- Spanish Literature on Music and Image:A critical selection
Carlos Colón Perales, Fernando Infante del Rosal and Manuel Lombardo Ortega
Historia y Teoría de la Música en el cine: Presencias afectivas (History and Theory of Film Music: Affective Presences)
296pp. Sevilla: Alfar, 1997
Historia y teorías de la música en el cine: Presencias afectivas is one of the most complete handbooks on film music published in Spain during the 1990s. The first part of this book expands on the historical overview presented in Colón's previous work, La imagen visitada por la música, offering an exhaustive chronological vision of film music history divided in two main parts, one of them dedicated to Europe, approaching the panorama of countries such as France, England, Italy and Germany, and including references to developments in Spain. Another section is dedicated to Hollywood music from the golden age, paying special attention to the musical. The second part, entitled 'theories on film music', written by Manuel Lombardo and Fernando Infante, is a review of the main perspectives on the study of film music, although it doesn't include Anglophone contributions. It begins by analysing the relationship between music and image within film theory, and by considering the work of several authors from Bela Balázs to Edgar Morin. The second section of this part is concerned with the explanation of the functions of music in cinema according to the works of French authors such as Colpi, Porcile and Chion. The book also includes a CD of soundtrack examples.
Carlos Colón is a scholar at the University of Seville and is one of the pioneers of film music research in Spain. His PhD dissertation deals with the music of Nino Rota in Fellini's films. He published several books on [End Page 237] this topic, such as Europa en Hollywood, Introducción a la Historia de la música en el cine, La imagen visitada por la música and Para una periodización de la historia de la música cinematográfica en los Estados Unidos (1895-1993).
José Nieto
La música para la imagen: La influencia secreta (Music for images: The secret influence)
268pp. Madrid: SGAE, 2002 (1st edition 1996)
The composer José Nieto wrote this key practical work to understand the techniques, functions and uses of music in the audiovisual media. The...