Intrada Soundtrack Forum

Intrada Announces:



RACE WITH THE DEVIL/MAKING LOVE
Composed and Conducted by LEONARD ROSENMAN
INTRADA Special Collection 379

From the vaults of 20th Century Fox comes a double header featuring two scores by composer Leonard Rosenman. The first is the 1975 thriller Race with the Devil, where two couples accidentally witness a ritual sacrifice when camping in their RV and find their lives threatened by an ever-widening Satanic conspiracy. Although sparingly scored, Rosenman suffuses every scene with supernatural dread. As with other scores from the period, including his two Planet of the Apes entries, Rosenman omits the violin section. However, he makes extensive use of solo electric violin played through a ring modulator, giving the score an otherworldly, diabolical quality, playing off the great tradition of the “fiddling devil.” For years, the elements were damaged and unusable, but advances in technology have allowed Mike Matessino to perform a miraculous restoration of original split-track elements (and the mono music stems for tracks 20–23) and for Intrada to finally present this 70s Leonard Rosenman gem.

In a complete about face, the lyrical score for 1982's Making Love provides a sweeter, more poignant listen. The film centers on one Zack Elliot—a seemingly happily married, successful doctor—who finds himself on a journey of self-discovery, which ends with his coming out. Rosenman responded by fashioning a monothematic score built around a long-lined melody written in rondo form. It underscores the purity of the characters’ emotional drives and Zack’s thought processes and internal uncertainty, as though the theme is figuring itself out simultaneously with the character. After scoring was completed, Rosenman returned to write and record a handful of revised cues, all appearing here in the Extras section.

An odd pairing for sure, this Intrada premiere showcases two very different sides of one very brilliant composer.

INTRADA Special Collection 379
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Retail Price: $21.99
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For track listing and sound samples, please visit: http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.10781/.f
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I often feel that I have enough Rosenman, but an album like this must be supported.

Wow! Excellent release, ordering now. Well done Intrada!

On par with The Car, an instant purchase for me.
Another fine job from the Intrada camp.

Race With The Devil, one of my favorite films at the drive in back in 1976 and often paired with The Hills Have Eyes or The Town That Dreaded Sundown.

Great release, although I think the extras for Making Love should have been included at the end of that score instead of following RWTD.

Was watching the trailer just a few days ago on YouTube.

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"I used to worry about losing my mind. Now that I've lost it I don't worry about it anymore." -Wavy Gravy

For those that don't like hearing reminiscences, I'll wax boring now:

MAKING LOVE took a lot of flak back in 1981 for proving that gay people could be just as boring as everybody else. But it was a brave effort, also showing us as being more like others than different, and gave us some dignity.

I thought that Rosenman responded this way, too, with respect and sensitivity. Anybody who likes the piano with strings writing in Shire's THE PROMISE will probably like this score, too.

Fun fact: When I asked LR in the early 80's if he wrote more music than appeared in the film, he replied, "I don't know. I've never seen the film."

Thanks so much Intrada. I waited 36 years to hear this music.

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DavidinBerkeley

"Ask [the director] where the camera comes from and I'll tell him where the music comes from" (David Raksin)

Hey, David - I really liked your reminiscence, thanks for sharing.

I've just finished listening straight through the whole disc. I really enjoy the way it is programmed.

Starts of course in Rosenman's bucolic mode, with a little source music, for a very enjoyable and subdued listen.

Once Race with the Devil starts, it's more varied than I expected, with some lighter music interspersed before things get crazy. And Rosenman features another brief character piece - this time a kind-of take on circus music - like the ones in Star Trek IV (which I quite like, Rosenman is very good at this sort of thing, reminiscent of Kabalevsky - always fun to hear film and tv composers work in a bunch of different genres).

And then when the abrupt end comes to Race, it transitions back gently to the the Making Love extras, which really does do what the album notes says it would - creates "moments of safe harbor" after the prior intensity. I even enjoyed the very 80's saxophone take of the theme at the end.

I'm glad it was possible to put both together in one release, I think it works very well musically if one is interested in a highly varied listen. Excellent job as usual, Intrada.