Hammer Film Scores and the Musical Avant-Garde

<p> Music in film is often dismissed as having little cultural significance. While Hammer Film Productions is famous for such classic films as <I>Dracula</I> and <I>The Curse of Frankenstein</I> few observers have noted the innovative music that Hammer distinctively incorporated into its horror films.</p><p> This book tells how Hammer commissioned composers at the cutting edge of European musical modernism to write their movie scores introducing the avant-garde into popular culture via the enormously successful venue of horror film. Each chapter addresses a specific category of the avant-garde musical movement. According to these categories chapters elaborate upon the visionary composers who made the horror film soundtrack a melting pot of opposing musical cultures.</p>