Born in Germany, Zimmer started his composing career in Europe where he was known for work with electronic instruments. For a period he played keyboards with the pop group "The Camera Club", two of whose members went on to form the group called "The Buggles" which brought "Video Killed the Radio Star" to the UK charts. In composing terms Zimmer's career has been a traditional one of working his way up through the ranks, writing jingles for commercials, frequent work on electronic scores (e.g. "The Last Emperor"), and collaborating with established composer Stanley Myers on films such as "Moonlighting" and "My Beautiful Laundrette", and then onto TV work in the US on programmes such as "Miami Vice".
Following earlier success with the incidental music for "The Lion King", "Rain Man" and "Thelma and Louise", Zimmer has now firmly arrived on the Hollywood movie scene with a string of first class film scores over the past decade. Having worked on a variety of different types of movie, he has been able to demonstrate a wide variety of styles. He is particularly adept at blending diverse styles into a musical fusion of classical, pop and world music. His style is very much to create simple thematic material, and then give them the Zimmer treatment to craft them into highly effective pieces of film music embodying the mood of a film, such that music and movie complement perfectly. Given his recent success with "Gladiator", Zimmer is definitely one to watch and Hollywood has chosen him to score "Hannibal", the "Mission Impossible" sequel and the blockbuster "Pearl Harbour".
Given Zimmer's adaptability and his penchant for collaboration, it is difficult to characterise his style with a single example. The soundtrack to "True Romance" features only a modest amount of original music. Here Zimmer creates a lilting carefree tune with xylophone and pizzicato string sounds. It might suggest Afro-Caribbean steel bands, but with its dotted rhythm seemingly reminding us of the closing bars of Good Christian Men Rejoice played against an opening backdrop with snow on the ground, there is also the suggestion of Christmas celebrations. The theme itself and sometimes just the gentle percussive sound recur as suggestions rather than a prominent motif throughout the movie. There is also some atmospheric electronic music for some very violent scenes. The combination of synthesisers and simple repetitive theme suggests Vangelis more than any other influence.
As another example, his "Hannibal" is superficially a standard horror soundtrack with various sampled effects and shocks. But at the same time, as well as replaying Bach's Aria from the Goldberg Variations (as previously "aired" in the original "Silence of the Lambs" by Howard Shore, and also incidentally appearing among Gabriel Yared's excellent music for "The English Patient"), Zimmer blends a wide variety of classical styles from plainsong, baroque and classical to the great moving adagios of Wagner and Mahler and even the otherworldly Ligeti. Having mentioned Ligeti (perhaps this is a strange association with the music for 2001), there is a delicious track called "Gourmet Valse Tartare" which is a witty rendition of a Blue Danube type waltz which goes off the rails. Though not composed by Zimmer is a great treat and included on the soundtrack album.
One of Zimmer's more recent file scores is "Black Hawk Down" and the soundtrack is very memorable indeed. The story is set in Somalia and based on a real incident. The soundtrack features a lot of atmospheric ethnic music representing the local region, and this is blended with some hard rock music representing the American soldiers. In places a helicopter sound effect also features in the mix. The credits include many contributions from instrumentalists, singers and other musicians including again the vocal talents of Lisa Gerard. Although some of Zimmer's scores have lacked the sparkle of originality, others stand out firmly from the crowd including "The Last Samurai" which in addition to its combat scenes has a spiritual side. In recent years Zimmer has been well-represented among the summer blockbusters with composer credits for both "King Arthur" and the "Thunderbirds" live action movie. The Pirates of the Caribbean films now number three, with the third CD installment including a substantial booklet - see these links for more information: Amazon.co.uk in the UK, or Amazon.com in the US.
Hans Zimmer soundtracks from Amazon.com:
Films by Hans Zimmer:
Moonlighting - electronic effects with Stanley Myers
The Last Emperor - co-production of soundtrack album
My Beautiful Laundrette - musical performance
Rain Man - mixing classical and pop styles getting an oscar nomination
Diamond Skulls
Black Rain - including a song
Driving Miss Daisy - delightful syncopations
Twister
Bird on a Wire - mostly an action score with bits of suspense and comedy, and added pop songs
Chicago Joe and the Showgirl
Days of Thunder
The Neverending story II
Thelma and Louise - electric guitar solos expressing the freedom of the open road
K2
Toys
Drop Zone
The Power of One - an incredible African choral score dating before Zimmer's work on the Lion King, with a small contribution by Beethoven
Pacific Heights - this great score is centred on suspense motifs but encomposses a side range of influences, and brief classical interludes include a small clip from Mozart's Piano Concerto No.19 in F
Backdraft - this firefighting movie has Zimmer's trademark mix of classical sounds plus contemporary popular music beats
Regarding Henry
A League of Their Own
True Romance - a simple and catchy theme tune
The Lion King - not the Elton John songs but lots of oscar-winning African mood
Crimson Tide
Calendar Girl
Green Card - delicate cues and jungle drums, amid Mozart wind concertos, tracks by Enya, and Theodorakis' "Zorba the Greek"
Nine Months - some classical sounding work like a Mozart slow movement
The Thin Red Line - powerfully moving
As Good as it Gets - a delicate underscore, and arrangements of Eric Idle's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life"
The Rock - includes some "rock music" appropriately enough among the steely determination and heroics
Muppet Treasure Island - Zimmer didn't write the songs, but there is quite a lot of orchestral underscore in full pirate mode
The Prince of Egypt
The Peacemaker - Russian-sounding action music with some nocturnes by Chopin
The Preacher's Wife
Gladiator - Mars from the Planets! and Eastern Mediterranean sounds with help from Lisa Gerrard
Mission Impossible 2 - with Zimmer's familiar world fusion, includes some Spanish sounding acoustic guitar work, more vocals by Lisa Gerrard and lots of timpani for the climactic fight scene
Pearl Harbour
Black Hawk Down - an effective use of ethnic influences
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron - Zimmer contributed to the Bryan Adams soundtrack for this animated feature
Johnny English - co-writing a song with Robbie Williams for this Spy Spoof
Pirates of the Caribbean - although the main composer credit goes to Klaus Badelt of Zimmer's Media Ventures company, the music bears a striking resemblance to that of "Gladiator" and Zimmer is credited as "Score Producer" and "Music Editor" plus "Additional Music" credits go to Zimmer and many others from the team
King Arthur
The Last Samurai - a highly effective soundtrack, restrained when necessary and incorporating some traditional Japanese instrumentation
The Ring - the soundtrack is a group effort led by Zimmer
The Ring Two - another group effort using Zimmer's effective themes
Thunderbirds - incorporating Barry Gray's wonderful TV theme
The Da Vinci Code - the long-awaited and to some people disappointing film adaptation of Dan Brown's novel
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - eagerly anticipated sequel to the fun original scored by Klaus Badelt
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End - last in this fun Trilogy with the music thankfully introducing a lot more new material
The Simpsons Movie- Hans Zimmer demonstrates his versatility with a score very much in the tradition of The Simpsons series
TV work by Hans Zimmer:
Miami Vice - not the well-known themes by Jan Hammer
Recommendations:
The latest Sheet Music by Hans Zimmer is a collection from "King Arthur". This is available from The Music Room and Sheet Music Plus.
Sheet music can also be found for some of Zimmer's work such as the "Gladiator" and the theme from "Driving Miss Daisy". For listening to, check out the soundtrack to "The Thin Red Line" or "Gladiator" as good introductions to Zimmer's work. We also highly recommend the recording of a live concert of Zimmer's music given at the Flanders International Film Festival known as Wings of a Film. Zimmer has also jointly founded a film music company whose web-site has more information about the composers at Mediaventures Zimmer Page.
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