Jerry Goldsmith: A Musical Chameleon

JERRY GOLDSMITH: A Musical Chameleon presumably is the most complete work published in the world around the career of a fundamental composer in the evolution of film music in the second half of the 20 th century. This monograph focuses its analysis on the vast cinematographic work —more than one hundred and sixty scores— of Jerry Goldsmith (1929-2004), who cultivated all kinds of genres for very different proposals. Freud (1962), Planet of the Apes (1968), The Boys from Brazil (1978), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), Alien (1979), Gremlins (1984) and Basic Instinct (1992) are some of the many titles in which the Californian composer appears in the credits. Almost twenty years after his death, his musical legacy is one of the most impressive, in terms of quality and quantity, recorded in the last century. Both within and outside the artistic discipline that gave him the greatest international projection. The analysis of his scores for television, the list of rejected soundtracks, his concert works, as well as a detailed discography and an introductory section by Jaume Carreras, who offers an overview from a historiographical perspective, are other sections of interest in this monograph.

THE AUTHOR

CHRISTIAN AGUILERA was born on 18 December 1967 in Barcelona. Graduate in Biological Sciences. He is the author of a number of books on film: Stanley Kubrick: A Creative Odyssey (1999); Film Directors of the 20th Century (1999); The Television Generation: The Liberal Conscience of American Cinema (2000); The Oscar Actors 1927-2003 (2003); Milos Forman: The Filmmaker of Nonconformism (2006); Joseph L. Mankiewicz: A Renaissance in Hollywood (2009); The World of Science: 50 Essential Films (2017); Barbara Stanwyck: A Grand Dame of Hollywood (2015); Fred Zinnemann (2020); Robert Altman: The Other Side of Hollywood (2020); John Frankenheimer: A Sniper in Hollywood (2021) and Peter Weir: A Hidden World (2021). He co-wrote A History of British Cinema (2013) with other authors. It is worth mentioning that he created a web page called www.cinearchivo.com  (later renamed www.cinearchivo.net) in 2001. His first novel is called The Haldane Enigma (2011). He has also authored several volumes on top-notch film scorers (Jerry Goldsmith, Bernard Herrmann, John Williams and John Scott) and rock luminaires (Neil Young). The diptych History of Symphonic Rock and History of Progressive Neo-rock (1982-2016) also has his signature. Jerry Goldsmith: A Musical Chameleon (2022) Is his first book published in english.