-

Benjamin Frankel's serial film score for The curse

of the werewolf: an historical context and
analysis.
Newbold, Gregory Scott
https://iro.uiowa.edu/discovery/delivery/01IOWA_INST:ResearchRepository/12730667280002771?l#13730797410002771

Newbold. (2017). Benjamin Frankel’s serial film score for The curse of the werewolf: an historical context
and analysis [University of Iowa]. https://doi.org/10.17077/etd.87jntusp

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 BENJAMIN FRANKEL'S SERIAL FILM SCORE FOR THE CURSE OF THE
WEREWOLF: AN HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND ANALYSIS

by
Gregory Scott Newbold

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the Master of
Arts degree in Music
in the Graduate College of
The University of Iowa

May 2017

Thesis Supervisor: Assistant Professor Nathan Platte

 Copyright by
GREGORY SCOTT NEWBOLD
2017
All Rights Reserved

 Graduate College
The University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa

CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL
_______________________

MASTER'S THESIS
_______________

This is to certify that the Master's thesis of

Gregory Scott Newbold

has been approved by the Examining Committee

for the thesis requirement for the Master of Arts
degree in Music at the May 2017 graduation.

Thesis Committee: __________________________________

Nathan Platte, Thesis Supervisor

__________________________________
Trevor Harvey

__________________________________
Robert Cook
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This project was made possible through the extensive help and support of a
number of individuals. My interest in Benjamin Frankel and horror film scores led me to
this topic, but the support and instruction of professor Christopher Scheer was key in
directing me to pursue this research. There have been many individuals, faculty, staff,
and students, at the University of Iowa that have given valuable feedback and inspiration
for this thesis. My advisor, Nathan Platte has been a constant source of support, guidance,
and constructive criticism. I cannot thank him enough for the help he has given me
throughout this entire process.
The actual analysis of this study would have been much more difficult if not for
the help and support of Benjamin Frankel’s stepson Dimitri Kennaway. I thank him for
providing me with sheet music to analyze in my attempt to understand this music. The
insightful contributions of Kery Lawson at the University of Iowa’s Writing Center were
also helpful in developing this project. I would also like to thank my wife Priscilla for her
support and feedback throughout this whole process.

ii
 ABSTRACT

The 1961 Hammer horror film, The Curse of the Werewolf, paired innovative
make-up and set design with the avant-garde music of Benjamin Frankel (1906-1973).
Frankel’s concert works had by this time embraced serialism, but The Curse of the
Werewolf was his sole attempt at composing an almost entirely serial film score. This
music more fully bridged the divide between the continental modernist practices found in
his concert works with more conventional film music techniques. Thus, The Curse of the
Werewolf’s score represents a crucial point in Frankel’s broader creative development as
a composer who increasingly embraced twelve-tone methods in his concert works.
Drawing from historical surveys, analytical scholarship, journal articles, and
Frankel’s own writings, this thesis provides historical context surrounding Frankel’s life
and involvement with the film. Most importantly, this study examines Frankel’s
implementation of serialism in The Curse of the Werewolf’s score and its relation to the
film’s visual and narrative components. I examine three pivotal scenes through traditional
film music analysis combined with twelve-tone analysis. These analyses show how
Frankel pairs motives with onscreen characters and situations while still embracing serial
methods. This study sheds light on serialism’s application in film through the work of an
overlooked British composer.

iii


PUBLIC ABSTRACT

The 1961 Hammer horror film, The Curse of the Werewolf, paired innovative
make-up and set design with the unnerving music of composer Benjamin Frankel (1906-
1973). Frankel’s concert works had by this time embraced relatively complicated
techniques of composition known as twelve-tone methods. The Curse of the Werewolf
was his sole attempt at composing an almost entirely twelve-tone film score. This music
more fully bridged the divide between modernist compositional practices such as the
twelve-tone methods found in Frankel’s concert works with more conventional film
music techniques. Thus, The Curse of the Werewolf’s soundtrack exists as a crucial point
in Frankel’s broader creative development as a composer who increasingly embraced
twelve-tone methods in his concert works.
Drawing from historical surveys, analytical scholarship, journal articles, and
Frankel’s own writings, this thesis provides historical context surrounding Frankel’s life
and involvement with the film. Most importantly, this study examines Frankel’s
application of twelve-tone methods in The Curse of the Werewolf’s score and its relation
to the film’s visual and narrative components. I examine three pivotal scenes through
traditional film music analysis, combined with twelve-tone analysis. These analyses
show how Frankel pairs motives with onscreen characters and situations while still
embracing the twelve-tone methods. This study sheds light on the implementation of
twelve-tone compositional techniques in film through the work of an overlooked British
composer.

iv


TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ vii

LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... viii
CHAPTER
I. OBJECTIVES AND INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH ............................. 1
Literature Overview of Frankel’s Life and Works ........................................... 3
Film Music Literature ...................................................................................... 9

II. BENJAMIN FRANKEL: LIFE, WORKS, AND INVOLVEMENT

WITH HAMMER .......................................................................................... 16
Early Life and Career ..................................................................................... 16
Continental Modernism .................................................................................. 20
Frankel’s Serialsim......................................................................................... 22
Serialism in Film Music ................................................................................. 26
A History of Hammer Productions ................................................................ 30
The Sound of Hammer Studios ...................................................................... 33
Frankel’s Involvement with Hammer Studios ............................................... 34
The Curse of the Werewolf: A Background................................................... 35

III. THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF: STORY AND STRUCTURE .......... 37

A Synopsis of the Film ................................................................................... 37
Act I – The Beggar and the Servant Girl ................................................ 37
Act II – Leon as a Young Boy ................................................................ 37
Act III – Leon as a Man .......................................................................... 38
The Film’s Use of Patterns ............................................................................. 39

IV. THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF: SOUNDSCAPE ............................... 42

Diegetic Materials .......................................................................................... 43
Orchestration .................................................................................................. 44
The Primary Tone Row .................................................................................. 45
The Secondary Tone Row .............................................................................. 47
The Curse of the Werewolf’s Associative Motives ....................................... 48
The Curse Motive.................................................................................... 49
The Hammer Motive ............................................................................... 52
The Werewolf Motive ............................................................................. 53
The Stalking Motive................................................................................ 56
The Gaze Motive ..................................................................................... 57
The Danger Motive ................................................................................. 58
v


Theme A .................................................................................................. 59

V. SCENE ANALYSIS ...................................................................................... 62

Scene Overview ............................................................................................. 62
Scene I: Feeding the Beggar........................................................................... 62
Scene II: The Marques’s Chambers ............................................................... 73
Scene III: The Attack ..................................................................................... 78
Conclusions .................................................................................................... 94

APPENDIX – MATRICES OF THE PRIMARY AND SECONDARY TONE

ROWS ............................................................................................................ 96
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................. 97

vi


LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Timeline for Scene 1: Servant Girl and Beggar in the dungeon ............... 63
Table 2. Timeline for Scene 2: Servant Girl in the Marques’s chambers ............... 74
Table 3. Timeline for Scene 3: Servant Girl attacked in dungeon .......................... 79

vii


LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Opening sequence of shots ........................................................................ 39

Figure 2. Closing sequence of shots ......................................................................... 40
Figure 3. The primary tone row ................................................................................ 46
Figure 4. The secondary tone row ............................................................................ 47
Figure 5. Initial statement of the Curse Motive ........................................................ 50
Figure 6. Two appearances of the Curse Motive within the retrograde
inversion of the primary tone row ............................................................. 51
Figure 7. Hammer Motive – initial presentation....................................................... 52
Figure 8. Hammer Motive – common variation ....................................................... 52
Figure 9. Werewolf Motive – initial presentation..................................................... 53
Figure 10. Werewolf Motive variation during Leon’s Baptism ................................. 53
Figure 11. Werewolf Motive variation at Leon’s birth ............................................... 55
Figure 12. Stalking Motive – initial presentation ....................................................... 56
Figure 13. Gaze Motive .............................................................................................. 57
Figure 14. Danger Motive – initial presentation ......................................................... 58
Figure 15. Danger Motive – common variation ......................................................... 58
Figure 16. Theme A – initial presentation .................................................................. 59
Figure 17. Theme A – variation .................................................................................. 60
Figure 18. Scene 1, mm. 1-4: Theme A and shift between characters ....................... 65
Figure 19. Servant Girl through cell bars ................................................................... 66
Figure 20. Beggar rising from floor ............................................................................ 66
Figure 21. Scene 1, mm. 5-8: Wordless interaction and Beggar snatching food........ 69
Figure 22. Scene 1, mm. 9-10: Danger Motive and transition.................................... 70
Figure 23. Danger Motive variation ........................................................................... 72
Figure 24. Scene 2, mm. 11-13: Transition and repeated figures ............................... 76
Figure 25. The Marques behind a house of cards ....................................................... 76
viii


Figure 26. Scene 2, mm. 14 – 15: Gaze Motive in Marques’s chambers ................... 77
Figure 27. Scene 2, mm. 16 – 18: Danger Motive and extension ............................... 81
Figure 28. Scene 2, mm. 19 – 22: Recalling the Beggar eating and alternating
trichord ...................................................................................................... 82
Figure 29. Scene 3, mm. 23 – 26: Stalking Motive sequence..................................... 85
Figure 30. Stalking Motive melodic figure ................................................................. 86
Figure 31. Scene 3, mm. 27 – 28: Secondary tone row Stalking Motive ................... 87
Figure 32. Scene 3, mm. 29 – 30: Gaze Motive variation .......................................... 89
Figure 33. Scene 3, mm. 31 – 32: Secondary tone row trichord sequence and
dissonant build to finale ............................................................................ 90
Figure 34. Scene 3, mm. 33 – 34: Unordered collection and finale ........................... 91
Figure 35. The primary tone row matrix..................................................................... 96
Figure 36. The secondary tone row matrix ................................................................. 96

ix
 1

CHAPTER I
OBJECTIVES AND INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH

“Half-man… Half-wolf…
Compelled by the hideous curse of his evil birth to destroy
even those who loved him!”
The Curse of the Werewolf (1961) movie poster tagline

“Even by Hammer standards, this is a singularly repellent job of slaughter-house

horror.”
The Monthly Film Bulletin; Jan 1, 1961

Hammer Studio’s The Curse of the Werewolf opened May 1, 1961, as part of a
double bill with the lesser known Poe-inspired thriller The Shadow of the Cat.
Spearheaded by frequent Hammer Studio director Terence Fisher, The Curse of the
Werewolf introduced British audiences to a dashing young Oliver Reed in his first
starring role. The film shocked censors, critics, and audiences alike. These reactions
were due to some of the film’s nastier elements such as the (offscreen) rape of a mute
servant girl and a demonic curse’s power to overcome the protagonist’s faith and purity.
The Curse of the Werewolf’s blend of the macabre with sexuality had become Hammer
Studio’s established style of commercially successful horror films. In addition to its
unsettling tale, this film boasted exceptional make-up and performances. Benjamin
Frankel’s twelve-tone music for The Curse of the Werewolf matched these visuals and
drama. Drawing from his diverse compositional background, Frankel’s score blended
traits of the Second Viennese school with more conventional film scoring practices. The
Curse of the Werewolf offers an unusual instance of twelve-tone composition in a film
score.
This study’s two main objectives are: first, to present a more comprehensive
account of the context surrounding Benjamin Frankel’s involvement with The Curse Of

The Werewolf; and second, to assess his implementation of serial methods in film
scoring through analysis of three scenes from the film. In order to consider both the
audio and visual elements of the film, a mixture of analytical approaches will be utilized.
Foremost will be the presentation of the soundtrack’s primary tone row followed by
consideration of the associative motives generated from it. These motives and their
associations will be further discussed within individual scene analyses. A survey of
British composers’ attitude toward continental modernism, the Hammer productions
studio, and serialism’s use in film scoring will establish the context for this analysis.
Through analysis we gain insight into how serial methods can function in
unifying a film’s themes and support a narrative in a fashion similar to traditional
compositional methods. This thesis will show that Frankel’s music for The Curse of the
Werewolf combined non-heirarchical diatonicism and recurring associative motives
within serial compositional methods. These compositional methods help shape the film’s
structure, narrative, and drama. Associative motives are common in film music. It is the
uncommon use of serial methods that is significant and merits more analytical attention.
An initial overview of the film’s musical attributes will help contextualize the
scene analyses. Following this, an exploration of the primary and secondary tone rows
will provide a foundation for subsequent examination of motivic material derived from
them. Finally, a concentrated analysis of three scenes will highlight central associative
motives through their initial presentation within the context of the film. This analysis
will also include charts showing timestamps for music entrances and exits as well as
significant visual details for each scene.
This thesis takes a step towards addressing scholarly neglect of Benjamin
Frankel and The Curse of the Werewolf. Frankel’s works have fallen out of performance,

and he is not mentioned in most scholarship discussing either film music or serialism.
As will be shown in the following sections, instances when Frankel’s name is
mentioned, it is with regards to this film score or perhaps his sole violin concerto, but

only in passing general statements. Likewise, The Curse of the Werewolf is only
mentioned with a short synopsis about the story, the makeup, or leading actor before
moving on to discuss other Hammer films.
There exists an unusual lack of information about The Curse of the Werewolf’s
production. While it is beyond the scope of this thesis to uncover all of the absent
information about the film or its composer, this current research will help to gather
together many of the available sources concerning the two. This study opens the way for
further research regarding Frankel’s methods of serial composition as well as shed light
on his application of these methods to film scoring.
In order to approach Benjamin Frankel’s life, career, and serial film scores in
greater depth, we must first explore two broad categories of scholarship relating to
aspects of this score and its composer: scholarship concerning the life and works of
Benjamin Frankel; and musicological scholarship relating to cinema, the horror films of
the Hammer studio, and serialism in film scoring.

Literature Overview of Frankel’s Life and Works

The most notable contributor of writings about Benjamin Frankel is the

composer’s stepson, Dimitri Kennaway. Kennaway, a successful concert pianist and
composer in his own right, provided a biography of his stepfather published in The
Musical Times under the title “Benjamin Frankel: A Forgotten Legacy.”1 This article
briefly outlined Frankel’s musical background and career. Kennaway expanded upon
this account with an article entitled “The Watchmaker’s Apprentice,” which explored
Frankel’s career in greater detail.2 In 2006, Kennaway followed these previously
published biographical sources with additional details concerning his stepfather’s life in

1
Dimitri Kennaway, "Benjamin Frankel: A Forgotten Legacy," The Musical Times 133, no. 1788 (Feb.,
1992): 69-70.
2
Dimitri Kennaway, "The Watchmaker's Apprentice," accessed January, 17, 2016. http://www.musicweb-
international.com/frankel/biog.htm.

an article commemorating the late composer’s birth centenary. Simply titled, Benjamin
Frankel: His Life and Music, this article featured new and more intimate insights into
Frankel’s life and works. Kennaway’s writings touch upon Frankel’s youth, musical
training, political affiliations, notable relationships, and final years, while highlighting
many of his well-known compositions and significant developments in his career.
Perhaps most significant to my research is Kennaway’s discussion of Frankel’s serial
compositions within this source. This article is the first to mention the fact that Frankel
employed not one, but two tone rows for The Curse of the Werewolf’s music. Currently,
these three sources provide the most comprehensive account of the composer’s life. It is
notable to mention the now defunct website, www.benjaminfrankel.org, which also
hosted a few of Kennaway’s writings about his stepfather. The website has since been
shut down, although most of its information is dispersed among Frankel’s Wikipedia
entry and Kennaway’s other writings.3
Kennaway seems to have been the main driving force behind much of the
exposure that Frankel’s music received since his death. Kennaway generously provided
a full score copy of The Curse of the Werewolf used in the 2006 commercial soundtrack
recording, a project he edited and arranged himself. Since at least 1992, he has worked
with CPO records to record many of Frankel’s works for commercial release. Through
Kennaway’s constant efforts, all of Frankel’s quartets, symphonies, trios and concertos
have been released on CD and other digital formats.
In conjunction with Kennaway’s writings, Frankel’s student, friend and fellow
composer, Buxton Orr provided the New Grove’s entry on Benjamin Frankel. This
source provided a few more details complementing Kennaway’s writings. Of note are
Orr’s insights into Frankel’s approach to musical form in his larger works as well as his

3
The site www.benjaminfrankel.org, which was the official site of the composer was run by his estate,
namely Dimitri Kennaway. The site seems to have been hacked sometime in early 2014 and has since
been taken down. Thanks to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, there were 45 “snapshots” taken of
the site prior to the 2014 hack. These “snapshots” range from the sites launch in 2006 to mid-2013.

serial compositional practices.4 Orr was entrusted with the task of orchestrating
Frankel’s final composition, an opera entitled Marching Song, which only existed in a
short score form at the time of the composer’s passing.5 Orr also penned an obituary for
Benjamin Frankel in the April 1973, issue of The Musical Times. While short, this more
personalized reflection of Frankel’s life offered a few notable insights of the composer.
For example, Orr revealed that Frankel had a “love-hate relationship” with Schoenberg’s
music.6 The exact nature of that relationship is not further expounded upon, however Orr
added that Frankel reconciled (at least in part) this Schoenbergian relationship through
his “deep spiritual affinity with Gustav Mahler.”7 This reconciliation would come
through Frankel’s belief that serialism and tonality were musically compatible methods.
That musical relationship played out in the majority of his concert works from his later
years.
Orr’s New Grove entry and Kennaway’s biographical sketches together
constitute the foundation for almost all other sources that reference Frankel. Indeed,
most other websites and books draw directly from these two authors’ writings. These
sources focus primarily on outlining Frankel’s life and then fitting his works within that
historical context. For the purpose of my research, there are a few shortcomings with
these sources, which are: first, that the discussions of the music he wrote are more
general and do not include any in-depth analysis; second, that Frankel’s concert works
receive more representation than do his film scores.
Kennaway and Orr’s writings also intersect with those of music theorist and
critic Hans Keller who was a close friend and colleague of Frankel. Keller frequently
wrote about Frankel’s music in The Musical Times, The Listener, Tempo, and various

4
Buxton Orr, Frankel, Benjamin, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online (Oxford University Press).
5
Kennaway, "Benjamin Frankel: A Forgotten Legacy," 70.
6
Buxton Orr, "Benjamin Frankel," The Musical Times Vol. 114, no. No. 1562 (Apr., 1973): 414.
7
Ibid.

other music journals. The two men often collaborated together, programming music as
well as providing lectures for BBC Radio’s Third Programme. These radio programs
featured music from a variety of modernist composers, including Frankel’s own works.
Records show that Frankel also gave many Third Programme talks of his own, including
Towards Re-tonality (7/17/63), The Language of Music (12/15/70), and Why Write
Symphonies Today? (10/23/72).8 The BBC Third Programme discussions and lectures
have not been made public in transcript or digitized forms. The only currently available
lecture is an introductory talk for his second and third symphonies included on the CPO
recording for these two symphonies.
Keller frequently discussed aspects and aesthetics of Frankel’s music that he held
in high regard and used as examples to support his own theories. Keller wrote many
times about Frankel’s concert works, but occasionally he explored the composer’s music
for cinema. Keller is one of the few authors to include Frankel in his various discussions
of serialism and serial works. Keller wrote that Frankel had “repeatedly demonstrated
the 12-note method’s symphonic potentialities,” with serial techniques of an
“unswervingly musical” nature.9 This stands as stark contrast against much of the
literature regarding serialism, in which Frankel’s works (and indeed, his very name) are
largely omitted. Concerning Frankel’s film music, Keller described it as “virtuosic…
ultra-professional and, still more important, consistently inventive.”10 Most notably
among Keller’s writings on Frankel’s film music is the published collection, Film Music
and Beyond: Writings on Music and the Screen, 1946-59. In it, Keller defends Frankel’s
style, calling it “stressedly international.”11 Keller also discussed many of Frankel’s

8
Dimitri Kennaway, "Early Recordings and Broadcasts," accessed January, 17, 2016.
http://www.musicweb-international.com/frankel/discog2.htm.
9
Hans Keller, "Frankel and the Symphony," The Musical Times 111, no. 1524 (Feb., 1970): 147.
10
Ibid.
11
Ibid.

scores prior to The Curse of the Werewolf, most notably was his assessment of the music
to The Prisoner (1955), which Keller described as a balance between Mahler’s
emotionally expressivity and the emotionally suppressive “new world of the ostinato.”12
Keller does not indicate any twelve-tone techniques at play in the score, but does praise
Frankel’s “creative and varying approach to ostinato technique.”13 Keller’s writings,
while insightful, weigh heavily on qualitative judgments and lack analysis of the
material.
In addition to the aforementioned sources are Frankel’s own writings. These
sources are not numerous, but offer some insight to his own ideas, especially regarding
serialism and his rejection of what he saw as established musical traditions. This theme
appears among Frankel’s writings quite frequently. He explained that the “established
‘ways’” could be a barrier to “truth,” which should be confronted.14 Frequently, he wrote
in regards to new works he would be premiering, such as his introductory essay for his
Symphony No. 7, op. 50 (1970).15 In almost all cases, Frankel’s writings do not discuss
his film music and instead remark on his serial concert works. This is largely due to the
fact that the majority of his writings were newspaper and journal articles either
considering/defending musical concepts (in many instances responding to letters from
other contributors) or serving to introduce one of his new concert works.16
There had been significantly less written concerning Frankel’s film music during
his life, and most authors used his concert works as the centerpiece of discussions about

12
Ibid., 146.
13
Hans Keller, Film Music and Beyond. Writings on Music and the Screen, 1946-59, ed. Christopher
Wintle (Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer Inc, 2006), 42.
14
Benjamin Frankel, "A Bold Step Forward in Music," The Listener, no. 1928 (Thur, Mar. 10, 1966): 344.
15
Ibid.
16
For an example of the first category, see: Benjamin Frankel, "Firing-Squad," The Listener 2137
(Thursday, March 12, 1970): 347. For an example of the second, see: Benjamin Frankel, "Sonata Form?,"
The Listener, no. 1886 (Thursday, May 20, 1965): 757.

the composer. After 1973, there began a sharp decline in the amount of overall Frankel
scholarship. British music critics and a handful of Frankel’s composition students such
as Robert Crawford, Sir George Martin and Buxton Orr had sought at least some amount
of continuing recognition for Frankel’s work. Most of these students have since passed
away and published research on Frankel’s life and his contributions to British musical
modernism has become less frequent.
The majority of more recent scholarship to mention Frankel relies on the
previously mentioned author’s writings (namely, Kennaway, Orr, and Keller) and does
not aim to provide new details or explore overlooked aspects of his life. A few examples
of these more recent contributions are Wieland Reich’s article, “Klänge des Erinnerns
Jom Hashoah,” and Amy Michelle Langley’s dissertation, The music written for Thea
King: With emphasis on the “Mini Concerto” by Gordon Jacob and the clarinet quintet
by Benjamin Frankel.17, 18 Reich reflects upon Frankel’s violin concerto and its
memorialization of the Holocaust while briefly touching upon the composer’s life.
Langley draws mainly from Kennaway and Orr’s New Grove entry for a summary of
Frankel’s life, but offers an in-depth examination of his Quintet for clarinet and strings,
op. 28 (1956).
Despite this overwhelming neglect of new information about Frankel, authors
David Huckvale and Dimitri Kennaway have provided the most recent contributions
about Benjamin Frankel that feature additional information regarding his music for The
Curse of the Werewolf.19 These sources will be discussed shortly, but first I will present

17
Wieland Reich, "Klänge Des Erinners Jom Hashoah/27. Januar," Music in der Schule (Jan-Mar, 1999):
16-23.
18
Amy Michelle Langley, “The Music Written for Thea King: With Emphasis on the "Mini Concerto" by
Gordon Jacob and the Clarinet Quintet by Benjamin Frankel” (Dissertation, The University of Memphis,
2012).
19
While there are no book-length biographies of Frankel nor any books written exclusively about his
works, there is a rather cryptic source called The Music of Benjamin Frankel by a John Williams. I’ve
gathered that it is a book that was never actually published commercially, but at least for a limited time
may have been distributed within England by the now defunct Benjamin Frankel society.

some of the literature regarding film music and the Hammer studio to establish a
foundation for Huckvale, Kennaway and my own writings about this film.

Film Music Literature

As broad explorations of the profession’s history and practices, historical film

music surveys afford a frame of reference for this film. While not always directly
mentioning Frankel, this literature can help facilitate discussion about how his music
responded to and engaged with contemporary practices. These texts consider the careers
and musical styles of some of Frankel’s English contemporaries, such as Arthur Bliss,
William Alwyn, and James Bernard, but the larger body of work focuses more attention
on North American film music practices through the history of Hollywood. The
foundational context they provide is valuable, but Benjamin Frankel and this film are
rarely mentioned. A few notable exceptions include Frankel and offer some additional
information about his career. Among these few are authors Mervyn Cooke’s A History
of Film Music and James Wierzbicki’s Film Music: A History.20 Cooke provides insight
into the British film culture of which Frankel was a part and devotes two pages to his
life, career, and most well-known scores. Cooke describes Frankel’s music as including
“tonally rooted serial techniques” and is one of the few sources to mention his limited
use of serialism in The Prisoner prior to The Curse of the Werewolf.21 The amount of
information Cooke supplies coupled with the recognition of diatonic characteristics in
Frankel’s serialism are extremely rare among historical film music surveys.
Sources devoted to the more specific history of British film music are more
likely to mention Frankel, but they too offer little more than cursory glimpses of his life
and works. Frankel is generally not mentioned more than once in each of these British

20
James Wierzbicki, Film Music a History (New York: Routledge, 2009); Mervyn Cooke, The History of
Film Music (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
21
Cooke, 247.

 10

specific sources, and it is most often with a short statement about the composer’s use of
serialism. This sort of treatment is mirrored in K. J. Donnelly’s British Film Music and
Film Musicals, which briefly regards Frankel’s work with the Hammer studio and
follows by remarking that The Curse of the Werewolf was the first British serial score.22
Divulging his own bias against popular music, Donnelly also comments on Frankel’s art
music “rehabilitation” from his earlier career as a “dance-hall specialist.”23
Unfortunately, Donnelly goes on to incorrectly attribute the music for the film Radio
Parade of 1935 (1934) to composer Hans May, a score that Frankel both composed and
conducted.24 Similarly, David Kershaw’s chapter devoted to film and television music in
The Blackwell History of Music in Britain summarizes Frankel and his film scoring
career in one sentence, and only in relation to fellow Hammer composer, James Bernard
and the Hammer studio itself. Kershaw then describes The Curse of the Werewolf’s
score as music “which incorporated traditional tonal and melodic gestures within a
compositional method deriving from serial procedures.”25 This score’s lack of attention
is a theme that will unfortunately carry throughout this study. However, it is striking that
a few examples briefly mention Frankel’s combining of serial and tonal compositional
methods. This blending of compositional methods contributed to Frankel’s ability to
create relatively approachable serial music for this film.
The sizable amount of literature addressing film music theory, practice, and
analysis provides the concepts, methods, theories, and specialist terminology used in this
analysis. The list of authors provided here is not a comprehensive representation of all
the writings that shaped and informed this current study. However, these select authors’

22
K. J. Donnelly, British Film Music and Film Musicals (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 25.
23
Ibid., 28, 54.
24
Ibid., 48.
25
David Kershaw, "Film and Television Music," in Music in Britian: The Twentieth Century, ed. Stephen
Banfield (Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1995), 135.

 11

concepts and methods are representative of much larger fields of study that this thesis
takes into account. The writings of Michel Chion, Benjamin Nagari, James Buhler and
K.J. Donnelly are of particular importance to this study.26 Many commonly shared ideas,
concepts, and methods of film music analysis are among these authors’ literature.
Most basic of these ideas is that music contributes an added emotional value to
film. To understand how this is accomplished, attention to the music’s placement in the
film is vital. Claudia Gorbman and Michel Chion have, in championing this concept,
developed the idea that added value is achieved by music’s diegetic and nondiegetic
placement in the film.27 In addition to placement is the music’s function as either
depicting the onscreen images, or by creating an “indifferent” musical background.28
These terms and concepts have informed and shaped this study’s dialogue and analysis
of Frankel’s music, which is a constant blending between these two opposing functions.
A background tapestry of expressive music is woven through the unfolding of serial tone
rows, while Frankel also employs the use of recurring associative motives. The
identification of recurring associative motives and their visual counterparts is key to a
discussion of The Curse of the Werewolf’s music. All of these previously mentioned
authors, along with many others, discuss the process of coding musical motives by
pairing the musical and visual to highlight moments of greater thematic importance. K.J.
Donnelly’s books The Spectre of Sound and Occult Aesthetics explore this analytical
concept with special consideration to the temporal alignment between the sonic and

26
Michel Chion, Audio-Vision, trans. Claudia Gorbman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994);
Benjamin Nagari, Music as Image: Analytical Psychology and Music in Film (New York, NY: Routledge,
2016); James Buhler, "Psychoanalysis, Apparatus Theory, and Subjectivity," in The Oxford Handbook of
Film Music Studies (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2014); K. J. Donnelly, Occult Aesthetics:
Synchronization in Sound Film (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2014).
27
Claudia Gorbman, Unheard Melodies (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1987), 11-30; Chion,
73, 81.
28
Chion, 8.

 12

visual materials.29 This current study of Frankel’s music will further analyze sound’s
placement within the larger soundscape. This analysis will consider aspects of placement
such as timbre, volume, and interaction with non-musical diegetic sounds. These aspects
of analysis have been modeled after the descriptions advanced in the writings of
Benjamin Nagari and David Neumeyer.30 Nagari further includes the viewer’s
perspective within his analytical devices for sound placement, however this parameter
will not be considered within this study.
Evaluation of how Frankel’s music interacts with the film’s images builds upon
Chion and Gorbman’s writings, while additionally considering whether the music
expresses or contradicts what is onscreen. David Neumeyer and James Buhler’s chapters
on film music analysis within Film Music: Critical Approaches explore similar ideas of
music’s ability to either match or contrast with the visuals.31 Much like melodic
associative motives, further consideration to pairing tonal centers in relation to
characters and narrative is offered by Neumeyer.32 These concepts are not new to the
field of film music analysis, but these authors highlight and synthesize the analytical
methods that this study will undertake.
In the book The Film Sense, Sergei Eisenstein referred to the modern sound
film’s “polyphonic structure,” which ultimately “achieves its total effect through the
composite sensation of all the pieces as a whole.”33 The Curse of the Werewolf’s
polyphonic structure is distinctive in that it includes the underlying layer of the serial

29
K. J. Donnelly, The Spectre of Sound: Music in Film and Television (London: BFI Publishing, 2014),
1-15; Donnelly, Occult Aesthetics: Synchronization in Sound Film, 14-43.
30
Nagari, 38-39; David Neumeyer and James Buhler, Meaning and Interpretation of Music in Cinema,
Musical Meaning and Interpretation (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015).
31
K. J. Donnelly, ed. Film Music: Critical Approaches (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001).
32
David Neumeyer and James Buhler, "Analytical and Interpretive Approaches," in Film Music: Critical
Approaches, ed. K. J. Donnelly (Edinburgh: Edinburch University Press, 2001), 16-59.
33
Sergei Eisenstein, The Film Sense, trans. Jay Leyda (New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace, 1942), 77.

 13

method’s processes. An awareness of these serial workings provides an added

component, the knowledge of which can ultimately enhance the viewing experience of
the film. To address Frankel’s use of serial methods as well as the historical context in
which he was composing his music, there is a wealth of scholars who have more fully
explored dodecaphony, twelve-tone (or rather, the British term, twelve-note), serialism,
or any other serial related musical term. Much of this scholarship explores the various
personalized approaches to serialism, often considering permutations and subdivisions
of tone rows far more complex than the methods Frankel employs in this film. However,
they do show the many composers’ techniques and musical communities Frankel was
often on the fringes of.
First and foremost, Arnold Schoenberg’s collected essays published under the
title Style and Idea establish and outline the fundamental ideas of the serial method.34 In
addition to these foundational writings, there are the notable contributions of Arnold
Whittall, Hans Keller, George Perle, and Milton Babbitt.35 Whittall’s exploration of the
countless approaches to the serial method serves as foundational information for
approaching the analysis of a serial composition. However, it is Whittall’s (as well as
music theorist Anthony Pople, from which Whittall draws) exploration of the
“embedding of tonalistic figurations in serial music” within Berg’s opera Lulu that
parallel Frankel’s own pairing of serialism with non-hierarchical diatonicism.36 Whittall
also points out Ernst Krenek’s view of the serial tone row as a “store of motifs out of

34
Arnold Schoenberg, Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg, ed. Leonard Stein, trans.
Leo Black (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2010, 1984).
35
Arnold Whittall, The Cambridge Introduction to Serialism (NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008);
Hans Keller, Essays on Music (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); George Perle, Serial
Composition and Atonality, Sixth ed. (Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1991); Milton
Byron Babbitt, “The Function of Set Structure in the Twelve-Tone System” (Dissertation, Princeton
University, 1992).
36
Whittall, 80.

 14

which all the individual elements of the composition are to be developed.”37 These
views outline an approach to tone rows, which aligns with Frankel’s own method. In this
film he derived associative motives through segmentation of the tone rows. Perle and
Babbitt’s writings on serial methods are quite extensive and consider myriads of
compositional possibilities.38 Both of these author’s share similar ideas of the motivic
capabilities within the tone row. Babbitt was in fact a friend of Keller’s and through
him, knew Frankel.39 No evidence has yet been found on whether this acquaintance had
any influence on Frankel’s own compositions.
A close fried to Frankel, Keller often spoke and wrote about serial composition.
In his writings can be observed many ideas similar to Frankel’s own views on serial
composition. Chief of which was Keller’s belief that the tonal and serial methods were
not entirely independent of each other, most notably evidenced in his scrutiny of
Mozart’s works to find serial-like passages.40 Of these authors, only Keller explored the
possibility of serial composition’s use in film scoring.
Establishing a precedence or more comprehensive historiography for the practice
of composing serial music for film is problematic and an issue that will be addressed in
more depth in a later chapter. However, it is beneficial at this juncture to observe some
of the literature related to discussing serialism and its use within film music. Due to the
rarity of the practice, any serial film music analyses are helpful to this study. Most of the
literature related to the serial method’s use in film scoring explores Schoenberg’s own
ties to Hollywood and his attempts at working within the cinematic arts. Most notably
among this scholarship are the writings of David Neumeyer, Sabine Feisst and Dorothy

37
Ibid., 120.
38
Perle; Babbitt.
39
Milton Byron Babbitt, The Collected Essays of Milton Babbitt, ed. Stephen Peles (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2003), 399.
40
Hans Keller, "Strict Serial Technique in Classical Music," Tempo, no. 37 (Autumn, 1955): 14.

 15

Lamb Crawford. This literature draws attention to the issue of the serial method’s
compatibility with film scoring, and explores how other composers may have negotiated
the same issues as Frankel. Sally Bick and Volker Helbing’s literature on Hanns Eisler’s
limited inclusion of twelve-tone film scoring techniques considers both his career as
well as analyses of sections of his scores. Most notably are Bick’s studies of Eisler’s
music for Hangmen Also Die, a largely tonally rooted score, which featured a recurring
twelve-tone passage first introduced in the film’s title credits.41

41
Sally Bick, "A Double Life in Hollywood: Hans Eisler's Score for the Film Hangmen Also Die and the
Covert Expression S of a Marxist Composer," The Musical Quarterly 93, no. 1 (Spring 2010): 107.

 16

CHAPTER II
BENJAMIN FRANKEL: LIFE, WORKS, AND INVOLVEMENT WITH HAMMER

Early Life and Career

As a composer, Benjamin Frankel (1906-1973) was a prominent member of the

British musical landscape from the 1940s through the 1960s. He was involved with
music from an early age, learning to play piano and whenever possible, performing
duets with his brother.42 Around the age of fourteen his musical focus shifted to studying
violin, while at the same time apprenticing into the career of watchmaking.43 However,
in 1921 Frankel accepted an invitation to privately study piano for the next two years
with American pianist, Victor Benham. The last six months of this “crucial period of
study” took place in Cologne after which Frankel returned to England.44 He again took
up the violin and began to build a reputation as a “hot jazz fiddler” and arranger for both
Carroll Gibbons's Savoy Orpheans, and Henry Hall's BBC Dance Orchestra.45, 46
Benjamin Frankel’s formal musical training came from a variety of places. His
continued violin training came under the direction of Mark Greenfield at the Trinity
College of music.47 Additionally, during the late 1920s and early 1930s he attended the
Guildhall School of music in London, where he studied piano and composition under
Orlando Morgan. Throughout these years of formal education, Frankel was

simultaneously making a living working as an arranger and musical director for C.B.

42
Kennaway, "The Watchmaker's Apprentice."
43
Ibid.
44
Ibid.
45
Dimitri Kennaway, "Benjamin Frankel: Bms Lecture-Recital," accessed January, 17, 2016.
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2006/Jun06/Frankel_Kennaway.htm.
46
Dimitri Kennaway, "Benjamin Frankel: Mini Bio," accessed January 16, 2015.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006082/bio?ref_=nmbio_ql_1#mini_bio.
47
John Huntley, British Film Music (London: Knapp, Drewett & Sons, 1947), 205.

 17

Cochrane, Henry Hall’s BBC Dance Orchestra, and Noel Coward’s West End
musicals.48 Guildhall would play another important role in Frankel’s career, when he
would later return to teach composition from 1946-56.49
His first published composition, Three Miniatures for Piano, op. 1 was written in
1926, however it was not until 1933 that it was publicly performed along with his Three
Sketches for String Quartet, op. 2.50 Perhaps due to Frankel’s busy schedule arranging
and performing, his compositional output did not fully thrive until the 1940’s. In 1944
he finally resigned himself from all jazz arranging and performing commitments, which
was cause for much of this increased creative output. This period saw the realization of
his four string quartets, opp. 14, 15, 18, 21 (1944-1949), as well as his well-received
violin concerto, In Memory of the Six Million, op. 24 (1951). It was also during this time
that Frankel saw his first major success in another facet of his career, that of film
scoring, with the critically acclaimed film, The Seventh Veil (1946).
Benjamin Frankel’s entrance into the film industry had begun in 1934 with the
music for the comedy Radio Parade of 1935.51 Until 1944, he had only served as
composer and/or musical director for a handful of films. The changes in 1944 and the
new freedom they afforded him, allowed for an increase in film scoring commitments in
addition to his increased output of concert works. Frankel soon began to average four
film scoring projects per year, and this rate continued well into the late 1950's.
The Seventh Veil featured music from well-known composers of the Classical
and Romantic eras, as well as Frankel’s own original compositions. Concerning
Frankel’s music for this film, Dimitri Kennaway has referred to it as a Romantic “nod”

48
Kennaway, "Benjamin Frankel: Bms Lecture-Recital."
49
Ibid.
50
Ibid.
51
Ibid.

 18

to Hollywood composer Max Steiner whom Frankel “greatly admired.”52 One critic
described the film’s music as “an outstanding success in bringing music to a wider
audience in an artistically satisfying, technically pleasing (even box office gratifying)
manner.”53 By 1947, Frankel had established a reputation for specializing in the “lighter
type of scoring,” or rather as one of the country’s “leading experts in the jazz and
comedy score.”54 His music also found some measure of popularity in the dance halls of
the 1950s when a few of his film compositions, “Carriage and Pair” from So Long at the
Fair (1950) and “Lilly Watkin’s Theme” from Footsteps in the Fog (1955) became
popular with British dance bands.55
Frankel’s composing career was already becoming split between his more avant
garde concert works and his more traditional jazz, comedy, and romantic scoring for
film. Though he may not have been as well known for his more dramatic film scores
until later into the 1950s, Frankel had already begun providing quite dramatic and dark
scores for films such as Mine Own Executioner (1947), Give us This Day (1949), Night
and the City (UK version, 1950), and The Net (1953).
The 1950s brought about perhaps the most striking and important change in
Frankel’s compositional methods. His concert works had tended to embrace continental
modernist styles, but these techniques were no more fully realized than with the
composition of his first symphony in 1958. This work marked a major shift to twelve-
tone compositional methods. Theorist and close friend, Hans Keller claims to have
“taught him [Frankel] the technique when he went dodecaphonic in his late middle-
age.”56 Frankel had for many years “consciously rejected” the technique until something

52
Ibid.
53
Huntley, 78.
54
Ibid., 205.
55
Cooke, 246.
56
Kennaway, "The Watchmaker's Apprentice."

 19

sparked his interest in developing his own interpretation of the method.57 A more in-
depth consideration of Frankel’s serial compositional methods will be presented in a
later section of this thesis. It is enough for the time being to know that his personal
approach to serialism embraced tone rows that contained relatively diatonic subsets,
which resembled tradition triadic and quartal elements. His application of these tone
rows was not tonal and the diatonic properties functioned non-hierarchically.
From 1958, until his death, Frankel composed eight symphonies, all of which
drew upon twelve-tone techniques in some form.58 The majority of Frankel’s music for
the concert hall written after 1958, continued to utilize serial methods to varying
degrees, however his film music did not. Despite the non-hierarchically diatonic
elements found within his serial compositions, an audible divide began to separate
Frankel’s film music from his concert works. Two of his film scores, The Prisoner
(1955) and The Curse of the Werewolf (1961) more fully reconciled these opposing
spectrums of his profession by incorporating serial techniques.
This divided career manifest in more than just the stylistic differences of his own
works, but it was also cause for some degree of exclusion from both critics and fellow
composers. It has been suggested that Benjamin Frankel as well as fellow composer’s
William Alwyn and Malcolm Arnold’s reputations among the art music critics, “suffered
from their involvement with film.”59 Mervyn Cooke agrees with this opinion by further
suggesting that Frankel was viewed by the establishment as “somehow prostituting” his
art to film.60 This attitude was quite evident when in 1955 Frankel appeared in court to
defend himself against a case of slander he had allegedly committed against conductor

57
ibid.
58
Orr, "Frankel, Benjamin."
59
Jan G. Swynnoe, The Best Years of British Film Music 1936-1958 (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell
Press, 2002), 187.
60
Cooke, 226.

 20

and BBC music producer, Edward Clark.61 In attendance at the trial was Frankel’s
friend, Hans Keller, who later described how court counsel sought to discredit Frankel
by calling into question his status as a “serious” composer on account of his film
music.62 Taking these examples into account, it is quite possible that Frankel’s choice to
use serialism within The Curse of the Werewolf’s could have been his attempt to
legitimize film music to his critics.
The music for The Curse of the Werewolf more fully bridges this divide between
the continental modernist practices found in Frankel’s concert works with his more
conventional film music. Likewise, this score is also a link between a film music
tradition, largely drawn from the Romantic period, and more modern musical idioms of
atonality. What is all the more significant is how this film’s music manages to exist
within both of these stylistic spheres without its serial aspect detracting from its
effectiveness as a film score. Composed between his first and second symphonies, The
Curse of the Werewolf was not his only film score to feature serial techniques, but marks
the last time Frankel would use this compositional method in a film. For the rest of
Frankel’s life, twelve-tone techniques were regularly utilized in his concert music. Thus,
The Curse of the Werewolf’s music marks a crucial point in Frankel’s larger creative
development into a composer who increasingly embraced twelve-tone methods in his
music.

Continental Modernism

In order to study this period in Frankel’s life, it is helpful to position him within
the context of the British incorporation of continental modernist techniques such as
twelve-tone methods. Establishing this context reveals to what extent Schoenberg’s

61
Hans Keller, "Film Music: Frankel, Blomdahl, Arnold," The Musical Times 96, no. 1350 (Aug. 1955):
435.
62
ibid.

 21

music and ideas had been adopted by the 1960s and within what musical spheres they
were found.63 The growth of England’s modernist musical trends largely took root back
during the turn of the century. Schoenberg’s music, specifically, had become
increasingly accepted in the British concert hall after its turbulent introduction in
London in 1912.64 The adoption of continental modernist practices in British music
became more intense throughout the postwar years of the forties and fifties.65 Influential
composers working in England during the 1950s, such as Alexander Goehr, Peter
Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle, largely incorporated serialism as well as other
modernist techniques that drew heavily upon Second Viennese practices. It was around
this same time that Benjamin Frankel adopted serialism into his own music. By the late
1950s Schoenberg’s ideas were well known and Frankel was only one among many
other composers in his country exploring, adapting, and applying various interpretations
of these techniques.
Before continuing, a moment should be spent considering my use of the terms
twelve-tone and serial. Schoenberg’s development of what he called a “method for
composition with twelve tones which are related only with one another,” is commonly
known by the terms: twelve-tone, dodecaphonic, and serial music.66 These terms have at
times been used fairly interchangeably. While the label dodecaphonic seems to have
fallen out of common use, both twelve-tone and serial have become the two main terms
used to describe this method and the music made with it. The term serialism (or serial
methods) has, I believe, tended to become associated with compositional methods that

63
Philip Rupprecht, British Musical Modernism (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 33-
39.
64
Deborah Heckert, "Shoenberg, Roger Fry and the Emergence of a Critical Language for the Reception
of Musical Modernism in Britian, 1912-1914," in British Music and Modernism, 1895-1960, ed. Matthew
Riley (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010), 54.
65
Rupprecht, 21.
66
J. Kent Williams, Theories and Analyses of Twentieth-Century Music (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace &
Company, 1997), 275.

 22

can be more comprehensive and perhaps stricter in practice. A serial work may only
draw from a predetermined pitch set (or tone row), but it does not have to include all
twelve-pitch classes to be serial. It is possible for serial works to draw only from
hexatonic sets (or any other number of pitch classes in the set) that together do not make
up an octave aggregate. Additionally, serial methods may also imply a compositional
method that extends beyond the serializing of predetermined pitches to other musical
elements such as rhythm, duration, etc. On the other hand, twelve-tone compositional
methods may describe music that draws from a defined twelve-pitch class set, but
adheres to no serial procedures. The terms serial and twelve-tone will be used
interchangeably throughout this study and will generally refer to music, which is derived
from a predetermined row of pitches with no hierarchically functional tonality. Whether
a specific row is constructed from all twelve pitches of the octave or not is of no
concern. While opposing views may exist regarding these terms, this research will not
favor one over the other mostly due to the fact that the sources and especially quotes
being drawn upon also freely use the terms interchangeably.
When referring to the serial practice of using a tone row, I will be using the term
tone in my writing, which is not commonly found within the British sources referring to
serialism. The distinction should be made that frequently the term note row appears
within quotations of British origin. To avoid any confusion, the reader should keep in
mind that tone row, note row, and even note-series are all terms that should be
considered synonymous within this study.

Frankel’s Serialism

Frankel held to a belief that tonality was critical to musical thought, and it was
that belief which he upheld in his approach to serialism. As Buxton Orr explains,

Frankel perceived the tone row as a “pervasively thematic melodic line of almost infinite
versatility, out of which it was possible to derive harmonies often of a startlingly bold

 23

diatonicism.”67 Frankel’s treatment of the tone row as melodic content in which all
thematic material is derived, is key to understanding his style of serial composition,
especially within the music for The Curse of the Werewolf. In one of Benjamin Frankel’s
talks for the BBC’s Third Programme, he discussed his approach to the serial methods
of his Symphony No. 3, op. 40 (1964). He viewed this symphony as an “argument”
between non-serial “pure diatonicism” and “strict serialism.”68 This musical argument is
eventually resolved, but only through a process of what Frankel described as the
“merging of diatonic and serial methods.”69 Regarding his second symphony, Frankel
described the work as “the deliberate reintroduction of tonal harmony and melody, while
remaining rigidly strict in the use of… a single note-series.”70 Perhaps most importantly
Frankel saw the serial method’s chromaticism as “compatible” with the “expressive and
structural use of tonality.”71 A similar approach to balancing these compositional
methods can be observed in Frankel’s music for The Curse of the Werewolf.
Frankel’s attempt to balance two diametric musical systems was not always
regarded favorably. Critics often distinguished his serial music as not actually being
serial, by referring to it as merely based in a twelve-tone system. Others outright derided
his music, as one critic simply condemned Frankel’s whole method of serialism as
“wrong-headed.”72 Another critic, while regarding his Symphony No.5, op. 46, praised
Frankel’s orchestration, but called his approach to serial composition a “preoccupation”

67
David Huckvale, Hammer Film Scores and the Musical Avant-Garde (Jefferson, NC: McFarland &
Company, 2008), 39.
68
Frankel, "Sonata Form?," 757.
69
Benjamin Frankel, "Introductions to the Second and Third Symphonies," recorded, CPO records,
Frankel: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 3, CD.
70
Frankel, "Sonata Form?," 757.
71
Orr, "Frankel, Benjamin."
72
Stephen Walsh, "Oedipus Behind the Mask: Music," The Observer (April 2, 1967): 24.

 24

with balancing serial and diatonic techniques, in which “there is an inevitable conflict
that presents all sorts of problems and results in a sense of compromise.”73
Fellow twelve-tone composer and musical theorist George Perle described a
serial work as “a series of variations of an ostinato motive.”74 This view implies that the
unfolding of the tone row throughout the serial work is not that unlike traditional film
scoring practices, which can rely heavily on the repetition and variation of associative
motivic devices. Benjamin Frankel’s approach to serialism was not to create something
completely removed from the more traditional triadic and non-functional diatonic
musical practices. In order to achieve this, Frankel first constructed tone rows, which
were collections of triadic and melodic subsets. He then followed this with the creation
of smaller motivic melodies derived from these subsets of the tone row collection.
Frankel’s own view of the tone row was as a pitch collection of thematic material from
which all motivic content could be derived. He referred to his process of serial
composition as “the extraction from the note-series of innumerable motivic elements” in
addition to the numerous harmonic and melodic varieties “in which the row is itself
presented.”75
Frankel commonly composed with associative motives in his film scores and the
music for The Curse of the Werewolf is no exception. Most of these important motives
are first heard within the film’s prelude, or the title sequence, however they lack any
visual or thematic associations until they are again heard within the film. It is with the
introduction of the Servant Girl and her subsequent attack near the closing of the film’s
first act that these motives are re-introduced and properly coded with the lycanthropic
curse.

73
Robert Crawford, "Frankel in Edinburgh," Tempo, no. 108 (Mar. 1974): 17.
74
Perle, 64.
75
Frankel, "Introductions to the Second and Third Symphonies."

 25

Frankel’s proclivity to feature motivic material within his serial compositions

invariably resulted in a constant negotiation seeking balance between degrees of
development and outright avoidance through the application of variation to these
fundamental tone row subsets. These established serial practices are also present in The
Curse of the Werewolf. Thus, throughout his music for this film, he must navigate to
what degree each reiteration of the row is functioning more as motivic development or
avoidance. This seems to reinforce Frankel’s aforementioned view of the serial method
functioning as an argument.
Frankel’s approach to associative motives within this score relies upon the
pairing of tone row subset melodies in specific intervallic sequences with a particular
rhythmic sequence. In this pairing of subset melodies with rhythms, the composer is able
to “pull out” or temporarily highlight motivic units from the overall unfolding of the
tone row and employ those motivic units in distinct instances of his choosing. Thus the
overall tone row itself serves as the foundational musical material from which all the
motivic units are derived. This type of tone row operation is closer to what George Perle
termed the “melodic prototype,” where the row (or fundamental set) functions,
according to Ernst Krenek, as a “common denominator for all the melodic phenomena”
in the score.76 Therefore the fundamental set (or tone row), establishes a high degree of
coherence across the whole composition, but is not itself a perceptible thematic device.
Frankel’s approach to unfolding tone rows tended to be to cycle through
permutations of a tone row in a sequential order. That sequence could manifest itself as
melodic (horizontal) or harmonic (vertical), but his methods favored including all pitch
classes of the row. However, the unfolding of a complete row did not have to line up
with musical phrasing, and quite often a single tone row could extend across multiple

phrases. Omissions of pitch classes from a row’s unfolding were infrequent, but did

76
Perle, 64.

 26

occur. Unordered subsets derived from rows or containing non-row material were used
infrequently, and usually only appear to extend musical sequences before the appearance
of the next row.
The Curse of the Werewolf also features the addition of a secondary tone row.
This additional row, which will be more fully explored within the scene analysis,
features an even higher degree of diatonicism than the primary row. This is due to the
fact that the secondary row is a set of four triadic subsets. While the analysis will show
the secondary row’s application, its motivic function is not entirely clear, since it does
not appear to be an associative motive by itself within the film. It only appears within
the context of larger thematic instances in which it further develops sequences already
introduced by the primary tone row. It is unknown if the use of multiple tone rows
within a single composition was common for Frankel. I am unaware of any literature
addressing this issue and it is out of the scope of my research to analyze all of Frankel’s
twelve-tone compositions. Thus, I cannot as of yet determine if this particular instance is
unique within the composer’s traditional methods. It is apparent that Frankel favored the
use of a primary row within this score for the sake of thematic unity.

Serialism in Film Music

Frankel’s use of serialism in The Curse of the Werewolf’s score was not a new or
unprecedented phenomenon. By the film’s release in 1961, there had already been
attempts at scoring motion pictures using serial methods. Schoenberg’s own interest in
and his ties to film music were quite prominent. Twelve-tone methods in film music
were foreshadowed as early as 1930 when Schoenberg composed Begleitmusik zu einer
Lichtspielszene [Accompanying music to a film scene], op. 34 (1930). Serial
composition and scoring for film are two methods of musical creation that may appear

some to be particularly incompatible. However, serialism and traditional film scoring

often feature reliance on motives and an overall interconnectivity. Composer, Hanns

 27

Eisler, along with Theodor Adorno, warned against twelve-tone film scoring in the
hands of novice composers, whose “sham radicalism would only weaken the effect of
the motion picture.”77 Eisler himself composed film music using twelve-tone techniques
for the experimental film Regen (1929) and to a far lesser extent, Hangmen Also Die
(1943).78, 79 This incorporation of twelve-tone methods displayed Eisler’s “ability to
negotiate between Hollywood expectations and his own aesthetic” values.80 Schoenberg
never composed music to a film during his lifetime, however he did relocate to
Hollywood and continued to teach composition while remaining open to the possibility
of composing for moving pictures. For a short time, there were even ill-fated
negotiations between Schoenberg and MGM’s Irving Thalberg.81 Among even these few
instances, it can be observed that filmmakers had an interest in serial music just as
twelve-tone composers were interested in working with the visual arts.
Other composers who have in some fashion incorporated twelve-tone methods
into their film music include David Raksin, Leonard Rosenman, Miklos Rozsa, Jerry
Goldsmith and more recently, Marco Beltrami. None of these composers exclusively
wrote serial scores, in fact twelve-tone methods were the minority in all of these
composers’ film music oeuvre. Even among these composers, serial methods are almost
always restricted to and corresponding with a film’s elements of horror, science fiction,
the supernatural and the psychologically deranged. Indeed, even the three scenes of

77
Theodor Adorno and Hanns Eisler, Composing for the Films (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1947), 43.
78
Sabine Feisst, "Serving Two Masters: Leonard Rosenman's Music for Films and the Concert Hall," The
Cue Sheet: The Newsletter of the Society for the Preservation of Film Music 23, no. 1-2 (2008): 38.
79
Roger Hickman, Reel Music: Exploring 100 Years of Film Music (New York, NY: W.W. Norton &
Company, 2002), 157.
80
Bick, 93.
81
Sabine Feisst, "Arnold Schoenberg and the Cinematic Art," The Musical Quarterly 83, no. 1 (Spring
1999): 93-113.

 28

Schoenberg’s experimental Begleitmusik zu einer Lichtspielszene were titled,

“Threatening Danger,” “Panic” and “Catastrophe.” This correlation is quite pronounced
and should not be ignored. There is no evidence to suggest that Frankel chose to use
serialism for The Curse of the Werewolf’s music because of these associations, however
it is clear that his serial techniques were appropriate for this film, given its themes of
overt horror and the psychologically disturbed main character. Among the composers
mentioned above, each used twelve-tone methods to widely varying degrees, but always
in relation to the threatening and psychologically unstable.82
In order to establish how Frankel’s score is positioned, not only historically, but
also musically among other twelve-tone film scores, it is of benefit to explore what
exactly is meant when a film’s music is claimed to be serial. To determine this,
consideration must be given to how much of the film’s total music is derived from, or
related to the tone row(s). Additional attention should be given to what processes are
being used to integrate the twelve-tone elements into the musical material. Determining
these things can be particularly problematic since there is in most cases no access to
sheet music for study. Likewise, an attempt at firmly establishing a historiography for
the practice of serial film scoring has proven to be a somewhat tricky feat. This is due in
part, to the fact that most of the dialogue surrounding the practice is overly generalized.
Film scores are simply labeled as twelve-tone, or serial, even if only one cue uses some
small derivative method of twelve-tone composition. These film scores are often
grouped together with scores that are almost entirely serial, and there are no
explanations offered. Generally there is no analysis included to determine the
percentage, or extent to which serial methods were involved in a score’s composition.
For example, Miklos Rozsa, an “unashamed champion of tonality” only used serialism

82
Admittedly Beltrami’s use of serial techniques within the film Knowing (2009) did represent the stories
use of a numerical sequence, which predicted future catastrophes. However, it is also used to score the
main character’s psychological distress due to his unraveling world view and the impending threat of
destruction.

 29

once in his entire career (film music or otherwise).83 It appeared in his music for King of
Kings (1961) in one twelve-tone theme depicting the satanic, which was simultaneously
“symbolic of the composer’s rejection of serialism as a viable composition method” and
a “stillborn idea.”84, 85 However, this film is simply described as having “twelve-tone”
score. Observations such as this offer no understanding as to how extent the serial
procedures are within a given score. Goldsmith on the other hand had at least three
films: Freud (1962), Planet of the Apes (1968), and The Illustrated Man (1969), which
featured the use of serial techniques. How much of the score is actually serial is
generally not discussed, nor are there any tone rows given to the viewer/listener.
Additionally there is no mention of what techniques are being applied in these twelve-
tone methods. Instead there are vague descriptions such as “employs serial techniques
extensively.”86 It appears then that Frankel’s score to The Curse of the Werewolf is
perhaps all the more rare, since it features a heavy reliance on serial compositional
methods throughout the orchestration and within most of the film’s non-diegetic music.
As previously stated, the music for The Curse of the Werewolf is often mentioned
in conjunction with Hammer Productions’ history and is almost always described in
passing statements, which credit it as the first twelve-tone British film score.87 A claim
that, while mentioned quite often, is not entirely accurate. Kennaway points out that the
1955 film The Prisoner contained what he refers to as Frankel’s “first published

83
Roger Hickman, Miklos Rozsa's Ben-Hur: A Film Score Guide, Scarecrow Film Score Guides (Lanham,
MD: Scarecrow Press, 2011), 21.
84
Christopher Palmer, Miklos Rozsa: A Sketch of His Life and Work (London: Breitkopf & Hartel, 1975),
44.
85
Miklos Rozsa, Double Life (New York, NY: Wynwood Press, 1989), 192.
86
Julie Hubbert, Celluloid Symphonies: Texts and Contexts in Film Music History (Los Angeles, CA:
University of California Press, 2011), 304.
87
For at least one example of this claim being made, see Huckvale, 2008.

 30

experimentation with serial technique” in at least one of the film’s main motives.88
However, serialism in The Prisoner does not extend into the full orchestra and is limited
to only a few motives appearing “alongside lush non-functional triadic progressions,”
which are not derived from the tone row.89 Though I have previously mentioned
Eisler’s limited use of serialism in 1929 and 1943, the mantle of the first twelve-tone
film score is generally attributed to Leonard Rosenman’s music for The Cobweb
(1955).90 Frankel’s twelve-tone score for The Curse of the Werewolf did not appear until
1961, which was three years after his serial Symphony No. 1, op. 33 (1958). Following
Frankel’s adoption of serialism, the remainder of his concert works highlighted this
compositional method. Not only was this an unconventional compositional method for
his film scoring, but the film itself was also somewhat unorthodox for the studio
producing it.

A History of Hammer Productions

There has been a great deal written about the Hammer studio’s films as well as
its history and business practices. It is a foundational part in my research to explore and
present what Hammer Productions was and represented during the production of this
film. The Curse of the Werewolf was the only werewolf film released by British film
studio Hammer Productions. Not only did the film fail to be financially successful upon
its release, but it was also a divergence from the studio’s established aesthetic. A
consideration of the studio’s history, practices, and select personnel will help shed light
on some of the issues surrounding this film’s production and ultimately, how those
issues may relate to Frankel’s composition.

88
Kennaway, "The Watchmaker's Apprentice."
89
Cooke, 247.
90
Hickman, Reel Music: Exploring 100 Years of Film Music, 157. Hickman credits Eisler’s score as “the
first film score using serialism.”

 31

Hammer Film Productions Ltd. was originally conceived by business

entrepreneurs Enrique Carreras and William Hinds in the 1930s.91 Hammer Productions
soon became known as a film production company that produced primarily science
fiction, crime dramas and the occasional comedy. The company however, was turning
out to be a financial failure for the businessmen. In 1951 Enrique’s son, James Carreras,
took control of the company and initiated a push for the production of British films
featuring entirely British casts.92 Under the supervision of James Carreras and the
collaboration of William’s son, Anthony Hinds, the company transformed from a
financial failure to a profitable enterprise. 1951 was also the year that the British Film
Board reorganized the nation’s censorship laws and created the X certificate, allowing
movies to contain more violence, blood, terror and sexuality than previous certifications
allowed. That would soon prove to be quite beneficial to Hammer Productions, who
took full advantage of this new certification and focused sights on what would become
the company’s staple of gothic horror and cosmic science fiction.
Hammer’s first X certificate release was 1955’s The Quartermass Xperiment,
which featured a man mutating into a horrible monster with a need to kill in order to
survive and satiate his/its growing monstrous alien side.93 This film marked the
beginning of what would be Hammer’s archetypal horror themes, namely a horrific
monster that we sympathize with, morality tales in which horrific acts always end up
harming the innocent and the grotesque over-the-top makeup which transformed actors
and shocked viewers. This also ushered in a wave of films about Dracula, The Mummy,
Frankenstein’s creation, and various other monsters that had already proven themselves

91
Denis Meikle, A History of Horrors: The Rise and Fall of the House of Hammer (Lanham, MD:
Scarecrow Press, 2009), 3-4.
92
John McCarty, Hammer Films, The Pocket Essential (North Pomfret, VT: Trafalgar Square Publishing,
2002), 7.
93
While this was Hammer’s first X certificate film, it was the twelfth film to receive that certification
since 1951.

 32

financially successful for Universal Studios in America. Hammer’s films of the late 50’s
not only established the production company’s most representative horror themes, but
also began to exhibit a quintessential look and sound, which was largely due to the
collaborative workings of director Terence Fisher and composer James Bernard.
Terence Fisher began his cinematic career in the 1930s as a film editor and it was
in this capacity that he and Frankel would first collaborate together on the romantic
mystery, They Met in the Dark (1943). In 1948 Fisher made his directorial debut with
the romance film A Song for Tomorrow (1948). In this new capacity of directing, Fisher
would again work with Frankel on the dramas, Portrait from Life (1949)94 and So Long
at the Fair (1950). 1952 was the year that Fisher directed his first film for Hammer
Productions with the crime drama, The Last Page (1952).95 It was the 1957 horror film
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) that began Fisher’s greatest career successes with
Hammer Productions. This film solidified what would be Hammer’s signature gothic
horror aesthetic provided by the collaboration of Fisher and Bernard.
By 1960, Fisher had now established himself as one of Hammer’s preeminent
horror directors, having made successful movies such as The Revenge of Frankenstein
(1958), Dracula (1958),96 and The Hound of Baskervilles (1959), all of which continued
Hammer’s signature modern orchestral scoring provided by Fisher’s close musical
collaborator James Bernard. These horror films visually exhibited a European gothic,
but musically embraced more Romantic practices blended with the avant-garde.
1961’s The Curse of the Werewolf was Hammer’s werewolf movie, and while it
was indeed directed by Terence Fisher, it featured a few notable departures from these
established horror archetypes such as its Spanish setting and absence of James Bernard’s
involvement. Films like The Hound of Baskervilles and The Curse of the Werewolf were

94
U.S. title: Lost Daughter
95
U.S. title: Man Bait
96
U.S. title: The Horrors of Dracula

 33

Fisher’s attempts to at least temporarily distance himself from yet another Dracula film,
or at least temporarily. This desire for a departure from what he had done before may
have contributed to Fisher’s hiring of Frankel instead of again working with Bernard.
This is further evidenced by the fact that Fisher and Bernard did not collaborate on any
films from 1960 to 1963.

The Sound of Hammer Studios

Hammer’s typical musical style was primarily established through the films such
as The Quatermass Xperiment (1955), The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Horror of
Dracula (1958). These were all films featuring music composed by James Bernard.
Bernard’s prior experience had been writing incidental music for the BBC’s Third
Programme Radio Plays, most notably of which was his music for The Duchess of Malfi
(1954). His cinematic career began with the film score for Hammer’s pivotal The
Quartermass Xperiment. While his music could at times include shrill dissonances,
Bernard’s melodies tended to include much longer phrasing and utilized dissonance
much more sparingly. In fact Bernard himself avoided “atonal and serial principles”
since he felt “oppressed” by them.97 However, Bernard did once experiment with the
compositional method in his lone serial work, the Passacaglia for E-flat Saxophone and
Piano was also written in 1961.98
Bernard Biographer, David Huckvale describes Bernard’s film music as “a
variety of modern effects operating within an overall Romantic idiom.”99 These modern
effects commonly included the use of tritones for central motivic material, quartal
harmonies, tone clusters, and the use of extended techniques to achieve musical effects

97
Huckvale, 106.
98
David Huckvale, James Bernard, Composer to Count Dracula (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company,
2006), 112.
99
Huckvale, Hammer Film Scores and the Musical Avant-Garde, 113.

 34

that were in some way related to onscreen events.100 These techniques defined the
archetypal Hammer horror sound, especially in regards to a Terence Fisher directed film.
It was common for Fisher’s Hammer-produced horror films to focus on stories
with a central theme of a curse, which was manifest through the film’s structural “series
of repetitions.”101 These curses usually concerned generations of a bloodline’s
inevitability to repeat history or pay for the actions of their progenitors. Other film’s
directed by Terence Fisher, such as The Mummy and The Hound of Baskervilles also
feature similar curse themes. Among these, The Curse of the Werewolf is notable for
how central the curse theme is to the story. In most other cases, such as Baskervilles, the
curse is established through a much shorter prologue and the audience only later learns
how the curse’s circumstances relate to it over the course of the film.
It has been observed that Fisher would organize his films in a similar three-act
fashion, heightening the centrality of the film’s curse across generations.102 I believe that
a further link can be drawn paralleling Fisher’s thematic centrality of a curse with that of
Frankel’s centrality of a pitch class tone row, as well as the fact that almost all the film’s
motives are derived from this tone row. Similarly, Frankel’s associative motives can be
introduced and coded in relation to a curse theme during one generation and then
repeated throughout later generations within Fisher’s standard design.

Frankel’s Involvement with Hammer Studios

Aside from The Curse of the Werewolf, Frankel worked with Hammer
Productions two other times. First, on the 1958 comedy, I Only Arsked!, and later in
1963 for the William Castle co-produced horror comedy, The Old Dark House. While

100
These compositional techniques commonly employed by Bernard are extensively examined within
David Huckvale’s biography James Bernard, Composer to Count Dracula as well as a chapter devoted to
the author within Hammer Film Scores and the Musical Avant-Garde, also by Huckvale.
101
Peter Hutchings, Terence Fisher (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 110.
102
Paul Leggett, Terence Fisher: Horror, Myth and Religion (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2002), 90.

 35

these two films featured more lighthearted comedic scores, all three were produced by
Anthony Hinds. Hinds’s involvement might not be terribly significant, since he
produced most of Hammer’s films, however his involvement could have been influential
in Frankel’s involvement with The Curse of the Werewolf.
Of all the sources offering historical insight and context around Frankel’s work
with Hammer, there still remains a lacuna of information surrounding the production of
The Curse of the Werewolf. Pieces of this missing information would undoubtedly
answer questions related to my current research, such as how Frankel became involved
and further, why choose to score the film with almost entirely serial music? The
following section will explore some of the information available concerning the
production of this film and its historical context. In doing so it will also present the
questions that currently available scholarship does not address and which are outside the
scope of this current study to comprehensively answer.

The Curse of the Werewolf: A Background

During the summer of 1960, Hammer intended to begin filming The Rape of
Sabena, which was to be set against the atrocities of the Spanish Inquisition.103 With sets
already constructed, a fear of the Catholic Church calling for a ban on the film loomed.
Consequently, Hammer abandoned the picture and moved to its subsequently scheduled
project, The Curse of the Werewolf.104 In its early developmental stages, The Curse of
the Werewolf was conceived as a film adaptation for Guy Endore’s 1933 horror novel
The Werewolf of Paris.105 However, the story’s Parisian locale was changed to make use

103
Tom Johnson and Deborah Del Vecchio, Hammer Films: An Exhaustive Filmography (Jefferson, NC:
McFarland and Company, Inc., 1996), 194.
104
ibid.
105
Guy Endore, The Werewolf of Paris (NY: Carol Pub. Group, 1992).

 36

of Sabena’s abandoned Spanish sets.106 Had this film’s production date and Parisian
setting not changed, perhaps Frankel might not have been involved with this film.
From the very early stages of the film’s development, Terence Fisher had been
attached as the project’s director. Despite the substantial script changes regarding story
and location, Fisher decided to remain director of Hammer’s werewolf project. It is
unclear when or even why Frankel was contracted to score this film. No published
source discloses any details surrounding Frankel’s employment to this film. As
previously established, Fisher and Frankel had previously collaborated on other non-
horror films. This allows for speculation that Fisher perhaps approached Frankel to be a
part of this film, but unfortunately do not provide any conclusive answers. Once
attached to the film, there is very little information surrounding the actual recording of
the score as well, including the location.
Hammer was at that time located at the Bray Studios lot in Berkshire, England.
This studio lot lacked a soundstage for recording an orchestra, meaning this score (as
well as others) must have been recorded at a different location. Even with the amount of
detailed information about Hammer, it is still unclear where this score was recorded.
According to the onscreen film credits, Frankel conducted the score himself, but it is not
clear if he did so from his own handwritten manuscript or if he was supplied with a
different (perhaps edited) copy.107 The music could have been subject to further editing
after it was recorded, meaning that his manuscript (now housed within the British
Library) might not even be an entirely accurate representation of what is heard in the
film. Lack of access to this manuscript makes it impossible to determine this. Despite
these and other unknowns relating to this score, there is enough material to support my
claims concerning Frankel’s serial compositional methods.

106
McCarty, 28.
107
Terence Fisher, "The Curse of the Werewolf," recorded 2014, 1961, Hammer Films, DVD.

 37

CHAPTER III
THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF: STORY AND STRUCTURE

A Synopsis of the Film

Act I – The Beggar and the Servant Girl

Set in 17th-century Spain, a simple-minded beggar happens upon the cruel Marques
Siniestro’s celebratory wedding night feast. The Beggar is imprisoned in the castle
dungeon and soon forgotten. There he deteriorates into a wretched being. After years
have passed the cruel and sickly Marques punishes a mute Servant Girl by locking her
up with the Beggar. She is violently attacked and raped by the Beggar before being
brought back to the Marques. Exacting her revenge, she murders the Marques and
escapes the castle to the nearby woods where she is discovered by the kind Don Alfredo,
a local man who takes her to his estate to be cared for. Under his and his wife’s care, the
Servant Girl gives birth to the male child, Leon, who is the product of the rape. The new
mother dies immediately after birth leaving Leon to be raised by the Don and his wife.
All these circumstances surrounding Leon’s birth are what render him afflicted with a
lycanthropic curse of demonic origins. Evil omens accompany the boy’s baptism, but the
true nature of Leon’s curse is yet to be revealed.

Act II – Leon as a Young Boy

Years have passed and Leon is now a young boy plagued with nightmares of
transforming into a wolf-like creature and killing sheep. The Don fears there is a
correlation between the boy’s nightmares and real attacks on local livestock. These
nightmares are soon revealed to be memories from nights when the boy is in fact
transforming into a werewolf. Having discovered the boy’s affliction, Leon’s adoptive

parents ultimately decide to conceal the truth from all, including Leon and attempt to

 38

raise him to be a righteous and good man. Through his faith in God and avoidance of
carnal temptations, they believe Leon can suppress the evil within and live a normal life.

Act III – Leon as a Man

Now an adult, Leon leaves home and finds work at a nearby estate, where a
relationship develops between him and his wealthy employer’s daughter, Christina.
Their love is forbidden due to his employment and social status, however the two
secretly conspire to run away and elope. One night, Leon takes to drinking at a
tavern/brothel and is seduced by a prostitute. This temptation paired with the emergence
of the full moon is cause enough to awaken the demonic forces buried deep within Leon,
overpowering the good in him and transforming him again into the werewolf of his
childhood. Leon kills the prostitute, a town drunk, and his best friend before returning to
his human form. Left with no more than a foggy recollection of the previous night’s
violence, Leon is jailed. Realizing their plans are impossible, Leon begs for death, but
Christina still believes her love can cure his affliction. Nightfall returns and Leon
transforms into the beast and escapes from his cell, murdering all who stand in his way.
He is chased by a torch-carrying mob to the town square and cornered in the church bell
tower. Within the tower, Leon’s adopted father shoots the werewolf with a silver bullet,
killing Leon and ending the curse.
The End

 39

The Film’s Use of Patterns

Though the film’s narrative is constructed of three acts, it can be divided into
two analogous sections where incidents that occur in the first half of the film (acts I and
II) establish the curse. All of these establishing events have corresponding moments in
the second half of the film (act III), where the curse overcomes Leon’s righteousness
and self-restraint.
The first two acts can be grouped together in that they both function to establish
the background of the curse that will play out in the second half of the film. According
to the film’s running time, these first two acts comprise the initial 45 minutes, while the
remaining 45 minutes complete the film. The opening location and corresponding
soundscape mirror the film’s ending. Leon’s eyes are the first onscreen image during the
opening credits (Fig. 1-A). The church bells are the second image revealed once the
credits subside (Fig. 1-B). This is followed by the image of an almost entirely empty
town square where the lone Beggar is first revealed to the audience as he wanders
aimlessly (Fig. 1-C). The corresponding closing sequence of shots mirroring this
opening, are arranged in reverse order with the same town square, only now full of an
angry mob running up to the bell tower (Fig. 2-A). This is followed by a shot of the
ringing bells being silenced by Leon’s adoptive father, Don Fernando (Fig. 2-B). The
sequence is completed by a shot of Leon’s face with wide dead staring eyes (Fig. 2-C).

A B C
Figure 1 – Opening sequence of shots.
(1-A) – The werewolf’s eyes
(1-B) – The church bells
(1-C) – The town square

 40

A B C

Figure 2 – Closing sequence of shots.

(2-A) – The town square
(2-B) – The church bells
(2-C) – The werewolf’s eyes

For the reader’s current peace of mind, it should be noted that Fisher does supply
the audience with some amount of closure and implies that the curse has ended with
Leon’s death. The additional images of Don Fernando covering Leon’s body with his
own cloak is then followed by the final image of Leon’s beloved Cristina embracing his
adoptive mother. These concluding images break from the cycle of repetition that the
rest of the film’s structure is subject to. Ultimately, the cycle is broken, but this example
reveals ways in which The Curse of the Werewolf’s structure is based on patterns.
While the opening and closing sequences mirror each other, the rest of the film is
structured in a more cyclical pattern. This indicates that the film’s events occur within
cycles, which connects back to Fisher’s use of a larger curse narrative and its
inevitability. Frankel’s use of recurring motivic material within the film’s score likewise
connects with the film’s cyclical structure. Through analysis of this music’s serial
nature, it can be seen how Frankel’s musical designs connect to this cyclical structure
and curse narrative. It is therefore not much of a stretch to postulate that the decision to
include serial music may also have been based on this relationship.
Since Frankel’s music is carefully aligned with onscreen images, the film’s

structure plays a significant role in his approach to scoring this film. The score’s motivic
material reinforces the narrative’s cyclical structure. After introducing associative
motives in the film’s first half, Frankel draws from those motives with very little

 41

variation during corresponding moments during the second half of the film. This is
particularly evident in the way he wrote almost identical music for scenes of violence.
This also reveals that Fisher structurally envisioned a film with the scenes of violence in
the second half of the film edited to run approximately the same amount of time as their
corresponding scenes in the first half.
The initial violent attack occurs within the first act of the film, where the Servant
Girl is thrown into a dungeon cell with the Beggar. This scene’s music provides a
motivic blueprint for Frankel’s subsequent accompaniments for acts of violence. Thus,
an analysis of these particular scenes reveals a great deal about Frankel’s approach to
this film’s score. It can further show how this music’s serial construction relates to the
composer’s motivic approach. First, an introduction to the film’s overall sonic elements,
motivic materials, and serial methods will serve to set the stage for a more in-depth
scene analysis.

 42

CHAPTER IV
THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF: SOUNDSCAPE

This section will provide an introduction to the film’s overall soundscape and
musical materials. This overview will consider primary and secondary tone rows, the
associative motives, and Frankel’s general approach to recurring twelve-tone thematic
melodies. The analysis presented here is ultimately concerned with the film’s serial
music, however a discussion of the film’s soundscape will give brief consideration to the
film’s non-serial diegetic music as well.
The score used for this project’s analysis is a typeset copy made for the 2006
soundtrack recording. The files were generously shared by Dimitri Kennaway, who
warned of some alterations made for this recording. These include rearranged cue orders
and slight changes to thematic repetitions. Comparison of this score with the film shows
that these alterations do not affect the music analyzed here. This score does contain
mistakes, which are mostly in the form of missing accidentals and issues regarding
transposing instruments. In instances where uncertainty existed concerning written
pitches, comparisons with the film were made to ensure the reduced form score excerpts
are accurate. It should also be noted that pitches are often written enharmonically within
the typeset copy, thus the descending sixth can also appear as a diminished seventh. For
the sake of consistency, this specific interval will be referred to as a major sixth, but any
enharmonic spellings will be noted.
An initial step to the analysis of any work is to determine the persons involved
with its formation and development. Benjamin Frankel is credited onscreen as both
composer and conductor of the score for The Curse of the Werewolf. While it is not
credited onscreen, the International Movie Database also credits composer Leonard
Salzedo as composer of stock music used in the film.108 The film’s diegetic music lacks

108
"The Curse of the Werewolf Full Cast & Crew," Internet Movie Database, accessed Feb. 21, 2016.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054777/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm.

 43

Frankel’s associative motives and is non-serial. These instances are most likely
Salzedo’s stock contribution to the film. This film’s use of diegetic music and church
bells establishes characters and settings essential to the story’s narrative. While these
diegetic materials do not appear in the scene analysis, they provide necessary contrast to
Frankel’s non-diegetic serial music and additionally function as structural devices to the
film’s overall narrative. Their properties and functions within the film’s soundscape will
be briefly considered.

Diegetic Materials

Three diegetic music cues appear during scenes of a celebratory atmosphere in

which the music serves to create a soundscape evoking a distinct time and place. They
also serve a narrative function of signaling a scene of merriment that will be inevitably
contrasted with an ensuing dreadful act featuring Frankel’s music.109
The first instance of diegetic music occurs during the Marques’s wedding party,
where an unseen ensemble consisting of winds, hand cymbals, hand percussion, and
harp can be heard. The music is a tonal waltz with regular cadential patterns. Although it
accompanies a procession of food bearers and the Beggar’s dance, this celebratory scene
among aristocracy ends tragically with the imprisonment of the Beggar.
The film’s remaining instances of diegetic music feature the instrumentation of
castanets and guitar, instruments that reflect the Spanish setting. This diegetic music
appears in two scenes. The first instance is a scene in the village tavern during the film’s
first act. The local folk drink and discuss the unknown beast killing their flocks at night.
This scene features characters making merry and drinking while teasing a fellow
shepherd. Here again, a celebratory atmosphere shifts to a dramatic build to what
appears to be the dreadful shooting of the young Leon.

109
These cue’s omission from Frankel’s CD soundtrack release and the stark contrast to the rest of the
music leads one to suspect that they could well be stock music.

 44

The last instance of diegetic music is in a scene during the film’s final act. Leon
is out drinking at a tavern under a full moon while being preyed upon by the scheming
prostitute Vera (played by Sheila Brennan). This scene of a celebratory night out
drinking ends with the gruesome murders of both Vera and Jose (Leon’s best friend,
played by Martin Matthews).
It is probable that these diegetic musical cues are Salzedo’s stock music,
however the lack of access to Frankel’s manuscript prevents achieving with certainty
any conclusion. It can be safely postulated that Frankel composed the remaining music
for the film, which is included on the CD release of the film’s soundtrack.
Church bells mark the story’s beginning, the birth of Leon, and his death. In addition,
they complement Frankel’s music and in a few occasions elide with it. Church bells are
the first diegetic sound heard after the opening credit image of the werewolf has faded
and the story begins. This first instance of church bells features the interval of a
descending major sixth (F-sharp to A), which frequently appears within Frankel’s
motives and contains the first two pitches heard in the film score. These bells continue to
ring throughout the opening while Frankel’s music begins to underscore the Beggar’s
approach to the Marques Siniestro’s castle (04:40). Church bells are heard a second time
during Leon’s birth scene. This second major instance of bells features and continues to
ring even as Frankel’s score takes over. Finally these same church bells are heard and
seen at the film’s end, during the confrontation between Leon and his adoptive father
within the bell tower.

Orchestration

The Curse of the Werewolf’s music is scored for full orchestra, including harp,
and a percussion section of snare, vibraphone, glockenspiel, timpani, and tam-tam.

Important melodic material is most frequently played by clarinets, violins, flutes, or

trumpets, but occasionally appears in other instruments. Melodies are often scored with

 45

octave doubling among various instrumental groupings. To maximize timbral variety,

Frankel tends to begin scenes with small combinations of instruments and adds more as
the scene progresses. For longer musical cues he alternates between two different
instrument groupings before combining them for a full orchestral culmination. Frankel
often opens scenes in this film with a string section duo of violas and cellos. This string
duo is split once basses and violins enter, where the cellos pair with the basses and
violas with the second violins. Gradually more instruments are incorporated to create
variation and increase the overall volume. While this operation does not have a specific
association with a character or situation, it does establish a contrasting timbre for
important motivic material generally appearing in clarinet and oboe sections.

The Primary Tone Row

An introduction to the film’s primary tone row and consideration of some of its
properties will allow for a better understanding of how Frankel employs row derived
subsets as associative motivic material. In an attempt to balance analytical discussion
between the music’s serial attributes and its function as film music, diatonic aspects of
the tone rows will also be observed. Serial musical excerpts will be displayed with the
row order numbers below the staff. Each row’s prime form transposition or
transformation will be labeled with the corresponding letter (P - Primary, R -
Retrograde, I - Inversion, RI – Retrograde Inversion) followed by the transposition
number. When more than one row is present in an example, a square bracket will show
where one row terminates and another begins. In instances where one or multiple pitch
classes are repeated within a single row, generally only the first instance of the pitch
class will be labeled. In a few significant instances of a pitch class collection’s
repetition, the analysis will reflect this with the subsequent repetitions of the pitch class

collection appearing in parentheses. This style of presentation correlates with David

Huckvale writings on this film, while allowing for quick identification of tone row forms

 46

and any pitch class omissions. A matrix of the primary tone row’s transformations is
included in this study’s appendix.
The Curse of the Werewolf’s primary tone row is seen here with all twelve
pitches of the P6 row form shown in order from one to twelve (Fig. 3). The P6 form is
the initial stated version of the row presented in the film, and is shown here in the same
way it appears in Huckvale’s chapter.110 Additionally, this figure illustrates two
overlapping triadic subsets within the row. The G-minor and B-flat-major trichords
reflect Frankel use of non-functional diatonicism within rows. While Huckvale also

Figure 3 – The primary tone row

brackets these two trichords, he stops short of considering the extended harmonies also
contained within this row. For example, the G-minor trichord can be extended to an
enharmonically spelled G-seven-sharp-nine (or split third) tetrachord by adding the F
and B-natural.111 The sharp-nine tetrachord is a sonority commonly found in jazz and
blues, and frequently appears in Frankel’s concert works, most notably his String
Quartet No. 1, op. 14 (1945). Not only has Frankel constructed a primary tone row that
allows for diatonic elements, but has likewise built in extended harmonies that he was
prone to use within his other (serial and non-serial) compositions. These characteristics
reinforce a bridging between this score and serial concert works. This row is also
constructed in such a way that the first and last trichord subsets (6, 9, 8 and 1, 0, 3)
mirror each other. This feature of the row mirrors the film’s structural bookending and

110
Huckvale, Hammer Film Scores and the Musical Avant-Garde, 43; "The Curse of the Werewolf Full
Cast & Crew."
111
The B-flat serving as the enharmonic equivalent of A-sharp.

 47

allows Frankel to use the same trichord subset from both the primary and retrograde row
forms.

The Secondary Tone Row

The Curse of the Werewolf’s secondary tone row appears infrequently. This tone
row features an even higher degree of diatonic elements, which are outlined in Figure 4.
This secondary row is made up of four triadic subsets. Half-step relations between each
subset facilitate transitions among the subsets and extend harmonies of sixths and ninths.
This particular row’s triadic subsets feature additional combinatorial characteristics.
Triad collections featuring these qualities have in the past been used to represent
transformation and the uncanny.112 Thus Frankel could have utilized this tone row in an
attempt to draw upon this tradition. To distinguish the secondary row from the primary
row in my analysis, all labels of musical material derived from this secondary row will
be preceded with an SR-. A matrix of the secondary tone row’s transformations is
included in this study’s appendix.
There are two recurring motives derived from secondary tone row. This row
commonly functions to extend and complement the primary tone row through the
continuation of motivic sequences that have already been established with the primary
row. While the secondary row extends the motive by continuing the sequence, it also

Figure 4 – The secondary tone row

112
For more on this see: Richard Cohn, "Uncanny Resemblances: Tonal Signification in the Freudian
Age," Journal of the American Musicological Society 57, no. 2 (Summer 2004): 285-323. and Richard
Cohn, "Hexatonic Poles and the Uncanny in Parsifal," The Opera Quarterly 22, no. 2 (Spring 2006):
230-48.

 48

complements it through the addition of alternate and more triadic intervallic content.
The secondary row can also appear as a sequence of the four trichord subsets, which
make up the tone row. This trichord sequence generally appears at the culmination of
scenes featuring an attack.

The Curse of the Werewolf’s Associative Motives

In further preparation for the scene analysis, another key characteristic of the
primary tone row needs to be explored. The associative motives derived from row form
subsets and a familiarity with their initial appearances are essential for an understanding
of Frankel’s score. The scene analysis will further consider the application of these
motives, such as their pairing with the film’s visuals and coding with extra-musical
meanings.
Frankel draws most of the film’s motivic material from his tone rows. Some
motives are associated with a specific character or situation, such as the Curse, Danger
and Gaze Motives. These subset motives are coded with more fixed narratological
associations when heard paired with a character or idea present in the film. These
associative motives appear with degrees of variation, or as exact iterations of previous
statements and will be explored shortly. In addition to associative motives, Frankel also
employs a less fixed and more dynamic theme to musically unify the whole story as a
broader Curse of the Werewolf main theme. This more dynamic theme is a melody
unified through a similar melodic construction and for this study has been given the title
Theme A.
The degree to which musical material is an exact statement of a motive or a
disguised form is dependent on two factors. First, to what degree does an appearance of
related musical material resemble its initial appearance? Second, to what degree do

recurring extra-musical factors (e.g., on screen characters, events, locations) reinforce

musical correspondences? Through examples of musical variation and development,

 49

which will be provided for some of the following motives/themes, it will become more
clear how Frankel has connected the music to the film. Furthermore, Frankel also uses
recurring thematic melodies that are not associated with any one fixed character or
situation within the film. Recognizably similar restatements of these thematic melodies
appear throughout the film and function to establish a more general background, mood,
and coherence. An example of this will be explored within the consideration of theme A
at the end of this section.
The majority of the film’s associative motives are introduced within the main
titles sequence before they have been assigned their functional coding through pairing
with the narrative and visuals. The most common ways in which Frankel varies
associative motives are by inverting intervals midway through the melody or drawing
them from transformations of tone rows instead of the row form of their initial
statement. In these instances, the melodic gesture and rhythmic character are similar
enough to remain recognizable as being related to or drawing from the same material,
while incorporating variations.

The Curse Motive

The Curse of the Werewolf’s main titles sequence runs for 01:34 and serves to
establish the musical aesthetic of the film. Since the visuals remain fixed on a close up
of the werewolf’s eyes, this mood is manifest primarily through Frankel’s accompanying
music. In a particularly traditional approach to the main titles music, Frankel herein
introduces major motives that recur during the film.
Trumpets call out the first pitches at the film’s outset, while the image of the
Universal International logo materializes onscreen.113 An opening three-note melodic
phrase is the first motive heard, which I refer to as the Curse Motive. This original

113
The Universal logo appears on the Region 1 DVD release that is was used for this analysis, but other
regions may have a different logo at the beginning.

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statement’s intervallic sequence consists of a descending sixth followed by a descending

half step in a long-short-long rhythm (Fig. 5). This motive is heard throughout the film
in many different forms, both by itself as well as within other melodies. Just as the curse
is a central theme throughout the film, this motive is a central aspect to the film's music.
This instance establishes the original presentation of the Curse Motive by which
all subsequent statements will be compared through degrees of similarity or deviation.
While transposed variations of the Curse Motive occur frequently throughout the film,
the [6, 9, 8] ordered pitch class set commonly occurs paired with significant narrative
moments. The higher the degree of similarity that an occurrence of the Curse Motive
shares with this initial statement constitutes whether it is a motivic statement or a
development of the motive. The prime form of the tone row appears numerous times
within the film, however this motive is not heard during every single tone row prime
form statement. Instead, the motive is disguised by variations, such as inverting the

Figure 5 – Initial statement of the Curse Motive

intervals, spreading the pitches across the orchestra and most often by altering the
motive’s long-short-long rhythmic pattern. Even when a motive’s statement is disguised
through variations, its presence still permeates the music. This is due to the serial nature
of the score, including the associative motives.
Huckvale remarks that the descending major sixth interval, a key feature of the
Curse Motive, is a significant characteristic of Frankel’s score.114 Other associative

114
Huckvale, Hammer Film Scores and the Musical Avant-Garde, 43.

 51

motives in this film also feature a descending sixth. Due to the construction of the
primary tone row and the nature of Frankel’s serial procedures, this interval is certain to
appear frequently. While Huckvale’s observations are correct, I would further assert that
the descending half step is just as significant as the descending major sixth. Both
intervals are featured equally within the Curse Motive, which is the most important and
prominent associative motive within the film. It is not solely the intervals that are
significant to this music, but rather the fundamental motivic subset featuring them.
Further observation of the Curse Motive and its relation to the tone row shows
that the sequence of intervals between the first three pitches of the primary tone row’s
prime form does not appear again within that tone row form. Thus, an intervallically
exact reiteration of this motive will most often occur as a result of these first three
pitches of the primary tone row’s prime form. However, the retrograde inversion (RI)
row form includes two subsets of the Curse Motive’s intervallic content (Fig. 6). While
the first instance of the Curse Motive is a subset of the tone row’s prime form, Frankel is
able to derive the same motive from another common row form.

Figure 6: Two appearances of the Curse Motive within the retrograde inversion
of the primary tone row

The Hammer Motive

The Hammer Motive is first heard with the appearance of the Hammer studio
logo onscreen (Fig. 7). This motive is a tetrachord collection repeated as a sixteenth-note
ostinato pattern. While this is the initial presentation of the motive, the more common
variation (Fig. 8) transposes the fourth pitch of the tetrachord down one octave, creating

 52

a descending interval of a sixth. This descending sixth is preceded by a descending half-

step, which highlights the last three pitches of the primary tone row’s mirroring of the
opening Curse Motive sequence. The Hammer Motive is almost always played by the
harp, flute, oboe, and clarinet, and in a higher register against longer note durations in
the lower strings and brass.
The tone row content of both Hammer Motive variations is a repetition of a
symmetrical tetrachord subset cell [0, 1, 3, 4] derived from the last four pitches (9-12) of
the prime tone row form. This intervallic sequence only occurs at this position of the
prime row form, thus exact iterations will commonly be segments of that row form.

The Werewolf Motive

A wolf’s howl is audible at 00:22 during the main titles sequence, followed by
the blurry image of the werewolf’s eyes increasing in size and shifting into focus. Once
these eyes “arrive” in focus and the foreground, a three-pitch melodic figure is heard in
the strings, woodwinds and vibraphone. This Werewolf Motive consists of a grouping of

Figure 7 – Hammer Motive – initial presentation

Figure 8 – Hammer Motive – common variation

three pitches in three repetitions, the last of which is rhythmically augmented (Fig. 9).
This melody's pairing with the wolf's eyes and howl anticipate the motive’s coding with
the werewolf as early as the main titles. Not only are both Werewolf and Curse Motives

 53

thematically related to the werewolf curse within the film, they also feature similar
intervallic constructions. The three-pitch figure that makes up the Werewolf Motive
consists of an ascending minor third followed by a descending half step. Inverting the
minor third to a descending major sixth further highlights the Curse and Werewolf
Motive’s matching pitch class construction. Just as the Curse Motive, this motive’s
intervallic sequence only appears once within primary row’s prime form and twice in the
retrograde form.
The Werewolf Motive is constructed from repetitions of a trichord subset derived
from the first three pitches of the primary tone row. This first instance of the Werewolf
Motive consists of three repetitions of the first three pitches of the P6 row form (Fig. 9).

Figure 9 – Werewolf Motive – initial presentation

Similar appearances of this motive will also be constructed of the first three pitches of
the prime row form, or from a corresponding intervallic subset from the row’s retrograde
inversion form.
A few different variations of the Werewolf Motive appear throughout the film,

and serve as examples of how Frankel develops associative motives. Most variations of
this motive contain the first two quick three-pitch figures, followed by a sustained pitch,

Figure 10 – Werewolf Motive statement during Leon’s Baptism

 54

a descending line, or more repetitions of the same figure. Figure 10 shows a slight
variation of the Werewolf Motive that occurs during Leon’s baptismal scene.
Immediately preceding the baptism, wind and thunder begin to rage outside the church
during which the orchestra plays the Danger Motive (Fig. 14) followed by the Werewolf
Motive. This iteration of the motive is heard while the priest and Leon’s adoptive
parents peer up at a stone relief gargoyle, which is followed by the appearance of a
demonic face in the baptismal water. With the exception of the harp, almost the entire
orchestra plays some part of this motive. An octave unison supports this melody across
strings, flutes, oboes clarinets, trumpets and percussion. A few instruments serve a more
harmonic function with longer note durations and harmonizing pitches. This motive’s
prominent placement across the orchestra establishes an unmistakable connection
between the evil presence and the young boy. This Werewolf Motive variation is a
transposition from the motive’s initial statement, but it remains a trichord subset of the
first three pitches of the primary row’s prime form. Subset similarity is maintained
within the first two triplet figures, however there is not a third statement of the same
pitches. Instead the tone row progresses while still preserving the Werewolf Motive’s
rhythmic augmentation against the first two triplet figures.

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Figure 11 – Werewolf Motive variation a Leon’s birth

Another variation of the Werewolf Motive takes place at Leon’s birth (27:41 –
27:51). A solo trumpet introduces the motive with two quick statements of the three-
pitch melodic figure over the last two pitches from the R9 row in the strings (Fig. 11).
After the distant howl of a wolf, the violins (doubled by flutes, oboes, clarinets, viola
and cello) enter with the full statement of the motive. Each of these three note melodic
figures is a [6, 9, 8] pitch class cell, which keeps repeating in the strings. This
appearance of the motive is a heptachordal subset of the P6 row form, which does not
unfold in sequential order. Instead, the trumpets build dyads at the interval of a third
apart, which provide semitone neighboring pitches above and below the repeating [6, 9,
8] pitch class cell, creating a sequence of [0, 1, 4] trichords. The strings continue the
motive with two rapid three-pitch melodic figures followed by a rhythmically
augmented descending line of the same pitch classes. The trumpets add a G-natural at
the end of the line, which fills in the fourth pitch class of the P6 heptatonic set. The final
three-note descending line is a rhythmically constant eighth-note figure, but the
intervallic content resembles a variation of the Curse Motive.

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The Stalking Motive

The Stalking Motive first appears as the Beggar pursues his prey (the Servant
Girl) and right before the attack that establishes Leon’s curse (Fig. 12). It is again heard
after the attack when the Servant Girl begins to “stalk” her own prey, heading to the
Marques’s chambers to kill him. This motive is heard during every instance of a
character hunting their victim and serves as a precursor to each act of violence for the
rest of the film. The Stalking Motive is a repeated sequences of eighth-note quintuplets
over a sustained half-note. The half-note supporting pitches’ melodic motion is always
in a sequence of ascending or descending fourths or sevenths. When this motive appears,
clarinet, trumpet, vibraphone, violins and violas play the quintuplet figures above the
half note harmonizing pitches, which appear in the harp, cello and bass.

Figure 12 – Stalking Motive – initial presentation

Each quintuplet figure is a hexachordal subset of the tone row, placing one pitch
as the half-note and the remaining five pitches within the quintuplet’s melodic figure. In
this example, the entire R3 row form unfolds over the two quintuplet figures of this

 57

Stalking Motive iteration. Due to row construction, the half-note pitch in the bass and
cello will, in most instances, create a third (or sixth) dyad with the first pitch in the
violins.

The Gaze Motive

The Gaze Motive’s most common form first appears underscoring the Marques’s
predatory leering of the Servant Girl (15:22) while within his chambers (Fig. 13). A
minor third dyad harmonizes the flute’s melodic figure instead of only one pitch class
heard in octave unison that supported the Stalking Motive’s melodic line. Despite
variation, this motive always appears as a row unfolding over a whole-note dyad at the
interval of a third. This motive further evidences how Frankel utilized triadic potentials
of his tone row. The minor thirds are created by stacking the first two pitch classes of the
tone row’s prime (or at times, the retrograde) form. The Gaze Motive’s melody does not
segment the row into subsets, but instead unfolds the entire row through a more steady
eighth-note presentation.

Figure 13 – Gaze Motive

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The Danger Motive

The Danger Motive occurs throughout the film as a standalone motivic device
and as a companion to the Stalking Motive. This motive functions as a signal that there
is an immediate threat to a character and will appear prior to, but not during, all of the
film’s violent attacks. The rapid rhythmic pattern is the most defining characteristic of
this motive, even more so than its intervallic or melodic content. The most common

Figure 14 – Danger Motive – initial presentation

variation of this motive is as a pentachordal subset of the prime row form (Fig. 14). In
these instances, the subset is derived from the second through the sixth pitch classes of
the R6 row form. The subset always appears as four pitches grouped in a quick melodic
figure, followed by a fifth note of longer duration.

There are many variations of this motive throughout the film, but one common
form is heard after the Servant Girl (as an adult) has fed the Beggar (14:54) (Fig. 15).
This variation maintains the four-pitch grouping within a triplet figure, and ends the

Figure 15 – Danger Motive – common variation

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phrase with a fifth note of longer duration. Iterations of this motive appear exclusively
as fortissimo octave unisons among the string section and in the lower register. Paired
with moments that reveal or imply a threat, this motive always foreshadows an
impending attack, whether the character is aware of it or not.
In comparison to the first version of the Danger Motive, this variation also
begins with a retrograde (R10) row form (Fig. 15). However, it is made up of the last
two pitches of the R10 row form, followed by the first three pitches of a P9 row form.
This is an example of creating motivic content from a hybrid of row form and not only
from segmentation of a single row form. The most notable similarities between these
Danger Motive examples are familiar figuration and the ascending leap between the
third and fourth pitches followed by a descent in pitch. Since this motivic unit is more
reliant on musical elements other than pitch, Frankel is free to construct this motive at
almost any position within a tone row form.

Theme A

Some frequently heard melodies are enough alike to suggest a relation, but are
dissimilar enough to make it more difficult to define their exact relation. These melodies
are not associated with one fixed character or situation and are used more freely. The
degree to which these themes are related to each other is based mostly on a shared
melodic and rhythmic construction. One of these common themes will be referred to as
Theme A. After the initial statement, all subsequent iterations are developments of the

Figure 16 – Theme A – initial statement

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theme’s fundamental construction. A reduced version of this four-measure melody

outlines the basic musical structure of a Theme A statement (Fig. 16). This theme’s
melody begins with a descending three-pitch figure. This initial descending line of this
particular Theme A occurrence is a variation of the Curse Motive; however, an initial
descending Curse Motive statement is not required for a Theme A statement. This
opening three-pitch figure is followed by two triadic ascending arpeggios (Fig. 16, mm.
2-3), which are separated by a sustained pitch or alternating pitches. Finally there is an
ascending or descending approach into a repeated pitch (Fig. 16, mm. 3-4). The tone row
construction of this Theme A melody begins as a statement of the P3 row form, but
shifts in the third measure to a P5 row form. Here again, Frankel is highlighting the
triadic figures generated from a single row form and through linking multiple row forms.
Theme A iterations share a similar structure and contour. For example, a
variation of this theme occurs right after the Servant Girl has killed the Marques (Fig.
17). This statement, written here as a single line reduction, appears in octave unison
within the viola, cello and bass, and shares enough of a general melodic contour with
other instances of Theme A to be deemed related. It begins with a descending short-
long-short rhythmic figure, but with relatively more augmented intervals of a third
followed by a fourth instead of the Curse Motive. This opening three note descending
sequence is followed by an ascending sequence of thirds and a sustained E, which
parallels the previous example’s sustained D accompanied by alternating D and B-flat.
The first example featured a second series of ascending intervals beginning a half-step
up from the first. This example’s second ascending triadic figure repeats the exact same

Figure 17 – Theme A - variation

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pitches, before an ascending leap of a fourth and a final chromatic descending approach
to a repeated pitch. This variation of Theme A is an amalgam of the last two pitches
from an R10 row and a P5 row form. Frankel leaves out pitches from the P5 row within
this melody, however the entire P5 row occurs simultaneously in the flutes and oboes as
a sequence of straight sixteenth notes. There are enough similarities to warrant a
relationship between these and other occurrences of the theme, however within the film
there are no fixed unifying onscreen associations shared between appearances of this
melodic phrase. Therefore, it functions more as a “Curse of the Werewolf” main theme
that appears freely throughout and unifies the film’s soundtrack through shared
recognizable similarities.
A comparison of these Theme A examples does not reveal a tone row
correspondence between them. Instead, it reveals a general melodic similarity. This
theme appears to be more of a recurring general melodic idea, which is developed
throughout the film, providing a coherence to the overall nature of this post tonal score.
While both versions of the theme are derived from multiple rows, the rows appear at
different points within the melody.

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CHAPTER V
SCENE ANALYSIS

Scene Overview

The first act establishes the foundation for the curse that will unfold throughout
the rest of the film. The scenes analyzed here show the curse’s inception. The Marques’s
violent delights result in the Beggar’s imprisonment, the Servant Girl’s rape, and deaths
of all three of these characters. These acts curse anyone connected to them, including the
Servant Girl’s offspring. These scenes contain all the musical material that will return as
associative motives during the remainder of the film. Each scene’s analysis will begin
with a brief scene description, including details about onscreen actions.

Scene I: Feeding the Beggar

[Dissolve from previous scene]

Voiceover: “The years passed and the Beggar remained a prisoner, now
completely forgotten by the Marques. The Old Jailer died, his daughter grew up, but still
she could not speak.”

The Beggar Girl (played by Yvonne Romain) stands at the dungeon cell bars,
holding food for the imprisoned Beggar (played by Richard Wordsworth). He lies upon
a small pile of straw on the cell floor against the cell wall. Upon noticing the Servant
Girl he rises and smiles while making a kind of murmuring. He awkwardly approaches
the cell bars, at first on hands and feet, and then upright. He approaches the Servant Girl
and peers at her as though he does not recognize her, then notices the food she holds. He
grabs the food off the plate and immediately begins to devour it as he lumbers away
from her, back toward the center of the cell. With his back somewhat hunched over and
chewing loudly, the Beggar turns back to watch the Servant Girl with a somewhat
sinister gaze.
[End of scene]

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Table 1 - Timeline for Scene 1: Servant Girl and Beggar in the Dungeon

Visual Narrative Sound Time Duration

Dungeon

Pan L from stone wall to

Servant girl
reveal cell bars and MS of
enters dungeon 13:56
servant girl waist down. she
with food and No music. – :10
approaches the cell. She
walks up to the 14:06
stops. Camera tilt upward.
cell door.
MS waist up.
Beggar begins
14:06
to stir then
No music. – :05
Possible POV from servant slowly rises
14:11
girl’s perspective. from floor.
LS through bars of beggar on Beggar
ground. 14:11
responds to
Curse Motive –
servant girl’s
Theme A doubled 14:15
presence. :06
in vla & vlc (P3
row form). 14:15
MS of servant girl through Servant girl
–
bars. watches.
14:17
Theme A vla &
vlc, harp & cl
Beggar alternate m3 when
MS of Beggar standing up recognizes the he smiles. Brass 14:17
and moving toward servant girl and smiles, enters, stuttering – :15
girl. then walks to on one chord then 14:32
her. all harmonies are
sustained and
fade.

Beggar Strings take up

14:32
CUS servant girl through approaches cell continuation of
– :02
bars. bars. Theme A (P5
14:34
row).

Alternating notes
Servant girl 14:34
CUS servant girl through move to harp.
watches the – :04
bars. Sustained notes
beggar. 14:38
fade.

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Table 1 – Cont.

Beggar notices
food. 14:38
CUS on Clarinet responds to beggar seeing
Takes food –
beggar. the food. Orchestra reenters. :02
and moves 14:40
away to eat
MS of
beggar and
servant girl Beggar takes
(beggar’s food, turns 14:40
side of back to the (R10 row). – :12
bars). PR, servant girl. 14:52
frame
follows
Beggar.

Servant girl 14:52

MCUS of
watches – :03
servant girl.
beggar eat. 14:55

Beggar looks
back to servant
girl. Low strings enter with Danger 14:55
MCUS of
Scene fades on Motive. Holds chord as scene – :04
beggar
the beggar dissolves to next. (P9 row). 14:59
eating like an
animal.
Dissolve
During transition between scenes flute plays
transition.
ascending arpeggio over sustained harmonies in :03
orchestra.

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When first the audience is introduced to the Servant Girl as an adult she is
bringing food to the old imprisoned Beggar. The camera pans left from the stone wall of
the dungeon to settle on a medium shot of the Servant Girl through the cell’s bars. The
Beggar lies resting on the cell floor a short distance away from where the Servant Girl
watches. Frankel’s music begins with a Theme A variation as the Beggar becomes aware
that the woman is watching him (14:11). This entrance begins with a four-measure
Theme A phrase containing a two-measure melodic statement in the strings (Fig. 18,
mm. 1-2), which underscores the Servant Girl’s introduction and presence. This is
followed by the two-measure response in strings and clarinet (Fig. 18, mm. 3-4)
accompanying the Beggar’s approach. This motivic content, paired with implied
harmonies and shifting instrumentation reveals a degree of synchronization between
music and visuals. The initial Curse Motive (Fig. 18, m. 1) is paired with the Beggar

Figure 18 – Scene 1, mm. 1 – 4: Theme A and shift between characters

rising from the floor. This pairing implies the relation between the Beggar’s animal-like
state and the developing curse. An arpeggiated E-minor-seventh tetrachord (Fig. 18, m.
2) underscores the Servant Girl watching him (Fig. 19). This sonority appears here and

 66

in the next scene as she enters the Marques’s chambers. The pairing of this sonority with
the woman’s presence in this and the following scene suggests Frankel may have
assigned nonfunctional sonorities to specific characters. It could also be concluded, that
because the sonority is a segment of the P3 row form, the row form that is assigned to
the character. This analysis is primarily concerned with three crucial scenes, thus
examination of character pairing to the E-minor sonority and P3 row form elsewhere
within this score are not within its scope, but worth future consideration. A harmonic
and timbral contrast highlights the onscreen shift from one character to another. Strings
and horns sustain a D and A-flat tritone, while harp and clarinets alternate pitches a
minor third apart (B-flat and D-flat).
A long shot of the Beggar (possibly the Servant Girl’s perspective) shows his
further response to the Servant Girl’s presence as he begins to rise from the floor (Fig.
20). The visuals cut back to the medium shot of the Servant Girl mutely watching the

Figure 19 – Servant Girl through cell

bars

Figure 20 – Beggar rising from floor

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Beggar approach. Underscoring this approach, a two-measure response outlines a

harmonic shift away from the E-minor-seventh chord to an (enharmonically spelled) F-
sharp-minor triad. The harmonic shift is further supported by the addition of clarinet
(Fig. 18, m. 3). Harp returns in the next measure with an offset alternating D-flat
doubled in the horns (Fig. 18, m. 4).
While the music is certainly responding to which characters appear onscreen as
well as their emotions, Frankel does not match the music exactly to those character’s
movements. His music is not “mickey mousing” to the degree that the musical material
is in exact synchronization with character activity. Rather, Frankel represents onscreen
movement to a lesser degree. For instance, as the Beggar rises and stumbles over to the
bars separating he and the Servant Girl, the syncopated D-flat pitch underscores his
movement (Fig. 18, m. 4). The pitch is staggered between the harp as well as first and
second horns, but does not match each of the Beggar’s footfalls with precision. The
music instead serves to evoke a musical characterization of the Beggar’s awkward
hobble.
Consideration of these opening four measures’ serial designs provides evidence
that Frankel’s compositional priorities favor the pairing of melodic figures, chords, and
row-form sequences with visuals elements. Without the knowledge that this is indeed
serial music, Frankel’s approach resembles more traditional scoring practices and one
could easily overlook its twelve-tone nature. The initial two-measure melodic statement
is built from the first ten pitches of the P3 row form (Fig. 18, mm. 1-2). This is followed
by a response in the clarinets, which unfolds as a hybrid of the last two pitches of P3 and
first five pitches of the P5 row form (Fig. 18, m. 3-4). This shift to a new row form
occurs mid-phrase and is not signaled by any musical device (such as a caesura or

change in instrumentation), thus obscuring its aural perceptibility. Diatonicism within

the constraints of the serial method is here achieved through the segmentation of triadic
subsets. These subsets are both derived from a P3 row form as well as created from the

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meeting of the P3 and P5 rows forms. The intersection of the P3 to the P5 row forms
creates the triadic figure of an inverted F-major chord before the P5 row slides up the
bass note to F-sharp while retaining the A. Beginning this scene with a P3 row to
underscore the Servant Girl is not an isolated occurrence and will be repeated in the
following scene. The shift to the P5 row as the camera shifts to a male character is also a
pattern that will return.
This excerpt contains an instance of Frankel stating a motive and then avoiding
exact repetition of that motive with the next row form statement. As was explored
previously, motivic development and avoidance are created by degrees of variation to
similar row form subsets. The appearance of a Curse Motive variation subset initiates
the melodic line and is heard in octave unison (Fig. 18, m. 1). This Curse Motive
variation features the pitch subset [3, 6, 5] and maintains the major sixth to half-step
sequence of descending intervals with a long-short-long rhythmic phrasing. Part-way
through the responding melodic phrase, the P5 row form statement begins (Fig. 18, m.
3). In order to avoid an exact restatement of a Curse Motive from the transposed subset
[5, 8, 7], this responding melodic phrase varies the subset sequence. The descending
major sixth to half-step interval pair is again present, but the rhythm is instead a
sequence of equal note value durations embedded within the middle of a larger phrase.
The Beggar has now approached the Servant Girl and they look at each other
through the cell’s bars. Naturally, the mute Servant Girl and the Beggar do not share any
dialogue in this scene. Frankel’s approach to this lack of dialogue was to combine small
melodic passages with shifting instrumentation to serve as a musical conversation
inasmuch as the characters only communicate through facial expressions in close-up
shots. This musical conversation begins as a rising three-pitch figure of a minor third to

a tritone in the oboes, violas and trombone (Fig. 21, m. 5). This underscores the
Beggar’s perplexed expression as he tries to understand why the woman is there. The
camera cuts to a close up of the Servant Girl through the cell’s bars, while the harp

 69

alternates an E, B-flat tritone. Recognizing the food that the Servant Girl holds, the
Beggar becomes increasingly excited. Clarinets respond to this shift in the character’s
attitude with a rising sixth over the still sustained tritone dyad (Fig. 21, m. 6)

Figure 21 – Scene 1, mm. 5 – 8: Wordless interaction and Beggar

snatching food

A medium shot including both characters reveals the Beggar’s excitement at

seeing the food before he grasps it from the plate. A short two-part figure in the clarinets

and violins highlights this moment. Clarinet begins with a quick melodic figure,
repeating an E-flat before an ascending interval of a sixth in a long-short-long rhythm.
Paired with his grasp and immediate devouring of the food, the violins respond with a
three-pitch falling figure of a half step to a major sixth in a short-short-long rhythm (Fig.
21, m. 6). A variation of this two-part phrase returns in the third scene of this analysis,
but for now an awareness of the melodic figure’s pairing with the Beggar’s excitement
upon seeing the food is an important element of this phrase’s coding.

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The minor sixth interval is repeated through alternating pitches doubled in harps
and clarinets as the Servant Girl watches the Beggar begin to eat. He has turned his back
toward her, not unlike an animal possessively hunched over its food. For a brief
moment, an E dominant sonority is again heard, but is disrupted by the shift to a
sustained F pitch in the cellos, while the violin and viola continue the descending
melodic motion (Fig. 21, m. 7). An F, A-flat, G trichord in the strings transforms to an F,
A-natural, G-flat trichord (Fig. 21, m. 7) as the Beggar walks away from the bars and
takes a quick sinister glance back at the Servant Girl, all while loudly chewing the food.
Viola and clarinets respond to this glance with a three-pitch cambiata figure (Fig. 21, m.
8, b. 3).
These four measures (mm. 5-8) complete the P5 row form that began in the
previous example. The music underscoring the Beggar’s questioning look, the Servant
Girl’s attempt to communicate, and the Beggar’s excitement at recognizing the food are
all derived from this statement of the P5 row form. These four measures feature Frankel
segmenting the primary row into smaller subset groups, which are placed among

Figure 22

Figure 22 – Scene 1, mm. 9 – 10: Danger Motive and transition

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different instruments. He does this so that each subset melody highlights and reflects
changes in the visuals through both the melodic gesture as well as timbral variation.
Within these measures harp functions as a response to each melodic figure by alternating
the last two pitches from the figure (Fig. 21, mm. 5, 7, 8). The final D pitch of the P5
row form is sustained over into the R10 row form that begins on the downbeat of
measure 7. By eliding these two row forms, the D in the violin, harp and clarinets,
provides the flatted seventh for the E dominant sonority. As in the previous four
measures, Frankel is here making use of the intersection between two row forms to
create a chromatic pitch collection, which he can construct a Danger Motive variation
from. The progression of row forms has now shifted to a retrograde form of the primary
tone row. This R10 form is paired with the shift toward a more threatening visage of the
Beggar devouring the food.
The perspective returns to the medium shot of the Servant Girl’s disturbed
reaction to the Beggar’s gaze. The threatening nature of this look is reinforced by the
first appearance of the Danger Motive from the strings and contrabassoon (Fig. 22). This
motive introduces a sudden increase in speed and volume, contrasting the slower tempo
of the previous surrounding music and heightening the awareness of a threat. While the
exact pitches of Danger Motive statements are relatively less important than the
rhythmic figure, it is worth noting that the pitches involved in this instance begin from
the retrograde row form. The shift to the row’s retrograde form underlines a threat and
gave rise to this motive. This instance of the motive is the last two pitches of the R10
row form followed by the first three pitches of row form P9 (Fig. 23). This construction
of the motive is made up of all the chromatic pitch classes 9 through 1.
After this musically threatening signal, the perspective is once again back to a

medium shot of the Servant Girl through the cell bars. Rhythmically uneven staccato
triplet figures twice punctuate her now troubled demeanor. First in the clarinets and then
echoed in the trumpets, followed by rising major thirds passed from clarinets to piccolo.

 72

This passage completes the P9 row form begun in the Danger Motive and serves as
closing transitional material for the end of this scene. The music continues as the camera
holds on a close up of the Beggar eating and a dissolving transition effect leads into the
next scene.

Figure 23 – Danger Motive variation

Analysis of this scene reinforces Frankel’s favoring of the motivic, melodic,

timbral and, perhaps to a lesser degree, even the harmonic functions of the music above
the serial devices. After the completion of the retrograde row, the sequence of row forms
switches to a prime row form for transitional material. The row form progression of this
whole scene is P3 – P5 – R10 – P9. The P3 underscored the Servant Girl; the P5, the
shift to the Beggar; the R10, the threat and Danger Motive appearance; and finally, the
P9 was transitional material. To most of the film’s audience, the serial methods may not

be perceptible, however they are always unfolding throughout this score. Frankel’s
utilization of both row transpositions and the pairing of row derived melodic content has
created music that can function on multiple levels of meaning within the film.

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Scene II: The Marques’s Chambers

[Dissolve transition from previous scene]

The Servant Girl enters the Marques’s living quarters and looks around while
closing the door. Believing the room to be empty, she enters.

Voice Over: “The vile temper and foul tongue of the Marques had sent his wife
to an early grave, and lost him the few friends he possessed. Now, he lives a recluse in
his own room.”

The Servant Girl crosses the room and begins to sweep up the ashes from the
fireplace. Hiding behind a house of cards built upon a table, the Marques watches her.
He smashes the cards down, frightening the girl. Approaching her, he demands for her
name, but due to her muteness, she is unable to give. Growing increasingly irritated by
the woman’s silence, the Marques becomes loud and aggressive. She attempts to run, but
is grabbed by the Marques who demands that she come back to his chambers that
evening to show him “just how lively she can be.” She bites his hand, momentarily
breaking his grasp and she escapes, running from his chambers. The Marques calls after
the guards while wrapping his injured hand in cloth. The guard appears in the doorway
and the Marques angerly demands the Servant Girl’s identity. The guard informs him
that she works down in the dungeons. “The Dungeons, eh?” the marques responds,
obviously formulating a vengeful scheme.

[End of scene]

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Table 2 -Timeline for Scene 2: Servant Girl in the Marques's chambers

Durat
Visual Narrative Sound Time
ion
Marques’s chambers
LS of servant
girl entering Servant girl enters
chambers. Shot marques’s 15:02 –
:16
tracks right chambers. Sustained harmonies in 15:18
while she strings w/ pizzicato bass
crosses to left. notes.
MCUS of Short two phrase melodies
marques appear in oboe, violin and
through house flute (P3 row).
of cards. Zoom Marques watches from
15:18 –
to ECUS of Marques watches. behind cards. Gaze Motive :14
15:32
marques’s eye. (P5 row).
MS of servant
girl tending to
fire.
MS of marques Marques slams Brass and strings respond
at desk. house of cards to with one chord hit, sustained 15:32
ruins. to fade out.
MS of servant
Servant girl is
girl’s reaction Brass and strings respond
startled. 15:32 –
& return to MS with one chord hit, sustained :04
Marques rises and 15:36
of marques at to fade out
begins to speak.
desk.
Marques attacks
servant girl, she
15:36 –
escapes, he calls No Music. 1:25
17:01
and speaks to the
guard.

As the Servant Girl enters the Marques’s chambers, a panning long shot follows
her to the fireplace. This shot could presumably be the Marques’s perspective, however
it lacks the house of cards in the foreground that would be in his field of vision. The first
three measures of this scene’s music underscores the Servant Girl as she crosses the
room and tends to the fire. The voice-over is also heard during these first three measures

 75

within the Marques’s chambers. A five-pitch triplet figure is repeated twice in the
clarinet with horns accompanying (Fig. 24, m. 11). The hexachordal subset featured in
this measure is derived from the second half of the P9 row form (seventh through the
twelfth pitch classes), but in an order that does not appear in the prime form of the row
(Fig. 24, m. 11). Frankel begins the scene with the fourth pitch of the subset in the cello.
The main melodic sequence in the clarinets starts on the second note of the six-note
subset and backtracks to the first. This motion is mirrored on the other side of the subset,
but stops short of the last pitch since it is already sounding in the cello. This clarinet and
horn duet serves as a transition into the following two-measure melodic figure in oboe
and strings. Measure 12 begins with a similar shaped figure, but instead of a strict
repetition of the previous phrase, this figure is transposed up a half step before only
falling a fourth. The strings harmonize with dyads a sixth apart. The bass rises a half
step from F-sharp to G, matching the half step ascending melodic figure in the oboes and
violin, while harp plays a C-sharp. The following two measures contain a complete
statement of the P3 row form. While the P9 pitch content in measure 11 underscored the
completion of the scene transition, the P3 row form is again used to underscore the
Servant Girl.
The Marques, now old, alone, and appearing sickly is revealed to the audience as
he spies on the Servant Girl. He is partially concealed behind the house of cards
constructed on a table near the corner of his chambers (Fig. 25). Accompanying the
Marques’s reveal is an appearance of a Gaze Motive variation. This iteration of the
motive begins by establishing an underlying F-minor whole-note dyad in the violins.

 76

Figure 24 – Scene 2, mm. 11 – 13: Transition and repeated figures

The flute’s melodic figure rests for an eighth-note duration, before a descending
half-step followed by a sixth (Fig. 26). The descending intervallic sequence of a half-
step followed by a sixth melodically echoes of the Curse Motive, but lacks the motive’s
rhythm. This is followed by a tetrachord sequence of ascending thirds and fourths,
which here outline an A-major flat-nine sonority. The rhythm of this motive is uniform
throughout until the last dotted half note. At m. 15, the A-flat in the second violin steps

Figure 25 – The Marques behind a house of cards

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Figure 26 – Scene 2, mm. 14 – 15: Gaze Motive in Marques’s chambers

up a semitone implying a resolution to the melody with a first inversion D-minor

sonority. The motive ends with three descending pitches, which are a transposition of its
opening intervallic sequence.
This version of the Gaze Motive is constructed entirely from a P5 row form. An
F – A-flat dyad creates harmonic support by stacking the first two pitches of the row on
the downbeat in the string section. The Gaze Motive begins on the third position of the
tone row on the upbeat of beat one. The opening and closing descending melodic
sequences are the third through fifth and ninth through twelfth positions of the primary
tone row, which parallel each other. The fifth through eighth tone row positions of the
primary P6 row form make up an A-major flat-nine sonority, which is followed by a F-
major sharp-nine sonority. This final tetrachord collection holds until the Marques slams
down the house of cards that had concealed his presence. The orchestra responds to this
destruction with a quick powerful staccato sforzando followed by silence. The

 78

Marques’s attempted attack on the Servant Girl and the remainder of the scene is
without music. In relation to the tone row form sequence that underscored the previous
scene, the same pattern is followed here. The P3 row form is again followed by a P5 row
form, which pairs with the reveal of the Marques, another male character who means to
harm the woman.

Scene III: The Attack

[Cut to the dungeon]

The guard that had spoken with the Marques in the previous scene is now
accompanied by another. Together they forcibly drag the Servant Girl to the Beggar’s
cell door. Opening the door, they throw her in and lock it while verbally mocking her
before they leave. Laying on the cell floor, the Servant Girl slowly turns her head,
fearfully realizing that she is not alone. The Beggar slowly emerges from behind a wall
and cautiously advances toward the girl. Feeling threatened, the Servant Girl cowers
against the cell bars. The Beggar becomes more confused and agitated as he approaches
her. She attempts to move away from him, but he matches her movement and stalks her
toward a corner. She runs toward the cell door and tries to scream while grabbing the
bars. The Beggar viciously grabs her and pulls her to the floor, out of frame. Music stops
abruptly and the sound of the Beggar’s odd yelling is heard.

[End of scene]

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Table 3 - Timeline for Scene 3: Servant Girl attacked in dungeon

Durat
Visual Narrative Sound Time
ion

Dungeon

Servant girl is
thrown into the Danger Motive in strings 17:01 –
:04
MS through dungeon with the sustained to fade (R6 row). 17:05
cell entrance of beggar.
guards with
servant girl. Guards shut door Melodic continuation of the 17:05 –
:10
and lock cell. Danger Motive. 17:15

Bass drone with short low

MS HAS of Servant girl string minor melody.
17:15 –
servant girl on realizing she isn’t Rhythmically augmented :05
17:20
floor. alone. variation of Danger Motive
(R6 row).
MCU of Beggar appears
17:20 –
beggar leans from behind stone Sforzando chord hit. :02
17:22
in. wall.
MCU HAS of
servant girl
Servant girl realizes Alternating notes in winds
then MCU
the threat. and high strings.
(ELS or slight 17:23 –
Beggar slowly Brass foreshadows Stalking :10
LAS) of 17:33
moves toward the Motive melody and low
beggar. PL
girl. strings respond (P8 row).
following
beggar.
MCU HAS of
servant girl & Beggar moves
MCU (ELS or closer to servant Stalking Motive (R2, R3, R7 17:33 –
:15
slight LAS) on girl. She backs and P7 rows). 17:48
beggar tracking away defensively.
backwards.
Beggar steps from
Slight caesura before timbral
shadows toward 17:48
shift.
girl.

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Table 3 – Cont.

Alternating Fuller orchestration, Stalking

CUS of beggar Girl backs to bars Motive variation, and 17:48 –
:12
and servant and stands. secondary tone row (SR-P5 18:00
girl. and SR-P8 rows).
M-LS of
servant girl w/ Trumpets prominent.
beggar in Servant Girl slowly Orchestral sections join
foreground moves away. The together, homophonic 18:00 –
:09
shadows. LP as beggar becomes texture and build w/ timpani 18:09
beggar moves more agitated. roll rising in volume (P6 and
to foreground P8 rows).
left and stops.
Beggar moves
closer and continues
Full orchestra w/ Snare.
to become
CU EL Beggar Secondary tone row
increasingly 18:09 –
& CU EL sequence of trichords. (SR- :11
agitated. 18:20
Servant Girl P5 and P3 rows. Same as 1:24
Servant girl looks
– 1:34 of titles).
around for a way to
escape.
MA outside Servant girl runs to
cell w/ bars in cell door, but cannot Full orchestra w/ tam-tam
foreground. PL scream. Beggar builds.. Volume rises and 18:20 –
:04
and stop on attacks her and pulls abruptly cuts on last chord. 18:24
chained cell her to the floor and (R8 row).
door. out of frame.

The scene begins with a medium shot of two guards forcibly throwing the
Servant Girl into a dungeon cell. This abusive act is paired with an appearance of the
Danger Motive variation. Violin and viola state this motive over a sustained E-flat pitch
in the cello, bass, trombone, and contrabassoon (Fig. 27, m. 16). This iteration features
an initial ascending motion and then a much wider leap than that of the previous
appearance, but remains recognizably similar due mostly to the rhythmic sequence. (Fig.
22, m. 9). This Danger Motive is a hexachordal subset derived from the first six pitch
classes of the R6 row form. As before, the Danger Motive appears during a retrograde
row form and serves to signal a threat. The motive is here accomplished by placing the

 81

row form’s first pitch (E-flat) as a sustained bass sonority, while the remaining subset
(second thru sixth pitches of R6) make up the Danger Motive (Fig. 27, m. 16).
Following this motive, the strings and oboes play a six-pitch triplet figure, which is
simultaneously spread across the horns and clarinets with longer duration notes. These
triplet figures underscore the guards locking the cell door as they laugh and exit. The
first two beats of this measure are a repetition of the previous five pitches with the
addition of the R6 row form’s seventh pitch (Fig. 27, m. 17). This restatement of the
Danger Motive’s pitch content and melodic shape suggests an increased threat to the
character. This hexachordal subset features a steady eighth-note triplet rhythmic pattern
and the addition of the row’s seventh pitch. Creating more dissonance, the clarinet and
horn hold sustained pitches while glockenspiel continues the eighth-note triplet rhythm
and alternates the next two pitches of the row form. These sustained pitches coupled
with the alternating pitches in the glockenspiel, create a cluster of notes that form
overlapping G-diminished and B-diminished chords.

Figure 27 – Scene 2, mm. 16 – 18: Danger Motive and extension

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The perspective returns to a shot of the Servant Girl as she lies helpless on the
cell floor. Lessening in volume, the horn and clarinet’s dissonant pitch cluster carries on
for another three beats. Violin enters with a quick uneven staccato triplet figure that
rhythmically mimics the Werewolf Motive (Fig. 27, m. 18). This three-pitch figure is a
retrograde of the motive and is followed by repetitions of its final F-sharp pitch. This is
a result of the primary tone row’s first and last intervallic sequences mirroring of each
other.
The next measure again places E-flat in the lower register of the cello, bass and
harp, but an octave lower than a few measures prior (Fig. 28, m. 19). The same
hexachordal structure as the Danger Motive is heard again here, but this time the figure
is further rhythmically altered to a sequence of straight eighth notes (m. 19). This is
paired with the moment the Servant Girl realizes where she is and her eyes grow wide
with fear. She begins to look around the cell for signs of danger as the music continues.
Continuing the pattern of row forms that has been unfolding in these scenes, the
previous P5 row is again followed by a retrograde form. In the previous scene an R10

Figure 28 – Scene 2, mm. 19 – 22: Recalling the Beggar eating and

alternating trichords

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row form underscored the Beggar as he grasped the food and followed that with a
Danger Motive. Here the R6 row form has also given rise to a Danger Motive variation
and highlights the Servant Girl being thrown into the Beggar’s cell.
Violin and viola switch to a more eerie sul ponticello timbral effect while
playing an ascending sixth to a descending third (Fig. 28, m. 20). Combined with the E-
flat in the low strings, these four pitches outline an E-minor seven flat-five (or half-
diminished) sonority. This timbral effect emphasizes the tension as the woman looks
toward an offscreen threat. A descending third in m. 20 underscores the moment the
Beggar leans into shot from behind a stone wall. This measure is a continuation of the
R6 row form’s unfolding above the row’s first pitch (E-flat) in the bass. This
combination enables Frankel to construct an E-minor seven flat-five sonority.
The following measure begins with a sforzando trichord cluster, which
synchronizes with the full reveal of the Beggar’s face from behind the wall. The
sforzando on the downbeat of m. 21 simultaneously completes the unfolding of the R6
row and begins the P8 row form. Recalling the E minor seventh sonority to an F-sharp
minor harmonic motion of the first scene (Fig. 18), the low strings rise a half step to an
F-sharp, which is harmonized by an A in the cello (Fig. 28, m. 3). In both instances this
harmonic motion underscores the onscreen shift from the Servant Girl to the Beggar.
In order to further the tension through increased harmonic dissonance, Frankel
overlaps row forms. This enables him to draw from a slightly altered subset of pitches
without severely reordering the row. Clarinet, violin and viola play a sequence of dyads
alternating between the intervals of a seventh and a third (Fig. 27, m. 21). These are
played with a combination of pizzicato and arco techniques while oboe adds staccato
dyads a third apart. This alternating sequence is heard during a medium-close-up shot of

the Servant Girl prone on the floor. She has now seen the Beggar and reacts with an
expression of growing fear. This alternating sequence creates two vertical trichord
groupings: B-flat, F, A and C, E, G. These trichords alternate over the sustained F-sharp

 84

and A, creating more tension through dissonance. This sequence is a heptachordal set
created from the elision of the last two pitches of the R6 row form and third through
sixth pitch classes of the P8 row form.115
Perspective changes back to a medium-close-up shot of the Beggar’s advance
toward the woman. Horn responds with a three-pitch melodic figure, which features a
descending tritone and an ascending fourth in a long-short-long rhythmic sequence. This
motive rhythmically foreshadows the Stalking Motive’s three-pitch motive (Fig. 30), but
also recalls an earlier moment in the clarinet (Fig. 21, m. 6). This horn melody is a
furthering of the P8 row form, which is completed when cello and bass enter with the
three-pitch descending sequence of a half step followed by a major sixth (Fig. 27, m.
22). This measure bears a striking resemblance to the two-part phrase heard when the
Beggar grasped the food from the Servant Girl. In that instance, clarinets had a three-
pitch, long-short-long sequence followed by the violins with a three-pitch descending
half step to a major sixth in a short-short-long rhythmic sequence (Fig. 21, mm. 6-7).
There is a degree of variation between the two phrases, but the musical similarities
remain perceptible to signal a relationship. The first instance of the phrase was coded
during the Beggar’s snatching of food from the women. When this variation of the
phrase appears, the Beggar is stalking in toward the Women to grab her and do her
harm.
The sequential pattern of row forms continues here with the appearance of the P8
row form. Previously, a P9 row followed a retrograde row form and functioned as
transitional material into the next iteration of the pattern. Here, the retrograde row form
(an R6) gives way to a prime row form (a P8) that again functions as transitional
material insomuch as it even anticipates that following section’s three-pitch motive. Due

115
This is not an octachordal set since pitch class A appears within both row segments.

 85

to the Beggar Girl’s immediate danger, Frankel abandons this pattern of row form
sequences for a new sequence.

Figure 29 – Scene 3, mm. 23 – 26: Stalking Motive sequence

A tracking shot follows the Beggar’s progress forward as the camera zooms out
to a wider medium shot. This is followed by a succession of alternating medium shots
between the Beggar and Servant Girl. This series of shots is underscored with a chain of
the Stalking Motives (Fig. 29). Each statement of this motive is a sequence of
quintuplets in the clarinet, violin, and viola played over a sustained bass pitch in harp,
cello, and bass.
The Stalking Motive segments the tone row into two hexachordal subsets where
the first or second pitch of each set serves as a half-note sustained pitch below a five
pitch eighth-note quintuplet. Frankel repeats the exact same sequence of intervals with
the R2 and R3 row forms, but alters the pattern with the R7 form (Fig. 29, mm. 23-25).
Part of this alteration results from an inversion of the first and second pitches of the row
sequence. In the previous two measures (mm. 23-24), the first pitch functioned as the

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supporting bass sonority beneath the quintuplet sequence. Measure 25 flips the
registered positions of the row’s first and second pitches, but still uses the eighth row
position as the second bass note. This alteration breaks up the established repetition and
functionally serves as a transition into a P7 row form.

Figure 30 – Stalking Motive melodic figure

Trumpet and vibraphone repeat an ascending melodic figure by playing the last
pitch of the first quintuplet set and the first pitch of the second set. These rising figures
in the trumpet and vibraphone are made up of the fifth and seventh pitches of the
retrograde row form (Fig. 29, mm. 23-25). This creates a rising two-pitch minor third
sequence that repeats until the shift to the P7 row form. However, the sequence is heard
as three notes, with the insertion on the tone row form’s sixth pitch. In between these
two pitches violin, viola, and clarinet play an octave unison eighth-note a tritone away
from trumpet and vibraphone’s first pitch. The result in a three-pitch melodic motive,
which descends a tritone, then ascends a sixth in a long-short-long rhythmic pattern. The
in between unison eighth-note pitches are indicated here in parentheses (Fig. 30).
Up to this point, the Stalking Motive has underscored alternating medium shots
of the Beggar “stalking” toward the Servant Girl as she attempts to back away and
escape. Having been locked away in solitude for so long, the Beggar seems confused by
the woman’s presence. However, his expression changes to excitement once he realizes
the woman is indeed trapped. This switch in the Beggar’s mood is reflected by a change
in instrumentation (Fig. 31). Trumpets and vibraphone drop out as English horn and
viola thicken the Stalking Motive’s quintuplet figures through octave doubling. Horn
and violin thicken the texture through additional short melodic phrases ending in

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sustained pitches. The imminent danger onscreen is also reflected at the level of the tone
row, with a shift from the primary tone row to something new. Frankel here introduces
the secondary tone row and with it, new intervallic sequences that have not appeared
previously in the score.
Quintuplet rhythms similar to the previous four measures continue in the English

Figure 31 – Scene 3, mm. 27 – 28: Secondary tone row Stalking Motive

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horn, clarinet, and viola. These two measures are a continuation of the Stalking Motive,
constructed from the secondary tone row (Fig. 31). Each quintuplet sequence is again a
hexachordal subset of the tone row. The first three quintuplet figures follow the same
sequential pattern. Three ascending intervals followed by one descending and a final
ascending interval. The fourth quintuplet sequence breaks from this intervallic pattern
with an initial descending interval, while the remaining are all ascending. This new
intervallic sequence echoes the transitional quintuplet sequence that appeared previously
in mm. 25 and 26.
This variation of the Stalking Motive features the first pitch class of both SR-P5
and SR-P8 row forms as sustained half-notes in the low strings and harp, but the three-
pitch melodic sequence that was prominent in the prior measures (Fig. 30) is not heard
here. Instead, horn and violin play a four-pitch melodic sequence derived from the final
pitch of each quintuplet group, which leads into the first three pitches of the following
quintuplet grouping. Most of the intervals for these melodic sequences vary, but each
ends with an emphasized ascending half-step to a sustained pitch. The orchestra steadily
increases volume during these two measures, until a prominent F-sharp is heard in the
horn (m. 28). This pitch signals another change in the Beggar, as he becomes
increasingly agitated.
Perspective switches to a medium shot over the Beggar’s shoulder. Since having
been thrown into the dungeon, this is the first moment he and the Servant Girl have been
in frame together. With back against the cell bars, the Servant Girl attempts to back
away the approaching man. The Beggar’s agitated breathing increases in volume and the
music switches to a primary tone row statement of the Gaze Motive. This motive’s
appearance recalls its earlier iteration when the Marques attempted to trap the Servant

Girl within his chambers (Fig. 26). Reflecting the increased threat, this appearance
features thicker orchestration. Oboe, English horn, clarinet, violin, viola and cello all
play the motive’s melodic line in parallel octaves. Contrabassoon, trumpets, trombones

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and bass harmonize with half-note dyads constructed of minor third intervals (Fig. 32,
m. 29).

Figure 32 – Scene 3, mm. 29 – 30: Gaze Motive variation

The Servant Girl attempts to slip away by moving toward the corner of the cell.
As the Beggar follows her movements the harmonizing instruments transition from
dyads to an E-flat unison on the downbeat of m. 30. A tone row combination occurs
when the last pitch of the P6 row form (E-flat) supports a tetrachordal subset derived
from P8 row form. The E-flat pitch in the trumpets rings an eighth-note duration longer
than the rest of the harmonizing instruments, which all switch to a C pitch unison.
Timpani roll on a pitch class C marking the Beggar’s increasing anger and aggression.
The percussion also emphasizes the Servant Girl’s realization that she is cornered. This

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C pitch unison is the fifth pitch in the P8 row form, but that last that will appear. The P8
row is interrupted and there is a return to the secondary row sequence of triadic
sonorities (Fig. 33).

Figure 33 – Scene 3, mm. 31 – 32: Secondary tone row trichord sequence and
dissonant build to finale

Close up shots alternate between the two characters as this series of trichords in a
short-long-short rhythmic sequence is heard (Fig. 33, m. 31). Trumpets play the first two
trichords followed by trombones responding with the remaining two (m. 31). This mid
tone row disruption coupled with the change to thinner orchestration intensifies the
anxiety. It also creates an audible space in which Frankel can increase volume once
again, which he does with the introduction of snare.
The Beggar closes the distance between the two characters and percussion
responds with a switch from timpani to louder sixteenth-notes triplets on snare.
Coinciding with the snare’s appearance, a P3 transposition of the primary tone row
enters with a descending figure resembling a Curse Motive variation. The fourth pitch
class in the P3 row form does not appear within the melodic line since this pitch (an E-

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flat) is still sustained within the trumpets. A G-major dyad repeats in the clarinet as the
P3 row unfolds through a sequence of alternating ascending and descending intervals
(Fig. 33, m. 32).
Beat four of m. 32 and into the first two beats of the following measure make up
an eight-pitch collection that does not match up with any sequential order from the
primary or secondary tone rows forms. It would appear that these three beats contain an
unordered continuation of the melodic and harmonic motion begun in the previous row.
It is quite plausible that this octochordal collection is an unordered extension of the P3
row form, which has already appeared in full (Fig. 34, m. 33). This unordered collection
underscores a close up shot of the Servant Girl; she has become extremely fearful.
With the exception of harp and flute, the full orchestra is now heard. The
addition of percussion coupled with a fuller instrumentation reinforces the imminent
threat that the Beggar poses. The music continues to increase in volume, as does the
intensity of the Beggar’s breathing. All other diegetic noise is drowned out by these two
sounds. A sustained F in the bass on beat two of m. 33 begins a return to a retrograde

Figure 34 – Scene 3, mm. 33 – 34: Unordered collection and finale

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row form. Strings and woodwinds alternate between D-flat and C, while a leap of a sixth
appears within the trombones. This ascending sixth spreads from the trombones (m. 33)
into the trumpets and finally the woodwinds (m. 34).
The woman makes a run for the cell door as her assailant leaps for her, seizing
her from behind. The moment the Beggar grabs her, orchestration drops down to horn,
trumpet, and trombone playing a half-step B-flat – B dyad. This pairing represents a
higher degree of mickey-mousing than Frankel had previously included in this score. He
stops short of continuing to evoke the character’s descent out of frame.
The orchestra returns with the addition of piccolo and alternates between two
dyad groups B – G and G-sharp – E, which combine with the B-flat – B dyad still
sustained in horn and trombone. These final dyads are achieved by harmonizing the last
three pitch classes of the R8 row form with pitches that have appeared previously. Once
the characters are entirely out of frame the music cuts. The only sound left is that of the
Beggar’s almost animalistic laughing noise as the scene fades to black.
The two previous scenes featured the Servant Girl’s encounters with the two men
that attacked her. In both cases the scenes featured a similar pattern of row form
sequences. Each scene featured a P3, a P5, then a retrograde row form and finally a
return to a prime form again. The Danger Motive appeared both times during a
retrograde form and the final prime row form served as transitional material. Frankel’s
selection of row forms appears to correlate with visuals in such a way that these forms
can be interpreted as representative of the onscreen situations. The P3 row form
introduces the Servant Girl into the situation, followed by a P5 row form representing
the presence of the male character that would do her harm. The retrograde row form
represents a heightened threat to the Servant Girl, which is further reinforced by a

Danger Motive. The final prime row form completes the sequence and transitions from
the current threat to the next situation. This pattern is additionally carried over into the
beginning of the third scene until it has completed its sequence.

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Instead of a return to a P3 row form and a continuation of this pattern for the
third scene, Frankel diverts to something new. The onset of the Stalking Motive signals
an end to the previous pattern and the beginning of a new sequence of row forms and
motives. Throughout the rest of the film the Stalking Motive initiates a similar sequence
of row forms and motives as a musical harbinger of a character’s death. This new pattern
begins as sequences of the Stalking Motive fashioned from retrograde row forms. A
prime form of the primary tone row serves to transition to a secondary row continuation
of the Stalking Motive. This is followed by a primary row prime form Gaze Motive and
the secondary row’s sequence of trichords. From there the music returns to a prime row
form, but may be cut short at the moment of attack. For instance, during the prostitute’s
murder, the whole sequence is presented with a return to a P3 row (Fig. 33, m. 32) form
until the introduction of the unordered collection (Fig. 34 m. 33) and then is abruptly cut
short. The pattern is delayed until the subsequent death of the town drunk, where the
pattern completes with an unordered collection and the retrograde build to finale (Fig.
34, mm. 33-34).
This new sequence of tone rows and motives becomes coded as the pattern for all
of the film’s subsequent attacks. Its reappearance is a signal to the audience that a
character’s death is imminent. It conveys terror with the knowledge that once this music
begins, there is no escape from a character’s violent death. With these patterns, Frankel
parallels the film’s recurring narrative structure and strengthens the theme of the curse’s
inevitability. Frankel’s score embraces serial methods and associative motives to elevate
the thematic centrality of this most hideous and unforgiving curse.

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Conclusions

The practice of serial composition within film scoring is a topic lacking in scholarly
research. It is a practice generally shrugged off with no more than a few passing
statements, which only acknowledge its existence. Likewise, much of Benjamin
Frankel’s serial (and non-serial) music is overlooked and understudied. This thesis
investigated Frankel’s serial method and its application to film music. In order to better
understand this composition, an exploration of the film itself, the historical context
surrounding it, and the man who composed it were included. Indeed, all of the
circumstances surrounding this films production, of which we know very little, may
have played a role in shaping Benjamin Frankel’s music for it. While the scope of this
study’s analysis was only three scenes, they offer a salient glimpse into both Frankel’s
serial scoring practices as well as his overall view of serial composition.
Through this analysis, it can be seen that Benjamin Frankel’s score for The Curse
of the Werewolf draws from serial methods in more than just a few melodic gestures. In
fact, the serial nature of this composition saturates every aspect of these three scenes,
which is representative of other twelve-tone music featured within this film. Frankel’s
balance between serial methods and non-hierarchical diatonicism are quite pronounced
within this score. It is the negotiation between these two musical systems that results in a
highly dramatic and approachable score. His use of recurring associative motives helps
create an interactive relationship with the visuals.
Through this analysis it becomes clear that Frankel utilized tone row subsets to
create his associative motives, which were paired with specific visuals in an effort to
create coded motivic material for later use in the film. Through this technique, recurring
motives recall past coded musical material and increase the dramatic effect of the

cinematic experience. This was evidenced through the reoccurrence of the Danger
Motive as well as the many variations of the Curse Motive. Due to the serial nature of

 95

this music, these scenes share a high degree of melodic and motivic coherency. Much of
Frankel’s scoring within these three scenes favored the use of intervals of a sixth and a
half-step when the melodic material was coupled with significant visual moments. The
prominence of these intervals can be seen as a kind of seed for much of the motivic
material that appears throughout these scenes. A complete analysis of this film’s music
and mapping of its tone row form patterns could yield even more striking evidence of
his motivic, pattern-based, and diatonic-infused serial compositional methods.
Unfortunately, it is unlikely that we will ever know why Frankel never returned to this
compositional method for his film and television scoring, which continued until 1970.
However, comparative analysis of The Curse of the Werewolf’s serial methods to
Frankel’s concert works after and prior to 1961 could bring to light insight regarding his
evolving twelve-tone compositional methods.
This study points out many ways in which serial film scoring is misunderstood
among film music literature. The adaptation and application of serial methods to visual
media is an area of study that benefits the histories of both cinema and music. Through
the study of Benjamin Frankel’s score to The Curse of the Werewolf we gain a glimpse
into these practices and more fully understand their place in history. As this thesis has
shown, Frankel sought to balance serial and diatonic methods through his work. The
Curse of the Werewolf is evidence that he achieved that balance.

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APPENDIX
MATRICES OF THE PRIMARY AND SECONDARY TONE ROWS.

Figure 35 – The primary tone row matrix

Figure 36 – The secondary tone row matrix

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