Theory of Film Music strives to explain how music functions in film, how it is perceived by viewers, and which meanings and values it represents in the dramaturgy of a film work. The book points out the scope of expressive potentials of music in film and arranges them in systems. It draws upon the knowledge of psychology of perception, acoustics, aesthetics of music and film, and it explains film music through concepts, and terms of semiotics. It is concerned with music in relation to film space and time, music’s incorporation in film montage, and music’s impressiveness in relation to the graphic nature of film pictures. It points out the expression and symbolism of individual historical and genre types of music. Trying to provide a more vivid account of the extent of theoretically outlined propositions, the book offers more than 200 examples of verbal description of certain moments in films ranging from the beginnings of the sound film up to the present. They also manifest typical creative tendencies in the history of film music. The book is supplemented with score excerpts, analyses, photographs, and registers.

The Author: Juraj Lexmann, born in 1941, is a Slovak musicologist, music composer, director of film and television productions. His scholarly orientation is located in musical awareness, musical culture in mass media and information society. He has composed music for about 120 documentary and animated films, for music-scenic programmes, as well as chamber music and songs. As film editor and music adviser he has collaborated in the production of about 1400 films. He is the author of a range of documentary films and television programmes devoted to musical life and has published several monographs on music in the media. At the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava he is the founder and professional trainer of academic courses on sound composition for sound masters. He currently holds the post of the director at the Institute of Musicology, Slovak Academy of Sciences.