History, music, film and television.

So, I finally caught up with the most recent episode of "John Adams" on HBO. Last week's episode used a very baroque setting of "La Folia" for the scene in which Adams first visits George III as the U.S.' first ambassador to Britain. (The same theme was used to good effect in the film "Restoration.")

This week's episode featured an adaptation of a movement from a Schubert piano sonata. There's just one problem. Schubert was born the year Adams was elected to the presidency.

"Master and Commander", a film that generally uses period music (Mozart, Boccherini, Corelli, etc.) to great efffect, leaps from the Napoleonic high seas to the early 20th century with Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis (composed in 1910 and based on a piece by Tallis from 1567).

Believe me, there are film scores out there that commit far worse sins. (The score for the otherwise charming medieval fantasy "Ladyhawke" makes me want to stab myself in the ears.)  These, to my mind, do not. The use of the Schubert and Williams pieces in these two instances are not historically apt, but they DO successfully evoke an intended mood that supports and enhances the story - and does not seem blatantly out of place.

And you thought I was gonna nitpick.