Howard Shore: Silence of The Lambs

Much of the music to the film score for “Silence of The Lambs” shines with Howard Shore’s simple colors. Basically there are a ton of string beds that are perfectly placed in the scenes of the film. Often, these string beds would be flowing with harp underneath to beautify the texture. Melodies in these scores are brilliantly executed and left to the audience to interpret the beauty of them. There is, in much of the excerpts, a tension between an E tonality and and F tonality and that is the wave that starts to propagate outward toward the rest of the orchestra, sending bursts of color out into the audience. There are also illuminating qualities of harmonies in fifths, sevenths, and seconds in most of these too. The harmonic texture is very open. “Clarice” in particular shines with the french horn carrying a beautifully wandering melody through the texture of woodwinds and strings. All in all, the entire score is very tamed compared to other film scores of its time. It is a very pleasing listen to those who want it just for the music and nothing else. It’s very soothing.