{"id":2607,"date":"2011-01-31T10:33:44","date_gmt":"2011-01-31T09:33:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/music-matters\/?p=2607"},"modified":"2011-01-31T10:33:44","modified_gmt":"2011-01-31T09:33:44","slug":"the-names-barry-john-barry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/music-matters\/2011\/01\/31\/the-names-barry-john-barry\/","title":{"rendered":"The name’s Barry: John Barry"},"content":{"rendered":"

A sad weekend for music: news of the death of American composer Milton Babbitt<\/a>, Welsh soprano Dame Margaret Price<\/a>, and this morning also of the death of film composer John Barry<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Man with the golden touch: John Barry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Barry is perhaps best known for scoring eleven films in the Bond franchise, as well as the Oscar-winning soundtracks to, amongst other films, Born Free and Dances With Wolves.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Everyone has their own favourite Bond-Barry soundtrack: for me, it’s Mooraker<\/em> from 1979. MGM’s answer to Star Wars<\/em>, which had premiered two years previously, and an attempt to take Bond into space, the music is a rich tapestry of sound which capture the grandeur of space, as well as the slow-moving rotation of megalomaniac Hugo Drax’s epic space-station.<\/p>\n

(In 1998, Barry also wrote the music for Play It By Heart<\/em><\/a>, an altogether different, non-Bond movie, which to my ears seems to use ccast-offs from the Moonraker<\/em> music, as though there were bits lying around on the floor which Barry re-used; I love that soundtrack as well.)<\/p>\n

A sad weekend for music: here’s to all of them.<\/p>\n