Theme tunes

We did our favourite film soundtracks a while back, so we only thought it proper to make a list of our favourite themes. All of them are instrumental, as a theme song list of ours is yet to be published.  These are themes that we find beautiful, evocative, exciting, romantic, tragic, and just plain superb. But don't just take our word for it, take a listen for yourselves.


1. The Mission - Gabriel's Oboe. This is a shared number one, since both of these themes are so good that we couldn't decide between them. Morricone is a genius, what else can we say? We're pretty much agnostics, but listening to this song constitutes a spiritual experience for us.

1. Ben-Hur - Star of Bethlehem. The same thing applies with this theme as the above one. Though the movie is quite religious, the music itself transcends ideologies and becomes something universal. 

 

3. Schindler's List - Main Theme. This is hands down Spielberg's best film and this tune plays a big part in reaching out to the viewers. A very haunting piece of music.

4. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind - Legend of the Wind. Right, we could not arrive to an agreement on which Hisaishi theme we should go with, so we compromised and took something that we both find equally great. Hisaishi never lets you down. We urge you to listen to the original soundtrack from 1984 (you can't find it from YouTube), it has a very unique 80's sound to it.

5. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - Ecstasy of Gold. We had a seriously hard time deciding between this and Man with a Harmonica from Once Upon a Time in the West, but in the end we had to go with this.  Some might rather choose the main title theme of the film, but we find this particular piece more impressive.

6. Lawrence of Arabia - Overture. To call this tune epic would be an understatement. We found ourselves enjoying the score a lot more than the actual movie. 

 

7. La Strada - Main Theme. This theme is magical, funny and romantic. We especially love the part where the lonely horn starts playing the rather bittersweet melody.

8. The Piano - The Heart Asks Pleasure First/The Promise. We're not really big fans of themes that use mainly piano, because a lot of the time the tune is just plain cheesy (Pearl Harbor, anyone?) This song however, simple as it may be, has a great arrangement and is a ton of fun to play. 

 

9. Fargo - Fargo, North Dakota. This theme is based on a Scandinavian folk tune and that would have been probably enough reason for us to put it on this list. We're Nordic after all, and if you listen to Nordic folk songs, you'll probably discover that most of them are immensely melancholic. Melancholy's kind of our thing, hence we love this song. 

10. Road to Perdition - Road to Chicago. This is another quite simplistic piano-driven theme and in all honesty, we think the movie might have influenced us a little more than with our other picks. The tune is very good nonetheless and the arrangement works great.

11. North by Northwest - Title Sequence. Ok, we absolutely love Vertigo's theme too, but we actually like it more as a whole soundtrack. This theme just gets you so pumped up, and well...it's Bernard Herrmann. How could it be anything else except awesome?

12. On the Waterfront - Main Titles. This theme is so good that Jerry Goldsmith had to "borrow" parts of it to his score for L.A. Confidential. Needless to say: great movie, great theme!