Film Music Editor: Ian Lace |
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October 1999 Film Music CD
Reviews |
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COMPETITION WIN
a CD of your Choice
************************************************************** EDITOR’S CHOICE – October 1999
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Collection: The Film Music of Georges AURIC Rumon Gumba conducts the BBC Philharmonic
Caesar and Cleopatra*; The Titfield Thunderbolt; Dead of Night*; Passport to Pimlico; The Innocents*; The Lavender Hill Mob†; Moulin rouge†; Father Brown*; It Always Rains on Sunday*; Hue and Cry*. (* - Premier recording † -Premier recording in this version.)
The Film Music - new recordings - suites from:-
Caesar and Cleopatra 1945
The Titfield Thunderbolt 1952
Dead of Night 1945
Passport to Pimlico 1949
The Innocents 1961
The Lavender Hill Mob 1951
Moulin Rouge 1952
Father Brown 1954
It Always Rains on Sunday 1947
Hue and Cry overture 1946.Georges Auric was a member of the celebrated rebellious group of French composers known as Les Six (the others were: Darius Milhaud, Francois Poulenc, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger and Germaine Tailleferre). Under the influence of Jean Cocteau and Eric Satie, they achieved notoriety for their advanced ideas. Honegger and Auric (and to a lesser extent, Ibert) were prolific writers of screen music, mainly for the French cinema. [Jean Cocteau was famous not only as playwright and librettist but also as a screenwriter and director, with films like La Belle et la Bête and Orphée to his credit.]
In a forty-year film career, Auric composed well over a hundred French film scores and in the latter part of his career scored a succession of big-budget, pan-European co-productions aimed, presumably at the American market. It is, however, with his music for British films that this new Chandos album is concerned.
Auric composed nearly thirty British scores. It has been rumoured that Walton, Britten and Prokofiev all turned down the scoring of the 1945/46 Gabriel Pascal production of Caesar and Cleopatra, starring Claude Rains and Vivien Leigh, after Sir Arthur Bliss resigned form the project. The film was a mess due to the wayward excesses of Pascal who was something of an early Michael Cimino. Auric's music was one of its few saving graces. The nine-minute suite, recorded here, begins with the Main Titles that evoke the glittering waters of the Nile, the sultry atmosphere of Cleopatra's court and her own sensuality plus the majesty and might of Ancient Rome. 'At the Sphinx' is a fine impressionistic piece with very colourful orchestrations including piano, celeste, xylophone, bells, harp, saxophone, tuba, chirping woodwinds, and sultry strings all contributing to a hot house atmosphere of heady seduction and intrigue. 'The Battle' is another colourful and exciting extravaganza that, in places, is reminiscent of Respighi in his Roman trilogy mode.
While Caesar and Cleopatra ground on in post-production, Auric was contracted to score a very different film - the first great British horror film - Dead of Night (1945). This was a portmanteau film that included the story of the demented ventriloquist (Michael Redgrave) and his devilish dummy. Auric's roller-coaster ride of a score is suitably nighmarish and spectral, but not without a wry sense of humour (ghostly horse-laughs and ghoulish glissandos suggesting passing wraiths). There is also a poignant edge to the music suggesting the ventrolioquist's plight and an appealing sugary Ravelian waltz.
Perhaps Auric's best known British score is that for John Huston's 1952 production of Moulin rouge, the story of the disabled artist Toulouse-Lautrec. Auric's music superbly captures all the brilliance and decadence of the legendary restaurant-cum-cabaret, the 'Moulin rouge' with its scandalous can-can dances - and polkas and quadrilles all heard in this nine-minute suite. The film was famous for its waltz song, 'April again, beside the river Seine,' sung endearingly here by Mary Carewe.
It is probably forgotten that Auric scored some of the best-remembered and best-loved British comedies filmed in the famed Ealing Studios. Here they are. The short suite from 'The Titfield Thunderbolt' (1953) is jolly and high-spirited. Just as his colleague, Arthur Honegger, had perfectly captured the essence of the huge locomotive Pacific 231, so Auric marvellously portrays the lumbering and puffing old steam engine of the title. He also brilliantly portrays the colourful characters who champion the threatened railway against the threat of the unscrupulous bus company. The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) is another high-spirited romp. It begins with an imposing, pompous fanfare/march before the music lampoons itself and we are into quieter music of plotting and stealth before the comic-caper robbery music. Auric has a theme of glittering incandescence to portray the gold which is melted down and cast as miniature Eiffel Towers for the French tourist market. The hectic-paced 'The Eiffel Tower' cue music is a mercurial Gallic tour-de-force. Gallic charm pervades the suite from Passport to Pimlico (1949) which again begins self-importantly before Auric's irreverent high spirits take over as the cheeky cockney inhabitants cock a snook at authority and declare themselves the independent state of Burgundy. The score is suitably French-flavoured with some subtle London song colourings. A delight this score. Another merry bustling score came from Auric's pen for Hue and Cry ((1946) which was another light-hearted romp of penny dreadfuls and hordes of children chasing villains across war-scarred London.
In contrast to his comedy scores, Auric composed altogether darker material for the 1961 production of The Innocents a subtle but harrowing horror story, starring Deborah Kerr, and based on the Henry James story, The Turn of the Screw. Auric takes the innocuous old English folksong 'O Willow Waly' and gives it a chill disturbing twist. It is sung here, unaccompanied, by soprano Anthea Kempston. The Main Titles music is equally disturbing beginning with solo oboe and flute singing mournfully in a remote key and other woodwinds joining in with brushed cymbals and eerie high strings circulating around the sound stage to create an opaque and mysteriously threatening atmosphere. More cheerful music underscores the coach ride but the atmosphere chills as Bly House is reached.
Another darker score was penned by Auric for It Always Rains on Sunday (1947). This 14-minute suite is the most extended selection on this album and it is powerful material that should have been recorded long since. Auric cleverly suggests the teeming rain, and not only a sense of tragedy and foreboding, but also Cockney fun, in his Main Titles and Opening Scene music with its stabbing staccato chords suggesting gunfire. There is poignant romantic music for 'Tommy and Rosie' which suggests a hopeless passion. This cue and 'Farewell' have a Debussy-like intensity. 'The Getaway' music underscoring the life-or-death chase of the escaped convict, John McCallum, through the railway marshalling yards is exciting indeed. Younger film music composers could learn a thing or two from this inventive chase music.
Finally there is another great and cheerful Auric score that should have been recorded ages ago - that for the Ealing-like Father Brown (1954). This film starred Alec Guiness as the mild provincial Catholic priest who has phenomenal powers of detection. Very appositely the Father is pitted against a French master criminal 'Flambeau' allowing Auric, once again, to demonstrate his cross-channel versatility. Auric's colourful, busy score combines an appealing Poulenc-like insouciance with more serene material to suggest Father Brown's piety and 'The Cross of St Augustine.' The Channel Crossing and the cheerfully evocative 'Train Journey to Fleurancy' music are particularly appealing.
This is a very welcome addition to film music enthusiasts' collections. The BBC Philharmonic play with great enthusiasm and conviction under their young conductor Rumon Gamba. The sound is first class too, revealing this music for the first time in all its vibrant colours. [British film music recording techniques of the 1940s and 1950s left a lot to be desired too many scores sounded muffled and thin.]
Highly recommended.
Reviewer
Ian Lace
and Rob Barnett adds
This disc takes us through one aspect of Auric's film music. He wrote only 30 scores for British films. There are 100 or so other continental scores including Rififi (1954) and La Belle et la Bête (1946). As one of the group of French composers known as 'Les Six' he has a reputation as a joker and a bit of a flâneur. This disc shows that he has a wider span of accomplishment.
The Cleopatra music is richly impressionistic and impassioned with a hint of Irishry at least once - a tribute to G.B. Shaw perhaps? The Titfield Thunderbolt score starts jokily but the middle section (Triumph) has a few memories of Honegger's Pacific 231 and indeed I am sure I caught a hint of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik as well. The title bars for Dead of Night are out of the same book as Mossolov's Zavod. This is fearsome music of machines - wild and imposingly tempestuous with perhaps a presence from the Valkyries. Passport to Pimlico echoes with memories of rural France and one can speculate that this brightness which I also associate with Canteloube's orchestral Auvergne arrangements had its impact on the young Malcolm Arnold. Respighi's Pines and Mossolov's music of machines meet in the exuberant finale.
The ethereal riches of Anthea Kempston's soprano chimes across the music in The Innocents, catching the slightly boomy effect of a boy alto. The nerviness of machine music is also there in the Coach Ride plus the gracious dip and bow of Ben Frankel's Carriage and Pair. Both machine rhythms and Respighian excess hit you between the eyes (ears?) in The Lavender Hill Mob. To this is added an English pastoralism and the rush and scramble of the chase scenes at the Eiffel Tower. The end-titles have a baroque trumpetry grandeur.
Moulin Rouge's minatory storminess soon departs in favour of a sweet tune. This melts into the Belle Epoque celebration and flouncy petticoats which returns in the final Quadrille. Mary Carewe's Waltz Song is sweetly sung and fortunately escapes the operatic style which would have killed this song stone dead. Whoever was responsible for selecting Mary Carewe should take a bow. This is touchingly done. An instant hit and must son catch the attention of Classic FM as should all of the tracks on this collection.
Father Brown's music is dashing - catching the spirit of Dickensian London (yes, I know the novelist is G.K. Chesterton). The Train Journey (interesting that trains played a part in Auric's life rather like Goossens and Moeran) and the finale are much affected by railway beats and machine rhythms.
There is a substantial suite from It Always Rains On Sunday initially rosily sentimental but this soon fades into a mechanistic nightmare like a great steam engine with pistons out of control and the governor broken. The overture (all the other films are represented by suites) from Hue and Cry is a champagne gambol through the alleys of London. From the music the locale could just as easily have been Paris. In this mood Satie (Parade), Milhaud (Boeuf sur le Toit) and Ibert all jostle each other.
I was not surprised to see that this collection had been restored by the redoubtable and heroic Philip Lane who had the full cooperation of Mme Michèle Auric.
This is a comprehensively enjoyable collection and will appeal, given half a chance, well beyond the confines of the film score enthusiasts. Do please get it. The collection has a generous playing time and recording quality of the finest.
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
Collection: Max STEINER at the Movies - King Kong; This is Cinerama; Death of a Scoundrel
Steiner's King Kong has fared well on disc. Last year we had the complete 72-minute full score from Marco Polo and Charles Gerhardt recorded a sizzling seven-minute suite from the film in 1973 as part of his 1973 Now Voyager album that was a tribute to Max in RCA's celebrated Classic Film Scores series. This Fred Steiner recording of a 47-minue suite from the film is no less impressive. The 'Boat in the Fog' cue is mistily atmospheric and the Jungle Dance is very wild and abondoned while Kong really does sound immensely powerful. The playing of the National Philharmonic orchestra, under the baton of Fred Steiner is more polished than that of the Moscow players on Marco Polo and the sound balance and engineering is superior too. This is one of those occasions where I I definitely sit on the fence and refuse to nominate a winner. I would not be without any of the three recordings!
Death of a Scoundrel found Max back at RKO Radio in 1956 scoring for this melodrama starring smooth rogue, George Sanders as Clementi Sabourin, a Czech immigrant in New York and his Machiavellian rise to riches. The film also starred the lovelyYvonne De Carlo. The opening title music begins powerfully and sombrely, there is a wild wolverine quality about it clearly indicating the predatory nature of the Sanders character before the music softens and mellows for the female characters and more noble instincts. An interesting feature is the use of the cymbalom which depicts Sabourin's middle European origins. It features strongly in the sentimental cue, 'Mother, mother.' 'Stephanie' is a warm romantic melody overshadowed by Sabourin's malignant influence. An appealing lilting waltz is contrasted by a rather sleazy 'Kelly Blues' that completes this 14-minute suite which was played by the RKO Radio Pictures Orchestra conducted by Max himself.
The remaining item, and least interesting, is the 'Our National Parks & Monuments' and 'End Credits' from This is Cinerama. It is written in Steiner's Wester-cum-Americana idiom and it captures the sweep and grandeur of the American landscapes as viewed on the giant Cinerama screen. Max's efforts went uncredited. In this performance, Louis Forbes conducts the Cinerama Philharmonic Orchestra
Reviewer
Ian Lace.
Collection: Bernard HERRMANN at the movies - Battle of Nereveta; Sisters; Night Digger.
Here is a prize Herrmann disc for all lovers of the best film music. Neretva is a great sonorous score used for the English language version of this Yugoslavian production. The music, scored for a massive orchestra (Herrmann's biggest), is apocalyptic. Militaristic black-hearted brass shout and call in cantankerous uproar. The score is infused with Slavic temperament (echoes of Shostakovich 7 and 8) in collision with Soviet poster art heroism. The giant brass complement register powerfully in the Chetniks' March and in the gigantism of The Partisan March (a momentary tribute to Sousa?). Less tempestuous voices also invade and these gentler inspirations include Strauss's Rosenkavalier and Mahler (Farewell). This is moody music full of temperamental outbursts and Shostakovichian fist-waving. The Sisters excerpts are very welcome too with barking brass and tubular bells conjuring up yet another death-hunt. There is a plangent urgency in this music complete with hallooing horns, a weird synthesiser sounding like the distressed neighing of a horse and even (unless I am mistaken) a touch of the dreaded Hammond organ. The Night Digger score largely belies the ghoulish title in a long sequence of lambent grey aquarelles for a grand string ensemble. There are character-saturated solo parts for harmonica (Tommy Reilly - who else?) and Viola d'Amore and a steady diet of neurotic decelerated waltzes, the harmonica calling like a wounded cat, a weirdly foggy glow and morgue-focused serenading. This contrasts with a diving, plunging, wild athleticism (track 16) and the turbid cycling of the strings (a la Sibelius's En Saga) like maggots squirming in a suppurating corpse. Track 17 holds a surprise in sounding rather like the shark theme from John Williams' Jaws. The sorrowing serenade of the viola tails off into a fine warm confidence and back to a querulous fearful beauty suggested by the harp's notes stepping up and down the scale. This is a true connoisseurs' score and a must-buy for all Herrmann adulants.
The insert notes are good, though brief, and economically complement a most generous collection of reissued recordings in fine sound.
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
Collection: Alex North at the Movies - Cheyenne Autumn; Dragonslayer; Cinerama South Seas Adventure.
This album is a compilation of music from three soundtrack releases, and while generally I am in favour of recycling, in this case it rather makes me want to rush out and buy two of the originals. I don't know if they are still available, but if they are you may find this album ultimately functions as an expensive advert.
First we have 18:13 minutes (the cover claims 17:34) from John Ford's last film of note, Cheyenne Autumn (1964). I won't comment on the film, as being a Super Panavision 70 epic which failed at the box-office, hardly anyone can have had the opportunity to see the film properly in 35 years. In his informative notes John Steven Lasher comments that John Ford hated the score, adding that the director "knew absolutely nothing about the function of original music in films", quoting Royal S. Brown to the effect that the North's score "stands as the one jewel in the midst of the otherwise incredibly mediocre canon of scores for John Ford films…" Well, there is How Green was my Valley, The Quiet Man and The Searchers, but these do seem to be the exceptions one might expect by the law of averages. Lasher also mentions that the writing reflects "to some degree" Copland's ballet scores, Billy the Kid and Rodeo, astutely asking "(What Western film doesn't?). All I can add is that this is superb, first rate scoring, coming at a particularly fertile period in North's career, which is to say shortly after his wonderful Spartacus and Cleopatra. The music has a pastoral warm, a tender lyricism and contemplative character ably set against more dramatic passages featuring expectant, questing brass and low-key, brooding textures. The stark percussive rhythms of 'The Battle' are tellingly understated, and given the friendship between the two composers, Jerry Goldsmith admirers may see an influence on his powerful marital music for The Blue Max and the savage sound world of Planet of the Apes. The sound is very clear and precise, though a little dry and restricted in range.
Next comes 20:09 minutes (the cover says 21:35) from Dragonslayer (1981), an under-rated fantasy adventure which fell into the trap of being too dark for children and too light for the Excalibur audience to fully embrace. This is complex, dark-hued, sometimes atonal writing of considerable density. The score worked brilliantly with the film, conjuring a world of bleak and austere beauty, and stands up very well on disc. The more lyrical parts of the music were drawn from North's rejected score for 2001: A Space Odyssey and appear here as 'Ulrich Explodes; Verminthrax's Plunge' and 'The White Horse; Into the Sunset'. The original setting of this music can be heard on Jerry Goldsmith's recording of North's 2001: A Space Odyssey: track 7: 'Space Station Docking'. Anyone who likes Trevor Jones scores for Excalibur and Merlin and fancies a journey into the fantastical heart of darkness will probably appreciate this stark odyssey. The 1981 sound is unsurprisingly the best on the album.
So far, so brilliant. If only more of the album had been given over to the first two scores, instead of allocating the greatest running time [29:22 minutes - the cover reads 28:42] to the jaunty, lightweight and syrupy score (complete with 'native' voices) for the Cinerama travelogue South Seas Adventure (1957). Of course being Alex North, the score is superbly crafted, but it now seems very dated and sentimental, composed as it was to accompany the bland optimism of an America boldly going forth and discovering brave new islands full of quaint and charming natives to stare at in wide-eyed wonder. There is appealing music here, but at virtually half-an-hour the effect becomes cloying, with the rather muddy sound not helping at all. Perhaps in a new recording a suite from the best of this score might make the music might sparkle afresh.
With 38 minutes of great film music on offer this album is certainly worth owning, but perhaps only really worthwhile if you can not either find, or afford both the separate soundtrack albums for Cheyenne Autumn and Dragonslayer.
Cinerama South Seas Adventure
Reviewer
Gary S. Dalkin
************************************************************** EDITOR’S RECOMMENDATION – October 1999
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Bernard HERRMANN Citizen Kane .
Any comment on this celebrated film is superfluous and this almost applies to Bernard Herrmann's equally much-praised music. Tony Bremner conducts his Australian ensemble in a powerfully dramatic recreation of this, Hermann's first film score. The production is lavish with a booklet that includes musical examples, stills from the film plus a picture of the youthful Herrmann and Welles together. There are very full music analytical notes, including details of Herrmann's use of the Rosebud, Mother ambition/power and other leitmotifs , by Tony Bremner, and a fascinating essay 'Score for a Film' by Bernard Herrmann written for the New York Times in 1941 in which the composer recalls his work on the score. Herrmann reveals that he was given much more time than was the norm in those days to create his score and that he was also given the freedom to orchestrate and conduct the music, (again this was very much against the norm). He also tells how, against prevailing custom, he worked on the film, reel by reel as it was being shot and cut and furthermore, many sequences were tailored to match his music - particularly the numerous montages. In this way Herrmann's music became something of a 'leading actor.'
In another interesting essay, producer John Lasher emphasises that this recording is not only the complete score using the original instrumentation that Herrmann used, but it also includes several cues composed but not retained in the final print of the film.
I will not bore readers with track-by-track comment but would single out some of the most impressive parts of the score: the brooding opening statement of the Xanadu motif on trombones and its repeats on bass clarinets followed by the Rosebud theme stated on bassoons as we progress through the mist-shrouded estate to the great gothic house where Kane lies dying. Then there are the montages full of wry ironic wit: the pompous and swaggering montage as the Chronicle builds in poularity (before it crashes in the Depression) and the Breakfast Montage as the love between Kane nad his first wife sours. And, of course, the brilliant mock-opera aria 'Salaambô' composed so expertly in the Late Romantic Franco-Oriental style. Following Kiri Te Kanawa's example in the Charles Gerhardt recording of highlights of the score, Rosemary Illing sings the aria as it should have been projected in the opera house.
This album is an absolute must-have for Herrmann admirers.
Reviewer
Ian Lace
************************************************************** EDITOR’S RECOMMENDATION – October 1999
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Nino ROTA Il Giornalino di Gian Burrasca
This summer I spent part of my vacation in Arezzo just south of Florence. This the town in which the Academy Award-winning film, Life is Beautiful was shot and it was where my daughter-in-law and her 10 year-old daughter had been studying for the better part of a year. Now, as part of her schooling my step-granddaughter was asked to perform in one or two scenes from a dramatisation of Gian Burrasca. Il gionalino di Gian Burrasca is the story a mischievous young Italian boy and the events are based on his diary entries over several years. Those familiar with the 'Just William' stories of Richmal Crompton will know what to expect. The stories are set in the first decade of the 20th Century. Apparently young Gian had been in the habit of reading his elder sister's diaries and had discovered secrets of their love lives to devastating effect. So, in desperation of preserving their privacy, his relations give him a diary. Various outrageous boyish adventures are commemorated in the 28 numbers (the majority vocals) on this album, together with Gian's outspoken and often hilarious comments on his family and his life in Rome. He is fascinated by magic for instance and in the course of his experiments manages to break a relative's watch and, in one incident, accidentally shoots another relative.
Nino Rota's original soundtrack music appears to date back to 1964. Half of the numbers seem to have been recorded then with the remainder in 1999. It is difficult to be sure because all the text in the four page booklet is printed in Italian only. Rota's music is written in his Fellini vein with all the usual orchestral effects expected for slapstick comedy with many new ones too. The numbers are both quick-tempo and jolly and slow and sentimental as when Gian sings about his home and his friends or wonders what love is all about. Above all they are all very tuneful. There is plenty of variety too. There are catchy numbers like the song named after Gian Burrasca and the wonderfully evocative 'Le piccole stazioni' in which Gian watches the trains and wonders where they are all going; the chorus chuff-chuff chuffing most beguilingly. Then there are a number of dance tunes: tango, Charleston and waltz etc to liven the collection. The irascible Gian is sung with great vitality and a sense of fun and irony by Rita Pavone.
A sparkling exhilarating album which can be enjoyed without any real knowledge of Italian.
Reviewer
Ian Lace
************************************************************** EDITOR’S RECOMMENDATION – October 1999
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Alfred NEWMAN Prince of Foxes
Another dark subject but a wonderful score, one that should have been committed to disc long before now and so Film Score Monthly must be congratulated on this coup. Prince of Foxes is set in the Italy of the Borgias. It concerns the dark machinations of the power hungry Cesare Borgia (Orson Welles) who despatches one of his officers (Tyrone Power) to assassinate a rival lord; but the officer succumbs to the charms of a pretty royal, (the ineffectual Wanda Hendrix), and to love and honour. The film was a box office failure due mainly to the Zanuck's insistence on the film being shot in black and white when the glorious Italian locales cried out for colour. Zanuck was surely wrong for creative colour photography could have maintained, even enhanced, his desired atmosphere of brooding evil and malice?
For Prince of Foxes, Newman created one of his most trenchant scores. [However, I would argue with the author of the rather over-deferential booklet notes that this score is probably Newman's masterpiece. I would agree with Charles Gerhardt's obvious choice of Captain from Castile (the title of Gerhardt's Alfred Newman album in the celebrated RCA Classic Film Scores series - GD80184).]
First, I should point out that the sound on this disc is excellent. For a film made in 1948, one would expect just mono sound. Newman, however, routinely recorded major pre-1953 scores with two microphones - one a 'close-up' mike, placed close to the conductor to capture the full onslaught of the orchestra and the second 'long-shot' mike behind the ensemble to secure another perspective. Each microphone led to a separate optical track so that when one was later laid atop of the other, the result was what came to be named 'fat mono.' This gives a certain depth and body to the soundtrack which listeners can enjoy on this album.
The Prelude is a rousing creation; a stirring march proclaiming the pride of the Borgias but it also hints darkly at their greed and despotism. This cruelty is pointed up throughout the score culminating in the pervasive evil inherent in such tracks as 'Attempted Assassination' one of the best cues on the disc which counterpoints a noble theme with undermining savage, swirling, malignant figures. Romance, warmth and compassion is signalled by one of Newman's appealing romantic themes with, on its first appearance, oboe and flute singing the melody supported by Newman's typical saccharine-sweet high strings. This theme is heard as a tenor's love song sung to the accompaniment of a mandolin in 'Song of Venice.' Courtly dances are heard in 'Royal Court' these have great vitality and move along at a very hectic pace. Slower courtly material is heard in 'The Banquet' which develops in a North-African sounding exotic dance. 'Festival of Spring' is an attractive joyful celebration.
Another impressive cue is 'The Duke's Entrance' which is a very grand and imposing jubilant procession at cantering pace and sounds very authentically Italian. But it is the battle between noble sentiments and the pervasive evil of Borgia treachery that preoccupies Newman and which stalks the score.
Excellent and an album that should be in every serious film music enthusiast's collection
Reviewer
Ian Lace
Visit Film Score Monthly on: - www.filmscoremonthly.com. Fax: USA 323-937-9277
Elmer BERNSTEIN The Magnificent Seven
Last year I wrote "... about 55 minutes would have been just about ideal." Well I hardly expected that a year after I wrote that there would be a freshly re-recorded disc which would have a playing time pretty close to the timing I had suggested.
A lively dancing ambience is offered by the recording locale (Henry Wood Hall). The sound is light years ahead of the distressed quality of the almost 40 year old OST. The orchestra are well up to form and by heck this orchestra has certainly cornered the film score revival market. They acquit themselves with tonal splendour and an authentic zest. Of course having the composer at the helm does help.
The brass are beyond criticism. The woodwind contributions are touching. My only grouse is that the strings do not have the amplitude of the OST disc. Even though the intrinsic sound quality is poorer the OST gives the impression of a big Philadelphia style sound of deepest velvet texture.
Choices; choices! For fanatics both discs are essential items. For the general listener I recommend this album. It has most of the explosive power of the original in sound it would be difficult to imagine being bettered.
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
See reviews of theoriginal release of The Magnificent Seven and the Return of the Magnificent Seven
Elmer BERNSTEIN The Great Escape
This is of course one of Elmer Bernstein's most popular scores and he conducts the RSNO in a first rate performance here.
The opening main title music states that well-known insolent theme which admirably characterises the sullen disdain with which the prisoners of war view their German captors who are musically depicted as being heavy handed and rather pathetically comic. The score contains much that is exciting, especially for the escape sequences. It does not neglect the more personal aspects of the story, however, for there are moments of genuine warmth in the more reflective cues such as 'Cooler Mole' and 'Blythe.' There is also an appropriate sense of tragedy and loss for the prisoners who are eventually killed or captured, after the great escape. 'Discovery' is an impressive cue with high bells and celeste contrasted with rapid rat-tat-tat machine gun fire like brass chords. 'On the Road' includes some attractive pastoral material and The score ends with an affecting quiet requiem for the greater part of 'Finale.'
In passing I would raise a general point. The Great Escape is one of those films that regularly crops up on TV movie presentation schedules and so it will be known to most people. I make this comment because even though one is familiar with a film one cannot be expected to remember every single detail of a film. Now I come to a general principal. Visitors will have noticed that we do not list cues in our reviews. This is because to so in my opinion would be pointless. Here we have a very good example of what I mean. Unless you have a photographic memory of the detail of the film and even then this would probably not be enough what is one to make of such laconic named cues as: 'Various Troubles', 'Blythe' and 'Road's End'?
Reviewer
Ian Lace
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