Intrada Soundtrack Forum

5/3/2021

Our spectacular re-recording of Rio Conchos has been in the film music market since 1989. The so-called target audience is most likely familiar with it by this point. Perhaps there are other listeners not yet on board and maybe this new presentation will bring them under the fold. I refer to it as spectacular because at the time, the concept of recreating earlier film scores was still a relatively new concept. Engaging the composer of the score at hand was new, as was the locating of original scores and parts to work with. Hiring the composer’s primary engineer was another luxury, recording everything in the famous Abbey Road Studios in London was an unusually lavish decision… and most spectacular of all, employing the full resources of the world-famous London Symphony Orchestra, augmented by more unique orchestral colors including banjos, guitars and accordion, brought everything to vibrant life. All of this before film score re-recordings became much more routine.

Jerry Goldsmith was, at this point in his legendary career, not particularly interested in looking back on his early career. In fact, it was Intrada that managed to convince him in 1986 that there was merit in doing just that when we commissioned a brand new recording of his 1977 score for Islands In The Stream, his own personal favorite work at that time. While not requiring the more ambitious research and orchestral accoutrements of Rio Conchos, it was still an extraordinary achievement to coax Goldsmith into making this happen. As far as accomplishments with this incredible composer go, we are pretty happy about having achieved such an important landmark in the preservation of film music.

Rio Conchos was the score we elected to focus the lavish attention on simply because it was my own favorite of Goldsmith’s numerous western scores. At that time, almost none of these earlier film scores were yet available in any format, with high licensing costs and missing master recordings all contributing factors. There just wasn’t yet the economic practicality of bringing old film scores into the commercial marketplace. In fact, it was Intrada, formed in 1985, that actually played a significant role in changing that situation. What had always drawn me to Rio Conchos was the incredible architecture that Goldsmith fashioned into his music. The score literally started with the main theme played as a single line on solo accordion without harmony, accompanied only by light percussion to establish a tempo. But by the (literally) explosive finish, unusually nihilistic for westerns of that day, Goldsmith had developed that gentle opening tune into the most powerful, dynamic and climactic piece of ending music of his then-growing career. And few scores following it ever achieved such a spectacular finish, replete with crashing percussion and piercing military-style trumpet figures ornamenting over and above a broadened and now triple-forte declamatory statement of that once-simple tune.

Our 1989 recreation of the score, courtesy Bruce Botnick’s perfect engineering, the magnificent musicians of the London Symphony and, in particular, Jerry Goldsmith’s enthusiasm for bringing it all to life remains a grand accomplishment. He really “got into it” all, became excited about the score itself and frequently conferred with me in between takes as to tempos and dynamics of the various cues. We shared lunches together and had fascinating talks about his music. He was enthusiastic for sure! As the album producer, upon first arriving at Abbey Road, I initially asked Bruce Botnick if we could just ensure everything sounded clean and crisp and he said he’d set up his array of microphones exactly as he would were this a brand new feature film recording - at that time certainly not the standard audio technique of recording orchestral music for listening purposes and marketed to the so-called “classical” music enthusiast. And the results were exactly what I had hoped for. Rather than a broad, reverb-heavy concert hall sound, we got clarity and extreme detail. You can hear where every instrument is positioned within the orchestra! And you can hear and feel that architecture of the score and how it goes from simple to massive with stunning detail.

Recording The Artist Who Did Not Want To Paint was also a major undertaking and premiere achievement. The idea of adding it to the sessions became part of a bigger discussion about having Goldsmith lead the LSO in his first live concert with the musicians, performing the entire five-movement work in front of a huge audience in London’s famed Barbican Centre, renowned for its various performing arts events. I was honored to sit next to Goldsmith’s father for this concert. We rehearsed and recorded the work the day after completing Rio Conchos. This “Prologue” is scored for a massive string section with additional harps plus the brilliant addition of a large section of eight French horns, recorded antiphonally and often playing in unison in high registers - an extremely challenging performance task. In fact, it was preparing this piece for recording that required the most rehearsal time - not because it was necessarily busy or intense music but rather because it required incredible nuances in performance. It was full of delicate solo work and ultimately went from delicate musical statements into massive, soaring figures designed to accompany on-screen visuals of the triumphant sculpted creations of Michelangelo. Being there in the studio as Goldsmith brought forth those artistic works to musical life with the score’s towering fourth movement, “The Stone Giants”, is a memory no one could forget. Goosebumps galore!

By the way, a few listeners have asked me about the alternate take of “Wall Of Fire” from Rio Conchos, and what it was about. When we made the first take of the cue, I was particularly enthused at the energy the brass brought to the music and I liked the aggressive tempo and style of everything. The performance wasn’t yet polished but it did showcase what Bruce Broughton once explained to me as being desirable: “Sometimes you want the take where they just go for it, rather than the more nuanced and rehearsed one.” With that in mind, for this one striking action cue, I embraced that philosophy. And since we obviously had the take on our session masters, it just seemed like a cool idea to include it on the album.

The sessions were recorded digitally back in 1989 and all the mixing and editing stayed in that domain. Modern high-resolution sampling standards such as 24bits and 96kHz were, of course, not yet available. For this current new presentation, we transferred everything into the higher resolutions and performed all of the editorial and mastering work in the hi-res format, enabling a modest degree of improvement in the lower end of the recording and a more significant enhancement of the dynamic levels themselves. This is the version to own, whether on the limited availability CD or in the hi-res digital format, where it will continue to live on.