|
Am I alone in thinking that Horner's Casper is probably one of his finest -- if not the finest -- family scores in his back catalog? The MCA album, as it stands, has always resonated itself through a warm, musical pulse, at least for me, be it for his choice to closely arrange the strings (not unlike similar decisions for other scores, classic or modern -- Flightplan comes to mind, where the strings were all positioned very tightly and interestingly within arms reach of Horner, the conductor), or is it the general charm of crafting intelligent highlights to the occurrences on-screen?
For example, in the opening track, "No Sign of Ghosts," they're moments where the sequencing of the 16th notes dance quite ghostly at times, if you were to pardon the pun. Horner often treated his animated work with the same brilliance, in that the counter melodies are often treated with subtle respect and don't call attention to themselves. It's something Horner rarely gets credit for doing (possibly since this effect goes unnoticed due to his signature themes often evoking nostalgia on the listeners' part). Too bad really, since it takes a razor-sharp, internal dialogue, musically speaking, to pin-point where those decisions make compositional sense or not. Horner's classical education and concentrated experience are probably to thank for this.
Shawn Murphy (Horner's engineer on the score) pulls a lot of weight, too. The mix and sum of what's featured on disc is quite breath-taking in-and-of itself. Rarely do these people calculate efficiently what the composer intended for the audience to hear -- at least in a way that compliments each other in the final encore of their collaboration. The same, I suppose, can be said of other productions with Horner and Murphy, but I'll keep this focused on Casper. There's some truth that the original Casper theme, based on the TV show, would have been an interesting counterpoint to Horner's work as it stands on CD, but perhaps it would have stood in Horner's way of whatever creativity climbed aboard the score as it came to exist (or just too expensive to reproduce on disc?). Can't have it all, I guess, but what we do have is a superb score that never seems to amaze me with its binding and unpretentious elements; a score that begs to be heard for whatever lurks below its surface.
|
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
