Explain how Elfman uses timbre and harmony to create a dark atmosphere in his piece ‘Batman Returns: Birth of a penguin’ part I & II’

Elfman is a composer renowned for creating a dark, magical atmosphere in his music, and his work for ‘Batman Returns’ in 1994 is no exception.Typically, Elfman uses harmony unpredictably. Instead of the typical V-I cadences at the ends of phrases, he’ll move from the dominant to the submedient of the relative minor, as seen in bar 21 of ‘Birth of a Penguin Part I’, and he ends ‘Birth of a penguin Part II’ on an open fifth, making the tonality ambiguous. This constant changing of key, making particular use of minor tonality and making the tonality uncertain helps create a dark and mysterious atmosphere, for the listener is completely unprepared and unsettled by the lack of stability in the harmonic and tonal structure. Furthermore, his use of major sevenths and augmented fourths creates enhanced harmonic tension and dissonance, thus creating a scary, dark atmosphere.Additionally, his use of timbre significantly affects the atmosphere created. In the beginning of ‘Birth of a Penguin: Part II’, he uses arco strings with an extreme tessitura, which borders on harmonic sounds. This extreme high-pitched register on the violins is typically associated with horror films and tension, for example in Herman’s score of ‘The Murder’ from Psycho. He uses unconventional orchestral instruments such as Celeste and pipe-organ, and uses the conventional instruments in unconventional ways to unsettle the music and thus the atmosphere further. The Celeste has a soft, bell-like sound with lots of reverb, perhaps evoking in the listener wind-like sounds and church bells used ironically to enhance the dark, unholy atmosphere. The harp is played unusually low, creating an unsettling timbre which comes back in tension- building ostinati.