Composer Shifts From Film to Concert Hall, Finds He Still Writes on Deadline

Bruce Broughton writes the kind of music that makes things happen: Lovers embrace, thugs brawl, cars are demolished. “It’s music with a purpose--you can make people feel things,” the composer said.

This Saturday, Broughton, who’s accumulated four Emmys, a Grammy for his “Young Sherlock Holmes” sound track and an Oscar nomination for his score of “Silverado,” brings his music to an environment that is unusually sedate for him: the concert hall.

The San Fernando Valley Symphony will perform Broughton’s work--along with a piece by a fellow named Brahms--as it winds up its 1988-89 season Saturday. In addition to Brahms’ Symphony No. 2, the orchestra will play Broughton’s “Suite for Sherlock Holmes,” the theme to “Silverado” and the premiere of a just-completed violin piece titled “Three Incongruities.”

“It’s called ‘Three Incongruities’ because each movement is modeled after three separate violin-playing styles and emotions,” Broughton said. “The first is Baroque; the second is romantic, almost Russian, and the third is more like fiddle playing.”

Soloist for the violin work is Endre Granat, who has worked with Broughton on some of his film projects. It was Granat, in fact, who got Broughton to write the piece. “I get musicians asking me to write for them all the time,” Broughton said. Between his film and television projects, he’s managed to write a tuba concerto, a piece for two harps and percussion, and another piece for three oboes--all at the request of other musicians.

“I don’t write for myself. I always write for someone else to play or someone else to listen to,” Broughton said. “The idea of the artist sitting alone in an attic writing a piece is not one I find particularly interesting. I can’t imagine writing a piece and letting it just sit on a shelf.”

True to his philosophy, Broughton didn’t act on Granat’s request for a violin piece until he was approached by the San Fernando Valley Symphony Assn. a few months ago and given Saturday’s concert date. “I’d started the piece about three years ago,” Broughton said. “But this concert gave me the incentive to finish.”

He actually didn’t finish until two weeks ago--a little closer to the deadline than he may have wanted, but then, in his normal line of work, pieces are often written the night before the musicians are to record. “That’s the way it is with film and television music.”

Of course, writing for film and writing for a symphony concert are not exactly alike. “One big difference,” said Broughton, who has been an independent television and film composer since 1977, “is that when you’re writing with film, you have to write to a specific picture and a specific emotion--all to timing that has been precisely predetermined. If the gunshot happens at 35 seconds, that’s when the chord drops.

“That’s all different when you’re writing concert music--the style and the timing is up to you. You can’t just drop an idea because a scene ended. You have to explore it and let it find its own logical conclusion. And concert music has to be interesting by itself. Film music doesn’t have to be--there have been some very boring scores written for some very good films.”

The San Fernando Valley Symphony Orchestra concert featuring the music of Bruce Broughton and Brahms begins at 8 p.m. Saturday in the Performing Arts Auditorium at Birmingham High School, 17000 Haynes St., Van Nuys. Tickets are $10 for adults, $7 for seniors and students, $5 for groups of 10 or more, and free for children under 12. Call (818) 352-7797.