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SYNTHLY DIVINELegendary f ilm composer Hans Zimmer gives Rhapsody a private viewing of his priceless synthesizer collection

Photography by JOSEPH ESCAMILLA

RHAP0114_040_AB_Hans_Zimmer.indd 40 10/12/2013 10:13

au c t i o n � b lo c k

jan uary 2014 — ��

AT SOME point, most of us have been moved by the music of Hans Zimmer. The Grammy and Academy Award winner has composed scores for some of the biggest

films of the modern era: Gladiator, The Lion King, Pirates of the Caribbean and the two Dark Knight films, to name a few. And while his work can sound absolutely symphonic, his film scoring begins with the classic synthesizer, of which he has been a longtime collector.

Zimmer’s obsession with the instrument began in the late 1970s when, as a 20-something who had moved as a teen-ager from Germany to England, he became a go-to synth player, working with producer Trevor Horn (Frankie Goes to Hollywood, ABC) and playing in his own bands. A pivotal moment came when he heard Giorgio Moroder’s electronic score for the 1978 film Midnight Express. “It was like, ‘Wow, you can actually do that!’” he says. “This inhuman-sounding music, which created this unbelievable tension.” And while his own scores quickly evolved from the futuristic minimal-ism of early electronic music, Zimmer says it is always there, lurking beneath the surface. “I wrote the Dark Knight score on a synthesizer. And when we started recording, I told the orchestra I wanted them to imitate the synthesizer. To play with no emotion and to just play the notes. The rigidity of that Batman stuff is straight out of German electronic music.”

Zimmer owns, by his estimation, between 100 and 150 vintage synthesizers. They continue to inspire him, both musically and philosophically: “You have to realize that people like Bob Moog [designer of the revolutionary Moog Synthesizer] were really good engineers. Just because it was the time of hippie craziness doesn’t mean they weren’t as brilliant as someone like Steve Jobs. Back then, we were looking outward. We had the moon landings, we were look-ing up at the stars, and science wasn’t a dirty word. We were hunting down the future. I think one of the main reasons I still love electronic music is because it’s people trying to really push forward. It’s not sounding any good unless the damn piece of equipment catches fire.”

Zimmer—who’s receiving plenty of awards-season buzz for his score for 12 Years a Slave—is currently at work on Christopher Nolan’s immensely secretive science-fiction film Interstellar, due in theaters November 2014. “I send Chris things to inspire him,” Zimmer says. “As a director there are these moments on set when he in-evitably feels all alone. He is surrounded by thousands of people, but all they are doing is asking him ques-tions. There is something nice about slipping on the old headphones and there’s a bit of Zimmer playing there.”—JOHN ALBERT

MOOG AND MORE “If I wanted to get truly lost, I would use this one,” Zimmer says of his ARP 2500 synthesizer (above). “It’s like some NASA switchboard.” At left, the composer with his treasured Moog Modular: “This is the original Bob Moog invention that still can’t be beat—partly because the man knew that if you make things big, they are nice to play with. Everything has become miniaturized since then.”

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