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February 2000 Film Music CD Reviews |
Film Music Editor: Ian Lace |
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Return to the February Index with thumbnails [Part 1] [ Part 2] [Part 3]
************************************************************** EDITOR’S CHOICE TV Score February 2000
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BBC Concert Orchestra; NChiCa Orchestra (Tan Dun, Director), London Voices; New London Children's Choir conducted by the composer
This album has arrived a little late now that we are several weeks into the new millennium, nevertheless it is exceedingly welcome for its sheer vibrancy, brilliant colours and extraordinarily imaginative juxtapositioning of musical styles and instruments. The ear never has time to be bored.
Tan Dun's joyous 2000 Today composition was commissioned for the international consortium of TV broadcasters (led by the BBC and Boston's WGBH) millennium programme that began at the hour of midnight in the Pacific island of Tonga and tracked zero hour as it progressed westward across the globe through each of the earth's 24 time zones.
At this point I can do no better than to quote from Mary Lou Humphrey's lucid booklet notes to explain the work:-
"Although Tan Dun's music is renowned for its spiritual and meditative qualities, he is increasingly embracing a more global perspective in his work. With 2000 Today he introduces the innovative concept of a "mosaic" symphony. Immediately noticeable are 2000 Today's two contrasting orchestras: one consisting of classical Western instruments, a chorus and soprano soloist; the other using world instruments and "primitive" sounds like the gravelly vocalisations of Tibetan monks. Contrasts abound, such as between the whirring aboriginal didgeridoo and the high-tech electronic "whooshes" that periodically flash by like shooting stars. Percussion is central to the piece; hypnotic rhythms resound from a plethora of drums including the thundering East Asian ohdaiko and the pattering Middle Eastern tar. Clacking stones and the sound of water, alternately cascading and icy, are also important elements in 2000 Today, as they represent to Tan the beginning of the world's journey.
"Serving as the centrepiece of the symphony's mosaic form, and heard in every movement is an easily recognisable "chant": the gently lush, ascending theme first heard in the strings at the beginning of the piece. It has the flavour of an ancient scale, an Indian raga, a gameleon melody - to which counterpointed musical material is added to capture the poetic spirit of the world's regions. In the work's finale, Tan blends the chant and all its counterpoints into a "Unity" Here, with a sense of inevitability, the chant musically unifies the earth's cultures as one. And, to open the celebration, The Gypsy Kings and Ziggy Marley come together for Bob Marley's reggae classic 'One Love' to sing of a world united by love."
[If only every new soundtrack recording came with such eloquent notes]
I would just add a few observations of my own, but first I will list the movement titles that give a flavour of the composition:
Beyond Light
Reflection
At Sunrise
Africa, Africa
Crossings
The East
Antarctica
Dreams
Stones
Celebration
2000 PassionsI mean no disparagement at all when I claim that this music has an undeniable theatrical and epic feel; its perspectives are big in every direction with the sound stage strategically exploited continuously. There are many surprises and few, if any, clichés. One might expect that Tan's portrait of Antarctica would be icy and still. Chilly yes, this is quite palpable but his hostile environment is suggested by odd instrumental noises, voices and galvanising rhythms. 'Dreams' clearly represents America with those long-held, imposing Copland-like, quasi-fanfare brass chords redolent of heroes and vast Western vistas, juxtapositioned with material that suggests the chantings of American Indians. 'Celebration' is a real oddity contrasting a cinema organ with Caribbean steel drums and muted brass sounding like motor horns or squawking birds. 'Crossings' has intricate tendrils of sinuous, sensuous flute/clarinet and violin material with music for harmonium and steel drums. To Mary Lou's remarks about the final '2000 Passions', I would add that there is also music recalling Orff's Carmina Burana suggesting, perhaps, that not only peoples and places are united but also former experiences from the last and previous millennia.
An astonishing achievement. Warmly recommended
Reviewer
Ian Lace
************************************************************** EDITOR’S CHOICE New Score February 2000
**************************************************************
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"Through every rift of discovery some seeming anomaly drops out of the darkness and falls, as a golden link, into the great chain of order." - Edwin Hubbel Chapin
John Williams' Angela's Ashes is not the potent theatrical score one might expect. It is barely disturbing, but is deeply emotional (the primary aspect to prevent one's attention from wandering elsewhere). As with Williams' "Stepmom," people can use this soundtrack to create a checklist for Williams' personal clichés. It is a patchwork. However, "Angela's Ashes" is superior in almost every other aspect, including how it gracefully veils its own shortcomings. It shares a commonality with some of John Williams earlier, but it is not stale.
Based on the award-winning book, Angela's Ashes is the tale of Frank McCourt and his family living poor and miserable in Ireland, struggling to find gladness in the depression. Williams eschews ethnic musical hallmarks ("Far and Away," for example) in favor of a straightforward retelling of the story in a standard symphonic approach. The brass section is kept very low-key, perhaps more so than "Schindler's List," yet the full orchestra builds, rises, and crashes among meditative instrumental solos on cello, harp, oboe, piano, and violin. The orchestrations, though overly familiar, remain amazing and are unpretentiously -- again, also very emotionally -- used. The central melody is a capacious, sumptuous theme (think of that equally well chosen dramatic score by Williams... Seven Years in Tibet), and appears regularly to bring the work together further. Without a doubt, there is as much of Williams' sensitivity as anyone expects. This is his music, and he lets us know it.
Period recordings of 'The Dipsy Doodle' and 'Pennies from Heaven' add to the veritable ambiance and to the album's affectivity. The narration from the film is fractured, unnecessary, and gradually becomes more hindrance than help. Had Williams arranged the music and adapted the narration into a suite (as he did with his "The Reivers" Suite), the accomplishment would be more worth the effort. As is, the effect is like a commercial interruption for disheartening sentiments; the music does commendably on its own, without supererogation from a narrator. Alan Parker's brief comments touch on the genuineness of 'gush notes,' giving a cursory nod to the personal process of working with a great film composer without the longwinded congratulatory babble directors and producers have a fondness for. The disc is not a great victory, but it drops into the general vicinity. And it falls, as a golden link, into the great chain of order. Here is another pleasant addition to John Williams' very extensive and prosperous career.
Reviewer
Jeffrey Wheeler
Ian Lace adds some comment after listening to the DECCA CD:-
"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood."
- Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes.
As I write, I have just received the DECCA version of this score (the one without the narration) although I hope to have the SONY version too, 'ere long. There appears to be some confusion. I was told that the DECCA album was for the UK market but I believe the SONY version will be on sale here too? I will update this review as the situation clarifies itself.
I agree with everything that Jeffrey Wheeler says in his eloquent review above. I admire John Williams's taste and skill in treading the fine line between sentimental sensitivity and bathos. This virtually string-based score, is deeply moving and quietly sympathetic to the screenplay underlining the basic dignity and fortitude of the characters living in appalling conditions in the oppressive and repressive Limerick of the 1940s.
[How different the City is today. I was impressed with its air of prosperity when I visited it last summer; the west of Ireland, including Galway, has one of the fastest growing economies in Europe now thanks to EEC funding. I can however vouch for the sort of living conditions portrayed in the film. I was brought up in a North West of England seaport during the 1940s. Thankfully my parents were fairly prosperous retailers but I remember poorer children playing in Barrow-in-Furness slums not much different to those portrayed in Alan Parker's film]
The score opens with figures strongly reminiscent of some of the material of John Williams's Presumed Innocent score before the main elegiac theme is introduced. I was struck by the similarity of much of this music to the great English string compositions by Vaughan Williams, Finzi, Britten, and Tippett etc. 'Angela's Prayer', in particular has a beautiful luminous intensity that lingers in the memory. Much of the music is poignant, sometimes despondent, with few moments of elation and joy save in 'Plenty of Fish and Chips in Heaven' and the final 'Back to America.' There is an urgent perkiness reminiscent of E.T. in the pizzicato string cue, 'Delivering Telegrams' which also adds a little contrast to the preponderantly slow tempos of the majority of the cues. The latter cue mixes a sad sense of nostalgia with a new hope, for a new life in a more vibrant America, and the brass, so sparingly used, is allowed rein to express aspiration.
It may be John Williams in something of a retread mode, no matter -
Reviewer
Ian Lace
And Gary S. Dalkin has the last word:-
I haven't had time to give this album the repeated playing is surely deserves, but having heard about the Sony issue of the score, complete with dialogue extracts, I am delighted that wisdom has prevailed and the UK has been graced with a music only release. I can imagine that poetic dialogue over some of this music might be enjoyable and atmospheric, once, but as Jeffery Wheeler comments, such hybrid releases quickly become tiresome. Let's be blunt: John Williams is still the greatest living film composer, and his music can stand on its own, so do make sure you buy the Decca version.
Here is Williams in elegiac, rhapsodic mode. As noted above, he avoids the 'Orish' flavourings he brought to his wonderful Far and Away score, adopting an idiom similar to parts of Presumed Innocent and its distant piano-haunted all-passion-spent darkness. 'The Lanes of Limerick' uses a harp to create a hazy, beguilingly heady dream-like atmosphere, but this is as Irish as the score gets. Rather, there is as Ian says, an elegant reflection of Finzi and Vaughan-Williams, to which names I would add Moeran and Alwyn. Nevertheless, the melodic sensibility remains John Williams own.
It is perhaps this leaning towards the classical, towards a purer synthesis of music and image, that has alienated some who love passionately Williams earlier scores. Williams scores of the 90's may be less thematically driven - though he can still write great tunes, and the main theme here is gorgeous - yet as such masterpieces as Nixon and Seven Years in Tibet demonstrate, his music has become ever more richly interwoven with the psychological fabric of film. Williams is a film composer first, he paints people and their worlds in sound, and we should not forget that in the desire for another great soundtrack album. Yet here, he has given us just that. Even after two listens it is becoming obvious that this is a wonderfully crafted work, full of marvellous string writing and achingly lovely melodies, more finely developed than mere 'big tunes'.
It has been suggested that this score harks back to Williams past, a patchwork. I would call it style, with the clearest source being the more darkly romantic aspects of the composer's score for Brian De Palma's compelling psychokinetic gothic fairytale, The Fury. Listen to the pizzicato strings of 'My Dad's Stories' and 'Delivering Telegrams' for examples (this latter cue also shares scurrying violins with Close Encounters of the Third Kind). Not having yet seen the film I can not say whether the apparent reference to Brief Encounter which opens 'Angels Never Cough' is coincidental or intentional, but Angela's Ashes is set during the period David Lean's film was in the cinemas.
The flow of Williams score is briefly interrupted by two period 'pop' tunes, 'The Dipsy Doodle' and 'Pennies from Heaven', which might better have been placed at the end of the disc as bonus tracks, but they can easily be skipped or reprogrammed. If you like John Williams you should have no hesitation in buying this disc, and even if you think you don't, or don't like his recent writing you should consider buying this. It is only mid-January, but I strongly suspect Angela's Ashes is going to stand as one of the years' best scores. It has much the same dignified beauty as last year Mark Isham brought to October Sky, but it also has a greater scale and more variety of writing. Romantic shadows linger throughout much of the score, such that anyone with a fondness for Williams Jane Eyre (one of the very finest television scores ever written) or the incarnadine sadness of Monsignor will revel in this delicious music. With each track I re-play this score grows on me more, and I have no hesitation in declaring it a triumph.
Reviewer
Gary S. Dalkin
The book and the film:
I was interested to read a review of Alan Parker's film of Angela's Ashes in a leading UK film magazine. Many of these magazines are written for a young audience; and I guess that this particular reviewer was probably no older than 35 for he insisted that the film was set in the 1930s (it was actually set in the 1940s -- Ireland was neutral in World War II). The whole story must now seem as remote to his generation as Dickens does to mine. Such depravation, as described in Frank Court's memoirs, may have been more intense in Limerick, and generally so in Ireland than in the UK, but many poor children ran barefoot throughout the British Isles in those times.
The film is fairly faithful to the book retaining many of its anecdotes although I would have liked to have seen the inclusion of more character-building episodes like when Angela is remembered by her old dancing partner as he lies dying of consumption. It tells us something of her past before she left Limerick in the first place, for New York. Emily Watson as Angela is everything I imagined the character to be from the book. She communicates the young Angela's vulnerability and most vividly in the harrowing early scene in Brooklyn, where she looses her baby daughter. She is consistently impressive in communicating Angela's strength and stoicism through all her tribulations: the deaths of two more of her children, the bigotry and intransigence of her family and the Irish authorities, her ineffective and drunken husband, Malachy (another penetrating performance by Robert Carlyle) and her appalling living conditions. Your heart aches as you watch her downward spiral from youthful innocence through disillusion to hard-faced acceptance of a repulsive compromise to permit herself and her younger children to survive.
The boys who play Frank through the various stages of his growing up are all good - particularly the youngest. The minor characters are well portrayed too. Where I found fault was in the mood and in the settings. Having been to Limerick, I cannot believe that it rains as much as all that. Surely one or two scenes along the Shannon and in O'Connell Street (with its monument) could have been shot in brighter weather? The overall mood of the book was of optimism and humour triumphing over adversity. The film is too bleak. Given Frank McCourt's wonderfully descriptive prose its images should have lingered longer in the mind, but again this may have been largely due to the overly dour sets that either looked too dank and terrible or too shiningly lit to be true.
The book is, of course, far superior and from over 400 pages only some of its memorable episodic material and its marvellous gallery of characters could be included in the film. Much of the school episodes and those in the hospital as Frank recovers from typhoid, are missing, for instance. It is the fact that the story is seen through Frank's eyes and is related in the present tense that gives it such spontaneity, immediacy -- and such wit. Angela's Ashes is one of those books that one cannot put down. It will make you roar with laughter and it will be a strong man indeed who will not be moved by its more poignant episodes. A marvellous book well deserving of its Pulitzer prize.
Ian Lace
The film The Book: Purchase the book: Amazon UK Amazon US
Rachel Portman's 'Main Titles' theme from "The Cider House Rules" plays again as this review materializes. Just the theme, playing over and over...
A truism offered by science fiction writer Aldous Huxley states, "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." Music can resonate as the world's ultimate poetry. For the film music admirer, a good soundtrack builds and breaks barriers in moments.
This melody is of a romantic conception. It is elegant, its idealism meaningfully simple, its aspirations as involved as human feeling. One may hear it and think of Georges Delerue, a composer who this reviewer firmly believes wrote themes of perfection, like shimmering sunlight on clear spring day, they streamed through leaves and trees to touch the ground no less what they were, but more expressive and vigorous. These themes, these instrumentations, everything is divine not just in what it says, but how it means to be heard. The small paradox with "The Cider House Rules" is that pushing 'repeat play' is mostly unnecessary. The score has effective divergences from its core material, but if this were an LP I would wonder if the needle keeps getting stuck in a groove. More varied use of the themes, more diverse orchestrations, would build a greater sense of interest and emotion. The 'poetry' does become moderately longwinded.
For the score as a whole, Mrs. Portman uses her exceptional compositional skills to create a sense of place, time, and personality. Imperishable piano solos (performed by John Lenehan), vibrant string passages, and chamber-like winds harden into the groundwork of the score. While philosophers of cinema keenly point to film as an action-orientated medium, as the terms 'movies' and 'motion pictures' themselves suggest, Portman's score reflects a more casual approach, suggesting an awareness (of some sort) to a philosophy that assuming questions of worth and meaning are more accurately determined by decency and usefulness than they are by mere operation.
Five stars, given with some reservation, go to this pastoral recording. The soundtrack's monotony is a minor flaw, a blemish, on a lengthy list of many positive aspects. Those good times are parts that, unlike a multitude of modern ditties, impress for more than a moment; there are many beautiful things offered within the score. The performances are pleasant, the sound follows suit, the themes and orchestrations are worth a fair amount of their repeating appearances, and the aforementioned artistic philosophy, made consciously or not, breathes fresh air. It has decency. It has usefulness. By them, this music has grace.
Reviewer
Jeffrey Wheeler
Ian Lace agrees but…
Again, Jeffrey hits the nail on the head when he talks about the repetitive nature of this score. Playing devil's advocate, I have to say that I found many of the middle tracks on this album wearying because of their similarity - their saccharine, homely melancholic/elegiac sameness with thin well-used material insufficiently varied in harmony and instrumentation to keep the attention wandering.
But - the disc is worth its price for the glow of the opening tracks that Jeffrey warms to. There is a delicacy and elegance that is most appealing with a lovely melody that reminds me of English - or rather Irish - folk song.
Reviewer
Ian Lace
With no knowledge of the film, a cursory observation that this pairs Badalamenti with director David Lynch is likely to divide potential listeners as easily as their films together historically have. A reputation for experimentation and an often dark tone proceeds them, which either appeals or repels in equal number.
So shame on you if you're unprepared to accept a wolf in new clothing, since that chances you missing out on what's possibly the most consistently beautiful score of 1999.
Alvin Straight is an elderly varmint who swallows years of pride to visit a stricken brother whom he's not spoken to for far too long. Circumstances dictate the most humorous of modes of transport to undertake the journey - a lawnmower. An exploration of shining morality and the nature of family ensues. All of which elicits the most tender of scores from Badalamenti, recalling some of the bittersweet of his own City of the Lost Children. But in its Country Americana style, much of this album resembles the infamous guitar strains of Stanley Myers' "Cavatina" from The Deer Hunter.
After the synth strains of "Laurens, Iowa" reminds us just how powerful sustained melodies can be (think Twin Peaks), it is with "Rose's Theme" that the most memorable material begins. The intimate ensemble of a couple of guitars and strings draws you into the achingly slow world in which Alvin travels, and simultaneously keeps warm and alive its dazzling colours. The shots of the glowing cornfields coupled with "Alvin's Theme" are spectacular to say the least.
It's easily the most listener-friendly collaboration from the pair, but more than that it's a good sign that movie scan still allow for and encourage such sweetness.
Reviewer
Paul Tonks
For the Love of the Game has not arrived in the UK yet, but judging from the booklet artwork, it appears that Kevin Costner is revisiting his Field of Dreams and Basil Poledouris seems to be sanctifying whacking a ball with a stick of wood. ('Apologies to our American visitors if I appear to be sacrilegious.) The opening Main Title has a persistent other-worldly, mystical-sounding ostinato that supports a broad romantic/heroic theme. It also has a folksy charm too. In fact, this attractive, melodic score has some considerable charm and beauty. Think of Mark Isham's A River Runs Through It or Thomas Newman's The Horse Whisperer, and you have its essence.
The best material is contained in the slower dreamier cues (the alternatives tend to bring one down to earth with too much of a bump.) 'Relationship Montage' is relaxed and cosy with a dialogue for guitars over sustained high string chords leading into a piano solo that takes up and embroiders the material - the music is sort of country and western and smoochy-paced. 'Tuttle knockdown' retains the guitars but the mood darkens to the discordantly sinister with timpani and synth stiffenings. The beautiful cue, 'Jane's Home' is cosily, sentimental again with familiar genre material given a fresher, more richly harmonised treatment; piano solo and warm string colours abound but the distinguishing feature is Poledouris's writing for intertwining upper woodwinds. [This cue is worth the price of the CD alone.] 'Gus Hits' is country and western dancing. 'Lemonade' is bitter/sweet with a pastoral atmosphere. 'The Apology' recalls Copland's middle America and is again sweetly introspective and almost prayer-like. 'No hits' maintains the mood of quiet meditation; the music becomes even more mystical with a slower version of the heroic elements of the Main Title music broadening out to reach a treatment one usually associates with the grandeur of western landscapes; but the cue ends somewhat disconsolately. 'The Decision' has the piano meditating the main theme first over high strings before the mid-and-lower strings add sympathy and warmth allowing the music to become increasingly ennobled through the remainder of the cue and on into 'Last Pitch' where voices add intensity. But this final cue slumps because it has to sums up all the material stated in the previous tracks. Personally I will be cueing tracks 1, 2, 4, 6, 7,8 and 9 for future listening, and substituting a picture of quiet pastoral beauty (Yosemite for instance?) for the non-informative booklet.
Reviewer
Ian Lace
Unlike the experimental shadings of his earlier score to The Ice Storm for director Ang Lee, this Civil War epic is cloaked in the traditional colours of Americana. The powerful music has many highlights. With a superb introduction to the romantic (not the slushy type) main theme in "Opening Credits" this disc will plant its hooks in you from the off.
The two tracks I would point you towards more than any others are "Clark Farm Shootout" and "Battle And Betrayal". The former takes the breath with its booming percussion and soaring brass fanfares, while the latter sweeps from the cavalry charge of "Don't Think You Are A Good Man" into yet more thunderous attacks on the senses.
If there's a downside, it's the sequencing of source cues in-between the epic moments. They raise a smile, but will necessitate a subtle re-programming to enjoy properly.
Reviewer
Paul Tonks
A while ago, when commenting on Michael Nyman's "The Piano," I spoke (or pontificated, rather) to some colleagues regarding my dismay over Nyman's 'art.' I mention guilty pleasures on occasion, but a greater potential irrationality of criticism is the personal determination of whether one should praise certain scores or composers for daring to be abstract, or lambaste them for not getting their points across. I have done both, with disliked emphasis on the latter, when listening to Nyman's compositions. It is with "The End of the Affair," performed by the Michael Nyman Orchestra, that I realize I ought to place my views firmly, diplomatically in the middle.
The music really depends on how the listener feels, as opposed to being the sort of film score that alters how he feels. Reliant on the mood and the focus of attention, the score delights as confidently as it bores. It stands precariously on the divide between art and self-importance. Its incessant, top heavy strings play ad nauseam -- will they never end? -- but the themes they play indulge in the attention. It is exceedingly predictable, just as a fair deal of minimalist music is. And compared to the film scores of minimalist Philip Glass it is neither technically brilliant nor dramatically solid. It is challenging primarily to the amplitude of one's attempt to fall in love with its tedium. Cinematic evolution gets thrown out of the window for a beginning, middle, and end that are practically unidentifiable from one another. As I am not a huge supporter of the minimalist music movement I may be missing some key thought, others may see this score far differently, but to my ears it reaches a point of despotic annoyance. Call me unfashionable. Yet I cannot help praising "The End of the Affair" for its abstract grandeur. The scope, though minimal, gets the most out of the repeating elements, and the cues, taken individually as small concert works rather than part of a theatrical whole, become fascinating essays in contemporary classical music. Nyman has an unconventional way with counterpoint (and lack thereof) that is lush and thoroughly amazing, and the themes are memorable and inhabit the soundscape aggressively well. When these ideas stick out from the common backdrop, it is mesmerizing.
What fascinates me most personally is that this is one of the few soundtracks I know of featuring such a strong dichotomy... I am not sure I appreciate it...
Reviewer
Jeffrey Wheeler
Gary S. Dalkin offers this alternative view:-
Much film music is generic, but few film composers so distinctively create a genre all of their own as has Michael Nyman. His string driven, sometimes detached, sometimes melancholy minimalism is instantly recognisable. It has made his career, but must sometimes be his cross, for when he composes music which is so utterly Nymanesque as The End of The Affair, he runs the risk of being considered to be operating on auto-pilot.
The film is Neil Jordan's adaptation of the autobiographical novel by Graham Greene, with Ralph Fiennes making little change of direction from his previous 1940's adulterous lover in The English Patient. Nyman reprises the attractive, but sometimes wearying string-laden intensity familiar from Carrington and Wonderland. Compared to John Williams simultaneous appropriation of the idiom of Vaughan-Williams and Gerald Finzi for his marvellous Angela's Ashes - another stark drama set in the 1940's - Nyman's writing seems almost simplistic. There is a wistful urgency which will doubtless be most effective when coupled with the images on screen, but which will perhaps not stand-up so well to repeated play on disc. It is not that there is anything wrong here, or anything lacking, just that equally, there is little that is really new. It is simply the sound of Michael Nyman doing what he does so well. Perhaps he is marking time until something else offering the challenges of the startling Ravenous comes along.
Reviewer
Gary S. Dalkin
Featuring Music from:-
Beethoven - Symphony No. 5
Respighi - Pines of Rome
Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue
Shostakovich - Piano Concerto No. 2
Saint-Saëns - Carnival of the Animals
Dukas - The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Elgar - Pomp & Circumstance Marches
Stravinsky Firebird Suite.When it was first released in 1940, Walt Disney's Fantasia was not the initial success the studio had hoped for. Its original purpose was not only to entertain but to introduce audiences, especially younger audiences to classical music. It is to be fervently hoped that Fantasia 2000 will be more successful in this context because young people have less chance now in a heavily pop orientated mass media culture to be introduced to more serious music. Music needs listeners as well as players!
The music on this album is played, for the most part by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Levine. (Curiously the only non-European work, Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue is played by the British Philharmonia Orchestra).
The publicity blurb that came with the album informs that the world premiere of the film was on Friday December 17 1999 at New York's Carnegie Hall with Levine conducting a synchronised live performance with the film. This event was repeated at London's Albert Hall, and in Paris and Tokyo before a special final US performance at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium on Millennium New Year's Eve. The film then began a four-month engagement in IMAX theatres around the world before its general release in June.
The music includes abridged adaptations of music from the works listed at the head of this review. A brief 3-minute extract from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony with the famous fate motif opens the film with this music used "…for experimentation in moving colour and form that advances on the surrealistic and the impressionistic." An adaptation of Ottorino Respighi's Pines of Rome shorn of its Catacomb Pines movement, and that nightingale in the Janiculum movement, is the unlikely backing for visuals of a school of cavorting, flying whales. Rhapsody in Blue seems to have a skating timpanist playing in an animated feature "set against the backdrop of 1930s Manhattan." Shostakovich's Adagio movement of his Piano Concerto No. 2 is a lively accompaniment to Hans Christian Anderson's story 'The Steadfast tin Soldier who is bewitched by a flirty ballerina and threatened by the villainous Jack-in-the-box. The jolly finale of Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals, is danced to by a flock of frolicking flamingos. It seems Micky Mouse is asked to encore his Sorcerer's Apprentice act from the original film - frantic broomsticks and water pails and all. Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 'Land of Hope and Glory' (celebrated by our American visitors as a favourite Graduation March) accompanies Donald Duck's adventures (with Daisy Duck) aboard Noah's Ark when confronted by torrents of water on the rampage. This special arrangement includes bits (or should I say splashes) of material from Elgar's 2nd, 3rd and 4th Pomp and Circumstance Marches for good measure. But the climax of the cartoon has a wordless choir, singing the cartoon's version of 'Land of Hope and Glory', strongly reinforced by the soaring ah ahhs of Kathleen Battle. Considering how Elgar came to detest the overexposure and misuse of his P&C No. 1, I think he would have quite enjoyed this gentle lampooning. But strictly not for the purists and those lacking a sense of humour. Finally, the excitement of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite "combines a natural design approach with an art nouveau, fairy-tale look to the animation that soars into unhindered imaginative flight as it flows across the screen" - or so says the notes. As Garry Dalkin says below it is to be regretted that such wonderful music has to be shortened to appeal to a mass audience but as far as I am concerned, if it introduces young people to music other than the pop which is relentlessly aimed at them then such treatment can be forgiven
Good luck to Fantasia 2000 and may we hope it puts many young people on the road to loving good music
Reviewer
Ian Lace
Garry Dalkin is not as enthusiatic:-
Fantasia (1940) was both very much of its time, and ahead of its time. The former in that Walt Disney saw a place for a 'serious' musical animated film in an America prepared to embrace classical music in what was then the 'mainstream' - the film consisted of seven classical works (sometimes rearranged and truncated) set to animation. This was the era of Toscanni and the NBC Symphony Orchestra broadcasting to the American nation, when conductors could be as famous as pop stars are today, and in that world before 'rock and roll' Fantasia could be conceived as serious and popular, art and entertainment. It was the dawn of the animated feature film, when the format had not been set, and Disney was prepared to experiment with various content. Who knows, if Fantasia had been an immediate, rather than belated success, we might not today be stuck with the English language formula (animated films in Europe and Japan are often far more adventurous) which states that all animated features must be saccharine, sub-Broadway family musicals. However, Technicolor (still a rarity in 1940) and stereo sound (all but unique at that date) were insufficient to lure audiences to a two-hour animation favouring classical music at the expense of a singular narrative or even dialogue. As such, Fantasia was 'pure' cinema, a fusion of sound and image rarely seen but usually to be welcomed.
That Fantasia was ahead of its time is evidenced by the fact that it did not find a substantial audience until its 1968 re-release - not coincidentally the year of 2001: A Space Odyssey, another virtually dialogue free visual extravaganza - when, like Clarke and Kubrick's masterpiece, the Disney film found substantial endorsement from the burgeoning hippie movement as a 'head' movie. There is one other unique feature of the original Fantasia, not in what appears on screen, but in conception. Walt Disney envisioned Fantasia as a continual 'work-in-progress', with one or more segments of the film being replaced with newly animated classical selections each time the film was re-released, so that after several years the film would be entirely different from the original 1940 issue. With the initial commercial failure of the film, this idea was shelved, not to be revived until after the hugely lucrative 1991 sell-through video release. Presumably the thinking was that audiences would no longer go to the cinema to see what they owned on cassette at home, so Fantasia Continued (as it was originally announced) went into production.
However, rather than the originally announced mix of old and new, the end product, Fantasia 2000, proves to be an almost entirely new film, with only the famous Dukas' The Sorcerer's Apprentice / 'Mickey Mouse and the broomsticks' sequence being retained from the original. Unhappily, and almost unbelievably, much of what has been discarded has not been replaced. Fantasia ran almost exactly two hours. Judging by the Classic FM radio broadcast of the UK live orchestral premiere, Fantasia 2000 lasts, at most, around 75 minutes. Hence, around 105 minutes of film has been discarded, but only an hour replaced. Are attention spans now so short that two hours is too long, or is the shorter running length simply to get more showings in a day at the expensive IMAX theatres?
Whatever the reason, my complaint is not simply that the new film is so drastically short, but that so many of the pieces in Fantasia 2000 have been needlessly 'arranged' or 'edited'. The film (and album - which follows the film's running order, only omitting the spoken introductions, and presumably, whatever title music is used) opens with the '1st Movement' of Beethoven's Symphony No.5, which has been too boring all these years at 7-8 minutes, and is here condensed to a radio friendly 2:51. There is a precedent for this in the original Fantasia. Walt Disney commented, after seeing the tasteless sequence of satyrs and nymphs set to part of the Symphony No.6 (The Pastoral) that it would 'make Beethoven'. "Gee, Mr Disney, thanks a bunch for your help." And welcome to the remake.
Gerswin's Rhapsody in Blue has a special, New Year offer of 50% off that troublesome 25 minute running time, while perhaps most horrific of all, Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance Marches 1-4 are condensed into a 'hooked-on-Classics' montage clocking in at a sprightly 6:18. Yet even if these works had been animated in full, the running length of the film still would not have exceeded the original's two hours. As it is, The Carnival of the Animals are put out of our misery in less than two minutes.
It is no use complaining that 'it's for the children' and it will introduce them to classical music, as this isn't classical music, but blatant, crassly commercial exploitation of 'famous bits' 'dumbed-down' to a pop music mentality. There is even some Shostakovich, because in 1940 Walt Disney wrote a note considering including 'something modern, like Shostakovich?' in the next version of the film. Almost 60 years later, playing painfully safe, the new filmmakers have followed the letter, rather than the spirit, which would have been to include music by a contemporary, 90's composer.
There is no point in my commenting on the performances, as there are no performances on the disc, only 'Special Arrangements'. The sound is as good as expected, which rather sums-up the whole venture: a soulless exercise in technical excellence. Still, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. The last time I recall a film appending the release date to the title was Airport '79 (or '80, depending on where you live) and Fantasia 2000, the soundtrack album at least, blithely continues that precedent of mediocrity.
Reviewer
Gary S. Dalkin
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The music comprises:-
J.S. Bach - Toccata and Fugue in D Minor
Tchaikowsky - The Nutcracker Suite: Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy; Chinese Dance; Dance of the Reed Flutes; Arabian Dance; Russian Dance; Waltz of the Flowers
Dukas - The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Stravinsky - Rite of Spring
Beethoven - Symphony No. 6 ("Pastoral") - excerpts from all five movements
Ponchielli - Dance of the Hours
Mussorgsky - A Night on the Bare Mountain
Schubert - Ave MariaThis is the original Fantasia music and my colleagues could hardly complain of short measure here! The performances are well up to the Stokowsky's best - need I say more, other than to refer you to the contents of the album listed above.
Reviewer
Ian Lace
Information on obtaining Promo discs here
In the main title for this IMAX documentary, Alan Williams (no relation to you-know-who) stretches out with strings and horns sounding an evergreen melody fashioned, some might say a little too closely, in the romantic style of John Barry. Ask yourself, "A love theme for sharks?"
Okay, it is a love theme for the island. "Island of the Sharks" is a Large Format motion picture detailing the underwater inhabitants of Costa Rica's Cocos Island, including more sharks per cubic yard than maybe any other place on Earth. Williams had the task of capturing the emotion of the undersea exploration and the majesty of the largest uninhabited island -- and "the most beautiful," in the words of Jacques Cousteau -- on the globe. Yet despite the locale, and due to taking a musical path paved firmly before, the score lacks a particularly exotic feel that would make it sound more like a trip to an unsoiled tropical island than a trip to Miami Beach.
It remains recommendable, strong reservations aside, for its flashes of individuality and its always-present heart. This is especially evident in more equatorial-sounding tracks, where Williams shows a sense of bonhomie that captures and involves the listener immediately. He handles the job interestingly and entertainingly, the score smoothly shifts between moods, doing well in contrasting likeable melodies with inimical outbursts to push the score slightly above the norm.
Reviewer
Jeffrey Wheeler
1992: David Fincher makes a millennial, apocalyptic para-Christian thriller, Alien 3. The follow-up to a previous film directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger's favourite director, James (The Terminator, Aliens, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, True Lies) Cameron. The finale features the star making the ultimate redemptive sacrifice to save mankind. Eliot Goldenthal writes a great score, one key part of which is a boy soprano singing 'Angus Dei' over brooding, mournful, atmospheric music.
1999: Arnold Swarzenegger makes a millennial, apocalyptic, para-Christian thiller, End of Days. It is essentially a follow-up to a previous film directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger's favourite director, James (The Terminator, Aliens, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, True Lies) Cameron, in this case Terminator 2: Judgement Day, with the ultimate enemy of mankind, the T1000, replaced with the ultimate enemy of mankind, Satan. The finale features the star making the ultimate redemptive sacrifice to save mankind, so why shouldn't John Debney write a score, the key part of which is a boy soprano singing 'Angus Dei' over brooding, mournful, atmospheric music?
Of course there are differences. The main one is that Alien 3 is a fine film, made by the director behind this year's Great American Film, Fight Club, while End of Days is a Peter Hyams popcorn movie. Elliot Goldenthal is perhaps the most original film composer to make his mark in Hollywood this decade, while John Debney is certainly a very gifted musical craftsman and a welcome interpreter of classic scores, who has so far to impress as a truly distinctive talent.
I would never suggest for a moment that Debney has deliberately copied Goldenthal - I am sure he has far more talent than to need to do this, and more importantly, more integrity than to ever resort to such methods. For all I know, Debney has never seen Alien 3 or heard a note of Goldenthal's music. The same solution may well occur quite independently to different artists, and given the subject matter of the two films it is quite believable that two composers might use the same device independently. Unfortunately, the melodic elements of End of Days sound so much like Alien 3 that, for me at least, Debney's score does not work as an independent creation. For beyond the 'Angus Dei' similarity, much of the action writing, the unsettling electronic atmospherics and all-round 'weirdness' of the score summon aural images of nothing so much as the Alien series in general, and Alien 3 in particular.
Beyond these similarities, what is there? Unfortunately, far too much relentless pounding, hammering, clanging percussion. Certainly such overbearing assault makes the audience feel uncomfortable, but it is all too easy, and is really devoid of 'proper' writing. Of course simple solutions are often the most effective, but this is simply too little, yet at the same, too much. The sheer mechanical, overbearing nature of much of the score may well evoke all things hellish (which, it all but goes without saying, includes the modern night club), and therefore is in once sense entirely appropriate. Yet the dominance of such combative sounds in soundtracks has only arisen since the development of modern 'dance music', and I therefore assume that the presence of so much cacophony is because film producers assume audiences positively enjoy hellish noise. This is rather confirmed by the appearance on the album of a final 'End of Days Dance Mix', which unlike the era when the 'pop' version of a film theme would be a light MOR arrangement, is even more unstructured bedlam than the score itself. It is almost literally unlistenable.
It is also worth noting that there is no end title music, rock taking its place, and appearing on the 'other' End of Days album, though there is an alternative version of the main title, which is rather more rhythmic than the take used in the movie. What character the score has comes from the unusual mixture of instruments - everything from orchestra to real choir and vocal samples, through throat singing and various Tibetan instruments - though individuality may have been sacrificed to the five additional orchestrators credited in addition to Mr Debney.
Though some of the choral passages are quite impressive, 40 minutes of unremitting, spectacular and savage assault, with just brief moments of melancholy repose and a touch of uplift at the end, is just exhausting. Unless you saw the film and really liked what you heard, I'd suggest buying Goldenthal's Alien 3, or Graham Revell's The Crow, (a horror score which provides a better balance between exotic instrumentation, atmosphere and assault) or, coming right up to date, Don Davis's House on Haunted Hill.
Reviewer
Gary S. Dalkin
The Clandestine Marriage is a minor British period comedy, co-produced with the BBC and staring Nigel Hawthorne and Joan Collins. The film is set in the mid-eighteenth century and the album offers much that might be expected, baroque pastiche and English folk-pastoral melody, as well some elements that might not. The title track opens with harp and wordless vocals by Miriam leading into an attractively romantic main theme. There are a fair few dances, the sprightly 'Time Flies', a 'Love Minuet', a 'Rustic Dance', a 'Pageant', with other cues weaving variations on the main theme. All of which is pleasant, but almost entirely lacking in both substance and invention, particularly when set besides recent film music gems for such superior costume comedies as Rachel Portman's Emma and Stephen Warbeck's Shakespeare in Love.
The album is marred by the inclusion of two versions of the song 'Secret', which is as inappropriate as contemporary pop songs virtually always are in films not set in the last few decades. This is appears as an attempt to replicate the success of 'My Heart Will Go On', being again a glossy, artificially produced ballad entirely out-of-keeping both with the film and the rest of the score, delivered in pseudo-emotional, but comparatively understated fashion by the mysteriously monikered Miriam. It is more folk orientated than these things usually are, but in the overproduced way of Clannad, rather than anything more authentic.
Further damage is inflicted by the inclusion of dialogue on several tracks. Nigel Hawthorne even 'sings' badly and in character - to mildly amusing effect in the film but irritating effect on CD - during 'Grand Canal'.
Overall there is too much reliance on variations on main theme of insufficient strength to sustain the demands placed upon it, and far too much period pastiche to maintain the interest. As such this is one score where a suite as part of an anthology disc would be considerably more welcome. These considerations combined with the unhappy presence of dialogue, plus two versions of routine pop song, make for a most unsatisfactory listen. Of course the indefatigable Nic Raine ensures that the whole is thoroughly professional, and the Academy of St. Martins in the Fields could play this in their sleep. As a souvenir of the film is passable, but as an independent album it is no more than talking wallpaper.
Reviewer
Gary S. Dalkin
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The Bachelor, starring Chris O'Donnell and Renée Zellweger, seems to be a remake of the 1925 Buster Keaton comedy, Seven Chances. The plot line is more familiar - the old one about the bachelor who will forfeit his $100 million inheritance if he does not find a bride within 24 hours. From the cover artwork it looks as though he proposes to every woman in sight and they seem anxious enough to comply and to climb into bridal gear!
The album is mostly made up of source music with just enough original score material tacked on at its end to qualify for review on this site. Plus the fact that there is a substantial amount of vintage material and appearances by such artists as Barry White, Louis Prima and Billy May. The 10+-minute medley is the usual sugar sweet confection of dreamy romantic music spiced with a little jazz and Latin. Older listeners will be appalled with David Byrne's rendition of Cole Porter's 'Don't Fence Me In'; while younger ones will probably think its heavy drum beats, cool. Other old favourites such as 'Hit the Road Jack', and 'It Must Be Love' are similarly mangled, or made hep according to age and taste. It was good to hear the sexy and Ally McBeal/'Biscuit'-invigorating Barry White breathing huskily through 'You're the First, the Last My Everything' and Louis Prima's way with 'Justa Gigolo' and 'I Ain't Got Nobody.' I have to say that the old 'Hernando's Hideaway' seemed more exciting than Billy May's Rico Mambo Orchestra's rendition even though it is quite colourful.
Reviewer
Ian Lace
For young'uns: For 'oldies':
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One of the obvious prerequisites for becoming a truly great film composer (or indeed any sort of composer) is to have a uniquely recognisable musical voice. No one at all familiar with film music would ever mistake Rozsa for Herrmann, or Goldsmith for Steiner. Yet the other side of being a successful film composer is a flair for mimicry, the chameleon facility convincingly pastiche anything from a big band march to a tango, from the global diversity of ethnic and folk music to the riches of classical tradition.
Now this present album offers two possibilities. Either the music is in Michael Giacchino's natural style, and he was hired explicitly because he writes in this way, or more likely, he was requested to compose to a very specific brief. For if you were to play this disc without prior knowledge, you might after your initial puzzlement, come to the conclusion that you were listening to a great, hitherto unknown John Williams score, penned somewhere between Jaws and The Empire Strikes Back. Without ever directly quoting John Williams, Medal of Honor offers a breathtaking re-creation of Williams late 70's style.
I have fellow critic Paul Tonks to thank, for he wrote the liner notes to CD, and let me know of the existence of this music, even providing the review disc for Film Music on the Web (UK). Paul accurately told me that the score sounds the way Saving Private Ryan might have, had it been made in the 70's. Given that introduction, what is Medal of Honor? It is the closest the world will probably ever come to a sequel to Saving Private Ryan, a Dreamworks Interactive computer game inspired by that film, officially sanctioned by director Steven Spielberg, and endorsed by the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. Composer Michael Giacchino's soundtrack is orchestral, big, bold, and a stir music with echoes of Jaws, Midway, Black Sunday, The Fury and The Empire Strikes Back, recorded with a fine sounding 64-piece orchestra.
How all this works with the game I can't say, but if it were a film soundtrack I would be at the cinema the first afternoon. Quite simply, this CD plays like the score to the greatest war movie never made. The 'main title' 'Medal of Honor' is sweepingly grand, heroic and melancholy all at once. It will send shivers down your spine.
'Locating Enemy Positions' could easily be music in anticipation of an imperial attack, though the harp is suggestive of a certain familiar shark. 'Taking Out the Railgun' is the first big action cue, a barnstorming set-piece soon topped by the utterly thrilling 'The Radar Train', a wonderful showcase of relentlessly driving propulsive action/suspense writing. And so it goes, a sequence of magnificently crafted action and suspense cues.
The album contains 18 named tracks, plus 2 brief, unlisted (and uninteresting) 'bonus' tracks. The first 15 selections are fully orchestral, before track 16 'The Road to Berlin' offers an elegant laid-back big band jazz number. Like the main score, this thoroughly enjoyable and evocative in its own right, and is followed by an 'alternative version' of the title theme; which if we were to think of this in terms of a film soundtrack could ably function as a reflective and valedictory end title. Finally, 'The Road to Berlin (radio broadcast)' is the jazz recording again, this time treated to sound as if it is being played off a 78rpm record and broadcast by German wartime radio.
There are really only two drawbacks. One is that some tracks are clipped just a little too early, before they have completely faded. The other is that, given that this music comes from a video game, rather than a movie, it is almost entirely predicated to action and suspense. Of necessity it is not as varied as a film soundtrack. There is, for example, no love theme to counter-balance the adventure, or indeed little of anything to evoke a world beyond danger and combat. Thus listening to the entire album at once can become a little exhausting, its sheer, energetic relentlessness begging for some respite. Still, far better to have 73 minutes of music to chose from, than 30 minutes and wish for more.
If you love the big orchestral sound of John Williams and don't object to what is essentially a brilliantly wrought imitation, then this album is to be thoroughly recommended. On the strength of this one release Michael Giacchino should go from being an unknown (his only features to date are Legal Deceit and My Brother the Pig) to taking a major step to becoming one of the very top film composers of the next few decades. And if you don't buy the album (which is available exclusively through Amazon.com), remember the name. On the evidence here, Michael Giacchino is nothing less than heir apparent to the world's finest living film composer.
Reviewer
Gary S. Dalkin
John Williams: The Phantom Menace, Saving Private Ryan * Jerry Goldsmith: The Mummy, The Thirteenth Warrior, The Haunting * James Newton Howard: The Sixth Sense * Danny Elfman: Instinct * Elmer Bernstein: Wild Wild West * Trevor Rabin: Deep Blue Sea * Michael Kamen: The Iron Giant * Don Davis: The Matrix * Chris Boardman: Payback * Stephen Warbeck: Shakespeare in Love * David Newman: Bowfinger
Although this album contains music from Saving Private Ryan, it is essentially a 'year's best' anthology of film music from 1999. There is music from 14 films, each apart from Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace represented by one track. Unusually, the collection presents a mixture of original soundtracks and new recordings, these latter being conducted by Frederic Talgorn with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Chorus. The new recordings feature The Mummy, Saving Private Ryan, Shakespeare in Love and a five-movement concert suite from The Phantom Menace.
This suite consists of 'Star Wars Main Title and Arrival at Naboo', 'The Flag Parade', 'Anakin's Theme', 'The Adventures of Jar Jar' and 'Duel of the Fates'. By far the finest are 'The Flag Parade', one of the genuine highlights of the complete score and a grand ceremonial in the Miklos Rozsa epic tradition, and the thrilling choral epic 'Duel of the Fates'. This finale offers a chorus of 150 voices and a sonic challenge to test the limits of most hi-fis. The sound is simply enormous, with a darker intensity than the soundtrack recording. It demands to be played very loud indeed. The problem is that the suite begins the album when it should really end it; it proves a hard act to follow. Happily Jerry Goldsmith's 'The Sand Volcano' from The Mummy can more than hold its own against the might of John Williams in full flow, but again, this is a new recording with large choir. Coming directly after, the original soundtrack of James Newton Howard's The Sixth Sense sounds unfortunately anaemic. This is not Mr Howard's fault, but rather a result of the sequencing of the album, for hat his music is essentially low key underscore and is inevitably overshadowed by the preceding epic set-pieces.
There are several frustratingly short tracks. Those that are appealing leave one wanting more, such that this album may finally serve as a full-priced sampler: by themselves some of the pieces are so brief as to not afford satisfactory listening experience. Thus music from Instinct, Wild Wild West, The 13th Warrior, Deep Blue Sea and The Iron Giant only whets the appetite. Trevor Rabin is a composer I have never previously rated, but his cue 'Aftermath' from Deep Blue Sea certainly leaves me wanting to hear more of this particular score. 'Old Bagbad' from Jerry Goldsmith's The Thirteen Warrior is a delicate cue unrepresentative of the score as a whole, while the same composer's 'Home Safe' from The Haunting is only another incentive to buy the soundtrack album. Michael Kamen's The Iron Giant is tremendously muscular, while the 'Finale/Fe-Ex Delivers' from David Newman's Bowfinger seems an odd way to end the anthology. This is romantic comedy music, developing into a rousing heroic finish, the whole not so far removed from the style of John Williams under-rated Hook.
We have Williams himself again, with the 'Hymn to the Fallen' choral end-title music from Saving Private Ryan, a piece which is appearing on compilations with considerable regularity. Also present is Don Davis' vibrantly percussive opening to The Matrix, while Payback likewise is represented by its 'Main Title', this time a piece of driving serial jazz-funk by Chris Boardman which starts well but never develops. This may be effective with the film, but becomes tiresome in isolation. That leaves a 7-minute suite from Stephen Warbeck's Shakespeare in Love, which begins with the finale and first part of the end title music (the best film music of last year), then jarringly cuts to a rendition of the main theme. The transition probably works if you're not familiar with the original, but doesn't if you are.
The problem with this album is that virtually all of the scores represented are of sufficient quality that the original soundtrack albums are worth buying, such that these often too short extracts may just encourage you to do exactly that. Buy enough of them and the anthology becomes redundant, while as an album in its own right this collection is just too diverse, a patchwork less than the sum of its parts. The new recording of The Phantom Menace is well worth having, if only for 'The Flag Parade' and 'Duel of the Fates', while The Mummy and Saving Private Ryan neither add to nor detract from the originals. It is difficult to recommend a full price album for two otherwise unavailable recordings. As it stands, longer suites from fewer films would make a better listening experience. Star Wars and John Williams completists will want this album, though virtually any of the original soundtracks represented here would make a more fulfilling purchase.
Note should be made of the unusual but not unattractive digital cover art (by Matthew Joseph Peak), which represents none of the films in particular, but has a science fictional feel oddly reminiscent of a 1970's UK SF paperback. Meanwhile the insert notes are by none other than FMOTW reviewer Paul Tonks.
Reviewer
Gary S. Dalkin
This is a beautifully produced album that nicely compliments the modern reconstruction recordings of King Kong made by Gerhardt, Fred Steiner and the Morgan/Stromberg/Marco Polo team.
It comprises 11 tracks devoted to a radio play-like version of King Kong with dialogue and sound effects as well as the Steiner score demonstrating the remarkable ground-breaking effectiveness of Max's creation. No other film or score from that era seems to have made such a lasting impression. The remaining 9 tracks take in music for the approach to the Forgotten Island, the Jungle Dance, the pursuit into the Jungle, fights with prehistoric monsters and the final music as Kong is killed atop of the Empire State Building.
In a message at the beginning of the lavishly produced booklet which is part of the slim-line board-backed presentation (the CD slips rather too tightly into a pocket on the inside front cover), Danny Elfman aptly considers Steiner's King Kong score to be the first real film score. Elfman goes on to remark: "…the entire concept of a full-blown, synchronised film score was really defined with King Kong…it also happens to be a truly great score…It is by turns, rhythmic and hypnotic; propulsive and whimsical; moody and evocative. Most importantly, it clearly defines the personality of Kong, and his world, bringing the audience into an alternative reality…I think it is important to remember that when Steiner sat down to score King Kong, there were no references. He was practically starting from a clean slate - uncharted territory. So many things that Steiner did, along with Waxman and Korngold and other incredibly gifted early explorers, we take for granted now that the language has been defined. I personally owe Max Steiner and the score to King Kong a great personal debt, I have often quoted from it and used it for inspiration. Steiner really is the granddaddy, the godfather of this wonderful, maddening, crazy art that so many of us are still fans of today." The 20-page booklet also contains many movie stills and star photographs, storyboard illustrations, drawings and poster illustrations. Of particular interest are: the pre-première advertisement listing attending celebrities, plus another listing of the fabulous special effects the audience would see; the programme of the on-stage, pre-film entertainment; and an unauthorised published account of behind-the-scenes techniques (with inaccuracies) from the May 1933 edition of Screen Book Magazine. Detailed essays on the production of the film and Max Steiner's music are included together with full cast and production credits.
For King Kong and Max Steiner fans this is a compulsory purchase
Reviewer
Ian Lace
The first hint that this music-cum-dialogue recording is more than just a gimmicky concept CD comes with the voluminous liner notes - cleverly written by Ian Whitcomb and decked out with photos and posters from many of the great film noir gangster-detective flicks of the 1940s and early '50s, plus candid shots of Max Steiner and Miklos Rozsa conducting their biting, atmospheric music for many of those same films. An interview with David Raksin that's as clever as it is insightful seals the case: This one is a winner. In all, Murder Is My Beat offers music and dialogue in roughly equal measure from some 18 movies. Most of those are represented by both music and dialogue, though several -- Raksin's Laura and Andre Previn's 'Scene of the Crime' for example -- include only the film's main title music. I'm not familiar with the latter film at all, though Previn's music is a singular treat in itself. And hey -- where else are you going to hear not one but two main title cues written together by Roy Webb and Paul Sawtelle ('The Racket' - 1949, and 'Born to Kill' - 1947.) Film noir spawned a genre of music that was as distinct as the films themselves -- tortured trumpet cries, wailing woodwinds and sinewy, sensuous saxophones, juxtaposed against jagged, cutting strings. (Not just foreboding, as Whitcomb quotes Raksin, "but even five-boding.") From Steiner's The Letter to Rozsa's 'Asphalt Jungle,' dissonant harmonies become major characters in each film. Apart from the Previn, my own favorite among Murder Is My Beat's music selections would include Raksin's end title from Force of Evil and Franz Waxman's 'Dark Passage' main title. Source music gets its due here, also, as in Waxman's use of 'Too Marvelous for Words' in his end title to the same film. There's quite a bit of Steiner in here -- including The Big Sleep (although it feels a bit truncated -- Gerhardt did it much better) and I was disappointed that its dialogue excerpt, while entertaining, doesn't include the famous "jockey" discussion between Bogart and Bacall. Still, it's hard to resist a tender colloquy like the following:
Bacall: "So, you're a private detective. I didn't know they existed except in books, or else they were greasy little men snooping around hotel corridors. Say, you're a mess, aren't you?"Bogart: "I'm not very tall, either. Next time I'll come on stilts, wearing a white tie and carrying a tennis racket."
Bacall: "I doubt if even that would help."
Dialogue like this -- at once hard-edged yet also cheeky and fun -- doesn't wear thin after just one or two visits. Like good music, it rewards repeated listening -- just as fine writing bears re-reading. For those of us who love movies as well as movie music, Murder Is My Beat is a must-have.
Reviewer
John Heuther
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Shortly after the dissolution of his professional relationship with Alfred Hitchcock, Bernard Herrmann began a short-lived connection with Francois Truffaut -- himself very much a Hitchcock devotee and doubtless well aware of Herrmann's capabilities. (The relationship was, alas, short-lived. Truffaut reportedly made major changes in Herrmann's music to The Bride Wore Black, and the two didn't collaborate again.) But their first joint effort -- Fahrenheit 451 -- produced an important score in the decade between Hitchcock and his discovery by the new young lions of Hollywood, such as Scorcese and De Palma. Interestingly, there is much in Fahrenheit 451 that reminds the listener of Herrmann's earlier work on Hitchcock's Psycho, as well as a precursor to Sisters, his first work with De Palma.
Herrmann's largely string-score begins as the film's credits are spoken -- an effective touch by Truffaut for a story in which people must commit to memory the text of books that are banned and then burned.The sound is spare, almost tentative, with a slight chiming that together suggests memories being awakened. This is followed by 'The Fire Engine,' a vigorously rhythmic piece, reminiscent of the 'Marion's Flight' cue from Psycho. Noted film music critic Page Cook (who rated this score the best of 1966) described this particular scene as heavily satiric -- which may account for Herrmann's use of a vibraphone that adds a possibly humorous touch. Separated from the film and any satiric impact, the music remains eminently listenable. 'The Nightmare' is rhythmically unsettling and, like the later 'Captain's Death,' offers a foreboding of Herrmann's later Sisters score. This recording by Varese Sarabande features 10 cues in all from Fahrenheit 451, encompassing about 16 1/2 minutes -- not the complete score, but a solid sampling. I'm told there are several fuller versions available on imported bootlegs, but this version, although several years old, may be the most accessible. Joe McNeeley's conducting is fine, and the Seattle Symphony's playing is top-notch, if I may be permitted a bit of parochial boosterism.
The album also contains cues from four other Herrmann scores: The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, Anna and the King of Siam, Tender Is the Night, and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Of these, the most music is from Anna and King of Siam, a score that allowed Herrmann to indulge an Oriental mode with much atmospheric music. Also of interest is the 'Andante Cantabile' from The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, perhaps the loveliest of all Herrmann's works. This particular cue does not appear on the Bernstein-conducted version of G&MM, which Ian lace reviewed so favorably back in September '98 and which remains the best recording to date of that score, full-score versions notwithstanding.
Reviewer
John Huether
This release neatly follows Silva Screen's 4CD set of the original TV soundtrack recordings of music for The Twilight Zone by not only Herrmann, but also Jerry Goldsmith and others, which we reviewed on this site in November 1999. (We suggest you refer to that review and read it in conjunction with this one).
The modern stereophonic, 20-bit digital sound allows this music to breathe and with all the instruments given depth and perspective we can now fully appreciate Bernard Herrmann's prodigious imagination and invention in creating such potently evocative and dramatic music with such limited resources. One might also infer that the limited budget was saved even further by enabling two (or more) scores to be recorded at one session, for The Lonely and The Eye of the Beholder, for instance, share much the same instrumentation? As Charles Husted, Manager, Bernard Herrmann Music, says in his notes, "…The Twilight Zone varies from episode to episode in every particular - it also challenges the logic of everyday normality, bringing with it a mood of the bizarre, the uncertain, the frightening. A composer is thus free to explore all manner of dissonant harmonies and provocative orchestration…"
This 2-CD album not only includes all Herrmann's complete scores for The Twilight Zone but it also has the composer's Main Title and End Title for the first series plus new Twilight Zone opening and closing themes for a subsequent series.
Herrmann scored the pilot Twilight Zone episode, Where is Everybody which featured Earl Holliman as a pilot searching about in a town presumably deserted of people but then he wakes up after two weeks in an isolation tank where he has been preparing for a space flight. For this episode, Herrmann used a chamber orchestra comprising: 12 violins, 4 violas, 4 celli, 2 basses, 2 flutes, oboe, cor anglais, 3 clarinets, 4 horns and percussion. Herrmann very successfully creates a disturbing sense of disorientation and isolation, and mounting unease verging on hysteria - a remarkable score.
For Walking Distance, Herrmann has another chamber orchestra comprising strings and harp. This is altogether warmer and more lyrically sentimental music for this tale of Martin Sloane (Gig Young), who drives back into his home town to discover his own past and tries to reshape his own youth with disastrous consequences. The general feeling of nostalgic security is gradually dispelled by more anxious figures and there are moments that recall the expressive intensity of Vertigo ('The Parents' and 'Merry-Go-Round'). The most extended cue is the lovely Elegy that accompanies the climactic dialogue between the father and the adult Martin.
The Lonely was about a prisoner who, alone on a remote asteroid, is given a robot woman for company. She has to be destroyed when the prisoner is released. He is distraut for he has fallen in love with her. Here, Herrmann uses an extraordinary ensemble comprising: 3 trumpets, 2 trombones with bass trombone, Hammond organ, 2 harps and 2 vibraphones to create a crystalline score that not only beautifully evokes the starlit heavens back-dropping the desolate asteroid landscape, but also in 'The Stars' the prisoner's growing affection for 'Alicia'.
For The Eye of the Beholder, Herrmann again concentrated on the brass with 3 trumpets, 2 trombones and bass trombone, 2 tubas (adding a rich depth), 4 horns, 2 harps, and 2 vibraphones, with 2 percussionists. This was the episode in which what appeared to be a hideously disfigured woman's face turned out to be beautiful and normal amongst a sea of actually disfigured faces. This nightmare scenario is cleverly sustained by Herrmann's eerie, threatening, doom-laden score.
Little Girl Lost was about a small girl who is lost in another dimension. This time Herrmann resorts to an ensemble comprising 4 harps, a mix of alto, piccolo and bass flutes played by 4 musicians, viola d'amore and percussion. The effect is brilliant, evoking another world deep and impenetrable and recalling the deep swirling watery evocations of Herrmann's music for Beneath the Twelve- Mile Reef. There is also a sense of pathos and the forlorn for the plight of the little girl while 'Fourth Dimension' is at once disturbing and merrily, quirkily playful.
Living Doll concerned a cruel father intent on destroying his daughter's new doll who says sweet things like: "I'm Talky Tina, and I am going to kill you!" which she does. Herrmann's macabre waltz music is given to just a bass clarinet, 2 harps and celeste. This dark-seamed music suggests the danger lurking behind the doll's voluptuousness.
Finally, Ninety Years Without Slumbering concerned an old man who believed he would die the moment his grandfather clock stops. Herrmann, this time, uses flute, oboe, 2 clarinets with bass clarinet, harp and vibraphone to play variations on the well-known children's song, My Grandfather's Clock.
A brilliant addition to the Herrmann discography.
Reviewer
Ian Lace
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Dimitri TIOMKIN A President's Country (Incorporating themes from Red River, Duel in the Sun; The Alamo; Giant; High Noon; and Rawhide)
Bruce BROUGHTON Silverado
Hans J. SALTER Witchita Town (TV series)
Robert FARNON Captain Horatio Hornblower
This rousing concert opens with Bruce Broughton's brilliant, rousing theme from Silverado, and closes with Robert Farnon's equally bracing score for Captain Horatio Hornblower. 'Hornblower, (Warner Bros., 1951), which starred Gregory Peck and Virginia Mayo, was made in England where Farnon, a Canadian by birth, had settled to pursue his career as a highly successful composer of light music. The 16+-minute suite on this album opens with 'HMS Lydia' full of energetic swashbuckling bravado that would not have shamed Steiner or Korngold. The central movement comprises sound portraits of two of the characters: Polewheal (Richard Hearne [TV's Mr Pastry]) the loveable, rather comic servant to the Captain and a more romantic treatment for Lady Barbara (Mayo). Farnon's in-depth treatment which does not forsake drama and shadows suggests Rozsa and Raksin, and suggests that the course of the romance was not entirely smooth (Lady Barbara being promised elsewhere).
A President's Country was a composition for a film about Texas for President Lyndon Johnson. It uses music that Tiomkin had already written for: Red River, The Alamo, Duel in the Sun, High Noon, Giant and Rawhide. This score, however, is mostly gently reflective, using for instance 'The Green Leaves of Summer' rather than the martial 'De Guella' from The Alamo It is left to the Rawhide music to provide the more boisterous contrast. Judging from the audience noises, we have here the spontaneity of a live performance!
The most significant score here is Hans J. Salter's music for the 1960 TV series Witchita Town that starred Joel McCrea. Salter, best known to today's film music fans for his music for the Universal horror films also scored many other genres including a goodly number of westerns including: Bend of the River, Tomahawk, Apache Drums, Man Without a Star, The Oklahoman, Gunfight at Dodge City and countless Johnny Mack Brown pictures. For a 26 episode TV series, Salter was clearly faced with having to create music for awhole variety of characters and situations. You can judge from this 16 cue, 30-minute suite how exceedingly well he accomplished his mission with scoring to equal that of the Tiomkin and Steiner western scores. There is folksy country material, whimsy and near-slapstick, evocative cues ('Desert Landscape, for instance), eerie and mysterious material for 'The Empty House' with its ethnic Indian overtones, warm, sentimental music for 'Mother and Child', tragic and melancholy for 'Jody's Death' and, of course whip-crackingly thrilling figures for chases and music that menaces, spits and snarls for the gun fights. Splendid stuff, recalling TV and Saturday morning cinema serials.
A rip-rousing collection in splendid sound.
Reviewer
Ian Lace
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