Music
John Ford chose his friend, Hollywood composer Victor Young, to compose the score for the film. For The Quiet Man, Young sprinkled the soundtrack with many Irish airs such as “The Rakes of Mallow” and “The Wild Colonial Boy”. One piece of music, chosen by John Ford himself, is most prominent, the melody “The Isle of Innisfree”, written not by Young, but by the Irish policeman/songwriter Richard Farrelly (Dick Farrelly), who wrote it on a bus journey from County Meath to Dublin. The melody of “The Isle of Innisfree” which is first heard over the opening credit sequence with Ashford Castle in the background becomes the principal musical theme of The Quiet Man. The melody is reprised at least eleven times throughout the film.
The upbeat melody comedically hummed by Michaeleen Oge Flynn and later played on the accordion is "The Rakes of Mallow".
Read more about this topic: The Quiet Man
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“I think sometimes, could I only have music on my own terms; could I live in a great city and know where I could go whenever I wished the ablution and inundation of musical waves,—that were a bath and a medicine.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The basic difference between classical music and jazz is that in the former the music is always greater than its performance—Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, for instance, is always greater than its performance—whereas the way jazz is performed is always more important than what is being performed.”
—André Previn (b. 1929)
“Franceska: I was happy in the life I built up for myself. I put a fine high wall of music around me and nothing could touch me. I was safe and secure. And then you had to come along and knock it all down and I hate you for that.
Maxwell: On the contrary, you love me.”
—Muriel Box (b. 1905)