Even if you are not a fan of movie soundtracks, you must have heard of Hans Zimmer. Chinese fans who are familiar with his resume are accustomed to calling him "Master Zimmer".
Hans Zimmer in concert
Not only because he has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score 12 times (two of which were in the same session) and successfully won two Oscars, plus five Grammy Awards; but also because the music in "Rain Man", "The Lion King", "Gladiator", "The Da Vinci Code", "Kung Fu Panda", "Interstellar", "Dune"... These works of different types and styles are all written by him; without the need for superb music appreciation ability, those simple themes that keep circling and advancing layer by layer can often hit the emotions directly and stay in the heart.
This May, Hans Zimmer, 67, started a new Asian tour. He also took the opportunity to perform on the stage of mainland China with his band for the first time. After Beijing and Hangzhou, he appeared in Shanghai last night (May 10). In the three-hour performance, which was divided into two halves, the audience's most familiar works of Hans Zimmer resounded throughout the Mercedes-Benz Cultural Center. He sometimes played the keyboard and sometimes carried the guitar, presenting the audience with a hearty musical feast.
Not only a "composer", but also a "musician"
Compared with many famous film score masters, Hans Zimmer seems to be a bit of an outsider. He can't conduct, and he can't stand in front of the orchestra like Ennio Morricone or Joe Hisaishi and express himself freely; he is not a professional, unlike John Williams who graduated from the prestigious Juilliard School and wrote a symphony with great detail; he only received two weeks of systematic piano training, unlike Alexandre Desplat who studied multiple instruments since childhood.
A young Hans Zimmer poses with the massive Moog modular synthesizer in 1980.
It can be said that Hans Zimmer is self-taught. In an exclusive interview with The Paper last year, the most well-known composer today called himself "a kid from the suburbs of Frankfurt." Although he felt that the boring piano lessons were not suitable for him, the young Zimmer did not give up music, but began to explore his own playing methods. "Just like other children like to play Lego, I treat the piano as a toy." He said in an interview with SoundTrackFest.
"My mother is very musically gifted, she can be said to be a musician, and my father is an engineer and inventor. So, I have been modifying pianos since I was a child. My mother was horrified when she saw it, but my father thought it was great because I installed things like chainsaws on the piano. He thought it was a technological evolution. I think that since I was a child, I have one foot in the music camp and the other foot in the technology camp. For me, it's all the same because I just want to invent and figure out...how to create new sounds." Hans Zimmer commented on the two qualities of "music geek" and "engineer" that are engraved in his genes in an interview with the news blog Mashable.
After immigrating to London, England at the age of 14, Hans Zimmer began to try performing. When he was young, he played in many bands such as Krakatoa, The Buggles, The Damned, and Helden, mainly playing keyboards and synthesizers. But he really embarked on the road of film score when he met his mentor Stanley Miles. Miles is a well-known British composer who has composed music for more than 60 films, including "The Deer Hunter" and "Go Sun". He invited Zimmer to be his assistant and strongly recommended this unknown young man to the director he worked with. At the same time, his way of composing music that combines sound, orchestral music and electronic music also brought great inspiration to Zimmer.
In 2023, a reporter from The Paper interviewed Jerzy Skolimowski, a Polish director who had lived in the UK. He was the first director to find Hans Zimmer to compose the music, and the young Zimmer left a deep impression on him. "One day, I said to Stanley Myers, 'Stanley, I want a different soundtrack.' I told him that I wanted the kind of very modern music played by young people in London in the 1960s. Stanley thought for a while and took me to a club, where I saw a young man playing the piano, which was exactly the music I wanted, and that young man was Hans Zimmer." Zimmer participated in the soundtracks of Skolimowski's "Moonlight" and "Lightboat". In addition, he also appeared in works such as Stephen Frears' "My Beautiful Laundrette".
The success of "Rain Man" opened the door for Hans Zimmer to Hollywood.
After participating in the soundtrack of The Last Emperor directed by David Byrne and Ryuichi Sakamoto, Hans Zimmer began to compose film music on his own. In 1988, his first Hollywood film Rain Man was nominated for the Oscar for Best Original Score. Although he lost to The Beanfield, a collaboration between jazz musicians Dave Grusin and Robert Redford, the door to Hollywood was completely opened to him.
In 1996, Hans Zimmer won his first Oscar for "The Lion King".
Since then, Hans Zimmer has been unstoppable. So far, he has participated in more than 250 film, television, game, commercials and other works. After "Rain Man", he was nominated for Oscars for "The Lion King" (1995), "The Bodyguard" (1997), "As Good as It Gets" (1998), "The Thin Red Line", "The Prince of Egypt" (1999), "Gladiator" (2001), "Sherlock Holmes" (2010), "Inception" (2011), "Interstellar" (2015), "Dunkirk" (2018), and "Dune" (2022), and won two Oscars for "The Lion King" and "Dune".
In Gladiator, Zimmer blends the low-frequency vibrations of "bloom notes" created by synthesizers with classical symphonies.
There is no doubt that Hans Zimmer is one of the most successful film composers today. However, whenever others call him a "composer", Zimmer always takes the trouble to say that he is actually a "musician". Indeed, after more than 40 years of career in composing music for images, he is essentially the teenager who tried to combine piano and chain saw into one. What fascinates him is never a certain style or instrument, nor the act of composing or playing itself, but the musicality contained in the sound. For him, the rock and roll he played when he was young is music, the electronic synthesizer is music, the tune hummed by the human voice is music, and the sound of the metronome is also music.
In Interstellar, Zimmer uses the vast range of the organ and the eerie sound qualities of special instruments to connect the vastness of the universe with human emotions.
So, in "Gladiator", he blended the low-frequency vibration "Bloom Sound" produced by the synthesizer with classical symphony, retaining the weight of history while giving it a modern impact; in "Inception", he deconstructed the melody of the French chanson "Non, je ne regrette rien" with a single note, making people feel like they are falling into a fantasy world; in "Batman: The Dark Knight", he created irregular sound effects to bring out the "Joker" theme, reflecting the chaos and threat of this villain; in "Interstellar", he intertwined the grand range of the organ and the eerie sound quality of special instruments, connecting the vastness of the universe with human emotions; in "Dunkirk", he collected the ticking sound of director Nolan's pocket watch, as if the pace of time was chasing him closely; in "Dune", he simulated the movement of sandworms with passionate drum beats, like a galloping horse.
In Dune, Zimmer simulated the movement of sandworms with passionate drum beats.
Hans Zimmer is like a creative sound engineer who constantly breaks the established rules. "There is no logical rule that can make the sound echo the picture, but when you combine the sound and the picture, a magical chemical reaction occurs, creating a brand new experience." He said in an interview.
Hans Zimmer (right) and director Christopher Nolan
Because of this, those directors who want to make unique works often regard Hans Zimmer as their first choice partner. Director Christopher Nolan often mentions that Zimmer's music is not only the soundtrack of the movie, but also an extension of the film's narrative to a certain extent - "He is not only the sound soul of my movie, but also part of the movie world I created."
Hans Zimmer (left) and director Denis Villeneuve
Denis Villeneuve, who has collaborated with Zimmer on films such as Blade Runner 2049 and Dune, also mentioned that his music is very good at "perceiving time", which makes him very unique in dealing with the rhythm and emotions in the film. In Villeneuve's view, Zimmer's music is not just background music, "his music injects the emotional soul into my film."
Not just "movie music", but also "music"
For a film composer, it seems natural to step from behind the scenes to the front of the stage and lead the band to restore the full picture of the music. However, because of stage fright, this was once an impossible task for Hans Zimmer. He established his own label Remote Control very early, bringing together a group of excellent composers and musicians. Even if he did not attend the scene in person, it would not hinder his career development at all. But he finally decided to work hard to overcome stage fright and held his first concert of his works in 2000.
After that, he would return to the stage every once in a while, and even enjoyed it more and more. In 2022, Zimmer even missed the Oscars for a concert in Amsterdam, and ended up receiving his second Oscar in a hotel in a bathrobe. Recently, he just completed a tour in North America and Europe and also attended the Coachella Music Festival.
Hans Zimmer tweeted to celebrate winning his second Academy Award for Best Original Score for Dune.
The reason why he is willing to return to the stage may be mainly attributed to two points. "I don't create for directors, producers, or film companies. I always have a fictional audience in my mind," Zimmer said in an interview with the online media Deadline in March this year. "Her name is Doris, she lives in Bradford, England, is a single mother with two naughty children, and her hands are red from the cold and hard work. She tries her best to feed her children, pay rent, and fight for life. So on weekends, she has two choices: either go to the bar with friends or take her children to a movie. If she finally decides to spend her hard-earned money on buying tickets to see a movie, I hope she can have a good experience instead of wasting her money. This is who I create for and why I create. I write for Doris."
Hans Zimmer in concert
Therefore, when Hans Zimmer stood on the stage and faced the audience, he felt like he was standing in front of hundreds of Doris. In addition, he could not do without the instigation of his friends. "It was actually Pharrell (musician Pharrell Williams) and Johnny Marr (guitarist of The Smiths) who made it happen," Zimmer admitted. "They made me sit down and wouldn't let me leave, explaining why I had to walk out of this comfortable studio and look directly at the audience instead of hiding behind the screen."
Previously, Hans Zimmer's North American tour used 15 trucks and 13 buses, which was very grand. But he said that he did not want to set the ticket price too high, but "wanted to do something more creative and give people a chance to see what we are doing and chat with my friends at the same time."
It is true that Hans Zimmer cannot conduct, but he is the soul of the entire concert. First of all, the musicians participating in the performance are all his close partners who have been carefully selected and have worked together for many years. Zimmer has always had a keen sense of smell in discovering musicians, from Lisa Gerrard, the female voice in "Gladiator", to Chinese cellist Tina Guo, violinist Rusanda Panfili, flutist Pedro Eustache, drum player Lucy Landymore, etc., all of whom are artists with superb skills and unique expressiveness. Secondly, when Zimmer is in a good mood, he goes on stage to play a piano or guitar, or a synthesizer, which often ignites the enthusiasm of the audience.
“When a movie is shown in a cinema, you have no idea what’s going on, nor can you figure out what changes your actions can bring about. You don’t know if the music works or if it touches the audience. However, at a concert, you can see the audience’s most direct reaction.” Hans Zimmer once said this when talking about live performances. “I’m not sure if this will become a trend, but I think what needs to be done now is to stop calling such creations ‘film music’ and call them ‘music’ instead.”
