It seems like the holiday season is always saddened by the loss of great artists. I learned today that Polish composer Wojciech Kilar passed away today at the age of 81. His body of work is made up of concert pieces and he also scored over 130 films. I won’t pretend to know a lot of his material, but one score I’m a fan of is his music for Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
For this film, the director gave him free reign to write the music, and he came up with a brilliant score whose Eastern European sensibility was the perfect compliment to the Romanian setting. That score was a huge influence on Danny Elfman’s music for the similar setting of The Wolfman years later.
I need to listen to more of his material.
http://youtu.be/TqnKBVyP_2I
http://youtu.be/EVeZaWL8vQ4
Related articles
- Wojciech Kilar, 81, Polish composer of ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula,’ ‘The Pianist’ (suntimes.com)
- R.I.P. ‘The Pianist’ Composer Wojciech Kilar (m.deadline.com)
- Composer Wojciech Kilar dies at 81 (theguardian.com)
- R.I.P. ‘The Pianist’ Composer Wojciech Kilar (deadline.com)
- Film composer Wojciech Kilar dies (bbc.co.uk)
He's also a regular contributor at the excellent news site Montreal Rampage
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