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Pirates of the Caribbean and Bach

May 27, 2013
My favorite Classical composer is Bach. One of my favorite contemporary composers is Hans Zimmer, who scored the soundtrack for countless movies. I often play Zimmer’s music on piano, and I would play Bach too if I had the technical ability.
I was listening to one of Zimmer’s pieces for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest called The Kraken, and I noticed that it sounded very...Baroque!
At 1:29, I figured out why. Amidst the barrage of pirate contention surrounding the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman, I could hear an homage to my second-favorite\( ^1 \) Bach piece—the well-known Toccata and Fugue in D minor! You will surely recognize it:
Same key, same instrumentation (pipe organ), same motif. Now I know why I like Hans Zimmer so much—we have the same inspiration.
[1] My top favorite Bach piece is his “Little” Fugue in G minor. You can hear this in The Kraken too, if you listen with a bit of imagination.
 Never Seek to Tell Thy Love
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