network is how it reveals that the triad D♯-min effec­
tively creates a mirror-image sub-network to the normative 3-chord fanfare (composed
from the same relations of PL, RP and PR∙LP). Such consistency of harmonic shapes and

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

materials helps solidify the impression that E♭ is related primarily to B-min, rather than
being an auxiliary chord to B♭ minor. But, more importantly, transformational regularity
helps unify the tonal space Herrmann explores throughout the Mysterious Island score,
maintaining its enigmatic tone even as it develops originary harmonic materials outside
their initial, fairly static reference frame.

III. Voice-Leading
One rarely discussed dimension of film music is voice-leading. This is perhaps because
unlike other parametric axes such as dissonance/consonance, tonal proximity/remote­
ness, and diatonic/chromatic, voice-leading does not suggest an obvious associative lane
of interpretation. Neo-Riemannian methods can redress this neglect, directing us to re­
fined but impactful ways in which the treatment of multiple musical lines can influence
emotion and narrative. Common-tone retention and parsimony are prime among attribut­
es to which NRT draws attention. L, P, and R are the only motions possible between two
triads such that two common tones are preserved while a third is displaced; this leads to
the potential of “voice-leading parsimony,” in which a sonority’s pitch classes are either
held fast or moved by single tone. While the operators S, and N preserve only a single
common pc, their parsimonious credentials are still vouched by the fact that acted-upon
triads see their pitches move by only ic1. Like combinatorial complexity, the degree of
smoothness achieved— either sounding literally or idealized between abstract Klangs—
can provide another informal measure of distance and proximity where progressions
seem no longer dictated by diatonic logic. This comes in particularly handy in analyzing
the transitions between remote tonal stations; the simple presence of a common-tone con­
nection can soften what may have otherwise been a bumpy path. Parsimony is an espe­
cially useful compositional tool if the individual harmonic waypoints themselves bear
strikingly different colors. Smooth voice-leading enables them to be stitched together in
such a way that their delicate connection may seem almost magical.

In one of the few allusions to film music’s amenability to neo-Riemannian analysis in

scholarly literature, theorist Guy Capuzzo enlists the cue “Aniron” from Howard Shore’s
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2002), using it as an example of parsi­
mony across chromatic third relations (in an article primarily on pop music and NRT).30
Capuzzo isolates a passage that accompanies an ominous conversation between charac­
ters Aragorn and Arwen, shortly preceding a scene change that reveals the two are ro­
mantically involved (Image 3).31 Shore provides a brief chorale to accompany their dia­
logue, an elliptical discussion of Aragorn’s burden as secret heir to the throne. The music
is analyzed in Example 5. The pervasive chromatic third relations that Capuzzo observes
in this passage are very much tied up with Shore’s voice-leading procedures—they chiefly
stem from harmonized neighbor motions involving alternation between root-position and
inverted chords. During the vocal portion of the passage, starting at m. 11, the melodic
line comes to rest on the common-tone A♭/G♯, while inner voices simultaneously alternate
B and C (P) and E and E♭/D♯ (L). This PL compound is mirrored in the linkage of A and F
minor by LP at the cue’s onset. The semitonal contrary motion is identical, there with L
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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

sending E to F and P sending A to A♭. However, the effect is subtly different due to the ab­
sence of common tones in the sustained wholetone pedal pitches, leaving the implication
of linear continuity mostly to the melodic arpeggiations in the cello. Along with the com­
paratively non-parsimonious transition to C-maj in second inversion (a textbook instance
of N) the overall trajectory is from greater contrast between chords to less.

Example 5 : Howard Shore, analysis of preamble to

“Aniron,” from Fellowship of the Ring.

Image 3 : Aragorn and Arwen’s romantic tryst.

Shore uses the gradual shift in smoothness to achieve a tranquilizing effect, matching in
harmonic content the move from the weighty realm of kingly responsibility into the pri­
vate safe-haven of Aragorn and Arwen’s romance. The relaxation of voice-leading is rein­
forced by the overall harmonic exhalation, a kind of global SLIDE (S) from the dark A mi­
nor to the softly lit warmth of A♭/G♯ major—shown with the vertical transformation arrow
between m. 1 and m. 7. This SLIDE is achieved not by direct motion, but by parsimonious
recasting of E as LP-partner of A♭/G♯ (not, as one might expect in a functional setting, as
an unrealized dominant of A minor). Perhaps the finest touch is how the LP bringing
about the destination key occurs at the moment Arwen begins whispering to Aragorn in
Elvish instead of speaking in English. It is a model usage of a major-mode major-mediant
progression to suggest otherworldliness and enchantment.

Common tone–retaining operations such as realized in Shore’s Fellowship of the Ring

score are esteemed highly by analysts in repertoires where harmonic shifts—and so it is
argued, harmonic coherence—are accomplished with parsimonious voice-leading. That so
much of Hollywood-style chromaticism hews closely to these conditions says as much
about the general desire for linear clarity, or a tactile affinity for certain routines at key­
board/guitar, as it does the inherent structure of the LPRSN group. However, film com­
posers have never felt beholden to principles of common practice voice-leading, such as
prohibitions against parallel 8ves and 5ths or avoidance of jumpy bass lines. Considerable
swathes of many scores from even the most “classically” trained composers may contain

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

nothing but root position triads. Block-like shuffling of chords, transpositional shifts, and
invariant chordal inversions are all common traits of film music, which together should
steer us from any reflexive “smoothness = coherence” outlook. Rather, we ought to enter­
tain surface roughness as a compositional choice to be integrated, not ignored or reduced
away, within a transformational analysis.

Example 6 : Herrmann, registral displacement maxi­

mizing disjunction in motif from Mysterious Island.

Thankfully, NRT need not deal solely with literal surface smoothness. It can handle implic­
it (or “abstract”) parsimony when physical voice-leading consists in something other than
a series of clean scootches by little increments. Indeed, LPR compounds quickly generate
triadic relations with no common tones. For such rough or “extravagant”32 relations, one
has the option of casting them as compounds of LPR, or inventing a unary operation that
captures their behavior if tonal context deems them “basic” or “directly intelligible.”33
Linear smoothness should be evaluated along a continuum that can convey dramatic or
symbolic meaning. As witnessed in “Aniron,” tightly voice-led passages can map onto
states of relaxation or effortlessness, while rough progressions (either complex com­
pounds or bumpily led NROs) may project effort, tension, or intensification, particularly if
triadic mode remains invariant. The effect need not be understated as it was during
Aragorn’s nocturnal tryst. Take the motivic cell from Herrmann’s Mysterious Island
analyzed in Example 6. The tritonal and hexatonic pole progressions are already complex
by dint of their lengthy concatenation of NROs, but Herrmann magnifies the disjunction
between each by placing chords in differing octaves (indicated with bracketed T-12
transformations). The play with register erases any trace of implicit semitonal voice-lead­
ing and evokes a feeling of inassimilable enormity and otherness.

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

Example 7 : James Horner, passage from “You Don’t

Dream in Cryo,” from Avatar.

Image 4 : Massive strip mining revealed on Surface

of Pandora.

An extended passage James Horner’s recent score to Avatar (2008, dir. James Cameron)
demonstrates how pronounced motion along the spectrum of smooth⬄rough voice-lead­
ing can serve formal and expressive ends. Example 7 provides a heavily reduced tran­
scription of a portion of the film’s first cue “You Don’t Dream in Cryo,” which occurs dur­
ing an arrival sequence on the alien jungle planet of Pandora. This musical material
scores Jake’s (Sam Worthington) preparations for landing, followed by panoramic track­
ing shot of the arrival, including reveals of the massive ecological devastation to Pandora
already wrought by Jake’s military unit. The conclusion of the passage matches the dis­
patching of the unit onto the planet’s surface. A cursory glance at Horner’s music reveals
it is about as far from idealized voice-leading smoothness as is possible without sounding
successive chords in different octaves and voicings. Every triad is in root position, even
those easily connectable by unary operators, and the first fifteen are all voice-led by brute
transposition, with no attempt to convey contrapuntal independence among interior voic­
es. So much for maximal smoothness!

Measures 1–7 of Example 7 accompany the sight of Jake suiting up prior to his disembark­
ing on Pandora. This stretch contains both the roughest voice-leading and the most thor­
oughgoing triadic chromaticism, with each root relationship following the mostly third-
driven melody in doggedly anti-functional fashion. Only the transformations R and RPL
could conceivably occupy a diatonic space, and surrounded by so many chromatic pro­
gressions, they sound as tonally unanchored as anything else. Yet even within this thicket

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

of parallel voice-leading, a neo-Riemannian methodology can reveal significant aspects of

tonal design. Among the first things noticeable from the analysis is the near complete
avoidance of transformational repetition. Even as the “melody” [pc 0-4-7-2-5, 1-4-8-2-5,
E-2-6 …] adheres to a roughly predictable contour, the chords that decorate it do not. Just
as very few triads are heard repeatedly, only one of the nine intertriadic moves are used
on more than one occasion. This is RP, shifting minor triads up by m. 3, which by m. 7
lends a light octatonic feel to the overall progression. Harmonic density amidst linear
bumpiness is an apt means of reinforcing the affect of the scene. The rigidity of triadic
motion aligns with the feeling of imposed militarized order. But that order chafes against
the inbuilt apprehension of the tonally ungrounded—and actively parsimony-resistant—
progression. Small vacillations in the degree of transformational complexity contribute to
the mood of suspense-despite-regimentation. The most parsimonious move, the S in m. 3,
provides a momentary sigh within the larger musical sentence, but its calming effect is
neutralized as it matches an ancillary character’s reference to the threat of death (a nice
instance among many in modern film music of the SLIDE-relation associating with mortal­
ity or the uncanny).

The arrival at the next portion of this musical paragraph, mm. 7–9, continues this play
with of parsimony and roughness for dramatic effect. A PL progression initiates the new
section, just as it did in m. 1, and corresponds to the opening of a new vista: the reveal of
staggering ecological devastation on the surface of Pandora. A shot of the denuded land­
scape is lingered upon, giving Horner a chance to arrest harmonic momentum with a
twice-repeated E♭-min⇨D-maj⇨D-min oscillation (driven by SP). This creates another
“smooth” respite that nevertheless highlights tonal polarization with its repetition of
semitonal major/minor clashes. Measures 10–16 introduce a distinctly different texture
and harmonic logic. Here a more active and teleologically driven melody focuses the tonal
trajectory into diatonic territory (possibly even monotonal territory in B minor). Horner
ushers the music first in another characteristic L oscillation, and then through a series of
downwards diatonic thirds (L∙R∙L∙R∙LR) all the way to D. This final section, smoother by
virtue of both transformational simplicity and a common-tone preserving melody, pro­
vides at last a sense of tonal groundedness, fittingly matching the spacecraft’s landing.
The downward-chaining of diatonic thirds and the steadily arching melody also suits the
increasing sentimentality of the scene, which ends with Jake reminiscing about how “one
life ends, another begins.” As the ship’s crew disembarks on the planet for ethically ques­
tionable purposes, radical ambivalence is once again thrown in the mix with a long drawn
out S-oscillation that concludes the paragraph.

IV. Tonal Agnosticism

Until the ending of this passage from the Avatar, a sense of stable key is totally absent.
The constantly shifting harmonic focus precludes a robust sense of modulation, which re­
quires a cadentially signaled or literally prolonged tonic in the first place. The lack of
functional progressions also frustrates and ultimately obviates any definitive enharmonic
spelling for chords; for example, the move in m. 3 could just as justifiably been spelled D-
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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

min⇨C♯-maj with no meaningful change to the analysis, nor the aural impression of the
music. As actions on pitch classes rather than diatonically specified notes, the neo-Rie­
mannian operators are strictly noncommittal with regard to enharmonic spelling. This
strategic underdetermination frees the analyst from some of the most vexing problems in­
herent in analyzing chromatic music. By attending to abstract relations between triads
(be they conceived as inversions, displacements, or smoothly accomplished transposi­
tions), one is allowed to skirt issues of function, tonal weight, and prolongation that are
so often the cause of analytic capsizing in the turbulent waters of triadic chromaticism.
That is not to say that a tonic is necessarily absent in a passage described by NRT analy­
sis; indeed, some of the excerpts already investigated here bear a trace of tonal hierar­
chy. Rather, such “tonal agnosticism” allows one to concentrate to other musical features
which may be more pertinent to a film musical analysis, without having to claim every un­
usual progression is a cryptically altered diatonic motion or full-blown modulation. This
agnostic attitude is at its most liberating when multiple chromatic transformations might
otherwise demand answers to sticky questions of enharmonic identity, even when the mu­
sic is telling us that diatonic scale degrees, or indeed, tonic orientation itself, are not
strongly in operation. 34

The advantage of tonal agnosticism can be seen with the Mysterious Island fanfare al­
ready analyzed in Example 3a. Approaching the progression with the expectation that its
constituents prolong one or more keys leads to being bogged down with unanswerable
questions of

and so on. These tortured attempts to foist the structure of roman numeral space on a re­
fractory progression leave us spinning in interpretive circles and tell us nothing about the
actually pertinent qualities of the motif: that it is powered by two parsimonious third rela­
tions of differing size (m3 and M3) that together enable an P5-m6-P5 outer-voice pattern
and a semitonal descent of both melody and fundamental bass.

While passages where functionality cedes analytic importance to transformational struc­

ture are common in film music (Examples 3 and 7 also behave mostly this manner), quite
often we are confronted by stretches of underscore in which chromatic and diatonic log­
ics interact in a meaning-generating way. Composers are quick to exploit the overlap of
harmonic domains thanks to the potent ingredients of tonal associativity: the linkage of
functional tonality, even in the most chromatic settings, with stability and normality and
nondiatonic harmony with instability and difference. The push and pull of different modes
of triadic organization can be observed in Alfred Newman’s music to Song of Bernadette
(1943, dir. Henry King). Bernadette is a religious drama chronicling the visions of the Vir­
gin Mary allegedly witnessed by a French teenager, Bernadette Soubirous, in the mid-
nineteenth century. Newman employs the same deeply mannered late-Romantic language
that was second nature to composers of Hollywood’s Golden Age, and the score reflects
this aesthetic with its antique church-modal-meets-Mahler tonal rhetoric. It is a highly apt

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

hybrid idiom, allowing Newman to suggest spiritual transcendence through means well
described by neo-Riemannian analysis.

Example 8a : Alfred Newman, reveal of Virgin Mary,

from Song of Bernadette.

Image 5 : Virgin Mary’s F-major reveal.

Throughout The Song of Bernadette, Newman employs a clever strategy to evoke encoun­
ters of the human and divine: the alternation of modal and chromatic intervals between
chords. “Modal” here is taken to include harmonic relationships available through the di­
atonic collection but not necessarily incorporating clear tonal function. In transformation­
al terms, such moves are describable by a compounding of L and R but not P relations.
Bernadette’s first vision of the Marian miracle, near a secluded grotto, is telegraphed
with the passage reproduced in Example 8a below. The reveal of the figure of the Virgin
(Image 5) synchronizes with a blazing B♭ major triad, the telic achievement of the music’s
mounting volume and orchestral register. Indirect though it is, the overall progression is
from F major to B♭ major. (Not pictured is a strong cadence into F-maj before the first
measure.) The musical vision thus bears the residue of a customary dominant⇨tonic mo­
tion. Nonetheless, the succession is driven by a heaven-striving melodic line (C6 to B♭6)
and the alternation of modal and chromatic moves—not any innate need to cadence. The
seemingly atonal bass contributes to the impression of a forcible sundering of high and
low, base(/bass) and empyrean. Despite its picturesque quality, however, the cello line can
be treated as harmonically inessential, adorning more fundamental triadic pitches with
piquant unresolved neighbors.

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

Example 8b : Analysis of reveal of Virgin Mary in

Song of Bernadette.

The transformational analysis of Example 8b shows how the division of earthly and divine
musical parameters plays out on a horizontal as well as vertical plane. With two PLs and
a mighty tritonal RPRP, the first, third, and fifth chromatic transformations tug the tonal
field away from any stable diatonic collection. Transformations 2 and 4, by contrast, ges­
ture back toward diatonic firmament, even if the keys they specify are underdetermined.
For this reason, any feasible roman numeral routines are left in scare quotes and are as­
signed more neutral “modal” Tn-type operations.

The progression that supports this revelation is transitional, preparing as it does the first
major statement of Bernadette’s vision theme in B♭. Newman, however, goes on to cir­
cumvents the typical strategy of Classical-era scoring in which triadic chromaticism hap­
pens only during transitions and diatonic harmony and monotonality reign over thematic
statements. Instead, Bernadette’s theme is itself intensely chromatic, and the cue loosens
its grip on B♭ almost immediately after the key is captured, modulating widely for the re­
maining two minutes of the teenager’s holy visitation. When inspected in terms of overall
progress from one key area to another, Newman’s cue shows a similar pattern to the sur­
face-level alternation observed in the “Reveal” progression.

Example 8c : Tonal design of entire “first vision” cue.

Example 8c provides an overview of the entire tonal trajectory of the scene, from the
tonally hazy material that precedes the reveal through the capture of B♭ and subsequent
peregrinations, all the way to the conclusive E major. The mix of solid and broken lines re­
flects aspects of the cue’s tonal design. Dotted nodes, such as surround F♯ and C♯, entail
weakly articulated tonal centers, and dotted arrows connect portions of the cue where
the relevant transformation is not heard literally (that is, there is intervening material
that separates tonics). As with the “reveal progression” of Example 8b, the principal chro­
matic motion is that of the mode-retaining major third progression. Similarly shared with
8b is the balanced admixture of chromatic and modal shifts, although here they are ac­
complished through medium-scale modulations rather than immediate chordal alter­
ations. The only break in the pattern, the move from G♭ to G, is more of a synthesis of the
two tonal strategies, a functionally explicable but nevertheless nondiatonic surprise ca­
dence into G major. It is with touches like this, stratifying and synthesizing modal and

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

chromatic impulses, that Newman is able so evocatively to paint a musical portrait of the
humble teenager’s mystical ecstasy.

V. Symmetry

Example 9a : Hyper-Hexatonic system.

Example 9b : Hyper-Octatonic system.

Because the basic units of neo-Riemannian analysis are mode-flips and third relations, the
symmetrical scale partitions that result from their iterations are accorded great theoreti­
cal emphasis. Symmetry has tremendous advantages for organizing disparate-seeming
components of music, and it is an analytic aspiration, acknowledged or not, of almost any
transformational network. The cycles most familiar to chromatic theory include the hexa­
tonic (iterated LP/PL) and octatonic (RP/PR) systems, as well as Weitzmann regions (NR/

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

RN) and the region that cycles through all six triads sharing a single pitch class (LPRL­
PR/PLRPLR/RLPRLP).35 Example 9 shows the layout of first two of these symmetrical
spaces, using the conventionalized nomenclature for constituent cycles within the hyper
hex- and octatonic universe (cardinal directions for the former, unique pitch class content
for the latter). Segments of these cycles can be found in all eras and styles of film music.
Though less common, complete cyclical rotations are notable elements of the scores from
several composers like Miklós Rózsa and Jerry Goldsmith, who make heavy use of octa­
tonic and hexatonic materials. Very often, cyclical completion is not so much the driving
force of underscore as it is a by-product of the reinforcement and affective redoubling of
single progression through repetition. When many of these progressions are linked, the
result can have pronounced effects on the perceived temporal flow of a scene. With the
right texture and pacing, harmonic symmetry can make cinematic time seem to stand still
due to the uniformity of tonal procedures, or to speed up with the constant intensification
that comes from iterated chromatic patterns.

Octatonic Ladders in Back to the Future

The lure of octatonicism has held a special sway over film composers since the silent era.
The cinematic ubiquity of octatonic materials (anything deriving from the set
<0134679T>) owes much to the retention of Classical/Romantic associations surrounding
the diminished seventh sonority, that reliable common practice capsule of maximized tert­
ian dissonance and ambiguity. Used very much like an attention-grabbing “stinger” (to
borrow film musicological terminology) in Mozart and Beethoven, the diminished seventh-
as-shock-chord was already becoming a clichéd resource in the time of Schubert and
Berlioz.36 Outworness had little effect in dissuading film composers from its employment,
however. Composed-out diminished seventh chords are a predictable standby in music
from the earliest scores and countless silent music anthologies with conventionalized mu­
sical topics—mysteriosos, hurries, fights, storms, struggles, and so on.37 While the tremo­
lo dim sevenths of the proverbial damsel-tied-to-railway scene are far too imprinted by
“old fashioned” and “corny” associations for today’s filmgoers, composers still make use
of the underlying logic of stacked minor thirds and tritones to generate unbearable ten­
sion.

Alan Silvestri’s scores from the 1980s and 1990s contain some of the most thoroughgoing
octatonicism in modern Hollywood. Soundtracks for films of as diverse genres as Preda­
tor, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Death Becomes Her, and Contact are in places saturated
with the collection. A distinctly Stravinskyian rhythmic and motivic sensibility betrays a
probable inspiration for much of Silvestri’s octatonic music, though by the late 1990s the
Russian influences are so thoroughly integrated into Silvestri’s own tuneful style that
there is little point in drawing connections between, say, a tense cue such as Contact’s
“Good To Go” and the Symphony in Three Movements.38 As we find in Stravinsky,
Silvestri’s octatonic sonorities are often dissonant set classes rather than pure triads.
This poses a problem for neo-Riemannian analysis, which is configured to deal with
(037)s. Still, the central concerns of NRT—enharmonicism, voice-leading, symmetry and

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

balance, harmonic space, and non-diatonic but tertian organization—remain operative,

and thus offer a constructive investigative avenue into Silvestri’s oeuvre.

Minor third–derived sonorities and transformations infuse several cues from Silvestri’s
most famous score, Back To The Future (1985, dir. Robert Zemeckis), most notably the
lengthy action set piece “The Libyans” from the film’s first act. In the scene in question,
the mad scientist Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) and his spirited protégé Marty McFly
(Michael J. Fox) prepare for Brown’s inaugural visit to the future via his time machine–
equipped DeLorean. The launch is interrupted when a van full of Libyans, incensed by
Doc Brown’s theft of their plutonium, shoot and kill Brown and pursue McFly (Image 6).
The hero escapes by accelerating the DeLorean to its maximum speed, triggering its
time-travel mechanism and hurtling him into the past, just in the nick of time.

Example 10 : Alan Silvestri, cell from “The

Libyans” (Event d. to f.), from Back to the Future.

Images 6a and b : The Libyans’ untimely arrival.

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

Silvestri’s music for the scene, almost five straight minutes, is as suffused with octatoni­
cism as stock piano music for a train chase in 1915—although without ever outright stat­
ing a diminished seventh chord. Nor does Silvestri take the route accustomed from a
composer such as Rózsa and employ direct RP/PR progressions to transit between m3-re­
lated chords. Instead, to continually ramp up musical urgency, he employs a more funda­
mentally transpositional, rather than smoothly displacemental, technique of harmonic
transformation. Musical cells, such as the one reproduced in Example 10, contain equal
parts melodic octatonicism (such as the T6-alternating ostinato bass), chordal superimpo­
sition (such as the overlaid and E and B♭ chords in m. 6) and incremental transposition up
m. 3 (such as with the shift from C♯ to E to G). The seven measures of Example 10
accompany a moment of rapidly escalating tension, with the T3 from C♯ to E correspond­
ing with the antagonists aiming their weapons at Doc Brown, and the parallel move up to
G matching the realization that Brown’s pistol has no ammunition.

Example 11 : Reduction of “The Libyans.”

The continual transference up the E-G-B♭-C♯ octatonic ladder is the tonal basis for
Silvestri’s cue on several levels. Example 11 provides a reduction of the harmonic content
for the entirety of “The Libyans,” along with indications of the shifts in dramatic action
that occur at each carefully aligned synch point. Many of the reduced sonorities are not
literal simultaneities but prominent horizontalized portions of the octatonic scale. Until
event q., Silvestri’s pitch materials remain almost exclusively in the <1,2> octatonic col­
lection. Also essentially invariant is the transpositional scheme. From events b. to j. and l.
to o., the cue rotates around this collection more than three full times, spending almost
75 percent of its duration looping up this minor third cycle.

With this high degree of harmonic and motivic uniformity, any pattern-breaking progres­
sion becomes highly salient. Instances of interruption, resumption, and recasting of cycli­
cal processes are critical devices for breathing dramatic variety into the repetitiousness
of symmetry-driven sequences, and Silvestri recruits all three as the cue proceeds. The
first major instance of interruption/resumption occurs precisely at the moment of tragic
surprise of Doc Brown’s death (events j. through l.). This shocking twist forces a brief re­
versal of direction along the octatonic ladder, with a T9 dragging the B♭ bass back to its
predecessor G. It is a rather literal “setback” in the otherwise ineluctable T3 climb toward
the scene’s telos of arriving in the future.

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

The octatonic engine does not break down with Brown’s death but quickly resumes its
revolutions as soon as Marty evades the assailants after event k. The cycle does change
character dramatically at this stage, however. The second large formal segment of “The
Libyans” (shown in the lower system of the reduction, starting with event q.) gradually
breaks free of the established pattern once Marty’s heroics install a more optimistic, if
still highly tense, tone to the scene. This is accomplished through a variety of tonal and
thematic devices. First, Silvestri performs a hypermodulation to transfer the accustomed
oct <1,2> collection to the fresh <0,2> (or F-A♭-B-D) system, switching ladders as it were
and recasting the cue’s tonal “background” up a literal T1. Newly major-hued vertical
harmony and more conventional functional progressions also begin to take effect at event
r. The upwards T3’s return at event s., but with inverted major triads separated by whole-
tone passing chords. These are clear indicators that the film’s heroic and lydian-inflected
main theme is increasingly asserting itself over the cue’s erstwhile m. 3 intervallic obses­
sions.

The moment of cyclical completion arrives at event t., back to F major, heralded by a blaz­
ing but truncated statement of the main theme. This is a fitting harmonic telos by virtue
of its synthesis of lydian, octatonic, and functional diatonic tonal components. The cycle is
not quite done however, and one final upward twist greets the ultimate threat: a rocket
launcher aimed at McFly. Even so, the sense of musical danger has greatly dissipated by
this point. A newly strong sense of linear parsimony (indicated by the use of LRP
compounds for the first time in the analysis) helps to support this first diegetic statement
of the main theme. A♭ major is established at event v. and does not loosen its hold for the
remainder of the cue, even projecting a shade of traditional diatonic prolongation be­
tween v. and z.. A last burst of octatonic panic at event y. matches the last-ditch threat
that the escape vehicle will not successfully travel back in time in time, but an instanta­
neous success chord of A♭ at z. insures that all is well.

Hexatonic Gyrations in The Sea Hawk

Whereas the octatonic scale and associated progressions has held a lingering grip on film
composers due to its connection with suspense, its sister collection, the hexatonic
(<014589>) has retained Romantic connotations with magic, mystery, and the otherword­
ly.39 Chromatic major third progressions pepper scores from all sorts of genres and eras;
the superhero, fantasy, and historical drama examples from Williams, Shore, and New­
man already discussed derive much of their harmonic suggestiveness in PL and PLP. Just
as the octatonic sound is linked with the crunchy diminished seventh, the distinctive qual­
ity of the augmented triad—that famously disorienting and ambivalent sonority—con­
tributes much to hexatonicism’s fascination for film composers. Hexatonic progressions,
cycles, and cycle segments abound where film composers seek to evoke the fantastic.
When conjoined with certain stereotyped modulatory techniques, these types of progres­
sions make up a considerable portion of what some intuitively might call the “film music
sound.” Yet hex materials are not limited to moments of extremity or strangeness; in the

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

hands of some composers, a PL may be all that is needed to lend extra verve to a swag­
gering swashbuckler leitmotif or sweep to a swooning love theme.

Example 12 : Erich Wolfgang Korngold, assorted

hexatonic materials from Sea Hawk action music.

Example 12a: Downward surface-level M3 cycle in

“The Battle.”

Example 12b : Upwards phrase-level M3 cycle in

“The Battle.”

Example 12c : Whole-tone surface-level melodic se­

quence and downward overall M3 progression in
“The Duel.”

Example 12d : Downward surface-level M3 cycle in

“The Duel.”

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

Image 7 : The Sea Hawk opening naval battle and fi­

nal duel.

One of the most impressive instances of hexatonic magic in film music is Erich Wolfgang
Korngold score to The Sea Hawk (1940, dir. Michael Curtiz), a rip-roaring nautical adven­
ture starring Errol Flynn as the English privateer Geoffrey Thorpe. Throughout the
soundtrack, hexatonic organization steers the musical fore- and shallow middle-ground.
This can be observed especially in his music for action scenes, in which brief M3 cycles
govern the musical surface while stepwise intensificatory modulations and interjections
of heroic diatonic themes direct the cue’s overall tonal course. Example 12 presents a
small gallery of short extracts from two fight sequences, the first the film’s opening naval
battle and the second the climactic duel (Images 7). A variation on The Sea Hawk’s main
“Romance theme,” (explored in depth further on), Example 12a spirals down the G-E♭-B
augmented triad (of the Western system). Ex 12b sends a more extended thematic idea up
the D-F♯-B♭ (southern) circle of major thirds, connecting tonics indirectly through a deft
chromatic modulation. The measure-long sequence of Example 12c, from the final combat
scene, accomplishes an overall shift down one major third, from E to C, during its course.
Rather than pure hexatonicism, the overriding tonal force is its constantly ascending
whole-tone scales, products of melodic M2 + M2 trichords racing above a restless triton­
al sequence below. Example 12d, perhaps the most straightforwardly (048)-spawned mo­
tif in the score, simply races down the (northern) C-A♭-E chord, though the bass line,
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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

working in contrary motion, provides a non-augmented (but still firmly hexatonic) sup­
porting edifice. Collectively, these motifs supply tonal disorientation and turbulence for
their scenes of swashbuckling excitement. Each dashes from one barely established tonal
center to another, resting on one chordal footing only for as long as it takes to make the
swing over to a new one.

Example 13 : Korngold, Sea Hawk romance theme.

Given the pugnacious provenance of these motifs, it may come as a surprise that the ulti­
mate source for hexatonic materials in The Sea Hawk’s score is a sweeping lyrical melody
heard in the main title cue, reproduced in Example 13. The broad rounded binary/small
ternary form, scored with soaring strings and luscious homophonic accompaniment,
stands in affective contrast to both the fight music motives above and to the heroically
brash A theme that precedes it in the titles. This “Romance Theme” offers a prime in­
stance of the contrastingly melodious second-theme paradigm de rigueur for main title
cues in Classical Hollywood.40 Swooning lyricism does not equate with diatonicism here,
however: the musical idea is hexatonic from top to bottom, with the western hexatonic
system (E♭-G–B) guiding almost every move on the fore-, middle- and background levels.

The theme’s ostensible tonic is the B major that initiates each of its two phrases, yet its
upper major mediant, E♭, encloses it at both ends. Measures 1–3 of Example 13, the tran­
sitional tail end of the heroic A theme, showcase a prolongation of E♭ by a brisk major
third cycle through G and B major. E♭ also serves as the modulatory goal for the theme’s
second half, and following its capture in m. 15, is solidified with an restatement of the
title’s heroic fanfare in that key. The entire segment of the main title has something of an
LP∙PL(E♭) background. Closer to the surface, the independent keys Korngold traverses
within each phrase also fall entirely within the western hexatonic compass. Even the dom­
inant thirteenth chords that facilitate the sequencing at the end of the second phrase
serve as much as first-inversion hexatonic mediants as root-position dominants, and they
support a melody made up of the pitches of the <37E> augmented triad. Although a
handful of surface level harmonies behave diatonically, they serve to tonicize G, B, or E♭,
leading to an overall impression of unadulterated hexatonic magic.

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

Example 14a : Analysis of m. 4–8.

Example 14b : Analysis of mm. 8–11.

Examples 14a through 14c convert these observations into transformation networks, all of
which use the six-sided outline of the western hexatonic system as their scaffolding. As in
previous networks, implied but indirect connections are conveyed through dotted arrows.
New to these diagrams is the addition of small triadic nodes that house chords not strictly
within the governing space of the network; these account for the occasional dominants
and predominants that secure various pegs along the hexatonic cycle but do not draw
their pitches from it. For clarity’s sake, functioning dominants are housed “inside” the
hexagon and predominants outside of it. With measures 4–8, charted in Ex 14a, it is evi­
dent that the first pass through this network is a complete B⇨G⇨E♭…. A dotted arrow
summarizes the trajectory of measures 3–5, which on their surface rely on the insertion
temporary non-hex chords to stretch out the span between E♭ and B major. The second

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

phrase is a varied repetition of the first that sees the extra-hexatonic F-minor triad land­
ing on B minor rather than G minor; this shift signals realignment of the rotation through
the western hex system from clockwise to counterclockwise. Otherwise, B minor behaves
much as G did in the previous pass, acting as a functioning predominant en-route to a
hasty cadential affirmation of G major.

Example 14c : Analysis of mm. 12–18.

As Example 14c shows, the longer consequent phrase for the theme (mm. 12–18), makes
good on this reversal of direction, depositing the listener first in B and then in E♭ once
again, both of which are prepared similarly to G by their own personal dominants (which
are effectively hexatonic slash-chords). In fact, Korngold’s systematized visitation of these
three dominant chordal roots creates its own implicit internal major third cycle, a cir­
cuitous hopscotch from D to F♯ to B♭, which suggests an enclosed, hierarchically lower
eastern hex system. With a little additional diatonic meandering around E, Korngold
wraps up his theme and prepares for the resumption of the A theme.

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

Example 15 : “Background” analysis of entire Sea

Hawk romance theme.

To synthesize the rotations that each segment takes through hexatonic space, Example 15
offers an overall analysis of the romance theme. Visits to non-B/E♭/G-major pegs are elid­
ed to provide the clearest picture of how the hexatonic way stations form the basis of the
theme’s symmetrical gyrations. All told, there are six successive full or partial (including
dotted arcs) rotations through the western hexatonic system, represented by the six con­
centric loops that encircle B, E♭, and G. Loop size corresponds purely with chronology.
Motions within the theme (everything from mm. 4–18) are demarcated by their occur­
rence within the blue hexagon, a matter of pure graphical convenience to segregate it
from the pre-theme third progressions that get the ball rolling in mm. 1–3.

What is remarkable about the tightly coiled hexatonicism evinced by this background lev­
el network is not its total referability to a single symmetrical space per se. Passages of
comparably thorough hexatonicism are widespread in the Romantic repertoire and have
already been well-dissected by neo-Riemannian analysts. What distinguishes Korngold’s
Sea Hawk theme and many other works in the larger Hollywood harmonic practice is the
fashion in which pan-triadic chromaticism is accommodated seamlessly into a formally
straightforward—and singable—melodic structure. The transformational corkscrews here
are not tonal special effects as they so often are in Romantic musical rhetoric—the famil­
iar Lisztian modulations, Schubertian transitions, Brucknerian sequences, or Wagnerian
continuous stretches of developmental prose. Rather, they are essential and smoothly as­
similated components of the very fabric of a lyrical theme, replacing diatonic logic on all
but the most superficial levels. Even though the example comes from an extra-narratival
overture rather than diegetic underscore, its incorporation of neo-Riemannian transfor­
mations is emblematic of Hollywood chromaticism in general. Absent common-practice
regulative musical syntaxes such as monotonality or long-range prolongation, chromati­
cism in film music frequently finds a way to penetrate many levels of musical structure.
Best of all for filmgoers, this is done without losing any of the associative “oomph” that

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

attracts so many dramatically minded composers to symmetrical progressions in the first

place.

VI. Prospects
I have argued here that the range of applications of transformational thinking and neo-
Riemannian tools to film music analysis is promisingly wide. The prospects for further re­
search uniting NRT and film musicology are bright—for several reasons brighter than
previous attempts to bring the traditional concerns of music theory to cinema sound­
tracks. Unlike the scattered attempts to incorporate Schenkerian thought to film score
analysis during the 1970s through 1990s, the present moment seems poised to witness
healthy expansion and development in “film music theory.”41 In particular, neo-Riemann­
ian theory is sufficiently novel to be a source of excitement to many theorists, but, with
the publication of several dedicated monographs/anthologies and routine conference pan­
els, it has matured out of its stage of scholarly growing pains. Elements of NRT are wide­
ly taught and understood, in some locations even at the undergraduate level. Something
similar is true of film musicology, which is now firmly established and enjoying remark­
able growth, albeit with still little in the way of contributions from music theorists. That
so much of the most characteristic music of the silver screen conforms smoothly to the
analytic desiderata of transformation theory makes the union of these two disciplines a
natural and encouraging development.

Much remains to be done before something like “transformational film music theory” can
be trumpeted. Although I have outlined some of the ways in which the technical machin­
ery of NRT can contribute to our understanding of film musical structure (and vice versa),
the value of transformational thinking goes far beyond the recognition of combinatoriali­
ty, parsimony, enharmonicism, or symmetry in film music. Among the largely unexplored
avenues that theorists and film musicologists can most productively investigate:

1. Stylistic evolution. Film music practice is no more a unified idiom than nine­
teenth century Romanticism. Indeed, because of variety of dramatic purposes/genres
and national subcultures, it contains within it a far greater eclecticism in its styles
and methods than practically any arbitrary span of previous music history. An impor­
tant contribution neo-Riemannian methods can offer, then, is the tracking of differ­
ences across practices, both in place and time. Where one progression falls out of fa­
vor and another takes its place, when certain linear routines become a norm rather
than a special effect—these are stylistic questions that transformational theory is
primed to answer.
2. Aesthetics: The remarkable longevity of the fantastic associations of chromati­
cism should be plainly evident in the examples on display in this chapter. Less obvi­
ous is why triadic transformations should hold the affective sway they do in film mu­
sical practices. Rather than falling back on analytical bad habits, such as lumping all
mediant progressions together as “coloristic” or “bizarre,” transformational methods
can arrive at fine-tuned distinctions in quality and usage of harmonic routines. Such

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

work as Cohn’s semiotics of the hexatonic pole, Bribitzer-Stull’s on the Tarnhelm pro­
gression, Murphy’s work on many of the remaining progression classes, points to one
way in which an aesthetic of film harmony may benefit from transformational tools.
Other ways, suggested by the hermeneutic orientation of this chapter, may involve
investigating the relationship of voice-leading or symmetry to larger units of musical
discourse than the atoms of absolute progressions.
3. Non-triadic Harmony: Neo-Riemannian operators constrain one’s focus to mo­
tions between consonant triads. But film music draws on a much richer vocabulary of
sonorities than simple major and minor chords. Though the NROs offer less help
there, specialized operations for 7th chords (developed independently by several the­
orists) as well as generic transformational tools, such as GISes and Tn/In networks,
offer an auspicious way into the music of composers with complex harmonic lan­
guages, including the neglected figures of Leonard Rosenman, Jerry Fielding, David
Shire, and John Corigliano.
4. Nonc-chromatic Harmony: If a transformational theory can be applied to non-
triadic harmony, it can also be reconfigured to handle functional diatonic music—
which makes up the vast majority of non-genre film scoring—with equal facility. Dia­
tonic function was built into Lewin’s vision of transformational analysis from the be­
ginning, and recent work from Steven Rings indicates that tonality, viewed through a
transformational lens, can yield surprisingly deep (and, useful for film music,
hermeneutically rich) insights.
5. Score Analysis: The passages analyzed by neo-Riemannian theory tend to be re­
stricted in scope, demonstrating interesting features at the level of the progression
rather than larger scale formal units. While there are good reasons for this, mindful
application of transformational thinking to broader spans of musical content can pro­
vide a way to track patterns of change and evolution in the grosser components of a
film score (whole cues, or even soundtracks) while sidestepping fraught grounds of
searching for something like “a movie’s home key.”
6. Repertoires: Hollywood genre film proffered the bulk of the examples investigat­
ed in this chapter. However, generic domain—underanalyzed by theorists as it is—
makes up but one of the promising repertoires that these methods could benefit. Al­
ternative corpuses are an obvious place to start, including the huge worlds of inde­
pendent and international film. Television, a sister repertoire to film but one with
sometimes importantly different practices, is another. Video game music comprises
another area with emerging analytical literature that could profit from transforma­
tional approaches. Particularly because of their distinct modes of listening and tem­
porality, electronic games may generate insights into musical transformation unavail­
able to the linear structure shared by film and concert musics.

As music theory continues to healthily shed its preoccupation with western art musics in
favor of a more ecumenical purview, it is hoped that these sites for further investigation
(and many more in the vast universe of music for screen) will garner full treatments war­
ranted by their scope and relevance to contemporary listeners. Once momentum gathers
for analyzing film music, the prospect of delving into such a rewarding repertoire, so

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

close to home for many, should promise transformations of film musicology and theory un­
dreamt of even a decade ago. Film music will then finally no longer resemble an un­
touched “mysterious island” of a repertoire.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Alex Rehding, Christopher Hasty, and especially Scott Murphy for
their generous feedback and advice at various stages of this research.

Notes:

(1) Richard Cohn’s article, “An Introduction to Neo-Riemannian Theory: A Survey and His­
torical Perspective,” Journal of Music Theory 42.2 (1998), presents the domain of this the­
oretical system—both in terms of repertoire and conceptual apparatus—as squarely locat­
ed in the nineteenth century.

(2) A concise account of the origins of dualist thinking can be found in Henry
Klumpenhouwer’s “Dualist Tonal Space and Transformation in Nineteenth-Century
Thought,” in The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, ed. Thomas Christensen
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002). For an introduction to and reevalua­
tion of harmonic dualism in Riemann specifically, see Alexander Rehding, Hugo Riemann
and the Birth of Modern Musical Thought (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
2003). Contemporary defenses, critiques, and analytic applications of this highly con­
tentious theoretical attitude can be found, respectively, in Klumpenhouwer “Harmonic
Dualism as Historical and Structural Imperative”; Dmitri Tymoczko “Dualism and the
Beholder’s Eye: Inversional Symmetry in Chromatic Tonal Music”; and Rehding “Dualistic
Forms”, all in The Oxford Handbook to Neo-Riemannian Music Theories, ed. Alexander
Rehding and Edward Gollin (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011).

(3) See Edward Gollin, “From Matrix to Map: Tonbestimmung, the Tonnetz, and
Riemann’s Combinatorial Conception of the Interval,” in Oxford Handbook to Neo-Rie­
mannian Music Theories (OHTNRMT). Gollin locates the origins of Riemann’s symbolic
and combinatorial (and, for neo-Riemannians, protoalgebraic) representation of tone rela­
tions in the work of Moritz Drobisch. Nora Engebretsen discusses Riemann’s versatile
taxonomy of root-relations and their relation to current transformational attitudes in
“Neo-Riemannian Perspectives on the Harmonieschritte” in OHTNRMT. The “UTT” sys­
tem devised by Julian Hook in “Uniform Triadic Transformations,” Journal of Music Theo­
ry 46.1–2 (2002) presents the culmination of the Riemannian abstraction of harmonic pro­
gressions to algebraic functions.

(4) Background on tone networks and applications to modern transformational theories

can be found in Kevin Mooney, “The ‘Table of Relations’ and Music Psychology in Hugo
Riemann’s Harmonic Theory” (Ph.D. diss., New York, Columbia University, 1996) and

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

Gollin, “Representations of Space and Conceptions of Distance in Transformational

Theories” (Ph.D. diss., Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, 2000).

(5) The centrality of the romantic repertoire to NRT is clear in the objects of some of its
most notable analyses. These include Cohn, “As Wonderful as Star Clusters: Instruments
for Gazing at Tonality in Schubert,” Nineteenth-Century Music 22.3 (1999); David Lewin,
“Some Notes on Analyzing Wagner: The Ring and Parsifal,” 19th-Century Music 16.1
(1992); and all the case studies in David Kopp’s Chromatic Transformations in Nine­
teenth-Century Music (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

(6) The idea that non-monotonality and pervasive chromaticism in the nineteenth century
constitutes a genuinely distinct tonal mode of composition (and hearing) from common
practice tonality is explored in the essays of William Kinderman and Harald Krebs’ The
Second Practice of Nineteenth Century Tonality (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,
1996). This notion is further treated by Tymoczko, “Dualism and the Beholder’s Eye” and
Cohn, Audacious Euphony: Chromaticism and the Triad’s Second Nature (Oxford, UK: Ox­
ford University Press, 2012).

(7) The Lewinian attitude towards music as a product of active changes rather than dis­
crete objects is one of the most significant and enduring legacies of modern music theory;
its foundational text is Lewin, Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2007). Steven Rings’s work carries on this tradition strong­
ly, nicely outlining it in Tonality and Transformation (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press,
2011). The transformational stance is provided intellectual background in Klumpenhouw­
er, “In Order to Stay Asleep as Observers: The Nature and Origins of Anti-Cartesian in
Lewin’s GMIT,” Music Theory Spectrum 28.2 (2006), and problematized in Harrison,
“Three Short Essays on Neo-Riemannian Theory,” in OHTNRMT, 2011.

(8) See Guy Capuzzo, “Neo-Riemannian Theory and the Analysis of Pop-Rock Music,” Mu­
sic Theory Spectrum 26.2 (2004).

(9) See Maristella Feustle, “Neo-Riemannian Theory and Post-Bop Jazz: Applications of an
Extended Analytical Framework for Seventh Chords,” (PhD diss., Bowling Green Universi­
ty, 2005); Capuzzo, “Pat Martino and the ‘Nature of the Guitar’: An Intersection of Neo-
Riemannian Theory and Jazz Theory,” Music Theory Online 12.1 (2006); John Bishop, “A
Permutational Triadic Approach to Jazz Harmony and the Chord/Scale
Relationship,” (Ph.D. diss., Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University, 2012); and Sara Bri­
ginshaw, “A Neo-Riemannian Approach to Jazz Analysis,” Nota Bene: The Canadian Un­
dergraduate Journal of Research 5.1 (2012).

(10) See Harrison, “Three Essays,” and Timothy Johnson, John Adams’s Nixon in China
(Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2011).

(11) There is also good reason to expand NRT’s musical scope: it magnifies its pedagogi­
cal value for students more familiar with Radiohead than Reger. See, for example Nora
Engebretsen and Per Broman’s article “Transformational Theory in the Undergraduate

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

Curriculum: A Case for Teaching the Neo-Riemannian Approach,” Journal of Music Theo­
ry Pedagogy 21 (2007).

(12) All musical examples in this article are solely the product of the author’s own tran­
scription from film DVDs and soundtrack albums.

(13) One theorist who has contemplated the possibility of film-spanning tonal design is
Ronald Rodman. See Rodman, “Tonal Closure and Design in The Wizard of Oz,” Indiana
Theory Review (1998); and “Tonal Design and the Aesthetic of Pastiche in Herbert
Stothart’s Maytime” in Music and Cinema, ed. James Buhler et al. (Hanover, NH: Wes­
leyan University Press, 2000).

(14) David Neumeyer considers the standard categories of large-scale tonal structure in
light of the logistical demands of film composition. He concludes that projecting tonal
norms from concert music onto soundtracks is a questionable enterprise, one that should
be entertained only in exceptional cases and with an eye to music’s associational, rather
than abstract and teleological, qualities. See Neumeyer, “Tonal Design and Narrative in
Film Music: Herrmann’s A Portrait of Hitch and The Trouble with Harry,” Indiana Theory
Review (2001). For a perspective on classical cadential categories in film music, see
Lehman, “Hollywood Cadences: Music and the Structure of Cinematic Expectation,” Mu­
sic Theory Online 19.4 (2013).

(15) For a description of the state of music theory in film musicology, see Lehman, “Music
Theory Through the Lens of Film,” Journal of Film Music 5.1-2 (2013). A pandisciplinary
survey that includes reference to extant theory research in film studies can be found in
Robyn Stillwell, “Film Music Literature Review,” Journal of Film Music 1.1 (2002).

(16) What exists of a literature on transformational film music analysis is largely the prod­
uct of one theorist, Scott Murphy. Murphy’s primary line of research has been the appli­
cation of the Kurthian concept of “absolute progression” to film musical syntax. Repre­
sentative publications of his in this area include “The Major Tritone Progression in Re­
cent Hollywood Science Fiction Films” (Music Theory Online 12.2, 2006); “The Tritone
Within: Interpreting Harmony in Elliot Goldenthat’s Score for Final Fantasy: The Spirits
Within” in The Music of Fantasy Cinema, ed. Janet K. Halfyard (Sheffield: Equinox Pub­
lishing Ltd, 2012); “Transformational Theory and the Analysis of Film Music” in The Ox­
ford Handbook of Film Music Studies, ed. David Neumeyer (Oxford, UK: Oxford Universi­
ty Press, 2013); and “Scoring Loss in Recent Popular Film and Television,” Music Theory
Spectrum (forthcoming). The author’s own work on neo-Riemannian analysis of film mu­
sic can be found in Lehman, “Transformational Analysis and the Representation of Genius
in Film Music,” Music Theory Spectrum 35.1 (2013); “Reading Tonality Through Film:
Transformational Hermeneutics and the Music of Hollywood,” (Ph.D. diss., Cambridge,
MA, Harvard University, 2012); and “Frame-Scapes: Exploring Boundaries in Goldsmith’s
Star Trek,” Paper presented at New York Music and Moving Image Conference (May
2011).

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(17) Some forays into the aesthetics of film chromaticism include Royal Brown, Under­
tones and Overtones: Reading Film Music (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994);
Janet Halfyard, “Music Afoot: Supernatural Horror-comedies and the Diabolus in Musica”
in Music in The Horror Film, ed. Neil Lerner (New York: Routledge, 2009); and Ilario Me­
andri, “Dal Meraviglioso all’Antimusica su alcuni cliché del fantastico nel mainstream mu­
sicale hollywoodiano” in Suono/Immagine/Genere, ed. Ilario Meandri and Andrea Valle
(Turin: Kaplan, 2011).

(18) These are the only five operators that involve two or fewer semitonal displacements.
This accounts for the nonadmission of Cohn’s H(expole, e.g., C-maj⬄A♭-min) and my own
M(odalverwandt, e.g., C-maj⬄G-min), both of which have a voice-leading work value of 3.

(19) One could also incorporate nondualistic transformations into such an inventory.
These may be simple transpositions (Tn-type operations) or Lewinian diatonic-functional
transformations (such as DOM or MED). While such extended libraries of available moves
may have their uses in studies where functional tonicity is an important parameter, I fo­
cus on more purely chromatic passages (hence the more homogenous dualistic family).

(20) S, the so-called “SLIDE” relation, has the peculiar role of altering chord quality while
retaining the triadic third. This quality opens the door for a variety of interesting usages
and associations in film music, such as representation of dream-space in Hans Zimmer’s
Inception or undeath in James Newton Howard’s The Sixth Sense.

(21) The properties of generalized L, P, and R operators are explored in Cohn, “Neo-Rie­
mannian Operations, Parsimonious trichords, and Their “Tonnetz” Representations,” Jour­
nal of Music Theory 41.1 (1997); and Robert Morris, “Voice Leading Spaces,” Music Theo­
ry Spectrum 20.2 (1998).

(22) These two metrics do not always yield comparable distances. For example, the trans­
formation S has a unary word length but voice-leading work of two. Cohn (2012, 6–8) ex­
plores this important misalignment.

(23) See Gollin 2000 for an exhaustive exploration of the linkage of transformational
“word length” and aural complexity.

(24) Manifest similarities in orchestration and tonal vocabulary point toward an inspira­
tion from Vaughan Williams’s score to the 1948 film Scott of the Antarctic (and its resul­
tant adaptation in his Sinfonia Antartica). Vaughan Williams’s score is a feast of triadic
chromaticism that also inspired Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams’s compositional peer, on
several occasions.

(25) Besides its rich archaeology of a single progression, Cohn’s article, “Uncanny Resem­
blances: Tonal Signification in the Freudian Age,” Journal of the American Musicological
Society 57.2 (2004), is of significance for bringing semiotic and cultural perspectives into
what had previously been the fairly meaning-averse landscape of transformation theory.

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(26) The “Fortress” passage itself behaves this way at times. Melodic and linear forces
stitch together the chords between D♯ minor and G major more closely than the book-end
transformations, overriding some of the “complexity” of the interior RLRP
transformation. Of course, dynamics and especially orchestration play a role of equal im­
portance in establishing norms of distance and perspective in landscape music such as
this, and a more thorough analysis would certainly take their contributions into account.

(27) In his analysis of James Newton Howard’s Treasure Planet, Scott Murphy (2006)
treats the score’s emblematic progression, T6, in this way, as a leitharmonie that can be
transformationally varied without changing its ultimate referand.

(28) In a different setting, it could be labeled more simply still, with a transformation that
exchanges P5 related chords such as C-maj⬄G-min (a transformation I have elsewhere
called M, the “Modalverwandt,” inverting a triad about its dualistic “fifth”).

(29) The default space for network analysis among many neo-Riemannians has been the
symmetrical lattice known as the equal-tempered Tonnetz. While I rely on less predeter­
mined grids in this chapter, the Tonnetz can be a powerful tool. For a film musical applica­
tion, see Jamie Lynn Webster, “The Music of Harry Potter: Continuity and Change in the
First Five Films,” Ph.D. diss., Eugene, University of Oregon, 2009.

(30) Capuzzo 2004, 196–197.

(31) Capuzzo notes that the “passage is shot through with chromatic third relations and p
parsimony [literally sounded retention of common tones], a few octave doublings and reg­
ister shifts notwithstanding.” His reduction, which segregates the progression into three
registral streams, shows a taut semitonal continuity from sonority to sonority, especially
in the upper voices. Capuzzo’s analysis highlight the way in which chromatic mediants
are spawned from the treatment of individual voices; in this specific cue, the preponder­
ance of M3-related chords may be the result of the passage’s motivic derivation from the
“Rivendell” theme, which is comprised of little more than to LP related chords, each of
which is internally ornamented by a ^5-^♭6-^5 pattern (the essence of L).

(32) See Robert C. Cook, “Parsimony and Extravagance,” Journal of Music Theory 48.1
(2005).

(33) This is the tack taken by Kopp (2000, 166–169) in devising chromatic mediant pro­
gressions that rely on no intervening chords to garner their intelligibility. For example,
Kopp’s M relation links triads that may only share one common tone together (ex C-maj to
A♭-maj).

(34) Another upshot of this enharmonically liberated landscape is the ability to deal with
root progressions that hew to symmetrical partitions of the octave (the hex- and octatonic
cycles, namely) with far greater ease than diatonic theories of chromaticism are able to,
something that is explored in Section Vthis chapter.

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Film Music and Neo-Riemannian Theory

(35) Cohn presents something approaching a unified theory of triadic chromaticism using
these various cyclic transformations in Audacious Euphony (2012).

(36) Richard Taruskin’s article, “Chernomor to Kashchei: Harmonic Sorcery; Or,

Stravinsky’s Angle,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 38.1 (1985), stands as
the definitive study of the stylistic and associative aspects of the octatonic scale in the
nineteenth century, which he ascribes mostly to the music and theories of Russian nation­
alist composers, of which (early) Stravinsky was a member.

(37) Diminished sevenths pepper what is considered by many musicologists to be the

original film score, Saint-Säens’s L’Assassinat de duc de Guise of 1908. By the time of
Hans Erdmann’s Nosferatu in 1922, the device’s de rigueur status, particularly for horror
genre films, was truly solidified.

(38) See Halfyard 2009, 34–35, for more on the Silvestri/Stravinsky connection.

(39) Discussion and a number of archetypically fantastic examples can be found in Cohn,
“Maximally Smooth Cycles, Hexatonic Systems, and the Analysis of Late-Romantic Triadic
Progressions,” Music Analysis 15.1 (1996), and, regarding one particular hexatonic pro­
gression, Matthew Bribitzer-Stull, “From Nibelheim to Hollywood: The Associativity of
Harmonic Progression,” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Music
Theory, Baltimore (2007).

(40) The label romantic theme is adopted from Royal S. Brown, who calls it a “floating
theme … that attaches itself to various characters and situations” (Brown 1994, 98).

(41) Besides important work from Rodman (1998 and 2010) and especially Neumeyer
(1998), some Schenkerian and pseudo-Schenkerian endeavors include Alfred Cochran,
“Style, Structure, and Tonal Organization in the Early Film Scores of Aaron
Copland” (Ph.D. diss., Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1986), and George
Burt, The Art of Film Music (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1994).

Frank Lehman

Frank Lehman, Tufts University

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date: 29 August 2020