• The Musical Analogy
• David Bordwell
• Yale French Studies, No. 60, Cinema/Sound (1980), pp. 141-156

music film analogy enables thinking about film as interplay of formal systems rather than represntation of real

neumeyer and buhler articles "analytical and interpretive approaches..." good

how to but wealth of examples.  Genres and Source Music; Using Melody; Using Harmony; Using Rhythm; Using Orchestration. Also on recording and the business.

Melissa Ursula Dawn Goldsmith, Louisian State University and Agricultural and Mechancial College 2002

Fred Steiner, "What Were Musicians Saying About Movie Music During the First Decade of Sound? A Symposium of Selected Writings," 81-107.

Most frequently written about topics 1930-39 were "nature of film music and its integration with the other elements of cinema, problems of form and style, the status of the composer and his relationship with the film director, the attitudes of directors and producers toward music, the quality of current film scores, the opportunities for composers, and the pitfalls that might await them." (84) This selection focuses on functional and theoretical aspects and excludes "historical and biographical writings, discussions of composition methods or orchestration, special topics such as musicals and filmed opera, technical matters such as studio routine, recording and microphone technique, and, with a few exceptions, reviews of film scores." (84)

Darius Milhaud had written origianl scores for silent films, one of first to write about musical situation in earliets days of sound film.

Herman Closson in "The Case Against Gebrauchsmusik," Modern Music, 7/2, 15-19 (1930) discusses problem "It sometimes happens in the movies that the music suddenly asserts its rights, taking one away from the visual images into a blind world of sound." further mentions symphonic poem as regressive, mistakes of program music, hazardous impressionism.

Raybould, Britich composer for documentary films, complains of sound quality, banjo, plucked string and saxophone comee off ok but "There has as yet ben no film recording of an orchestra, or even a part of one, to my knowledge which can stand comparison with the standard tonequality of the best gramophone records." 1933 in Sight and Sound.

Virgil Thompson "To break the music with every shot or change of scene is an error and ineffective." MM: 188, 1933. echoed in coming years by Antheil, Calvocoressi and Sabaneev. problem of musical form/unity vs. visual/narrative variety.

Constant Lambert, British compower and conductor in book Music Ho! (1934): In spite of its ephemeral nature it is the only art whose progress is not at the moment depressing to watch...Films have the emotional impact for the twentieth century that operas had for the nineteenth. Pudovkin and Eisenstein are the true successors of Mussorgsky, D.W. Griffith is our Puccini, Cecil B. DeMille our Meyerbeer and Rene Clair our Offenbach. (260)

Maurice Jaubert, French composer of film music, and interesting character. "Into the raw materials of cinema - which acquire artistic meaning only from their relations to one another - music brings an unreal element which is bound to break the rules of objective realism...All its power of suggestion will serve to intensify and prolong that impression of strangeness, of departure from photographic truth, which th director is seeking." ("Music on the Screen" in Footnotes to Film, ed. Charles Davey, 1937, p. 109)

Hollywood composers Herbert Stothart (in Behind the Scenes, ed. Stephen Watts, 1939) and Ernst Toch (Modern Music 13/2, 1936) believed sound film could bring good music to "the masses." (102)

David Raksin's article "Holding a Nineteenth Century Pedal at Twentieth Century-Fox" an engaging tale of film scoring c. 1938.

Seven D. Wescott's "Miklos Rozsa's Ben-Hur:The Musical-Dramatic Function of the Hollywood Leitmotiv" a detailed blow-by-blow analysis.

Kalinak, "Mas Steiner and the Classical Hollywood Film Score: An Analysis of the Informer"

Rosar, "Stravinsky and MGM" 

first electronic music throughout; Barrons' "electronic tonalities"

Ernest Gold. 12-tone for nuclear reaction.

Verdi and Schoenberg in Bertolucci's 'The Spider's Stratagem'
Deborah Crisp; Roger Hillman
Music & Letters > Vol. 82, No. 2 (May, 2001), pp. 251-267

Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0027-4224%28200105%2982%3A2%3C251%3AVASIB%27%3E2.0.CO%3B2-O

Beginning Credits and Beyond: Music and the Cinematic Imagination in Echo

Claudia Gorbman, "Scoring the Indian: Music in the Liberal Western"

Paramount hired Antheil to do "modernistic" music - Antheil calls music in long Indian scenes "the works"

oscar nominated score, jerry fielding.  according to imdb "Inspired by Stravinsky's Histoire Du Soldat, and with a large orchestra supplying dense, yearning sound clusters, this remarkable work gives voice to both the characters' inner turmoil and the desolate Cornish landscapes of the film's setting." cf. wild bunch

discussed in Strains of Utopia

discussed in Strains of Utopia

significant score

first big score for tiomkin

cornerstone Hollywood Wesern score

cornerstone of Hollywood Western score

hans eisler

music, Marc Blitzstein (The Spanish earth), Hanns Eisler (The 400 million).

hans eisler

hans eisler

Hush, "Modes of Continuity in Schoenberg's Begleitmusik zu einer Lichtspielszene" suppl. to vol. 8 no. 1 (1984): 5.

accorrding to Ashby, Leonard Rosenman recomposed 2nd mvmt of Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta for planetarium scene

see Murray Pomerancee, "Find Release: 'Storm Clouds' and The Man Who Knew Too Much" in Music and Cinema

David Neumeyer, "Film Theory and Music Theory: On the Intersection of Two Traditions," in Music in the Mirror, ed. Andreas Giger and Thomas Mathiesen (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002), 275-294.

introductory. terminology.

entire issue

suggestions for accompanying silent films

film music aesthetics before film. in french

Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Phonoplay: Recasting Film Music

PART I. MUSICAL MEANING
1. The Boy on the Train, or Bad Symphonies and Good Movies: The Revealing Error of the "Symphonic Score"
Peter Franklin
2. Representing Beethoven: Romance and Sonata Form in Simon Cellan Jones's Eroica
Nicholas Cook
3. Minima Romantica
Susan McClary
4. Melodic Trains: Music in Polanksi's The Pianist
Lawrence Kramer
5. Mute Music: Polanski's The Pianist and Campion's The Piano
Michel Chion
PART II. MUSICAL AGENCY
6. Opera, Aesthetic Violence, and the Imposition of Modernity: Fitzcarraldo
Richard Leppert
7. Sight, Sound, and the Temporality of Myth Making in Koyaanisqatsi
Mitchell Morris
8. How Sound Floats on Land: The Suppression and Release of Folk and Indigenous Musics in the Cinematic Terrain
Philip Brophy
9. Auteur Music
Claudia Gorbman
10. Transport and Transportation in Audiovisual Memory
Berthold Hoeckner
11. The Fantastical Gap between Diegetic and Nondiegetic
Robynn J. Stilwell
PART III. MUSICAL IDENTITY
12. Early Film Themes: Roxy, Adorno, and the Problem of Cultural Capital
Rick Altman
13. Before Willie: Reconsidering Music and the Animated Cartoon of the 1920s
Daniel Goldmark
14. Side by Side: Nino Rota, Music, and Film
Richard Dyer
15. White Face, Black Noise: Miles Davis and the Soundtrack
Krin Gabbard
16. Men at the Keyboard: Liminal Spaces and the Heterotopian Function of Music
Gary C. Thomas

score by Antheil uncredited.

"Ever since the advent of the two- and three-our photoplay, which also inaugurated an era of building palatial playhouses for their exhibition, there has come an increased demand for these so-called organ-orchestras and the one at the Strand has attracted so much attention that th ewriter ventured to ask Mr. Austin whether he believed that the mechanical orchestra - though operated at the console by a competent musician - was destined to eventually replace the large orchestral bodies in our play-houses of various grades" (335)..."'But we are convinced that the organ can be made a vital part of the equipment of the modern photoplay-house and by special arrangements of its tonal scheme and voicing can be rendered truly imitative of orchestral qualities and at the same time have sufficient inherent dignity which is invariably lacking in the usual theatre orchestra. The best results in my opinion,' continued Mr. Austin, 'can be obtained in the combination of the pipe organ and a limited orchestra, in fact, I think that not only in the moving picture theatres but in all play-houses the best effects will be achieved by such a combination of the larger organ and a few solo pieces in the orchestra.' The influence of the organ orchestra in the theatre of science has tended to greatly augment the musical side of photplay presentation and it is, indeed, a befitting as well as a truly artistic adjunct of the modern motion picture theatre, illustrating as it does the gradual resort to scientific means of expression. Hence, it is not surprising in this era of newly erected palatial photoplay houses that as high as $50,000 is being expended for what is known as the Wurlitzer Unit Orchestra." (336)

Also discusses potential of talking pictures and first experience with telephone. 

score by Antheil

score by Antheil

score by Antheil. documentary.

score by Antheil. film has no dialogue.

score by Antheil

score by Antheil

score by Antheil

score by Antheil

score by Antheil

score by Antheil

score by Antheil

score by Antheil

score by Antheil

score by Antheil

score by Antheil lost?

score by Antheil lost?

score by Antheil

score by Antheil

score by Antheil

score by Antheil

According to Jeff Smith (Sounds of Commerce, 239), offers most cogent analysis of Romanticism's influence on Hollywood composers, shows it to be both musical and ideological, figuring in legal, institutional and critical discourses of the classical Hollywood era.

Charlotte Greenspan writes about the adaptability of Irving Berlin and his music. Berlin paid attention not only to different ethnicities in his songs, but also to the entertainment trends and technological developments of time. He also wrote patriotic songs during the First World War. Greenspan notes that although Berlin was always conscious of the era, there is also a timeless quality to many of his songs. As sound emerged in film Berlin left the stage and moved to California to write songs for films, one of his first was The Jazz Singer. After not having much success in Hollywood, Berlin left to go back to the stage, only to return in 1935. Greenspan writes that Berlin signed a contract with RKO that allowed him more creative freedom than any of the studios he had worked with earlier in his career as well as a good share of the profits. Greenspan looks at the film Top Hat for which Berlin did the music. She describes each of the five songs as “unusual in one way or another.” She also explains how the music functions in early sound films and addresses the issue of why the characters are singing? Greenspan claims that in this film Berlin wrote songs that interesting so they could be played repeatedly and so they could be recognizable. This was Berlin’s method of plugging a song in a film. Greenspan also notes how Berlin lengthened songs and adapted form to fit the film so a piece was not repeated over and over. She examines this more with an in-depth analysis of Berlin’s song “Cheek to Cheek” which is nine minutes long in the film Top Hat.
Greenspan then turns to the compiled score for Alexander’s Ragtime Band. This film is significant because it details the development of the popular song and is also a biography of Berlin, in a sense. The film’s score only had three pieces composed for it, the rest of the twenty-three pieces were compiled from previous works. Greenspan uses this film to show how popular songs were placed in film at that time and also shows its significance in the history of film and Berlin’s career.
Greenspan concludes her article with an explanation of how Berlin went to Hollywood and adapted himself for scoring films. He not only developed his style for film music but put songs in films in a way that was original and innovative.
This article gives an interesting look at the early film score and how the popular song fit into it. Irving Berlin is an Icon and he demonstrates the connection between the music and film worlds. He shows how the two adapt and fuse together.

Rick Altman's article calls for further attention to: interaction b/t “classical” music and popular song in films that include both. Song melody thematized, turned into leitmotif; song used according to “classical principles; lyrics/title imposed on “classical” material; “classical” theme repeated emulating pop song.

Only original music by Clifford Vaughan for main title and "Narrative" (resume). Uses tons of underscoring from previous films.  See Richard Bush "The Music of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers" in Film Music 1.

Score by W. Franke Harling heavily derivative of Wagner, liberally quotes "Grail" theme from Parsifal "as a religioso." inerowen with Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 1. Reused in Flash Gordon, flight and arrival on mysterious planet Mongo (Richard H. Bush, Film Music 1, 146)

Score by Roemheld features principal theme of Liszt's Sonata in B minor and part of symphonic poem Tasso, and paraphrase of Tchaikovsky's love theme from Romeo and Julet.  Score re-used in Flash Gordon.

First edition 1937.
Jaubert: "Music is by nature continuous, organised rhythmically in time. If you compel it to follow slavishly events or gestures which are themselves discountinuous, not rhythmically ordered but the outcome simply of physiological or psychological reactions, you destroy in it the very quality by virtue of which it is music, reducing it to its primary condition of crude sound. Used for these purposes, music will never, I am convinced, prove to be a satisfactory substitute for natural sounds, justified by their authenticity." 108.

Continued by World Film News - do we have this?  Eisler article "Music and Film: Illustration or Creation?" 1/2, 23.

Film Technique (Music and the Movies); Film and Society (1930-33); National Traits; Film Reviews.  This critic's opinions may be useful.

1. Theater Music During the Boom Years

2. "Making Friends with Music": Music Education in the Classroom and Concert Hall

3. "Symphonies Under the Stars": The Romance of the Hollywood Bowl

4. The Art of Pageants, Plays, and Dance

5. Leaving a Legacy: Early Recording of Indigenous, Classical, and Popular Music

6. "An Invisible Empire in the Air": Broadcasting the Classics during the Golden Age

7. Music on Film: Hollywood and the Conversion to Sound

Chapter 7 of Musical Metropolis is devoted to “Music on Film: Hollywood and the Conversion to Sound,” with the goal of demonstrating music’s vital role in creating “an atmosphere or mood in both nonanimated and animated films,” though to my mind Marcus’s argument amounts to, ‘films had music so music was vital.’ Marcus’s history of film music is concise and informative, however. Marcus shows that during the silent era most musical accompanied was drawn from preexisting European art music, and that the idea of composing music for films came only gradually. Marcus credits Warner Bros.’s 1926 The Jazz Singer, presented using Vitaphone, with “demonstrat[ing] with finality that audiences wanted to hear music on film (167). Many theaters kept their orchestras for the first few years of sound films, using them as entertainment between viewings. “In 1929 theaters were by far the largest employer of musicians in the country,” but the financial strain put on theaters by the Depression combined with sound film put an end to that.
While I find the explanation, “Because music had become an essential part of filmmaking, each of the studios formed a music department following the conversion to sound,” (168) wanting, Marcus’s account of the early music departments is informative, including figures for number of musicians employed and the typical pay around 1930. Marcus then turns to in depth biographical and musical discussions of the three leading symphonic film score writers, Max Steiner (the pioneer of letimotivc symphonic underscoring), Erich Wolfgang Korngold (the face of high-art respectability) and Alfred Newman (less educated but master of subtlety), and then to a discussion of music in animated films at Warners and Disney.

The aims of this research project are to 1) historicize the Classical Hollywood orchestra, and 2) interrogate the cultural significations of the orchestral sound that Hollywood both deployed and helped to form.

orchestral fanfares during opening and closing credits. otherwise, diegetic music: characters whistle or sing, "Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie" for death of Steve (Richard Arlen). trail drives, romantic interludes, final gunfight without music (Darby an Du Bois, American Film Music 1990, p. 9).

Composed fanfare in 1933 for 20th Century Pictures, 2 years before merger with Fox.

borrows from Johann Strauss (waltzes) during shots of hotel's main floor. Rachmaninoff love theme, jazz for Kringelein's liberation. Music separate from dialogue. (Darby and Du Bois, American Film Music, 1990, p. 13).

There is in fact copious underscoring of dialogue with music.

The ballerina's manager, lamenting the empty house, says after this he will do no more dancing, just jazz.

With the entrance of the maid into the ballerina's room (34:25) pop-jazz-dance music starts. It continues during the entrance of several more people, a subtlely comic sequence. When the ballerina returns and her manager dumps her the music turns briefly minor, ominous. A muted trumpet solo accompanies the ballerina's undressing. It stops when she exits the frame in the nick of time not to expose herself. There are then some moments of silence as the baron takes his gloves off. Then music reenters with the ballerina, this time Russian-flavored accompanying her phone call. It smoothely transitions into pop-dance music and continues quite incompatibly with her desperate monologue and the baron's intervention, and continues to the end of the scene with some nuances changes appropriate to the dialouge (end 42:46).

Sign for American Bar Jazz Band at 57:45.

1:39 - "The music has stopped. How quiet it is tonight. It was never so quiet in the Grand Hotel."

Innovative concentration of (7) stars in one film. 

Novel (Menschen im Hotel) first translated to broadway.  Also Vitaphone musical comedy picture Nothing Ever Happens (1933).

Farewell to Arms - original love theme during opening credits and at key moments. Italian atmosphere established by opening of Mendlssohn's Fourth Symphony, "La donna é mobile" from Verdi's Rigoletto and traditional "Santa Lucia". Borrowings from Wagner: "Ride of the Valkyries" during battle scene, brassier treatment of Wagner while Frederic searches for Catherine, music from Tristan and Isolde while Catherine dies in Frederic's arms. (Darby and Du Bois, American Film Music, 1990, p. 13)

Tony whistles "Slaves' Chorus" from Verdi's Nabucco in opening murder scene.

strings during opening credits. dance music. Italian-sounding music. "only conventional musical effects in obvious places." (Darby and Du Bois, American Film Music, 1990, p. 12).

Original theme during opening credits. Grand Appasionata by Giuseppe Becce - standard silent film rep - during end credits. (Darby and DuBois, American Film Music, 1990, p. 12).

"I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" during opening credits and later at nightclub and again on gramophone in Powers' home - mood of song contrasts with events'. "There are Smiles" and "Toot, Toot, Tootsie" at nightclub. Putty Nose dies while singing. "Romantic musical kitsch" during romantic scene. (Darby and Du Bois, American Film Music, 1990, p. 12-3).

Original rain theme at beginning. Saide Thompson identified with jazz mostly from her radio. No music for (religious) Davisons. (Darby and Du Bois, American Film Music, 1990, p. 14)

"Oriental" theme by drummer in street and native singer. Foreign Legion represented by marches as soldiers leave and return. waltz at high society party. "What Am I Bid for My Apples" symboizes heroine's sordid past. (Darby and Du Bois, American Film Music, 1990, p. 9-10).

more music than most contemporary films. usually occurs in scenes with little or no dialogue. officially by Arthur Kay but others involved. soaring strings for snow falling on pioneers and hero. idyllic air by brass when settlers have survived first winter and heroine prays for Coleman's return. love theme by harp and violin. martial music during fight into "Abide with Me" during mourning. also honky-tonk, "Indian," hoedown music. (Darby and Du Bois, American Film Music, 1990, p. 11).

march for opening credits, military and sober (Broekman). diegetic music sung or whistled by characters. German volunteers sing patriotic songs. (Darby and Du Bois, American Film Music, 1990, p. 10).

"musical excess" according to Darby and Du Bois, American Film Music, 1990, p. 13.

This book is amazing; it situates its contributions to our knowledge of silent film music – which our copious – within the existing body of literature, providing a solid point of departure for all further study. Marks gives extensive consideration to the availability and state of the historical evidence, and works to piece together the surviving (often partial) scores, advertisements and reviews in order to create a more complete picture of the silent era’s musical practices then has elsewhere been achieved. Marks debunks the notion that there was a period during which anything went musically as long as it covered up the noise of the projector and compensated for the uncanny flatness of the moving image by looking at music for some of the proto-film technologies (vitascope, biograph and bioskop). The more compelling case of bioskop took place in Europe, however, and their film music practices were not immediately taken up in America. In 1909 Moving Picture World dubbed the majority of pianists inadequate movie accompaniests, and only months later Edison published its first guidelines for film accompaniment. Marks observes that the 1910-14 period has been subject to severe music scholarly neglect due to the perceived lack of evidence. Marks finds and considers numerous “special scores,” i.e. scores written specially for particular movies, that predate Birth of a Nation (1915), the oft cited “first.” Birth of a Nation gets its own chapter too, however, for it was a significant and influential achievement. Marks includes numerous facsimiles as well as transcriptions of the surviving parts/scores, and subjects them to paleographic as well as music analysis. I would say this is THE book for silent film music.

A seemingly respectable history of music for silent films, but with no sources cited for its copious quotes and data. Recounts Griffith's views on film music, (inaccurately) deems Birth of a Nation the first movie to have a film score written specifically for it and (accurately) the initiator of a trend. Dwells on instances of inappropriate use of music.

The aims of this research project are to 1) historicize the Classical Hollywood orchestra, and 2) interrogate the cultural significations of the orchestral sound that Hollywood both deployed and helped to form.

By the time the cinema was born, the pianist and the orchestra had long been established in the living theater.

Marks criticizes this book's characterization of silent film music in his Music and the Silent Film. 

This documentary spends an unfortunate amount of time on a present day studio orchestra recreating the event of recording a hollywood film score. However, besides that there are enlightening discussions and examples of film scores by Max Steinr and Erich Korngold in particular, and conversations with then still living composer of Laura, David Raskin. The state of film music archives depicted is exciting and depressing: some scores from classical hollywood era survive but many were thrown away when studios ran short of space. Much film music research is devoted to reconstructing the partially surviving scores.  The technique for achieving synchrony between sound and image - which involves punches and streamers - is well illustrated.

THE film music book.  In chapters 2-3 attacks the question "why music?" from multiple sides, including continuities with preceding entertainment forms, a pragmatic need to drown out the projector, the addition of an aesthetic dimension, and psychological need.

This book provides a behind the scenes look at the making of the movies told by the people who actually do it.  Max Steiner provides the chapter "Scoring the film."  He offers his version of the history of film music and his views on the proper qualities of film music.  Significantly, Steiner argues that the use of familiar music in movies is bad, but then observes that many in the industry disagree with this view.  Disney provides a chapter entitled "Mickey Mouse Presents" and comments on the Silly Symphonies and the effectivenss of fantastic worlds "governed by the laws of music and rhythm" - this written at least a year before undertaking Fantasia.

Ernest Lindgren is a self-reflective and knowledgeable film lover whose views are informed by his having witnessed the transition from silent to sound films; his goal in writing “The Art of the Film” wass to provide film goers with the critical skills necessary to view film intelligently.  Two chapters are of particular interest to me: “The Use of Sound,” and “Film Music.”  Regarding the use of sound, Lindgren is highly critical of sound that merely duplicates the information already provided by the image.  He provides a psychological argument for why the principles guiding the use of sight and sound in film are different.  Also, in an approach I’ve seen no other critic use and which seems to me quite fruitful, Lindgren compares sound in literature to sound in film, quoting from Tolstoy and Dickinson in order to demonstrate the unique functioning of sound (it can be tuned out and it can represent something other than the immediate visual surroundings).  Regarding music, Lindgren compares its use in silent films to its use in sound films, the latter being distinguished by its intermittency seeing as how the music was no longer the only sound present.  Ultimately, good film music is film music that is “not heard,” a view Lindgren rightly claims is widely held.  Lindgren again employs psychological principles in explaining the proper use of music, and though he lacks the terms diegetic and nondiegetic the distinction is an important one to him. 
Lindgren illustrates all his aesthetic opinions with concrete examples from films, which not only adds immeasurably to his arguments but also provides useful information about what films were innovative in certain techniques.  Interestingly, Lindgren ends the film music chapter with a discussion of poetry used in voice-overs, a discussion he put off from the sound chapter, where he also discussed voice-overs, because he thought it proper to music.  The synonymy of poetry and music was operative in the middle ages, but I’ve not before encountered it in the 20th century.  This is not relevant to my present purposes but is perhaps something to keep in mind for another time.
 

Carol Flinn discusses the relationship between the film music practices of classical Hollywood and romantic aesthetics, arguing that Classical Hollywood felt nostalgia for a romantic past in which the subject’s ability to express himself through art was prized. She analyzes what critics and composers said of film music during the Classical Hollywood period; she does not analyze any films. Hollywood’s most obvious connection to romanticism is the adoption of Wagner’s leitmotifs. However, according to Flinn, Wagner’s music achieves unity through “additive blending” while film music achieves unity through “redundancy and overdetermination.” In Classical Hollywood, that is, the music should support what is already present in the image and narrative, running parallel rather than in counterpoint. Critics and composers repeatedly emphasize that film music should go unnoticed. This is at odds with the romantic privileging of music’s autonomy and ability to express the ineffable. Flinn reconciles this conflict by arguing that rhetoric about the deficiency of film music in fact refers to an anxiety about deficiencies in the film medium itself, namely in its inability to create the illusion of “fullness and cohesion.” Music succeeds in promoting as sense of fullness and cohesion in film.
Flinn’s psychoanalytical reading of Classical Hollywood film music is fairly convincing. The article is particularly useful for its copious quotation of critics and composers from the Classical Hollywood period on music.

This article is fascinating as a historical document (from 1942); it backs up a culturally specific view of the superiority of absolute music using historical and psychological evidence.  The author, Dr. Horace B. English, was a professor of psychology at Ohio State University.  He argues that a film experience which is dominantly aural does not work psychologically.  His case in point is Fantasia which was purely received by “the musically sensitive.”  English offers historical and psychological arguments for the inevitable failure of any attempt to fit visual images to music.  Historically, all aural-visual combinations, namely theater and opera, have used sound to support drama; the story always comes first.  Psychologically, the ear is specialized to receive symbolic signals, while the eye is specialized for concrete, representative signals.  The dependence of English’s argument on a cultural privileging of symphonic and chamber music – which he calls the more “noble” forms – becomes clear in his insistence that music written independently of a story generates a wide range of unique responses in listeners (agreed), while music written to fit a story does not.  English’s argument also depends on a privileging of individuality, expressed most clearly in his conclusion, “When we are really responding to music, we are creating something unique and individual; and at the moment of such creation, anyone else’s response, be it ever so beautiful, is only a distraction and an annoyance.”