Johnny Green (rather pompously elevated to John by Preamble) had an illustrious career in Hollywood as composer, conductor and arranger working at Paramount, Warner Bros. and Universal. But he is best remembered for his work at M-G-M between 1942 and 1946 but more significantly from 1949 to 1958. His enormous contributions to M-G-M's musicals are now legend. They include: Easter Parade, An American in Paris, The Great Caruso, Brigadoon, and High Society. Raintree County is Johnny Green's masterpiece in the genre of film music - and a classic. This score bolstered up a movie that was intended to rival Gone With the Wind but ended up a disaster mauled by the critics. Mightily expensive ($5½ million in 1957), the film was overlong, misconceived, and miscast with a maudlin, often fantastic script and an awkward, uncomfortable performance from Montgomery Clift as Johnny due mainly to a near-fatal and disfiguring car accident that he suffered while the film was in production. The story of Raintree County is set in a prosperous county in Indiana just preceding, during and immediately after the Civil War. This reality and personal drama of the tragic Susanna (Elizabeth Taylor) who descends into madness haunted by the feeling she could be part black, and the conviction she was partly responsible for the possible murder of her father and Henrietta, the coloured woman who had raised her, is contrasted with an atmosphere of fantasy as Johnny seeks the legendary Raintree (symbolising Man's endless quest for the unobtainable). Wisely Green eschews Max Steiner's GWTW route of using the music of the period ('Dixie' and 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' etc) in favour of a completely original score. It is a pity that Max Steiner's Tara theme is so indelibly linked with this period and has made such an immense impression on the public consciousness, for Green's 'The Song of Raintree County' main theme is no less beautiful and memorable. The Overture has a grand, confident sweep in accord with its locale. The music also has a comfortable folksy charm. Its sparkle is tempered by a brief foreboding of impending personal and universal tragedy before Green unfolds his broad romantic main theme melody with a surging string treatment that will tug at your heartstrings in the fulsome tradition of all the great screen romantic melodies. This haunting melody, 'The Song of Raintree County', is developed with harmonica solo as the choir sings, "They say in Raintree County, there's a tree thick with blossoms of gold, but you will find that the raintree's a state of mind…" The affectionate nature and femininity of Nell (played by the lovely Eva Marie Saint giving probably the best portrayal in the film) is rapturously captured in 'Nell and Johnny's Graduation Gifts.' Johnny's Search for the Raintree' is a lush, sensual impressionistic study with women's chorus adding an ethereal quality and Green's extraordinary orchestration evoking a glittering golden tree of legend. [Many have enquired how this effect was accomplished. In his absorbing notes for this album, Johnny Green explains: "A good toy glockenspiel (the kind with the brass tubes rather than the flat rectangular bars), scraped from top to bottom by two pairs of brushes (one pair following the other - two percussionists of course) produced the effect. On the recording stage to the naked ear, it was virtually inaudible. It achieves the characteristic heard on the soundtrack via multiple magnifications and maximum reverberation (echo chamber).] These opening tracks are very memorable - track five being exuberant, folk dance -like and a forthright portrait of rough diamond Flash Perkins that speaks principally through the banjo. 'Johnny and Susanna's first meeting' introduces another memorable romantic theme that anticipates most weirdly that celebrated five-note alien's theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This theme, after a rather staccato 'first surprise and frightening immediate attraction' type of statement, is soon smoothed out into its full legato romantic blossoming. Variations on this theme, associated with the merriment and high spirits, then the tenderness of courtship, proceed in 'July Picnic' with the women's chorus once again reminding us of 'The Song of the Raintree' and by association intimating that this love is only an illusion. Another hauntingly beautiful track. "Johnny's farewell to Nell; River wedding night" begins moodily with the brass angrily intimating a warning of the consequences of Johnny's betrayal of the loving pliant Nell. A quiet soothing wordless chorus spreads over the bliss of the newly weds but there is a dissonant edge too signifying impending tragedy that becomes tangible in 'Burned-out mansion; Susanna's obsession; lament of Henrietta.' This is a very dramatic and atmospheric cue with Green cleverly holding over his wordless chorus from the preceding cue, to recall the past. An off-stage dance orchestra recalls the parties held long ago in the mansion that now lies in ruins. A disorientation begins to manifest itself as Susanna begins to brood over the death of Henrietta. The little bells associated with Susanna's madness (she complains of hearing them in her head) are now heard for the first time. A short evocative sound-portrait of a carriage ride follows and CD1 ends in poignancy with 'Return to Raintree County'. I will not subject readers to a tedious analysis of the music of CD 2 for much is a repetition of the material that has been already heard on CD1 except to say that the madness music is dramatically and most effectively intensified with disturbing dissonances in 'Susanna's maddness.' The music for the sequences when Flash joins up and goes to war and the birth of Johnny and Sussana's child, Jeemie and Nell's return is deeply affecting. Green's music for the Civil War is thrilling sabre-rattling stuff. Another very affecting cue is 'Susanna's tragic decision and her death'. The music becomes detached and eerie as an increasingly unhinged Sussana, realising that her marriage is fraught with the inevitable anxieties and tensions of a union in which she is mentally unstable and Johnny is crippled with frustrated ambition, decides to walk into the swamp where her body is later found. The final moments of the score bring relief and a return of optimism and romance as Nell, Johnny and Jeemie look forward to a life together. A major score and a wonderful album Reviewer Ian Lace	Reviewer Ian Lace Reviews from previous months Reviews carry sales links but you can also purchase from:
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