The music of 'Helen of Troy' (1959), Warner Bros

I must admit, I am a sucker for anachronisms. They've brought us such a variety of odd hybrids, ranging from Steampunk to Renaissance Festivals to Hipsters. I delight in the peculiarities of a non-consensual  blending of cultures, sometimes long after one has run its course (and could have any say in the matter). My next few entries will focus on a few examples of how films about the Ancient Greeks have let a bit of zeitgeist slip in and color the stylistic choices.. Particularly the music.

We're starting with the 111-minute long Action Adventure Drama, Helen of Troy, directed by Robert Wise in 1956. The music was done by famous Austrian composer, Max Steiner, also known for Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, and The Last of the Mohicans.



Quite the epic, no doubt.

There is no doubt that the music suits the age of the film -- we could most likely replace a bit of the incidental music from The Sound of Music with the opening theme in this trailer. The instrumentation is quite entirely indicative of the 1950's -- enormous orchestras with brass instruments and large string sections...

However, around 1:04, when they begin talking about the "Legions of Imperial Greece", there is a clear melodic attempt at conveying the Greek Aura. We'll focus on that bit for now.

While, again, the instrumentation is anachronistic, the first few seconds of the melody could be convincingly Greek-sounding if re-scored. It hovers around the dominant in a Phrygian/Aolian modality, with many instruments doubling on the same part. The drum pattern isn't traditional, but it is still included (as it was reported to have appeared in Greek War Music, played on the Daouli, the Defi, and the Toumbi).

 In its entirety, it's quite apparent that the music of Helen of Troy conveys the 1950's drama much more than it captures the Greek aura. That being said, I wonder if the potency of the emotion in this film would suffer a bit if the composer had limited himself to only Greek instruments.

..Well, I doubt the drama would be lessened if he had, but I'd be willing to bet that the thickness of the orchestration made the story a bit more accessible to the masses.

In the near future, I will be focusing on more films, but I'm *very* excited about analyzing the music of more recent video games, such as God of War.

For your listening pleasure, here's a little something I stumbled upon while researching Greek War Music. I have found no evidence online or offline that we have records of these specific drum beats, but maybe they've read or heard something I haven't.