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Film Music Editor: Ian Lace |
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November 1999 Film Music CD
Reviews |
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Return to the November Index with thumbnails [ Part 1 ] [ Part 2 ] [ Part 3 ] [ Part 4 ]
Last month you might remember we reviewed new albums for Deep Blue Sea and The Iron Giant and I complained about the scant time given to the original music of Trevor Rabin and Michael Kamen. Well, just to confuse everybody, this month we have two more albums for Deep Blue Sea and The Iron Giant but this time comprising fuller scores from the two composers. Film Music on the Web deplores this trend which is becoming more and more prevalent. Similar CD booklet designs don’t help either (particularly in the case of Deep Blue Sea). We wonder what the Trades Description people might make of it all?
OST
Kamen’s music has a fresh and invigorating mastery of tune and texture. This is freshly conveyed in the present score for an animation fable of man meets colossal machine. The information in the insert is typically sparse but from the cue titles and the stills this seems to be a BFG type story with plenty of opportunities for Nutcracker and Brother Grimm style enchantment and macabre chills. The score is high, wide, symphonic (no synthesiser nonsense here!) and handsome with sound to match. The cues are predominantly short but four run over 4 minutes.
There are no complaints in the orchestral department. The producers ran to one of the world’s great orchestras and let Kamen direct them. The score’s athletic vigour is no barrier to moments of Copland-like warbling (The Giant Wakes) and serious nightmare (Come and Get It). Throughout, the solid squat brass sound is reliable and adds to the colourful panoply. The calmness of the Bedtime Stories track has someone drifting off to sleep in lulled safety. There is an exuberant sense of threat in His Name Is Dean. Track 14 (Space Car) has a jolly Williamsy stomping heroism flashing straight into Varèse-like bell sonorities. Kamen runs to some particularly eerie shivers for He’s A Weapon. Trance-Former (nice wordplay by someone) echoes chaotic violence and quiet, high and threatening violins.
The final cue (of 23) sounds like one of those 1950s ‘duck and cover’ popular songs used to reassure the US population that a nuclear explosion could be a rather jolly affair provided you ducked and took cover.
In summary then we have here 22 excellent symphonic tracks showing Kamen in ripest style and resisting the temptation to treat this animation as anything other than a grown-up commission. The film’s producers are to be congratulated for selecting Kamen whose music mounts from strength to strength.
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
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Mark Snow again proves his adaptability as a composer, this time with a multiform, atmospheric, often-heartfelt film score that reflects and improvises upon the musical world of the 1960s. I slid the disc into my CD player, programmed out the seven songs (that includes the previously unreleased Carole King track), pushed Play, and breathed a sigh of relief...
Switching from the beautifully unpretentious solo piano (cum full orchestra) introduction of the score's memorable main theme in 'Pool of Freedom' to the bluegrass 'Mellow Ride,' to the New Orleans jazz 'Faces and Hats' to the contemporary 'Pool Fantasy/The Death of Taylor,' to the number of combinations that follow, "Crazy in Alabama" is a surprisingly invigorating score! The infrequent and unsought vicissitudes are instances of aimlessness, the occasional lack of emotion or spirit (such as in the track 'Headspin'). However, the last three tracks by Snow -- 'The Golden Gate,' 'Freedom (Pee Joe's Waltz),' and 'Crazy in Alabama' -- spout forth a compositional joy and drama that is rarely heard today... at least, not from more than a handful of composers.
The sound on the album is notably crisp, giving increase to some digital artifacts, but also allowing Snow's music to 'breathe' in practically any room. The instrumental performances are exceptional, with several solos soaring above the orchestra. Most of the songs (performed by Nancy Sinatra, Carole King, Burt Dache, Little Richard,
Xavier Cugat and His Orchestra, the City of Prague Big Band, and Sybil), which I did eventually listen to, are more sentimental than meddlesome. In short, the album production by Mark Snow and James Fitzpatrick is quite solid.
Personally, I could live without the so-called Bonus Track of Sybil singing 'We Shall Overcome,' but, kindly placed at the end of the disc, it is easy to avoid...
The disc is ultimately worth the effort.
Reviewer
Jeffrey Wheeler
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This particular Journey to the Center of the Earth is a Hallmark mini-series, one of a line of adaptations of classic stories from the company which has previously featured an acclaimed version of Gulliver's Travels and more recently a retelling of the Arthurian legends from the perspective of Merlin. The series stars Treat Williams, Jeremy London and Bryan Brown, and is directed by the George Miller best known for The Man From Snowy River, The NeverEnding Story II, and Andre (rather than the George Miller behind the Mad Max and Babe series). Bruce Rowland is not a particularly familiar name, however he is a regular collaborator with George Miller. They made their feature debuts as composer and director on The Man From Snowy River, and Journey to the Center of the Earth is at least their eleventh project together. The series, which aired in America in September, received generally good reviews, and apparently follows the Jules Verne novel fairly closely.
The CD contains a great diversity of music, with 37 tracks spread over 68 minutes. Rowland employs both orchestra and electronics, and the first thing to note is that he has wisely avoided any direct comparison with Bernard Herrmann's great score for the 1959 MGM film version of the story, taking a totally different musical direction. This really is a mixture, with the opening electronic atmospherics bringing to mind Vangelis and particular Blade Runner, while the pulsating rhythm first heard in 'Troopers' might make one expect Christopher Reeve's Superman to suddenly appear. 'Maori Long Boat' features authentic sounding chanting over a minimal backdrop, while 'Chief's Game' introduces a humorous motif before the arrival of several brooding suspense cues which make good use of otherworldly synthesiser patches, and tend to have words like Pterodactyl and Raptosaur in the title. 'The Kiss' develops an attractive piano love theme, through the electronic strings in the early part of the cue are a disappointment. 'To the Village' fuses 'World' music drumming with a 'Western' fanfare and yet more electronics, introducing a part of the album which features three dances and a theme for 'Ralna' (played by Petra Yared). The rather light-weight feel of these sequences brings to mind nothing so much as a BBC2 documentary series, with the sound being especially evocative of the world established by Sheldon Mirowitz with his score for Columbus and the Age of Discovery.
The album takes a more sombre turn with 'Troubled' and offers a further development of the piano theme in 'Thinking of Alice', before 'Exile Village' introduces a synthesised choir to add a sense of New Age Renaissance grandeur to the drama. 'Jhotan' builds a sense of foreboding impressively, before the inevitable cues for 'Escape' and 'Parting'.
This lengthy album would seem to give a good presentation of Bruce Rowland's score, and it certainly sounds as it might work well on screen. The blend of orchestra, electronics and New Age sensibility is unusual for such a subject, and the score is surprisingly understated for such a tale of high adventure. There are only a few moments where the music comes fully to life in the expected manner, and in these passages the orchestra never attacks with great intensity. It may simply be that this is music for a more melancholy, mystical version of Verne than we have seen before, and while synthesised strings are no substitute for the real thing, there is a considerable amount of attractive, if not exceptional music on this disc. The sound quality is very good, and this is certainly a superior modern television score, but you may be best advised to wait until you have seen the mini-series before deciding to part with your money.
Reviewer
Gary S. Dalkin
Sony Music 100 Years: Soundtrack for a Century
Complete boxed set 26CD at Amazon ($296.97 ) Yalplay (£143.97)
Individual discs not offered yet
Individual discs not offered yet
In celebration of the end of the century, Sony Music has compiled perhaps the most extensive collection of recorded music ever. Drawing from archives of labels affiliated with Sony Music, Legacy Recordings has assembled an impressive historical sampler of music from the last 100 years. The result, Sony Music 100 Years: Soundtrack for a Century, consists of 547 titles on 26 CDs, packaged by genre into 12 volumes (multiple CDs per volume), which are sold both individually and as a boxed set. The boxed set includes all 26 CDs in a special binder, as well as a coffee table book (retails for $260 - $300 online). The individual volumes sell for $20 to $23 online and come with extensive liner notes on each title (Movie Music and Broadway have booklets over 60 pages long each.)
The 12 volumes cover 10 major genres: Pop Music (Early Years, Golden Era, and Modern Era), Classical, Jazz, Folk Gospel and Blues, Country, Rock, R&B, International, Movie Music, and Broadway. This article reviews only the latter two volumes, focusing mainly on Movie Music, which is the only volume of interest to soundtrack lovers. Although the word "soundtrack" is used in the title of this compilation, only the Movie Music volume is dedicated to movie soundtracks. The rest are compilations of their respective genres. The Broadway volume might have tangential interest for fans who also enjoy Broadway shows.
Movie Music: The Definitive Performances is an amazing collection of 44 selections representing 43 films (Titanic had two tracks) from the first decade of the century to 1998. Unfortunately for score fans, only six (maybe seven) of these selections are score tracks: "Music for Silent Movies," The Bridge Over River Kwai, West Side Story, Dances with Wolves, Forrest Gump, and Titanic. Giant by Dmitri Tiomkin is featured as well, but includes a generous amount of singing. Together (counting Giant), these tracks comprise only 21 minutes of score music. So if you are a strict score-only fan, this volume probably wouldn't be appealing. Besides, you probably already have the full score to each of these films.
If your love for film music extends to movie songs that become inextricably linked to heart of the films (like me), then Movie Music is an exciting gem of a compilation. Every single song selected for this album is a priceless classic. From the original performance of "Singin' in the Rain" to "An Affair to Remember" to the famous "M*A*S*H*" theme to "My Heart Will Go On," each song is a cultural icon, a treasured slice of film music history. It is the immense memorial value of this collection, which captures the emotional essence of timeless movie classics, that gives this volume the bomb shelter rating. If the bomb siren sounds, this would be the one songtrack album I would take underground with me without hesitation. What could better remind us unequivocally of the intrinsic and indispensable role music plays in pictures, than songs that evoke instant nostalgia of the films we love?
The first disc is full of golden age oldies, including "Inka-Dinka-Doo" by Jimmy Durante (for the younger audience, remember Greedy with Michael J. Fox?) and other songs performed by Mae West, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Doris Day. The sounds are classic Americana (similar to early Disney music like Snow White and Cinderella), reminding us of a more innocent and romantic age in our cultural history. There is a soothing and carefree feel to these songs that make them a gentle pleasure to listen to. The first CD ends with the winding down of this innocence in 1960's, featuring songs such as "Mrs. Robinson" from The Graduate, "To Sir With Love," and "The Way We Were."
The second disc moves through contemporary favorites such as Kenny Loggin's "Footloose," Berlin's "Take My Breath Away" from Top Gun, Bruce Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia" from Philadelphia, and closing with Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" from Armageddon. The only shortcoming of this album is that it is limited to songs released by Sony Music, which means it failed to feature other soundtrack chart toppers such as "The Time of My Life" from Dirty Dancing, "What a Feeling" from Flashdance, or "Gangsta's Paradise" from Dangerous Minds. Still, over 75 minutes of music on each CD is not a shabby effort. They definitely had enough from their own archives to fill each CD up with only the best.
The Broadway album likewise has a thorough and delightful representation of all the original (as in first) cast recordings of classics like Show Boat, My Fair Lady, South Pacific, West Side Story, Sound of Music, Cabaret, and A Chorus Line. Of course, all the major classics have been made into film, which has the recordings that are much more familiar to the present audience. The sound in original Broadway cast recordings is decidedly different from current styles. Even though they are performed by such notable voices as Ethel Merman, Julie Andrews, Chita Rivera, Richard Burton, or Dick Van Dyke, the performances have a corny formality that is easily overshadowed by their contemporary counterparts. Most of the time, the sound is somewhat spare and stiff, not as rich in orchestration or emotion as their more recent versions on either Broadway or film. Perhaps it is a result of familiarity or better technology, but I prefer the film versions to any one of these older performances. The value of this album is more because of its panoramic view of Broadway music history than in the sheer preeminence of the craft. Broadway fans, in particular, would enjoy this respectable sampler of the early days of the art.
Depending on how much you love music, and how much history you enjoy as a part of your listening experience, you may either celebrate the release of the Movie Music and/or Broadway volumes or find them optional for your collection. For myself, I love hearing the delicate evolution of film music and owning a piece of our cultural heritage. If only Sony had made a Film Score volume, life would be perfect.
Reviewer
Helen San
Movie Music
Movie Music: The Definitive Performances (Total Score Time - 21:39)
Disc 1 (Total Time - 77:29)
1. Music For Silent Movies - Traditional / Charlie Young (0:51)
2. Singin' In The Rain (from Hollywood Revue Of 1929) - Cliff Edwards
3. You Are Too Beautiful (from Hallelujah, I'm A Bum) - Al Jolson
4. A Guy What Takes His Time (from She Done Him Wrong) - Mae West
5. Temptation (from Going Hollywood) - Bing Crosby
6. Inka-Dinka-Doo (from Joe Palooka) - Jimmy Durante
7. Rock And Roll (from Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round) - The Boswell Sisters
8. Lullaby Of Broadway (from Gold Diggers Of 1935) - Dick Powell
9. The Way You Look Tonight (from Swing Time) - Fred Astaire
10. A Lovely Way To Spend An Evening (from Higher And Higher) - Frank Sinatra
11. Secret Love (from Calamity Jane) - Doris Day
12. The Man That Got Away (from A Star Is Born) - Judy Garland
13. Giant (from Giant) - Dmitri Tiomkin (3:15)
14. March From The River Kwai & Colonel Bogey (from The Bridge On The River Kwai) - Malcolm Arnold (march theme by Kenneth Alford) (2:28)
15. An Affair To Remember (from An Affair To Remember) - Vic Damone
16. A Certain Smile (from A Certain Smile) - Johnny Mathis
17. My Heart Belongs To Daddy (from Let's Make Love) - Marilyn Monroe
18. Overture (from West Side Story) - Leonard Bernstein (4:40)
19. With A Little Bit Of Luck (from My Fair Lady) - Stanley Holloway & Ensemble
20. To Sir With Love (from To Sir With Love) - Lulu
21. Mrs. Robinson (from The Graduate) - Simon & Garfunkel
22. Ballad Of Easy Rider (from Easy Rider) - The Byrds
23. Be (from Jonathan Livingston Seagull) - Neil Diamond
24. The Way We Were (from The Way We Were) - Barbra StreisandDisc 2 (Total Time - 75:24)
1. Suicide Is Painless (from M*A*S*H) - The Mash
2. Knockin' On Heaven's Door (from Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid) - Bob Dylan
3. Evergreen (from A Star Is Born) - Barbra Streisand
4. On The Road Again (from Honeysuckle Rose) - Willie Nelson
5. Tender Years (from Eddie & The Cruisers) - John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band
6. Footloose (from Footloose) - Kenny Loggins
7. Take My Breath Away (from Top Gun) - Berlin
8. It Had To Be You (from When Harry Met Sally) - Harry Connick, Jr.
9. The John Dunbar Theme (from Dances With Wolves) - John Barry (3:43)
10. State Of Love And Trust (from Singles) - Pearl Jam
11. When I Fall In Love (from Sleepless In Seattle) - Celine Dion/Clive Griffin
12. Streets Of Philadelphia (from Philadelphia) - Bruce Springsteen
13. I'm Forrest...Forrest Gump (from Forrest Gump) - Alan Silvestri (2:41)
14. Childhood (from Free Willy 2) - Michael Jackson
15. The Sweetest Thing (from Love Jones) - Refugee Camp All-Stars/Lauryn Hill
16. Men In Black (from Men In Black) - Will Smith
17. I Say A Little Prayer (from My Best Friend's Wedding) - Diana King
18. Southampton (from Titanic) - James Horner (4:01)
19. My Heart Will Go On (from Titanic) - Celine Dion
20. I Don't Want To Miss A Thing (from Armageddon) - AerosmithBroadway: The Great Original Cast Recordings
Disc 1 (Total Time - 77:22)
1. Bill (from Show Boat) - Helen Mirren
2. Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man (from Show Boat) - Carol Bruce/Helen Dowdy/Kenneth Spencer/Chorus
3. How Are Things In Glocca Morra (from Finian's Rainbow) - Ella Logan
4. Wunderbar (from Kiss Me, Kate) - Alfred Drake/Patricia Morison
5. Some Enchanted Evening (from South Pacific) - Ezio Pinza
6. A Wonderful Guy (from South Pacific) - Mary Martin/Girls' Chorus
7. Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend (from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) - Carol Channing
8. Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered (from Pal Joey) - Vivienne Segal
9. Stranger In Paradise (from Kismet) - Doretta Morrow/Richard Kiley
10. Hey There (from The Pajama Game) - John Raitt
11. Hernando's Hideaway (from The Pajama Game) - Carol Haney/Ensemble
12. The Rain In Spain (from My Fair Lady) - Rex Harrsion/Julie Andrews/Robert Coote
13. I Could Have Danced All Night (from My Fair Lady) - Julie Andrews/Phillipa Bevan/Cast
14. I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face (from My Fair Lady) - Rex Harrison
15. Standing On The Corner (from The Most Happy Fella) - Shorty Long/John Henson/Roy Lazarus/Arthur Gilbert
16. The Party's Over (from Bells Are Ringing) - Judy Holliday
17. Tonight (from West Side Story) - Larry Kert/Carol Lawrence
18. America (from West Side Story) - Chita Rivera/Girls
19. Somewhere (from West Side Story) - Cast
20. Conga! (from Wonderful Town) - Rosalind Russell/Ensemble
21. I Enjoy Being A Girl (from Flower Drum Song) - Pat Suzuki
22. Everything's Coming Up Roses (from Gypsy) - Ethel Merman .Disc 2: (Total Time - 76:15)
1. My Favorite Things (from The Sound Of Music) - Mary Martin/Patricia Neway
2. Do Re Mi (from The Sound Of Music) - Mary Martin/Children
3. Put On A Happy Face (from Bye Bye Birdie) - Dick Van Dyke
4. Camelot (from Camelot) - Richard Burton
5. Anyone Can Whistle (from Anyone Can Whistle) - Lee Remick
6. Do I Hear A Waltz? (from Do I Hear A Waltz?) - Elizabeth Allen/Ensemble
7. Big Spender (from Sweet Charity) - Helen Gallagher/Thelma Oliver/Girls
8. Mame (from Mame) - Charles Braswell/Ensemble
9. Willkommen (from Cabaret) - Joel Grey/Cast
10. Cabaret (from Cabaret) - Jill Haworth
11. The Ladies Who Lunch (from Company) - Elaine Stritch
12. I Want To Be Happy (from No, No Nanette) - Jack Gilford/Susan Watson
13. Send In The Clowns (from A Little Night Music) - Glynis Johns
14. What I Did For Love (from A Chorus Line) - Priscilla Lopez/Company
15. One (from A Chorus Line) - Company
16. Tomorrow (from Annie) - Andrea McArdle
17. Folies Bergeres (from Nine) - Lilane Montevecchi/Stephanie Cotsirilos
18. Never Met A Man I Didn't Like (from Will Rogers' Follies) - Keith Carradine
19. My Friend (from The Life) - Pamela Isaacs/Lillias WhiteWe are grateful to Helen San (www.cinemusic.net) for giving us permission to include this review which is currently appearing on her Film Music site.
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If ever there is a legend in film music, Miklos Rozsa would instantly be amongst the names that come to mind. Accomplished as both a classical concert composer and film composer, Rozsa was one of the early pioneers who brought legitimacy and respect to the fledgling field of film music. Unlike some of his scholarly contemporaries, Rozsa never relegated film music to a lower caste than concert compositions. He had an intuitive understanding and dedicated vision for the role of music in film that earned him assignments in over 40 scores and a film music teaching position at the University of Southern California. Probably best known for his Academy Award winning score for Ben-Hur, he had an extensive filmography in historical and biblical epics. This anthology of 13 film scores by Rozsa comprises music he had written for MGM Studios, 12 of which are historical and period pictures (the only exception is The World, The Flesh and The Devil).
From the soft violin waltzes of Madame Bovary to the sweeping grandness of Green Fire to the ancient dignity of King of Kings, the collection demonstrates Rozsa's imitable strengths and eloquent range. The score suites showcase Rozsa's signature historical interpretations, heroic battles, and lyrical romance, even while presenting his stylistic and individual voice for each film. Some resound with a more innocent and virtuous idealism, such as Tribute to a Bad Man, while others have a more melancholy, tragic chord as in Diane. Some are heavily fortified with commanding action/battle cues such as Knights of the Round Table, while others are delicately poetic, as in King's Thief. Always, it is written with consummate artistry and poise. This music is the icon of the Golden Age. They just don't make them like this anymore.
Rhino's 2 CD compilation is an elegant, thoughtful collection of Rozsa's years at MGM. Most of the music, outside of Madame Bovary, Ivanhoe, Lust for Life, and King of Kings, are previously unreleased and available for the first time. Moreover, all of the tracks (except King of Kings) contain previously unissued music. The sound is excellent, as most of it was digitally remastered from original session masters. Madame Bovary and Ivanhoe are presented mostly in mono because of the original material. All except one selection (Beau Brummell) are at least 10 minutes in length, giving the listener a generous sampling of each score. The album comes with a detailed 45 page booklet that offers insightful and intelligent discussion of Rozsa's inspirations and styles.
For those who are not yet familiar with Rozsa, this release is a not-to-be-missed opportunity to be introduced to one of the greatest of all time. Rozsa fans, of course, do not need any encouragement to buy this volume. With so much music available for the first time, is a remarkable accomplishment of film music preservation. Although it is obviously missing Rozsa's two most famous scores, Ben-Hur and Quo Vadis, the set offers a glimpse of the gestalt of Rozsa's body of work. A must-have for all score lovers, it stands as a superb testament to his timeless contribution to film music.
1. Madam Bovary (17:29)
2. Ivanhoe (20:09)
3. Knights Of The Round Table (11:59)
4. Beau Brummell (5:06)
5. Valley Of The Kings (13:25)
6. Moonfleet (10:01)Disc 2 (Total Time - 78:21)
1. Green Fire (9:10)
2. The King's Thief (10:10)
3. Tribute To A Bad Man (10:37)
4. Diane (10:00) 5. Lust For Life (13:58)
6. The World, The Flesh And The Devil (11:19)
7. King Of Kings (13:00)
Reviewer
Helen San
We are grateful to Helen San (www.cinemusic.net) for giving us permission to include this review which is currently appearing on her Film Music site.
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"You are about to enter a new dimension…next stop The Twilight Zone –"
It must be daunting enough to score for a film using all the resources of a full orchestra, but to achieve the same colour and effects with a small ensemble of less than ten players, the men are separated from the boys (or, increasingly, now, the women from the girls). Yet this is what these composers were asked to do – to bring home the bacon to meet The Twilight Zone’s short deadlines and to even shorter budgets.
The Twilight Zone ran on the CBS network from 1959 until 1964. Its tales of science fiction and mystery were intelligent and thought-provoking and nearly always they had a moral or made some social comment.
CD1 Bernard Herrmann
The Classic Hermann of the endlessly inventive textures (rather than of the steely-satin iceberg paced-tunes) dominates the first disc. That he produced these effects with minimal forces and with a proper concern for the accountants' peace of mind is a tribute to his resourcefully stocked imagination.
The spoken introduction ushers us straight into those classic episodes with Herrmann's own theme (which is not the one that everyone knows!). The first season's start and close music is derived from the gentlest collision between Sibelius's Bard and the cycling strings of the Rite of Spring. Between them comes Where Is Everybody: a sharp as a razor clean-lit death-hunt for horns and strings: pursuit and panic personified.
As a staff composer for CBS, Herrmann wrote music for their sound library as much as many of the British light music luminaries of the 1940s and 1950s. The Outer Space Suite is an example of this genre and was clearly a lode from which he mined many later sci-fi and fantasy scores. The Prelude sounds like the main theme music from The Day The Earth Stood Still but minus the ondes martenot. Signals is a chipper woodwind razz, like the 'telescopes' music from the same film. Similar patterned echoes can be discerned in tracks 10 (harp and woodwind over Gallic accents) and 15. The other movements show Herrmann's talents to great effect: Space Drift a piacevole for the harp's downward-spiral and an icy flute. Time Suspense is something of a flat draught. Danger (11) was later drawn on for the Serpent-song dragon death in Journey To The Bottom Of The Earth and Airlock has similar redolence. Moonscape's silver neatly sets off Tycho which has the Dies Irae prismed and split down.
The remainder is a mix of substantial chunks of music and titles either opening or closing. The titles have variously an aggressive strident tread, echoes of Journey and in the final track the classic macabre sensibility of gloom-merchant Herrmann - a depressive's berceuse of lonely houses and the black shadows of Holst's Neptune. The more substantial essays are from Walking Distance (including a fragile as dust dance scene); Hitchhiker which has true gloom of the darker late film scores and the final The Lonely (a drowned sound world - a Cathédrale Engloutie of Poe's lurid imagination).
This is a most attractive disc and a sine qua non for all Herrmann collectors.
CD2 - Jerry Goldsmith
This second CD begins with the edgy but memorable Second Season Introductory music and Main Title composed by Marius Constant.
Goldsmith was still, in the very early stages of his career when he worked on this series contributing to some of the most notable programmes. His work on The Twilight Zone certainly propelled him forward. For the Back There episode he uses a harpsichord and a small string ensemble to give a period feel to a time traveler’s attempt to avert the assasination of Abraham Lincoln. This arresting score is both tonal and atonal and therefore unsettling adding to the brooding atmosphere and suspense. Long-held overlapping string chords are punctuated by staccato single piano strokes and a terrifying climax is reached with the upper strings positively screaming in protest. A harmonica is prominently featured in The Big Tall Wish. The music is sorrowful and yearning and it often suggests a child-like innocence and loneliness. The music settles into a slow waltz-like pattern before eventually the temperature rises and the music becomes more optimistic. The Invaders begins in a sound world not far removed from Herrmann’s Psycho, there are the same shrill stabbing string chords, plus a strange violin figure that recalls the Devil’s trill plus cello glissandi and short piano chords etc. The celeste is added to this little instrumental group and its glissandi sound like some demented. Add some weird solo violin pizzicatos, and isolated organ bells and triangle chords and you have a mesmerizing score for this tale of an elderly woman and her diminutive alien attackers. The harmonica is again prominently featured in Dust. Together with guitar to atmospherically underscore this tale of the Old West and the travelling salesman’s offer of miracles. This score cleverly exploits both instruments and double tracks the harmonica to enrichen the sound palate. This is a very inventive and imaginative with Goldsmith often exploiting the top and bottom registers of his ensemble with great effect. A subtle allusion to the Dies Irae gives a clue to the motivation of this miracle worker?
The remaining cues on this CD include two jazz themes – one sophisticated, sexy, slinky and reminiscent of the James Bond, Mission Impossible, Flint etc themes of that period and the other deeper, darker and sinister and quirky with an emphasis on brushed drum work. Before the end title, there is the score for Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room.
This has a persistent tick-tocking figure that is first stated in the percussion and then taken up by the other members of the ensemble. Is a bomb ticking away? Another mesmerizing score.
CD 3 Nathan Van Cleave – Nathan Scott – and Rene Garriguenc
This CD commences with Marius Constant’s theme for the Third Season Introduction.
Nathan Van Cleave’s first assignment on The Twilight Zone was the episode entitled, Perchance to Dream. Beginning with an almost police-siren like screeching it chillingly effectively underscores this story a man who is afraid of falling asleep. This is a score that mixes sweet dreams with dark nightmares recalling fairground-fun as well as spectres. It uses both Novachord and Theremin atmospherically. Hysteria mounts as the man’s dementia increases. A World of Difference has another electronic score to for a businessman who discovers he is merely a character in a movie – a film noire by the sound of it. Elegy is a brooding piece spooky and quirky. Two is another dark and rather militaristic score for strings, tympani and muted horns – it has a feeling of isolation and delusion. More cheerful (in general) is the music for Ray Bradbury’s story, I Sing the Body Electric about three children and their robot grandmother. It is a string-led piece with guitar giving it a cosy, homely feel. The music is sometimes playful and merry and high-spirited indeed at one point it rushes skywards like some shooting star but of course there are tense and suspenseful moments befitting ‘The Twilight Zone’ character of these stories.
Nathan Scott’s contribution is represented by his music for A Stop At Willougby which is about a longing to return to childhood. Again the cosy, front-porch, local town band atmosphere is contrasted very well with more disturbing material.
Rene Garriguenc’s breezy original jazz composition, entitled ‘Street Moods in Jazz’ (vividly evoking the busy streets and the street-wise) for The Prime Mover concludes the CD apart from the third season End Title.
CD 4 - Fred Steiner, Leonard Rosenman, Jeff Alexander and Franz Waxman
The fourth disc's miscellany gives us the accustomed spoken intro over Constant's famous theme. Then comes a small slice of Constant: clear block-cut avant-garde music with sounds welcomed at that time only in the world of sci-fi and fantasy. The best of the Fred Steiner tracks is to be found in Hundred Yards Over The Rim (harmonica and a small body of strings in solitary serenade) and the sepia Fall elegies of The Passerby - rising into darker music out of Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht. The Leonard Rosenman music for When The Sky Was Opened, with its dour sourness, seemed rather a low spot in the collection while Jeff Alexander's Trouble With Templeton is all jazzy sophistication and blue cigarette smoke curling languidly. The Waxman track caused me high expectations which were undelivered. Waxman's The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine drifts around with a whispering jazz trio, muted sax and trumpet and a serenading solo violin but left me disappointed.
The 4-CD set comes with a 12 page booklet in monochrome reminding us that The Twilight Zone was broadcast in the days of black and white telly. The booklet has many photographs – stills from the TV programmes – although some are rather indistinct. Some of the scores are not covered in the analysis but on the whole this documentation is very good particularly in its summary of the history of the programme.
Whether these selections will make repeated visits to the CD player is questionable – this will be a matter of personal taste; nevertheless this is a very valuable collection and notable for documenting another dimension of important film composers’ work.
Ratings
CD1 Rob Barnett
CD3 Ian LaceCD4 Rob Barnett
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In 1996, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Cinema in Britain, Silva Screen released Cinema Century, an excellent triple CD anthology selling for the price of a single full-price disc. Now we have the sequel, and as is the way with sequels, it is bigger and even more spectacular than the original, offering 4 CDs and 4 hours and 4 minutes of music for a suggested selling price of only £16.95.
The recordings come from previous Silva releases, the four discs sequenced in strict chronological order to present a portrait of 7 decades of film music. The spread of music over the years is not even, reflecting the fact that Silva have concentrated their efforts in recording music from the last 30 years, rather than the so-called "Golden Age" of film music. In total there are 56 tracks, with music from 55 films (there are two selections from The Godfather), though only four of the films where not made in English, such that this is the cinema century mainly from the Hollywood perspective. Some obvious classics are missing here, such as Ben-Hur, Lawrence of Arabia and Star Wars, but it should be remembered that this is a follow-up collection, and those and many other titles were featured on the original Cinema Century.
Disc one covers the period 1933-58, opening as any collection pretending to be definitive must, with music from the first great score of the synchronised sound era, King Kong, by Max Steiner. Here we have the 'Prelude', fittingly opening with the very of the history of recorded film music. A stirring interpretation it is too, getting the set off to a fine start. The 'Love Theme' from Korngold's The Adventures of Robin Hood follows, and lacks some of the lush romanticism the best re-recordings have brought to this marvellous music. On much better form is a thrilling version of the 'Entry into Pskov' from Prokofiev's cantata Alexander Nevsky, based on his score for the film of the same name. I saw this 1938 film recently as part of the Purbeck Film Festival, and even after a modern restoration the recording on the soundtrack is of dreadful quality. Any purists who condemn re-recordings are welcome to the original, but the version recorded here has all the thrilling dynamism and visceral power the technology of the time denied the filmmakers. The following tracks are all of a high standard, with the Alfred Newman / Hugo Friedhofer Overture from The Mark of Zorro being exceptional, as well as nicely contrasting with the very last track in the anthology, more of which later. This first disc concludes with the 'Finale' from The Vikings by Mario Nascimbene, which is fine as far as it goes, but may well leave you wanting more, and indeed, is extracted from a much longer suite found on the very fine Silva set, Warriors of the Silver Screen. Before that, comes a suite from Hitchcock's first movie of 1955, To Catch A Thief. This was the film the Master of Suspense made directly before starting his long collaboration with Bernard Herrmann, and as such Lyn Murray's music has tended to be over shadowed. Have no doubt, this is appealing music and it is good to have something different, rather than the obvious choice of more Herrmann.
Disc two begins with an orchestral arrangement of Henry Mancini's great 'Moon River' from Breakfast at Tiffany's. As often which such arrangements, it jars at first because it sounds that bit different to previous versions, but this is the sort of standard which can, and has, shone through hundreds of treatments, and this particular recording has a captivating romance of it's own. Still in 1961, Dimitri Tiomkin's 'The Legend of Navarone' from The Guns of Navarone is rousing and heroic, yet somehow just misses the fire of the original. Now come five tracks from 1962. A rhapsodic version of the 'Love Theme' from Miklos Rozsa's El Cid features particularly fine solo violin playing, and could not be more different to the 'James Bond theme', the most iconic of all film themes given a blistering orchestral treatment with heavy percussion. A full chorus offers the anthemic 'Prelude' from Alfred Newman's How the West Was Won, and the singing has the necessary commitment to make this piece of ripe bombast utterly convincing. Once a favourite of film theme and MOR compilations, but now virtually forgotten, 'The Shadow of Your Smile' by Johnny Mandel, from the 1965 movie The Sandpiper is perfectly evocative both of the film, and of all those Mantovani albums now available at your local charity shop. A gorgeous slice of lyrical melancholy, it now sounds more from another time than the classic sounds of Korngold, Rozsa and Steiner. The romance continues with Michel Legrand's 'The Windmills of Your Mind' from the original (and infinitely superior) version of The Thomas Crown Affair. Capturing the atmosphere of the original almost perfectly, with the cascading piano and harpsichord spot on, this is an elegant gem. An extended suite from Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet happily does much more than just present the famous love theme. If that is all you have heard from this wonderful score, the selection here may well make you rush to buy the complete soundtrack. So it wasn't written for 2001: A Space Odyssey, but such is the association between the opening of Richard Strauss' 'Also Sprach Zarathustra' and the best SF film ever made, that few will mind the inclusion of the powerful recording here. Ennio Morricone's music is particularly idiosyncratic, but good work has been done in encapsulating the flavour of 'Man with the Harmonica' from Once Upon A Time in the West. Disc two concludes in particularly fine form, with almost 9 minutes of music from one of the most shamefully under-rated films ever made. David Lean's Ryan's Daughter is nothing less than a masterpiece, it's disgraceful critical reception in 1969 denying us those films Lean might otherwise have made in the 70's. Maurice Jarre's score is one of his best, and is summarised here by immaculate readings of 'The Beach', 'March of the Rebels' and 'Rosy's Theme'.
The third CD opens in romantic mood with another fine melody by Michel Legrand, 'The Summer Knows' from The Summer of '42. Last Tango in Paris (Gato Barbieri), The Godfather (Nino Rota) and The Way We Were (Marvin Hamlish) are all lovingly evocative, leading to the first appearance of Jerry Goldsmith and one of his great scores, Papillon. 'Out to Sea' and the 'Main Theme' represent the score well, presenting both the melancholy and the indomitable spirit at the heart of this work. 1978 is covered by 'Cavatina', Stanley Meyer's eloquent guitar theme from The Deer Hunter, and it is now as the album moves into the post-Star Wars era of film scoring, that it becomes obvious there is a John Williams shaped hole in this anthology. Presumably this is to avoid overlap with Silva Screen's recent 2CD William's collection, but given that Williams has dominated film music like no one else during the last two decades, a couple of more obscure tracks would have helped balance the set before the late arrival of Saving Private Ryan. The post-Star Wars SF boom years are represented by Jerry Goldsmith and his brilliant 'Finale' from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, here in a splendid performance which really should please everyone. John Barry arrives definitively with his sinuous theme from Body Heat, an excellent choice given that this music was until recently very difficult to obtain, and is one of Barry's strongest 80's scores. 'O Fortuna' from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana is well represented in the classical catalogue, and surely Excalibur would have been better served by a selection from Trevor Jones overlooked score? The disc concludes with by far the longest selection in the anthology, a 13-minute suite from Danny Elfman's Batman. Making for a strong finale, this is gothic film music on the grand scale. The only question is that there are other films which might better deserve such extended treatment. Nevertheless, at such bargain price it would be foolish to complain, especially given that the itself most accomplished.
Disc four is devoted entirely to the 90's, the opening Alex North's 'Unchained Melody' supports those who argue that there is no good film music being written today. For although the melody became the theme for 1990's Ghost, it was written decades before.. The version here is a full orchestral treatment, leading to a perfect recreation of Jerry Goldsmith's icy theme from Basic Instinct. Quite what James Newton Howard's pleasant but far from great theme from Prince of Tides is doing here is a mystery, but it gives way to a majestic rendering of one of the indisputably classic themes of the decade, Trevor Jones' Last of the Mohican's, music vastly superior to the film it supported. The album concludes with music from seven of the biggest hits of the last five years.
Independence Day was the finest slice of pure cinematic entertainment released in 1996, a film which benefited immeasurably from David Arnold's wonderful heroic score. Here the epic 'Finale' is presented with enormous drive and energy, though the complex orchestrations sometimes sound muddled, lacking the clarity of the soundtrack album. As different as can be comes the ludicrously plotted and infinitely tedious multi-Oscar winning celebration of treachery and adultery, The English Patient. Even Gabriel Yard's score was a shapeless bore, but here, to save you buying the soundtrack album, are the few minutes worth listening hearing, the genuinely mysterious and atmospheric 'As Far as Florence' and the haunting 'Rupert Bear'. The penultimate track is John Williams' 'Hymn to the Fallen', the showcase choral piece from the end titles of Saving Private Ryan. Much as Williams' score supported the film, Saving Private Ryan did find Williams at his most understated, providing little to enjoy away from the screen. 'Hymn to the Fallen' is the one moment where Williams pulled out all the stops, with a piece which is either unbearably moving, or nauseatingly sentimental, depending upon temperament. The version here is very good indeed. Now it is James Horner all the way, and with Braveheart, Apollo 13, The Mask of Zorro and Titanic to his name, it looks as if Horner is on the verge of claiming Williams crown as the king of the film music world. The 'End Titles' from Braveheart have a real cumulative power, and the 'Zorro' suite a swashbuckling zest which made the film such enormous fun (just don't mention El Cid!). Titanic seems to divide audiences like few other films, and the division extends to the music. Personally I object to the cod-Celtic approach on principle - in 1912 British music was riding the crest of a wave between Vaughan-Williams' Sea Symphony, Tintagel by Arnold Bax and Frank Bridge's The Sea suite. With such fine examples of British sea music appropriate to the period, it is surely obvious that Patrick Doyle should have been commissioned to craft something appropriately British and nautical. However, I also have to admit that if you allow yourself to surrender to the emotionalism of his score, Horner's approach works. Silva have avoided the obvious here, and rather than a version of 'Rose's Theme', offer 'Take Her to Sea, Mr Murdoch'. Such is the endless variation possible with electronic sound that any specific mixture of orchestra and electronics is virtually impossible to recreate, and certainly the version here would never be mistaken for the original. Nevertheless, it has an impact all its own, and surely everyone who likes this music has the soundtrack anyway.
So, we end with the old king of Hollywood passing the baton to the new (though I'm sure there is a lot more fine music to come from John Williams in the future) and are left to look forward to a new century of film music. Certainly it is possible to find faults with this collection, with the inclusion of certain tracks to the exclusion of others, or to point out that some succeed better than others. With so much music it would be strange if this were not the case. This though is a superb collection. The vast majority of the selections are really very good indeed, and for those with the appropriate decoders the CDs even have HDCD and Dolby Surround Sound. For around £16.95 Cinema Century 2000 offers phenomenal value, and would make a wonderful Christmas present as an introduction to the glories of film music. It also offers the opportunity to fill a considerable number of gaps in collections, especially if you would like a particular theme but don't want to buy the entire soundtrack album. Likewise, it makes a great sampler, and may lead to many more rewarding purchases. As such I can not praise this set too highly. I can't imagine anyone but the most unforgiving purist who demands only the originals regretting buying Cinema Century 2000.
Reviewer
Gary S. Dalkin
Rob Barnett adds:-
Silva Screen are good at this. They record new suites of film music all the time. Session after session must take place in Prague with faxes and e-mails ploughing backwards and forwards between London and the Czech Republic. New parts and arrangements seem to flood in and the logistics of such an exercise must be a constant challenge. Silva uses its catalogue in every conceivable way. A suite or segment might appear in a theme album (like the Monster album), a composer collection (say John Barry) or in a historical sweep such as the present collection.
Silva’s terms of reference are quite wide and they have surprised me with their excellent British and Continental film music albums as well as reviving and re-recording scores. What they have yet to do is to cover say Australian film music or a collection of Russian film music (a vast black hole once you get past the obvious Shostakovich, Khachaturyan and Prokofiev scores) or an anthology of Japanese or Chinese film music [just issued , see October reviews- editor.]
This minimally documented (you get a date, cast list and director) 4 CD set is produced in association with Halliwell’s and Pocket Films Film and Cinema guide. It is compiled from a rich back catalogue and (though I am not absolutely sure about this) seems to include tracks not previously issued. The whole runs over 4 hours. The grand plan is to provide at least once score from each of the years from 1933 to 1998.
The plums for me are King Kong, Prince Valiant, Last Tango, Deer-Hunter, Body Heat, Jean de Florette, Last of the Mohicans and Saving Private Ryan.
At a special price this is a most economical way of introducing yourself to a wide range of scores some of which are old friends others of which are kind strangers.
The blind spots are inevitable but I certainly puzzled why there was no Bernard Herrmann (contractual problems?) and of course there is no ‘deep-shelf’ Russian, Chinese or Japanese film music. Otherwise a most attractive compilation.
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
Complete track listing: [Return to Head of review]
Disc One: King Kong (Prelude) Max Steiner, The Adventures of Robin Hood (Love Theme) Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Alexander Nevsky (Entry into Pskov) Sergei Prokofiev, Wuthering Heights (Cathy's Theme) Alfred Newman, The Sea Hawk (Suite) Erich Wolfgang Korngold, The Thief of Bagdad (The Love of the Princess) Miklos Rozsa, The Mark of Zorro (Overture) Alfred Newman & Hugo Friedhofer, Laura David Raksin, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre Max Steiner, The War of the Worlds (Main Title/Prelude) Leith Stevens, Prince Valiant (Prelude) Franz Waxman, The Caine Mutiny (March) Max Steiner, To Catch a Thief (Suite) Lyn Murray, The Vikings (Finale) Mario Nascimbene.
Disc Two: Breakfast at Tiffany's (Moon River) Henry Mancini, The Guns of Navarone (The Legend of Navarone) Dimitri Tiomkin, El Cid (Love Theme) Miklos Rozsa, Dr. No (The James Bond Theme - Symphonic Version) Monty Norman, How The West Was Won (Prelude) Alfred Newman, Dr. Strangelove (The Bomb Run) Laurie Johnson, The Longest Day (March) Paul Anka, Hatari Baby (Elephant Walk) Henry Mancini, The Sandpiper (The Shadow of Your Smile) Johnny Mandel, The Thomas Crown Affair (The Windmills of Your Mind) Michel Legrand, Romeo and Juliet (Suite) Nino Rota, 2001: A Space Odyssey (Also Sprach Zarathustra) Richard Strauss, Once Upon A Time in The West (Man With the Harmonica), Ryan's Daughter (Suite) Maurice Jarre.
Disc Three: The Summer of '42 (The Summer Knows) Michel Legrand, Last Tango in Paris Gato Barbieri, The Godfather (The Godfather Waltz / Speak Softly Love) Nino Rota, The Way We Were Marvin Hamlish, Papillon (Out to Sea / Main Theme) Jerry Goldsmith, The Deer Hunter (Cavatina) Stanley Myers, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Finale) Jerry Goldsmith, Body Heat John Barry, Excalibur (O Fortuna - from Carmina Burana) Carl Orff, The Right Stuff (Finale) Bill Conti, The Cotton Club (Main Theme) John Barry, Jean de Florette (Theme) Jean Claude-Petit, Lethal Weapon (Meet Martin Riggs) Michael Kamen, Batman (Suite) Danny Elfman.
Disc Four: Ghost (Unchained Melody) Alex North, Basic Instinct (Theme) Jerry Goldsmith, Prince of Tides (Main Title) James Newton Howard, Last of the Mohicans (Main Theme) Trevor Jones, The Bodyguard (Love Theme) Alan Silvestri, Il Postino (Theme / The Bicycle), Braveheart (End Titles), Apollo 13 (Main Title) James Horner, Independence Day (Finale) David Arnold, The English Patient (As Far as Florence / Rupert Bear) Titanic (Take Her to Sea, Mr Murdoch) James Horner, Saving Private Ryan (Hymn to the Fallen) John Williams, The Mask of Zorro (Suite) James Horner.
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Monty NORMAN
The James Bond Theme
Dr No
John BARRY
From Russia With Love
Goldfinger
Thunderball
You Only Live Twice
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
Diamonds Are ForeverThe credentials of this 'Limited Edition' album are impeccable. Nic Raine (the conductor) often collaborates with Barry as orchestrator, Vic Flick IS the original guitar on the Bond theme and the truly splendid notes are by Graham Rye with an addition by James Fitzpatrick. This makes a nice complement to Silva's Essential James Bond CD (FILMCD 007) the review for which tags along here as a reminder. The present release is marked out also by a red-plastic jewel-case.
The Bond theme (Monty Norman) is suitably charcoal-squat in its insidiously murderous and metallic way. Most of the rest of the album is John Barry's handiwork and all pretty familiar. Well, I say familiar, but in fact these are not the tracks you will have heard in standard compilation albums. This album picks up all those little incidental details and much of it is atmosphere music with little in the way of thematic interest.
Dr No weaves the Bond theme into the repetitive atmospherics for various killings: of the Tarantula, of a guard and of Dr No. The score for From Russia with Love has that dizzying Bond magic and the main title is a laurel to which we owe thanks to Barry, Norman and Lionel Bart. The strings are lithely rich. The beat-generation and Caribbean local colour meets Lionel Hampton in The Golden Horn track. 007 Takes the Lektor with its slip-sliding strings and repeating brass car horn motif launches a driving confident string theme that here misses the sheeny perfection of the original. Gold Finger is represented by two tracks of which the second The Fort Knox Raid with its potent whirling premonitions and threats is by far the most memorable. Thunderball opens with a staggering virtual quote from Holst's trombone rush from The Perfect Fool but this is easily trounced by the sinuous seaweed slithering of the clarinet in the music for the underwater fight. Atmosphere music - yes - but such atmosphere.
You Only Live Twice (for me the Bond film par excellence) is represented by a 10 minute suite taking in the romantic Mountains and Sunsets and the mock Japanese Wedding Music. The music for the volcanic Valhalla that opens and closes the film is the very essence of Bond/Barry romanticism. The On Her Majesty's Secret Service score also has its moments including the seductive saxophone and harp and vibra solos for Bond Meets The Girls. After some pretty unremarkable music the final Diamonds are Forever name-track is soaringly romantic - a real high note on which to end. Barry certainly knows where to quarry good tunes. Try also the love them from his 1970s King Kong score if you get a chance.
The sound quality is superb, open and richly dressed - such a change from the claustrophobics of the OST albums. A number (11) of these tracks or part tracks are here recorded for the first time making this all the more of a must buy. For Bond's-men and Bond's-women this is another must-buy.
The more general listener may not find this a totally compelling purchase but there is much to enjoy here and the recapture is made all the more pleasurable experience by the loving performances and recordings.
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
And Ian Lace adds:
I am now making a snack of the words I uttered on this site two or three months ago when I asserted my distaste for the music of John Barry for I will admit to a sneaking liking for a lot of his music for the James Bond films.
This is an album to treasure for it includes some previously unreleased material. Like ‘The Zagreb Express’ cue from From Russia With Love that is a vivid evocation of a speeding train you can really visualise those wheels screeching along the track. Understandably, we cannot have the songs, a pity one shudders with pleasure at the thought of Shirley Bassey singing Goldfinger and Diamonds Are Forever and wasn’t Louis Armstrong’s vocal We Have All the Time in the World absolute magic – a glorious song.
Inevitably one is drawn to comparisons with the established discs and I listened to the old United Artists 10th anniversary double LP of most of these tracks. Today’s sound is much better of course and all the splendid instrumental colour of ‘Capsule in Space’, from You Only Live Twice is fully revealed. It sounds great here with its percussion in wide perspectives and those lovely fluttering harp figures. From the same score, Mountains and Sunsets is another fine romantic evocation of a twilit Chinese landscape.
I was disappointed in this latest version of the scintillating and exuberant ‘Golden Horn’ music from From Russia With Love, the old LP had far more zest, you felt the players were enjoying themselves much more. Of the other new additions I was thrilled by the headlong excitement of ‘Escape from Piz Gloria and the Ski Chase’ from the George Lazenby Bond outing. The slinky, sexy number ‘Into Miami’ and the warmer more romantic yet shadowy ‘Alpine Drive’ cues from Goldfinger, although not new, impressed me too.
With its distinctive red packaging and its Special Limited Edition promise, all Bond and Barry fans should not hesitate about snapping this one up.
Reviewer
Ian Lace
This is a survey of the orchestral music written for the James Bond films. The recordings are newly made in arrangements which strive (generally with success) to recreate the soundworld of the original scores. All the Bond films (except the loony Casino Royale) are represented. Some are accorded two tracks. Three of the tracks are suites.
The music and of course the songs reclaim many memories for this reviewer. This is aided by the attention to authentic detail to emphasise and intensify the original 'broad band' sound with all orchestrations (except For Your Eyes Only which is the work of Bill Conti) by the conductor, Nic Raine, who should 'know his onions.' He has, after all, worked as orchestrator and assistant with John Barry on The Living Daylights and View to a Kill.
Dr No - The James Bond Theme (Monty Norman, 1962). The film which launched the series was an absolute cracker. It was stunningly violent in the new and blackest manner of The Killers. The ruthlessness mixes with glitzy sophistication. Electricity and muscularity are the hallmarks and both qualities are very well conveyed in the performance and recording.
This atmosphere carries over into From Russia With Love (Barry, Bart, Norman, 1963), the music for which adds another characteristic: a very romantic sweep. The similarities with Lara's theme from Dr Zhivago should be noted. The third track is also devoted to the film and the music has the driven energy of a thundering train. Chubby horns howl triumphantly and the strings shriek.
4 Goldfinger (Barry, Bricusse, Newley 1964). That rearing theme does not have the bruising abrasion of the original; far too languorous. However the unwinding romance of the strings is well done.5 Thunderball (Barry, Black 1965) has that rearing theme but also a deep Axminster violin magic carpet and a clean trumpet solo cleanly played here in pristine purity. As music it is not so impressive overall. 6 You Only Live Twice (Barry, Bricusse, 1967) has an oriental sweeping theme criss-crossing with the big theme in a score with the sea in its blood. 7 OHMSS (Barry) and A View to a Kill (Barry/Duran Duran) offer black-hearted brass, a ruthless theme (and mark you OHMSS is one of the best). This relaxes in this suite into the almost elegiac View to a Kill and that serene sadness is played to the hilt. We Have All The Time In The World (8) is a symphonic strings version of the song: a step onwards from You Only Live Twice. 9 Diamonds Are Forever has a mysterious iciness and a powerful swing with brass tones heavy with foreboding. 10 Live and Let Die is all New Orleans jazz mixing in with the shrillest hints of Obeah black magic. 11 The Man with the Golden Gun is pretty unimpressive as music. 12 Nobody Does It Better from The Spy Who Loved Me is played as if by a soupy salon Palm Court ensemble eventually joined by an equally somnolent full orchestra. 13 Moonraker comprises more gauzy soft-focus candle-lit romance but is contrasted with For Your Eyes Only (14) with its Copland-inflected chanting and piano thuds. In the following track All Time High (Octopussy) the unfolding of the big theme is done with a glycerine smoothness that falls over the edge into gloopy Mantovani-territory.
Coming almost up to date The Living Daylights is vigorous with a big bold slightly restless brassy sound and Licence to Kill has affectionate hints of Goldfinger, a shady sax solo and a Spanish classical guitar sketching in the theme. Goldeneye (soon to be televised in the UK - of course the new Bond film is soon to be released!) has electric guitar and modernistic sound. It is rather flimsy with some of the accustomed Bond hoops duly leapt through but little conviction.
Everything is rounded off with the James Bond theme in the original version by Monty Norman with the squat and burred sound of the brass section, metallic-silk strings and an electric guitar making that scratching threateningly.
The notes by Graham Rye of the James Bond Fan Club are good providing an introduction to the birth of the Bond theme and scores. There is a brief profile for each of the films. There is also a useful profile of Nic Raine.
The design of the disc is around the bullet hole, blood-drenched iris typical of the Bond films. The CD cover (back and front) carry the bullet-hole and so does the booklet. The notes are printed around the hole. The print is photo-reduced white on black or graphite grey and can be difficult to read.
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
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Bon Voyage Dreams of Surf Opening Conquest of Paradise Monastery of La Rabida Come to Me Light and Shadow Fields of Coral El Greco: Mvts 5 & 6 Across the Ocean Sea Theme from Bitter Moon Rachel's Song El Greco: Mvt 4 Theme from: 'The Plague' Dawn Prelude
Vangelis' music is quite popular and has featured in several films, countless TV commercials, signature tunes and suchlike. This laudable compilation brings back some of the more famous melodies as a retrospective cutback of the outgoing 90's and it's quite overdue. Four albums are featured here whilst a few unpublished tracks were also fished out by the Greek master to make life slightly more easier. The more famous tracks from 1492 are obviously much better known especially the moving wordless chorus that begins 'Conquest of Paradise', slowly rising to fever pitch. 'Monastery of La Rabida' is also rather fresh; the sounds of Spanish Renaissance are there to be absorbed. My personal favorite has got to be 'Oceanic', a delightful combination of aquatic sounds, choruses and beautiful motionless sound pictures, all embracing the deep blue sea. Of the hour long album, we have the opening 'Bon Voyage/Dreams of Surf', very evocative stuff and the moving
'Fields of Coral' with its majestic painting of a coral turf. The 'El Greco' movements aren't so moving, they reminded me of Alan Parson's 'Gaudi' but still the music is thrilling enough. Vangelis' cocktail of authentic Spanish sounds, synthesizers, orchestra and other batteries of effects recreate the work of this great Spanish giant with enough accuracy. The items fished out from other unfinished projects did not impress me much although the 'Theme from the Plague' is commercial enough. A vivid selection then, obviously you won't buy if you have all the albums but worth getting for the extra titbits that are making their first commercial appearance.
Reviewer
Gerald Fenech
Performance:
Sound:
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Earl Wild is a major American musician. As pianist, he has played with distinction under the batons of many famous conductors including Toscanini and Klemperer. Rachmaninov was his friend and important idol in his life – indeed, Wild’s recordings of Rachmaninov have always been admired. This American recording was made last year and the booklet remarked that Earl was then 82 years old but still planning new recordings. Besides being a virtuoso pianist Earl Wild, has also been busy as composer, transcriber, conductor, editor, and teacher.
Earl Wild also made a number of recordings of film music for the Readers Digest Association. Some were released by RCA as part of the Charles Gerhardt Classic Film Scores series. All the recordings on this album were made in London, all engineered by Kenneth Wilkinson. They have been remastered in high-resolution digital sound and, for the most part, they sound fabulous.
Richard Rogers - Slaughter on 10th Avenue. Richard Rodgers is remembered chiefly for hit shows (with Oscar Hammerstein II) like Oklahoma! (1943); Carousel (1945); South Pacific (1949), The King and I (1951); and The Sound of Music (1959) all of which have been filmed, of course. ‘Slaughter on 10th Avenue’ originated as a ballet, choreographed by the great George Balanchine for the 1936 musical On Your Toes. The ballet, in a rather comical mode, was included in the 1939 film version of the musical (starring Eddie Albert, Vera Zorina and Donald O’Connor). The ballet assumed a darker, steamier air for the 1957 film entitled Slaughter on 10th Avenue (with Richard Egan, Jan Sterling, Dan Duryea, Julie Adams and Walter Matthau). Then, in 1965, Earl Wild rewrote the ballet music adding a jazz-tinged piano score. He also re-orchestrated parts of it so that it became this fast-paced, exciting piano concertino. I must tell you that although you might hear many performances of ‘Slaughter on 10th Avenue’ in a lifetime, none, but none of them could compare to this sassy, thrilling reading.
Max Steiner – Symphonique Moderne. Steiner composed this mini-concerto for the 1939 film, Four Wives (the sequel to the successful 1938 film Four Daughters) starring Claude Rains, the Lane sisters (Priscilla, Rosemary and Lola) and John Garfield as a struggling young musician. ‘Symphonie Moderne’ was expanded by Charles Gerhardt who played it for Max Steiner shortly before his death. It is written in the grand late Romantic tradition but with the injection of modern American ‘urban’ influences.
Franz Lizst – Un Sospiro (Étude No. 3 in D flat). Lizst’s music has been used in many films especially in the many screen biographies of the composer. This is a very attractive little piece played with panache by Wild and Douglas Gamley and his orchestra.
Miklós Rózsa – Spellbound Concerto. This popular concerto with its magnificent sweeping romantic melody, was composed from Ròzsa’s music for one of Alfred Hitchcock’s early psychosis-based thrillers. Gregory Peck, in the film, Spellbound, is the amnesia/paranoia patient whose illness and disturbed dream world (photographed against Salvatore Dali’s surreal designs) is vividly portayed by Ròzsa brilliantly using the theremin, an early electronic musical instrument.
Chopin – Grande Polonaise Brillante Op. 22. Like Lizst, Chopin’s brilliant virtuosity and colourful life was ripe for screen biography treatment. Both composers’ music was also in great demand when passion and romance was on the screen.
Mozart – Piano Concerto in C Major, K 467 ("Elvira Madigan"). This is the major work on the programme and is performed in its 28-minute entirety. It is a sparkling work and the Andante was used to great effect in the Swedish film Elvira Madigan. Wild gives a beautifully controlled and sensitive performance.
The 12-page booklet which accompanies this album, carries full notes about the music and the films, together with some remarkable photographs including one of a line-up of eleven composers attending a Hollywood Bowl dinner in July 1948 including: George Antheil, Miklós Rózsa, William Grant Still, Igor Stravinsky and Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
A collectable anthology
Reviewer
Ian Lace
Compared to their American counterparts, European films and their composers have always been relegated to the back seat. The North American public often misses marvelous scores that deserves attention. Because of financial and marketing ploys (or lack of them), these compositions are available only to the European market and to a small number of film score aficionados. This is the case with the rich and wonderful score that Jean-Claude Petit composed for Cyrano de Bergerac.
Winner of the César and the British Award in 1991 for best score, Petit’s Cyrano de Bergerac did get attention, but of a kind that the composer would probably have done well without. Petit was sued by composer Danny Elfman for plagiarism. At the express request of director Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Petit quite freely used the main theme from Batman. Petit finally won the suit, proving meanwhile that Elfman’s music contained some similarities to Petit’s music too! But litigation aside, the score is a little gem.
Originally a play written by Edmond Rostand in 1897, Cyrano De Bergerac has been adapted numerous times for movies and the theatre. It is the story of Cyrano, who thinks that he cannot win the heart of Roxane because of his prominent nose. Cyrano, blessed with a gift for words and poetry, then helps his friend Christian by ghost. writing letters and reciting speeches on Christian’s behalf for his beloved Roxane. She pledges her affection to Christian, and this leads to a truth-telling resolution with a tragic final note.
The disc begins with Cyrano’s theme, a soliloquy for trumpet, solemn in tone, expressing Cyrano’s tragic fate. This theme recurs most beautifully in " La Déclaration De Cyrano" in an arrangement for cello, but then evolves into the love theme, which makes this declaration a tender and poignant moment--a passionate moment between the lovers. The love theme heard in this piece shares the same spirit as "Scène D’Amour" from Herrmann’s Vertigo. The complex relationship between Roxane and Christian. Cyrano is also comparable to the one between Scott and Judy-Madeleine in Vertigo.
The second part of the opening number introduces the vivacious theme that Petit borrowed from Elfman’s pen--or computer for that matter! This theme comes back in the sword fight and action pieces entitled "Le Duel," "La Porte De Nesle," and "L’Arrivée de Roxane," which are played with great intensity by a sizeable orchestra. No matter how we feel about this "borrowing," it works tremendously well, both in the movie and on the disc. Petit gives a seventeenth century tone to his modern arrangements by incorporating some traditional instruments like harpsichord, lute, and fife. "La Lanterne Magique" is a delicate piece played on organ. Two short pieces feature voices: a Gregorian style choir in "La Messe Des Espagnols" and soprano voices in "Les Nonnes." Each piece carries its own weight.
Watching the film, one can only be impressed by Petit’s integration of the music not only with the images, but also with the words and sounds of the poetic prose recited by Cyrano. The music complements the words without burying them. As it ranges from heroic to tender, the score communicates a familiarity and continuity that makes this music a wonderful trip back to the classical and baroque periods. Petit’s score is a valuable listening experience.
Reviewer
Martin Provost
We are grateful to Helen San (www.cinemusic.net) for giving us permission to include this review which is currently appearing on her Film Music site.
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Batman Beyond is an apparently successful animated series transposing a teenage Dark Knight in a futuristic Gotham City. According to the sleeve notes producer Bruce Timm wanted music "that would sound more authentic than anything currently heard on broadcast TV". Quite what this is supposed to mean is unclear, but the recipe is as follows.
Take the jittery-edged sampled percussion of Brad Fidel's Terminator 2: Judgement Day soundtrack, then get a razor-sharp thrash metal combo (with sampled drums) to beat it to a bloody pulp. Add a handful of assorted vocal and 'strange effects' samples. Repeat 20 times. Actually track 5 'Farewells' by Lolita Ritmanis makes some attempt at atmosphere, while track 19 'Move to the Groove', also by Ritmanis, has an Arabic flavour. It is only the remaining 18 tracks which are indistinguishable.
Given that Mark Snow can single-handedly score for an entire 25 episode run of The X Files, why it took a team of four composers headed by Shirley Walker to provide these sub-musical offerings is a mystery. Be unfortunate enough to put this disc in the CD player without knowing what it is and you might assume it was any thrash metal album ever made, but with the screaming removed. Just in case I haven't put you off, Bruce Timm adds, "I'm constantly amazed that these clean cut, well mannered, all round nice people can so consistently deliver such vicious music. And they're getting meaner. Perfectionists all, they keep trying to top themselves, pushing the sonic envelope to its breaking point. As good as these selections from their early scores are, their most recent efforts are even more relentless, even more intense. Hopefully, this album will sell well enough to encourage the good folks at Rhino to issue further volumes in the series."
Given that Rhino are to release a complete soundtrack of John Williams brilliant Superman score, we must forgive the good folks for this aberration. Never has a DC superhero so badly needed earplugs.
Reviewer
Gary S. Dalkin
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