Quiller

I've always wanted to know what that strange sounding instrument is in the title track of The Eagle Has Landed. It's like a string-pluck sounding, really espionage style thing. Anyone know?

Should have mentioned that it's Lalo Schifrin who composed the music.

Ok, much easier, the same instrument is used all the way through John Barry's Ipcress File theme.

Found it! It's called a twanging cimbalom, whatever one of those is.

schaffer

There is a lengthy interview in "Cinema Retro" magazine Vol2 issue 4 2006, with
Lalo Schifrin, in which he mentions the instrument you talk about, called;-
the Cymbalom... (always thought it was the balalaika !!!!!!!)
hope this helps... great musician my fav`s are Enter the Dragon, Eagle Has landed and Fourth protocol..

Quiller

Schaffer, I'd heard the balalaika mentioned before, don't know what it is, but I'm glad I know it's the Cymbalom. It's a pretty cool-sounding instrument. John Barry seemed to use it all the time - except - and I might be wrong - in his Bond scores.

Schifrin is a chameleon of a film composer, and still going strong, which is no small feat. by anyone's standards. His music for The Fourth Protocol is great, especially at the start.

My favourite Schifrin scores would probably be Kelly's Heroes, cos it's just such good fun, the original Mission: Impossible music (tracks: The Plot, and More Plot are great), Dirty Harry, The Eagle Has Landed, and The Liquidator (a Bond-like score with a wicked Shirley Bassey song).

schaffer

Hi Quiller....I agree with your comments..
The Balalaika is a stringed instrument, of Russian origin, with a characteristic triangular body and three strings, or sometimes 6 in pairs....
Also found in six sizes;- piccolo (rare), prima, secunda, alto, bass, and contrabass...also a larger sub-contrabass....
Hope this helps....

Quiller

Cool info. Schaffer, and the Zither is...? Is it the same thing as a cimbalom?:mellow:

djdave

Yes, yes, yes!!!

I'd also add Cool Hand Luke.

Between leaving Argentina and arriving in Hollywood, Schifrin played jazz piano in Paris. How cool is that?

Quiller

djdave, I've only ever seen Cool Hand Luke once, so can't really remember Schifrin's music.

Schifrin is very cool. I can't wait to get the Season 1 box set of Mission: Impossible in October to hear his music on the TV series. I haven't heard it since I was a kid.

djdave

I remember reading Schifrin's opinion on the difference between the Main Title music to a film and a TV programme's theme music.

With the former, he said, the audience had already been lured to see the film. Whether by word-of-mouth, or advertisiing, or because they liked the actor/director/subject. Whatever the reason for being there, the audience had paid and had sat down in the cinema. So if the Main Title music wasn't particularly attention-grabbing, it didn't matter: the audience was already there.

With a TV programme it was entirely different. The TV could be on in one room, and the potential audience may be in the kitchen, for example, doing something. The theme music had to announce that the show was starting and grab people's attention so that they came into the living room to see what was going on.

And if you think of things like Schifrin's Mission Impossible, Jerry Goldsmith's Man From Uncle and Mort Stevens' Hawaii-five0. Home grown examples include Laurie Johnson's The Professionals and Harry South's The Sweeney.

Boris_G

An important difference between a balalaika and a cymbalom is that the balalaika is rapidly strummed, while a cymbalom has the strings struck with hand-held beaters, creating a more percussive sound (you see one being played briefly in Zorba the Greek): it is this latter instrument which is used in the scores of Ipcress File and Eagle has Landed (it also features in Kodaly's orchestral suite Hary Janos, which I think is worth a listen).