10 July 2008

Hammer Film Scores and the Musical Avant-Garde

Few observers have noted the innovative music that Hammer distinctively incorporated into its horror films. David Huckvale’s latest book tells how Hammer commissioned composers at the cutting edge of European musical modernism to write their movie scores, introducing the avant-garde into popular culture via the enormously successful horror film.

Each chapter addresses a specific category of the avant-garde musical movement and elaborates upon the visionary composers who made the horror film soundtrack a melting pot of opposing musical cultures.

David Huckvale is the author of

James Bernard, Composer to Count Dracula (2006) and has conducted numerous exclusive interviews with Hammer’s composers for his authoritative and illuminating new book. Even the illustrations are a treat – where else can you see annotated pictures of Tristram Cary’s space-age studio, or the legendary Stoneground at work on Dracula A.D. 1972

?

Hammer Film Scores and the Musical Avant-Garde

is published by McFarland and Co. on 6 July.
ISBN 978-0-7864-3456-5

Back to news archive