ABSTRACT

According to the philosopher Theodore Gracyck, all music is, in some way, derivative of other music, and the degree of ‘originality’ is as much a matter of aesthetic as historical judgment (2013: 61). Gracyck explained that ignorance about history can create a “false impression of novelty or its close cousins, incoherence and weirdness” (63). True enough. Equally though, as I hope to make clear in what follows, the weight of history, or rather certain historical perceptions about originality, have particularly dogged screen music. Without a re-evaluation, I suggest, there is danger in devaluing screen music’s symbiotic relationship with sound and visuals at the expense of a false notion of intrinsic originality within musical material itself.