Flying Film Music Cue [1'45"]

‘Flight Above the Harbor’ is a cue that depicts the take-off of an airplane, opening with the churning motors of a plane, until its dramatic and soaring ascent in measure 5. The sweeping tune is offset with both bass voices and percussion crashes on the after-beats, which gives the music added depth and the feeling of flight, as there is no bass until the syncopated entrance. The joyful mood is captured exquisitely as the French horns play a modal, long-limbed melodic line against with clarinets and celesta playing fast passage-work. Then, strings play the theme in the key of the subdominant. Then, sudden trilling and delicate textures become the atmospheric heart and mainstay of the piece – as counterlines are woven in for variety in the high cellos and double-tonguing flutes. A descrescendoing-crescendoing sustained note pushes the piece into the remote key of B major and planning-modal chords descending from a whole-tone scale with celesta and pizzicato strings give added color and magic before the ultimate conclusion in a Resphigi-scored chord of B major in the strings.