What is a ‘cinema classic’? Purists would probably
cite
Batteleship Potemkin, Citizen Kane, The Searchers, Psycho,
2001: A Space Odyssey, Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now and
Blade
Runner, to name but a few. These are works that either changed
the way we looked at movies or helped define the period in which
they were made. Nowadays the term ‘cinema classic’ is
synonymous with ‘blockbuster’, which is probably
why so many of the latter crop up in this collection. Not all
have particularly original soundtracks, and some even make use
of ‘bleeding chunks’ from the classical repertoire.
Such fall-backs are risky, but where the music is woven so skilfully
into the visual narrative - Johann and Richard Strauss in Kubrick’s
2001, for
instance - it’s often impossible to hear the music without
instantly recalling the film.
Sony have opted for the more elastic definition of ‘cinema
classics’, with music from fairly recent titles, such as
Titanic
and
The Da Vinci Code. These don’t sit at all
comfortably with the likes of
Brief Encounter and
The
Gadfly, probably chosen for their classical music content
rather than their historical significance. I can understand a
themed collection - by genre, director or composer, say - but
here it seems as if Sony executives flicked their way through
a copy of
Halliwell’s, circling entries at random.
The truth is probably much more mundane, a cost-effective compilation
that allows Sony to plunder their back catalogue. Not a hanging
offence, of course, but it does strike me as a very lazy way
to sell music.
It’s worth pointing out that most of these excerpts are
not OSTs (official soundtracks), but were recorded and released
at a later date. Not surprisingly, they depend on orchestras
such as the City of Prague Philharmonic, the Philharmonia, the
Royal Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra. Conductors
are rarely credited and the mix of venues and sound balances
doesn’t make for a seamless musical whole. Indeed, I sensed
a fair amount of audio intervention, presumably designed to create
a somewhat exaggerated cinema acoustic. That’s all very
well at your local Odeon, but it’s rather fatiguing here.
Grumbles aside, some fine film composers are represented here,
a number of their scores genuinely interesting and enjoyable.
CD1
The
Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is undoubtedly
successful, not least for Johnny Depp’s campy portrayal
of pirate Jack Sparrow. The music for all three films is by the
German composer Hans Zimmer, who certainly knows how to write
a big, sweeping tune
à la Korngold. There is plenty
of drive and energy in this excerpt from the latest in the series,
Dead
Man’s Chest, the City of Prague Philharmonic doing
the honours. This
feels like movie music, big, bold and
designed to stretch the cinema’s sound system to the max.
And then it’s the turn of John Williams, probably the most
symphonic of modern film composers. He, too, wrote some splendid
tunes for that other successful franchise, the
Superman movies.
Here the Love theme from the first film sounds lush but not overly
sentimental.
All very different from David Arnold’s score for the remake
of
Casino Royale, one of the more recent - and to my mind
least successful - Bond films. Now this is a franchise that has
done well over the years - not least for John Barry’s iconic
scores and those sexy opening titles - but the arrival of Daniel
Craig as 007 has signalled a change of emphasis, echoed in Arnold’s
sober, somewhat austere score. Nothing laid back about Claudio
Abbado and the LSO’s rendition of Mussorgsky’s
St
John’s Night on a Bare Mountain, used to grotesque
effect in Disney’s
Fantasia. It’s fast and
fizzy, but as recorded here it lacks weight and refinement. There’s
another classical entry on this disc, the Romance from
The
Gadfly, by Shostakovich. This is one of the more random -
and puzzling - selections here, as most people are hardly likely
to have since this old, Soviet-era flick at their local multiplex..
Sandwiched between these two ‘classical’ pieces is
Danny Elfman’s haunting score for Tim Burton’s dark
fable,
Edward Scissorhands. A much younger Depp is suitably
strange in the title role, the film’s highly individual
visual style nicely complemented by Elfman’s fairy-tale
score. No hint of fantasy in Nino Rota’s music for that
other franchise,
The Godfather. The film has been much
imitated - wittily so in Alan Parker’s musical
Bugsy
Malone - but Coppola’s grim tale of Mafia mayhem has
never been bettered. Rota’s music, passionate and lyrical,
is well played by the Prague band; the recording isn’t
bad either. There is passion aplenty in
Captain Corelli’s
Mandolin, a rather superficial adaptation of Louis de Bernières’ bestseller.
Stephen Warbeck’s score, represented here by ‘Pelagia’s
Song’, is standard cinematic fare, nothing more.
And so to another genuine classic, Martin Scorsese’s
Taxi
Driver, its dark urban landscape superbly evoked in Bernard
Herrmann’s mix of orchestral menace - listen to that pounding
bass drum - and a languid, bluesy sax. As I write, Scorsese has
been awarded a Lifetime Achievement BAFTA, an honour he well
deserves. Very different from the
Boy’s Own heroics
of
633 Squadron, for which Ron Goodwin penned a rousing
Waltonian score, complete with whooping horns. It’s a quintessential
British film score of the period, as thrilling as Elmer Bernstein’s
for
The Great Escape. All very nostalgic and very well
played by the Prague band.
Michael Kamen’s electro-acoustic score for
Robin Hood:
Prince of Thieves has the backing of the Royal Philharmonic.
The music is somewhat anodyne, the sort of thing one hears in
hairdressers and public places; an eminently missable film, redeemed
only by Alan Rickman’s supremely nasty Sheriff of Nottingham.
In another league altogether is the magical realism of Giuseppe
Tornatore’s
Cinema Paradiso, with an elegant, wistful
score by the ever reliable Ennio Morricone. Now this really is
a classic, a reflection on boyhood and homage to an old Sicilian
cinema and its feisty proprietor, played to perfection by the
late lamented Philippe Noiret. It’s charming, simple music
that really does bring back memories of this life-enhancing film.
Kenneth Branagh had some sizeable boots to fill with
Henry
V, and for a ‘short-arsed, fat-faced Irishman’ -
his words, not mine - he gives a powerful performance as Shakespeare’s
warrior king. As Olivier realised this is one film that needs
a Walton to do it justice; that said, Patrick Doyle’s score
is pretty impressive. This vocal extract, ‘Non Nobis Domine’,
is stirring, but this version is no match for the top-notch OST
with Simon Rattle and the CBSO. And moving from the sublime to
the faintly ridiculous, Saint-Saëns’ ‘Organ’ symphony,
as used in the adventures of Babe, the talking pig. It’s
the vintage E. Power Biggs/Eugene Ormandy recording from CBS
- all very brisk and efficient. Quite why the piece was chosen
is a mystery to me, but perhaps
Carnival of the Animals had
something to do with it. In Hollywood
any explanation
is entirely plausible.
CD2
The late Michael Crichton’s scientific fantasy
Jurassic
Park turned out surprisingly well on film, not least for
Steven Spielberg’s taut direction and its remarkable special
effects. Equally special is this excerpt from John Williams’ panoramic
score, with its (slightly shaky) horn calls at the start. Thereafter
the music has a Straussian amplitude that suits the width of
the screen and the height of its Cretaceous cast. (Somehow,
Cretaceous
Park doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it?)
Hearing this glorious music confirms for me that Williams is
the natural heir to the great film composers of the past. Speaking
of which, Alexandre Desplat’s music for
The Queen is
another of those scores that harks back to the pomp and circumstance
of Walton and Elgar, but with a delicate, interior sub-theme
that captures the monarch’s private persona rather well.
One of Stephen King’s better adaptations for the screen,
The
Shawshank Redemption boasts splendid performances from jailbirds
Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. The liberating sounds of this
Act III aria from Mozart’s
Marriage of Figaro -
taken from the old Karl Böhm recording - is most effectively
harnessed here. Delicious, creamy singing from Gundula Janowitz
and Edith Mathis. John Williams returns with cellist Yo-Yo Ma
for the vaguely oriental score to
Seven Years in Tibet. From
the opening harp swirl it’s clear we are back in symphonic
mode. It’s a pleasing mix, with Ma as eloquent as ever.
Unlike many of the other excerpts in this set this is the official
soundtrack, with the composer conducting.
One of Sir Michael Caine’s earlier films and a regular
TV matinée,
Zulu is another of Ron Goodwin’s
atmospheric scores. From its warlike timps to swirling harp figures
this suggests both both the impending battle and the wide open
veld. A
solid historical adventure from the 1960s, with a score to match.
On to other battles, this time with the evil Voldemort in
Harry
Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Patrick Doyle penned this
refulgent excerpt from this, the penultimate film in the present
series. The ever-reliable RPO is in fine form, as indeed it is
in Dario Marinelli’s elegant, string- and piano-led theme
for Mrs Darcy in
Pride and Prejudice. Again, this is no
match the Decca OST, the mercurial Jean Yves Thibaudet at the
keyboard. Far less appealing is Evelyn Chen’s performance
of Rachmaninov’s
Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Philharmonia
under Leonard Slatkin. That said,
Brief Encounter is one
of David Lean’s most enduring pictures, with Celia Johnson
and Trevor Howard at their stoic, ever so British best. The music
is surely a distraction, and in this performance it’s simply
horrible.
Back to the present - well, sort of - and if you can’t
stomach the bizarre tale of Civil War captain Tom Cruise sent
to modernise the Japanese army, then Hans Zimmer’s middle-of-the-road
score for
The Last Samurai might make this tosh a little
easier to endure. Some pretty spectacular Kodo-like drumming,
though, and the recording is better than some. Another war and
it’s Ron Goodwin again, in the music for Alistair McLean’s
wartime pot-boiler,
Where Eagles Dare. Its martial drums
and jaunty tunes are just right for this tale of derring-do in
the snowy wilderness below Schloss Adler. A genre classic; indeed,
as a youngster I loved every heart-stopping minute of it.
Franco Zeffirelli’s take on
Romeo and Juliet was
considered a little risqué at the time, Leonard Whiting
and Olivia Hussey pictured on the LP in soft focus and
sans clothes.
Not vintage Rota, perhaps, but this excerpt has a real sense
of ardour that stands out in otherwise rather soupy music. No
complaints about Brian Gascoigne’s somewhat generic take
on John Barry’s Bond theme which, like the obligatory eye
candy, helped to define this long-running franchise. Suave, upbeat
and ever so seductive it’s certainly a classic tune. Not
so the electro-acoustic arrangement of Dolly Parton’s ‘I
Will Always Love You’ from
The Bodyguard. Its sentimental
country and western roots are unmistakable, but the very ubiquity
of this music - I used to hear it in the office canteen day after
day - makes it memorable fro all the wrong reasons.
But what better piece to end this disc than Jerry Goldsmith’s
edgy, Western-style score for
Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The
TV series is a true classic but, at the risk of offending Trekkies
the world over, I’m not so sure the films will wear as
well. As for Goldsmith, he was nothing if not prolific, with
a career going back to 1957. His
Star Trek score was nominated
for an Academy Award, but I much prefer his music for Polanski’s
Chinatown and
Peter Hyams’
Outland, a loose remake of
High Noon set
in outer space. And I vividly recall his music for another McLean
effort, the bio-terror flick
The Satan Bug. That’s
the trouble with discs like these, they usually trigger a trip
down memory lane.
CD3
Dan Brown’s best-selling book,
The Da Vinci Code, is
surprisingly compulsive, which is more than I can say for the
film. Given its Grail theme, it’s no surprise that Robert
Harvey’s score includes a sepulchral ‘Kyrie’,
the Crouch End Festival Chorus pressed into service once more.
In a similar vein is THE Patrick Cassidy aria ‘Vide Cor
Meum’, used in both
Hannibal (2001) and
Kingdom
of Heaven (2005). It’s a rather anonymous piece, but
it’s reasonably well sung. Equally anodyne is the updated
electro-acoustic version of Michel Legrand’s classic score
for the 1968 film
The Thomas Crown Affair. Call
me old fashioned, but I still think the unlikely pairing of Steve
McQueen and Faye Dunaway in the original is far preferable to
that of Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo in the remake. That said, ‘Windmills
of Your Mind’ is still a very hummable tune.
Earlier I mentioned that occasionally classical music used in
the movies becomes inextricably bound up with the visual narrative.
Regrettably, the lovely ‘Adagietto’ from Gustav Mahler’s
Symphony
No. 5 will forever be linked with Dirk Bogarde’s tortured
portrayal of von Aschenbach in Visconti’s
Death in Venice. The
version recorded here, Daniele Gatti’s with the RPO, is
a tad lugubrious for my liking, but at least it’s reasonably
well recorded. James Horner, who made his name with another doom-laden
flick,
Titanic, co-wrote the overblown score for the swords
and sandals epic
Troy. This is standard cinematic fare
which, or so I’m reliably informed, falls way short of
the rejected score by Gabriel Yared (
The English Patient,
The Talented Mr Ripley).
As the world of film music is male dominated, it’s a pleasure
to hear music from the sole female contributor on this set, Rachel
Portman. Her score for Jane Austen’s
Emma is most
enjoyable, mixing as it does Georgian elegance with a soaring
lyricism. James Horner returns with a snippet from the testosterone-charged
epic
Braveheart. By the time this elegiac music appears
all the violence is done and Braveheart has been put to death.
It’s suitably lush but quite without feeling. Not a good
example of the film composer’s art and, if it were needed,
more ammunition for those who feel Horner is somewhat overrated.
John Barry is rather more successful with the main theme from
Somewhere
in Time, one of Christopher Reeve’s less memorable
pictures. Full of genteel charm
and feeling it’s
warmly played by the Scottish National Orchestra. And how like
Miklós Rózsa’s Love theme from
Ben Hur it
sounds, although the latter is much closer to Korngold in terms
of symphonic weight and sheer opulence. Very different from the
rather androgynous sound-world of Horner’s
Troy.
That said, there are some good things in the latter’s imposing
score for
Titanic - a Stygian bass drum beating like a
giant propshaft below decks, for instance. But then he spoils
it all with some electro-acoustic mush that might have you rushing
for the lifeboats.
Classical music makes a brief return with
The Sorcerer’s
Apprentice from Disney’s
Fantasia. After seeing
that sequence it’s hard to dissociate Dukas’ piece
from images of Mickey the magician. Happily, the music is played
here in a rather enjoyable performance by the Orchestre Nationale
de France under Leonard Slatkin. And we end with an arrangement
of Lalo Schifrin’s score for
Mission Impossible, another
of those impossibly macho vehicles for Tom Cruise. From a martial,
foot-tapping start it soon becomes another of those rhythmically
insistent electro-acoustic loops that could pretty much go on
forever. Fortunately, in this case it doesn’t.
There are some nuggets among the dross but you’ll have
to look hard to find them. Of the younger generation of film
composers Danny Elfman and Patrick Doyle are worth singling out;
among the veterans are Ennio Morricone and John Williams, both
of whom have had long and prestigious careers at the magic factory.
But if I had to choose just one it would have to be John Williams,
surely the natural successor to Waxman, Korngold and the other
Hollywood greats. Trouble is, next to these giants the rest look
like pygmies.
Dan Morgan
Complete track-listing
CD1
Hans ZIMMER (b. 1957)
Pirates Of The Caribbean:
Dead Man's Chest - Jack
Sparrow (2006) [6:18]
John WILLIAMS (b. 1932)
Superman: The Movie - Love theme (1978) [5:07]
David ARNOLD (b. 1962)
Casino Royale - Vesper (2006) [1:50]
Modest MUSSORGSKY (1839-1881)
Fantasia - St. John's Night On The Bare Mountain (1940)
[11:58]
Danny ELFMAN (b. 1953)
Edward Scissorhands - Main title (1990) [5:35]
Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975)
The Gadfly - Romance (1955) [6:30]
Nino ROTA (1911-1979)
The Godfather - Love theme (1972) [2:50]
Steven WARBECK (b. 1953)
Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Pelagia's Song (2001) [4:00]
Bernard HERRMANN (1911-1975)
Taxi Driver - Main theme (1976) [7:33]
Ron GOODWIN (1925-2003)
633 Squadron - Main theme (1963) [3:04]
Michael KAMEN (1948-2003)
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves - Everything I Do (I Do
It For You) (1991) [4:02]
Ennio MORRICONE (b. 1928)
Cinema Paradiso - Main theme (1988) [3:37]
Patrick DOYLE (b. 1953)
Henry V - Non Nobis Domine (1989) [3:51]
Camille SAINT-SAENS (1835-1921)
Babe - Maestoso and Allegro from
Symphony No. 3 in
C minor, Op. 78 ‘Organ’ (1995)
[7:20]
CD2
John WILLIAMS (b. 1932)
Jurassic Park - Main theme (1993) [5:39]
Alexandre DESPLAT (b. 1961)
The Queen (2006) [3:57]
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756-1791)
The Shawshank Redemption - Letter duet from
The
Marriage of Figaro (1994) [3:36]
John WILLIAMS (b. 1932)
Seven Years in Tibet - Main theme (1997) [7:15]
John BARRY (b. 1933)
Zulu - Main theme (1964) [2:31]
Patrick DOYLE (b. 1953)
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire - Harry In Winter
(2005) [3:03]
Dario MARINELLI (b. 1963)
Pride And Prejudice - Mrs Darcy (2005) [4:02]
Sergey RACHMANINOV (1873-1943)
Brief Encounter - Moderato from
Piano Concerto No.2 (1945)
[11:07]
Hans ZIMMER (b. 1957)
The Last Samurai - Safe Passage/The Way of the Sword (2003)
[3:03]
Ron GOODWIN (1925-2003)
Where Eagles Dare - Main theme (1968) [3:03]
Nino ROTA (1911-1979)
Romeo and Juliet - Love theme (1968) [3:13]
John BARRY (b. 1933)
James Bond: Licence To Kill - Main theme (arrangement)
[3:19]
Dolly PARTON (b. 1946)
The Bodyguard - I Will Always Love You (arrangement) (1992)
[4:40]
Jerry GOLDSMITH (1929-2004)
Star Trek: The Motion Picture - The Enterprise (1979)
[6:12]
CD3
Richard HARVEY (b. 1953)
The Da Vinci Code - Kyrie For The Magdalene (2006) [3:59]
Patrick CASSIDY (b. 1956)
Hannibal - Vide Cor Meum (2001) [3:06]
Michel LEGRAND (b. 1932)
The Thomas Crown Affair - Windmills of Your Mind (1968)
[3:18]
Gustav MAHLER (1860-1911)
Death in Venice - Adagietto from
Symphony No.
5 (1971) [10:16]
James HORNER (b. 1953)
Troy - Remember (2004) [6:12]
Rachel PORTMAN (b. 1960)
Emma - The Wedding/End titles (1996) [4:21]
James HORNER (b.1953)
Braveheart - End titles (1995) [7:48}
John BARRY (b. 1933)
Somewhere In Time - Theme (1980) [3:44]
Miklós RÓZSA (1907-1995)
Ben Hur - Love theme (1959) [4:39]
James HORNER (b. 1953)
Titanic - Main theme (1997) [7:08]
Paul DUKAS (1865-1935)
Fantasia - The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (1940) [11:50]
Lalo SCHIFRIN (b. 1932)
Mission Impossible - Main theme (arrangement) (1996) [4:40]
rec. 1963-2006. ADD/DDD 
