Mancini, Theme from The Pink Panther

You don’t run across bass quintets often, perhaps for obvious reasons, but this arrangement adds an appropriate element of whimsy to the famous Mancini theme for The Pink Panther.

Henry Mancini (1924-1994) is best known for his numerous film scores, including Peter Gunn (1958), Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), The Days of Wine and Roses (1963), and The Pink Panther (1963). In prior years, the more notable film scores had been composed for orchestra by European immigrant masters of the late Romantic style. Composers like Franz Waxman, Max Steiner, and Erich Korngold might have been the successors of Wagner and Strauss had they not been forced out in the years before WWII.

Mancini helped to pioneer the inclusion of jazz in film scores. A first generation American born in Cleveland and raised in Pennsylvania, he played flute in the band. But his primary interests lay in composition and arranging. Prior to the war, some of his arrangements were picked up by Benny Goodman. After the war, he became an arranger for the Glenn Miller orchestra. In 1952, he joined the music department of Universal-International and contributed to more than 100 films. It was Peter Gunn in 1958 that marked the beginning of his career as an independent composer and a 30-year collaboration with director Blake Edwards.

Film scores need to convey the narrative and emotions of the film. In doing that they may capture the time, place, mood, or personality of the characters. The Pink Panther theme has an unusual melodic contour, moving in pairs of notes a half-step apart and aptly represents the slinky movements of a cat. The theme is introduced in the opening credits that emphasize the walking and other movements of the animated Pink Panther. I frankly can’t remember which film composer once talked about studying how the actors walk as inspiration for his themes. It may or may not have been Mancini, but it seems to apply to Mancini’s music.