The 1980's saw the advent of electronic music in films as well as the traditional orchestral scores. Wendy Carlos was a musical prodigy who was at the forefront of synthesised music. She helped with the development of the Moog synthesiser. As well as being a talented musician, she could also build a computer. Her experimental music and three grammy awards led her to being employed by Stanley Kubrick to score A Clockwork Orange. The music included classical pieces played on the synthesiser. This was followed by her work on The Shining with Kubrick again, this time a more chilling medieval score to give the atmosphere of doom. The contributors remarked that it certainly added to the uneasiness of the movie that was "incredibly effective". Her work later on Tron was a perfect fit for this offbeat film.
Vangelis was another child prodigy who could play the piano at the age of four. From his home in Greece to Paris and London, he made a successful career composing and playing in various bands and under his own name. He was chosen to score the 1980 movie Chariots of Fire for which he won an Oscar and fame for the main theme. The following year he teamed up with Ridley Scott for Blade Runner and a score that was "quite ghostly". For some reason the programme did not mention his music for 1992's 1492:Conquest of Paradise, again with Ridley Scott, that won various award nominations. But that was because it came later in the 1980's.
Yet another composer who featured a synthesiser style was Brad Fiedel. He was the keyboard player for Hall and Oates but it was his score for 1984's The Terminator and it's sequel that he found fame. James Cameron needed the sound of a machine and the beat that Fiedel created is a classic of cinema. Again, his many later film scores fall outside the time frame for this episode.
Maurice Jarre was a French composer and conductor who adopted a style using a number of musicians all playing synths at the same time. He composed the score for 1982's The Year of Living Dangerously that also featured a track from a Vangelis album.
In the early 1980's, John Williams ("the master of the epic movie") continued his association with Steven Spielberg with 1980's The Empire Strikes Back, (individual themes for Darth Vader, Yoda and the battlefield) Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981 ("an exciting score with a big kick") and the following year saw ET: The Extra Terrestrial (beautiful, poignant music with that flying bicycle theme). All huge blockbusters with amazing music and wonderful themes.
John Barry continued his success with his score for Body Heat in 1981. This saw his transition from the big brash Bond music to something more sensual with a type of British jazz score. Very different to Bond.
In 1980's Ordinary People, Marvin Hamlisch took that classical theme and created variations through the film. Then for Sophie's Choice in 1982, he was nominated again for an Oscar.
Enrico Morricone worked with Sergio Leone for the last time in 1984 on the gorgeous Once Upon a Time in America. This was Leone's last film and his only American gangster movie with Robert De Niro. The music was more romantic and melancholic than those earlier Westerns. And Morricone made use of the pan flute to replicate the whistling from his earlier work for which he was so well known.
It was Ian Nathan who summed up the early 80's by reminding us that "those scores were just so memorable".
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