Books by David Huckvale

Since the early days of silent film accompaniment, the piano has played an integral part in the history of cinema. By examining depictions of the piano onscreen, readers will begin to understand not only the decline of the piano but also the decline of the idealistic culture to which it gave birth in the nineteenth century.

English actor Dirk Bogarde dominated the films in which he starred. Exploring the tension between his matinee idol appeal and his own closeted sexuality, this book focuses on the wide variety of genres in which he worked, and the highly charged interaction between his life and his roles.

Film is a kind of magic, a world of shadows and light, where anything is possible and the dead come back to life. Movie Magick explores the way in which films have been inspired by Alesiter Crowley's famous definition of ""Magick"" as ""the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.

Tells how Hammer Films commissioned composers at the cutting-edge of European musical modernism to write their movie scores, introducing the avant-garde into popular culture via the enormously successful venue of horror film.

Composers give a unique and powerful voice to stories on the big screen. Those who work principally with one genre may leave a unique imprint. James Bernard was one such composer. From 1952 to the late 1990s, he was one of horror''s definitive and distinctive voices, scoring many of Hammer''s best-known films, including Dracula. This is a critical biography of James Bernard. It is also a thorough and meticulous examination of his music, including its intricate mechanisms and the many sources of Bernard''s inspiration. Movie scores examined include The Quatermass Experiment, Quatermass 2, X--The Unknown, The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Kiss of the Vampire, She, and many others. A foreword by Ingrid Pitt, a glossary, a filmography, notes, bibliography and index complete the work.

Occult traditions have inspired musical ingenuity for centuries. From the Pythagorean concept of a music of the spheres to the occult subculture of 20th-century pop and rock, music has often attempted to express mystical states of mind, cosmic harmony, the demonic and the divine--nowhere more so, perhaps, than in the music for films such as The Mephisto Waltz, The Devil Rides Out, Star Trek, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Omen and The Exorcist. This survey explores how such film music works and uncovers its origins in Pythagorean and Platonic ideas about the divine order of the universe and its essentially numerical/musical nature. Chapters trace the influence of esoteric Freemasonry on Mozart and Beethoven, the birth of "demonic" music in the 19th century with composers such as Weber, Berlioz and Liszt, Wagner''s racial mysticism, Schoenberg''s numerical superstition, the impact of synesthesia on art music and film, the effect of theosophical ideas on composers such as Scriabin and Holst, supernatural opera and ballet, fairy music and, finally, popular music in the 1960s and ''70s.