Intrada Soundtrack Forum

December 07, 1999

A Best List
- For All Time -
Part Five

A look at the important, groundbreaking work of the eighties. The decade where most major films were getting multi-channel mixes and scores were becoming part of often complex (noisy) sound designs. The decade that ushered in the most significant new musical device since Morricone turned westerns upside down.

1980-1989

The Empire Strikes Back (1980 - John Williams)
A landmark in sequels, richer than the first chapter, complete without any ending!!! An incredible score includes reprises of the familiar, introduces major new ideas, tosses everything about as needed. Williams managed to make a new theme (for the Empire) into one of his most popular marches. Dark, rhythmic, unrelenting. Another new theme (for Yoda) used his lyrical side in a manner not heard since Superman fell in love with Lois Lane. A movie that used music in virtually every major scene. Williams was certainly one of the stars.

Clash Of The Titans (1981 - Laurence Rosenthal)
Action music. Epic music. Real movie music. Splashes of Wagner, bits of atonality, huge doses of color. Avoiding numerous fantasy scoring cliches, Rosenthal gave the movie adventure, thunder, excitement. And for the romance, one of the best melodies of the decade. Maybe the most orchestrally vivid score too.

Chariots Of Fire (1981 - Vangelis)
Take the above Rosenthal score, move 180 degrees away from it. Vangelis left the orchestra home, used keyboards, electronics instead. Probably the most tuneful electronic score up to that time. Music for running, winning, losing, inner emotion, religion. All part of the perfectly suited music. Everyone talks about the main theme. I opt for Abraham’s melody. Delicate, minor-keyed, introverted. Balances beautifully with the more familiar rhythmic music.

Conan The Barbarian (1982 - Basil Poledouris)
Highly successful movie and score. Easily the most powerful reminder of epic Rozsa stuff - but not a clone! Poledouris wrote thick, dense, harmonic music, using massive (but not busy) blocks of sound. Combining his unique chordal style with just a touch of Prokofiev, Poledouris managed strikingly vivid, richly harmonized music. Incredibly disappointing footnote: in a day when Dolby Stereo was the norm, Universal released this huge, loud, sound effects heavy widescreen spectacle in mono sound only!!

Poltergeist (1982 - Jerry Goldsmith)
Goldsmith inviting you into the haunted house genre with a large orchestra and chorus. His music shimmered with Debussy, exploded with Stravinsky. Much has been said about his lullaby. It’s simple, pretty, effective. But notice the incredible ferocity of the other stuff. Trombones hammering on a beat while piccolos shriek off it. Relentless triplets in upper brass while low brass chords pound. Woodwinds literally turned loose. And trills in the tuba! If that ain’t a sound for ferocious, nothing else is either.

Brainstorm (1983 - James Horner)
The new kid on the block. Already showing an incredibly intelligent writing style. Complete pieces, thought out. Music capturing entire moods, not mimicking specific actions on screen. Composing lengthy cues, treating the movie as one whole instead of as numerous little sequences - all very welcome Horner trademarks. A intense standout: Lillian’s heart attack. One of the best examples of music (over other sounds) conveying sheer terror on screen. Quite simply, Horner nailed the moment.

Under Fire (1983 - Jerry Goldsmith)
Incredibly underrated movie. A triangle where all three people care about each other. And politics. And South America on fire. Goldsmith wrote music that fit like a glove. Possibly the best use of guitar in a movie soundtrack. All mixed with pan flutes, electronics, and a big orchestra. The music became quite literally the heart and soul of the entire movie. A genuine rarity in movie scores.

Silverado (1985 - Bruce Broughton)
An old-fashioned western with Star Wars pacing and appeal. In a genre hard hit by musical change Broughton said screw it and wrote wide open, over-the-top music. The freshest work that year. Energetic, expansive, tuneful. But something else. When needed (as in the horse-chasing showdown) Broughton added complex, hard-edged, aggressive, truly nasty action music. All mixed with his broad melodic stuff. Westerns had a voice to latch onto again - for awhile. Something to notice: the first music in the movie (after the opening gunfight) isn’t the broad main theme but a subtle use of low piano, percussion, and tuba. How that tiny idea emerges into Broughton’s main theme is a gem.

Empire Of The Sun (1987 - John Williams)
Okay, maybe I can’t fully explain this one. My favorite score of the eighties. That’s it. Williams and his orchestra and chorus soared. Everything having to do with the planes, and the bomb, I thought moving, passionate, profound. This one took hits from critics, listeners. But not from me. I list no finer score for the decade.

Rain Man (1988 - Hans Zimmer)
Quietly working outside of Hollywood, often with Stanley Myers, a new voice named Hans Zimmer hit traditional Hollywood scoring right in the kisser. Synthesizers, lots of rhythm. Tapping the very capabilities of electronics. There were melodies, harmonies. Even traditional chord progressions. Nothing incredibly complicated, dissonant. But it was fresh. It had character. And it fit effortlessly into a soundtrack of popular vocals. A landmark. Who could’ve guessed it would become the standard bearer for action music in the next decade?!

Casualties Of War (1989 - Ennio Morricone)
Okay, maybe another one hard to defend. But now you know my favorite Morricone score. Little action, little rhythm. Just elegiac music. Odd note: the CD definitely needs resequencing. Someone (Morricone?) was asleep during album editing.

There were so many good ones from the eighty's, here are some more my favorites: Predator (Alan Silvestri). French Lieutenant’s Woman (Carl Davis). The Mission (Ennio Morricone). Out Of Africa (John Barry). Blood Simple (Carter Burwell). Batman (Danny Elfman). E.T. (John Williams). Bladerunner (Vangelis). Dragonslayer (Alex North) Heavy Metal (Elmer Bernstein). Witness (Maurice Jarre).

And finally - the nineties. Some upsets in the food chain. Veteran composers drop a rung or two. Young upstarts take over. And symphonic soundtrack album sales get a shot in the arm. Big time.

December 14, 1999

A Best List
- For All Time -
Part Six

Anything goes now in movie music. Big or small. Vocal, instrumental. Sometimes what’s best for the movie and sometimes just what’ll sell. Music departments made up of non-musicians. A far cry from the days when Alfred Newman made the big decisions.

A couple of stunning changes. Young-ish composers Marco Beltrami, Christopher Young and John Ottman make it stylish to score little horror movies with huge dynamic orchestral scores. And veteran Jerry Goldsmith, after dominating some thirty years, goes on auto-pilot at last.

Other composers managed a few wonders. Select movies got memorable music, some got masterpieces. Here are some I admired most when I first viewed them, heard them. There are others but these come to mind at the moment.

1990-1999

Dances With Wolves (1990 - John Barry)
Remarkable movie. Big and exciting, yet gives lots of character time. Barry went bonkers on this one. There are themes everywhere. For John Dunbar. For the journey. For the wolf Two Socks. For the Sioux. For "Stands With A Fist". For the buffalo. Each one memorable. Few scores in history can claim as many important musical themes in one movie. Yet the key John Dunbar theme stays at the front of the pack. A testimony to Barry’s melodic gifts that he can fashion so many tunes and still keep his movie grounded in one primary melody.

The Silence Of The Lambs (1991 - Howard Shore)
A rarity. Intense, dark, imposing music. Hugely grim, powerful. All without dissonance! Shore layered minor chords, blocks of music, a rising then descending motif through it all. But rarely called on clusters of dissonance to work his magic. Nor busy, frenetic action cues. Just a thick and impressive work, building continually towards a pivotal moment late in the movie, explaining the title. Few horror thrillers boast tonal music that sounds genuinely frightening. This one does. With all those Oscars, shame on the Academy for sleeping through the music category!

Little Man Tate (1991 - Mark Isham)
Jodie Foster movie with an amazing, effective, very fluid jazz score. About a genius, his single mother, their struggle to keep him challenged, on target. Isham created individual pieces and made each one effectively touch the scene intended, yet play alone too. Certainly an easy album to sit back and fall into.

JFK (1991 - John Williams)
Tough movie to score. Long, but roller coaster pace. Edits up the wing wang. Documentary one second, fiction the next. Top notch players cut in and out like lightning. And music to match. Williams finds the right note with low keyboards, one primary rhythm anchoring all the flash and pizzazz. At the heart of it, one of his richest melodies. A warm, heartfelt major-keyed miniature sonata for trumpet and orchestra. In one stunning display Williams brings rhythm and melody together for that fateful motorcade. He was on top of this movie from start to finish.

Schindler's List (1993 - John Williams)
A movie score played by Itzhak Perlman. Worthy of the honor. For an unforgettable film experience Williams wrote his most unforgettable line. Easily the best marriage of solo violin with visual images ever done. No action music here. This one comes from the heart, goes to it from beginning to end. Williams made this music and the totally opposite, frenetic, majestic, rip-roaring Jurassic Park the same year! In 1993 this man was king.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994 - Thomas Newman)
This guy often jockeys between the subtle and original (keyboard-based) sounds of eclectic ensembles and the traditions of his orchestral giant of a father, Alfred. On this picture he solved the equation. He married the two. The results: a score with both the quiet voice of prison lifers and the power of their spirit uncontained. Particularly haunting are cues associated with Red, a prisoner with no way out.

Clockers (1995 - Terrence Blanchard)
What an unusual approach to an urban drug-infested crime picture. Spike Lee sought, and got, all the pent up power of an orchestra, often trumpet-highlighted. Unforgettable music for Strike, for Tyrone. The music becomes the voice of wasted talent. Two brothers, one crime. No happy ending. The score plays like an elegy. Rare for a film score.

The Rock (1996 - Hans Zimmer/Harry Gregson-Williams/Nick Glennie-Smith)
Action movies no longer need make sense. Just play louder, bigger than whatever played last week. And the music. No self-indulgence here. No intricate, subtle ideas. Just cut to the chase. And Zimmer and crew did. Music that literally pierced through the noise and grime. And it was intelligent. The movie had all that pace, energy. Busy, frenzied music probably would have cluttered. So it was stripped to the bone, given polish, and simply hammered home.

The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1996 - Alan Menken)
Something Disney sorted out that other animating studios couldn’t grasp. The score and requisite songs could be integrated into an effective whole by letting a competent composer paint both ends. Alan Menken created memorable melodies and rich scores for several Disney movies. Then this one came, he got down to business. The most impressive choral and orchestral tour-de-force yet heard in an animated tale. Not just loud, but passioned and exciting. The flaming finale is a triumph of sight and sound. I’m in the minority on this one. Everyone else seemed to hate the songs, showed no interest in the score. I embrace both, play the album endlessly.

Good Will Hunting (1997 - Danny Elfman)
A composer associated with big symphonic things. Loud, over the top writing. Rota and Herrmann and rock background and clever ideas all rolled into one unique composer. But this score proved Elfman capable of the other extreme. Sensitive, gentle, transparent music. Wisps of material, subtle nuances in the small-ish orchestra. Goldsmith and Bernstein made this happen in the sixties, more recently Thomas Newman keeps it alive. And now Danny Elfman.

Titanic (1997 - James Horner)
The movie and the score that made history. Deservedly so. Horner knew the heart of this one was romance. Doomed romance. It needed huge music for the spectacle, intimate music for the people. That’s what it got. Horner composed his most touching theme for this movie. In one key painting scene he reduces everything to solo piano. Music to make audiences care from the inside. One genuine gift. Horner can hit the right dramatic mood like few composers before him.

In this movie he nailed one of the richest visual/musical moments in movie history: Jack teaching Rose to fly. Horner captured the mood, the goals of his director, and managed music that captured the heart of an appreciative audience. That the score became a top-selling score album is understandable. It’s great music. Quite simply one of the most effective movie scores of all time.

Saving Private Ryan (1998 - John Williams)
This one is an anomaly. In the movie the music seems subdued, too much so. The celebrated D-Day scene needed no music but other scenes begged for it. Talk about "underscoring". Yet it has become my own favorite Williams score now. Crazy world. It doesn’t make the chart of greatest film scores as a film score - but it makes the charts as one of the greatest film score recordings. Go figure. The hymn combines an expanded brass section with the rest of the orchestra, and one huge chorus. The result: music truly inspired, worthy of the subject matter, standing in for all of those who have fallen.

And what will the next decade bring? With all of the technology, the current popularity of movie music, the spiraling movie budgets, an insatiable audience crowding theaters and video stores - it will be grand I’m sure. Bring on those CDs.

And now, as promised, my choice for greatest movie score of all time.

It covers a lot of ground. Most memorable away from the movie. Most indelibly linked with key scenes. Most subtle. Most dramatically effective. Most everything.

It’s composed by... Hugo Friedhofer. The most underrated of all composers. In this one he made flying through morning clouds a wonder. Landing in Boone City. Discovering neon signs. Coming home. Bar hopping.

Going back to work became fashionable. Reliving the second world war was terrifying. We heard pity for a soldier without hands. We felt dignity with a war hero. With his medal for valor. We flew into combat with a plane that had no engines, that never left the ground!

It’s the movie with the single most effective piece of scoring in cinema history. The movie where Homer goes to bed. And tells all. And embraces Wilma at last. Where the door remains open.

The Best Years Of Our Lives

December 21, 1999

Various
End Of The
Year Releases

A lot coming out. Everybody's important movies. Important albums. A big turn of the century happening kind of place in movies and music.

I'm just grabbing a quick listen to many. A lot to get done. Some I may never return to. Others might do something for me down the line. A few have already left a good impression. Take your pick from something here, you'll probably like what you get.

The Ninth Gate (Wojciech Kilar)
A new Roman Polanski movie. Looks pretty intense. Johnny Depp too.

Kilar writes well for strings. Especially lower ones. He brings to this music a lot of throbbing ostinatos in the strings with interest above from a variety of colors, like muted trumpet amongst others. The opening actually marries a wordless soprano with the orchestra (Morricone-like) and sets a pretty rich tone. Highlights include a "bolero" that allows Kilar to work on the string ostinato at length. Dissonant clusters in the orchestra make appearances in the score too.

Another highlight. Low cellos and basses launching "Missing Book/Stalking Corso", later colored with some intense low piano figures over tympani. In the opposite direction, "Blood On His Face" brings the soprano into a brief realm of quiet mystery, sharing the spotlight with piano on a haunting minor-keyed theme.

Running over fifty minutes, excellently recorded in Prague, this new Silva Screen album is a treasure.

Angela's Ashes (John Williams)
Probably the end of the year score I'll return to most often for the moment. An important new Alan Parker movie. When Williams writes his emotional scores, I go for them. Every time. He uses an orchestra of strings here. Further colors come from some rich oboe solos. The score moves between two major themes mostly, seldom further, until the finale. The repeated material works inside, stays with you. The highlight is a finale that opens the material up with quasi-Americana harmonies. Warm, pure Williams.

A warning. Dialog passages, though brief, interfere with the ability to sink completely into the music. What on earth were the people at Sony Classical thinking! Considering the clout of the artist I can only assume there was some serious debate over this.

End Of Days (John Debney)
This one comes from more familiar territory, the action genre. It's loud, full of chaos. Close listening reveals some neat stuff. An especially good color is the electronic percussion mixed into the large orchestral and choral fabric. Also pay attention to the unusual ethnic sounds, throat singing, dudek, ram's horn. Not gimmicks, they are part of a sound, a texture. A great highlight - the track entitled "Helicopter Pursuit". Action composers seem to do wonders with scenes involving helicopters. From Varese Sarabande, the disc is recorded with spectacular sound.

Orphee (Georges Auric)
A new Marco Polo release, conducted by Adriano. This one actually combines four scores by Auric, dating between 1947 and 1964. It's all new for me. Never seen the movies. Included are the title suite, plus Les Parents Terribles, Thomas L'imposteur and Ruy Blas. Discovering the music to Orphee was a delight. About 25 minutes of the album are devoted to it. The longest suite recorded is for Ruy Blas, at nearly 29 minutes. Throughout all of the material one hears a masterful use of orchestral color. Often impressionistic, the music often uses color in a way similar to Ravel. High praise indeed. Standing out in a more romantic vein is the suite from Ruy Blas. Thanks to Marco Polo this important composer is beginning to surface.

The World Is Not Enough (David Arnold)
James Bond is back in action. With Brosnan comfortable in the role, serious-ish, great looking, the movie works. Arnold has the distinction of being the only non-Barry composer back in action too. His music is colored with some techno-pulse, and mixed with the huge orchestra the results are pretty spectacular. Highlighting the long album is an intense and exciting finale simply titled "Submarine". There are, of course, numerous action pieces throughout. The album plays like a complete Bond score this time. And another plus is having the composer of the score involved in the title song. While not as memorable a tune as early Bond pictures offer, the melody becomes part of the score. That's a major plus. With terrific sound and a premium playing time, this album is a winning Bond momento.

The Third Miracle (Jan A. P. Kaczmarek)
A new movie directed by Agnieszka Holland with Ed Harris and Anne Heche. Much of the score is string-based, but in an unusually rich and elegaic manner. Serious music. While there is an abundance of melody, the more striking aspect is the haunting nature of the material. It's also very well recorded, with the strings getting a rich and smooth sheen.

With other new scores to catch up on by Jean-Claude Petit (Chasseurs D'ecume), Rachel Portman, James Newton Howard, Mychael Danna, Carl Davis, Bruno Coulais (Himalaya L'enfance D'un Chef), Michael Nyman, David Robbins, plus things not yet released by Thomas Newman, James Horner and numerous others, it's going to be a busy spell. Real busy.

December 28, 1999

Last Minute
Releases For 1999

An addendum to last week. Late arrivals that merit attention. A funny coincidence, maybe. They’re all rich, melodic. And mostly really long. I haven’t seen all the movies yet but here’s a few albums that played simply as pretty music.

Bicentennial Man (James Horner)
From Sony Classical, exceeding an hour, this one works slowly, haunting, and goes someplace. Only the opening "The Machine Age" music generates activity. The keyword in this score is restraint.

Two or three important ideas play throughout, a really major theme emerges midway. A feature, typical for Horner, is the strong symphonic development of the music. Few composers actually work their material as well. I’m not talking about stringing unrelated cues together but developing a single piece, letting it make music. Horner does this. And he’s usually dead on target servicing the movie too. One reason he’s king of the Hollywood hills.

"The Wedding" runs nearly seven minutes. Emotional, haunting, a masterful blending of quiet orchestral textures and sweeping melody. Following it, running eight minutes, is "The Passage Of Time, A Changing Of Seasons". Together the two cues provide fifteen solid minutes of gentle, melancholy material. Horner allows both cues to take time, to grow, to flower. Especially during the latter, where the all important theme takes over. Slightly "Glory-ish", a dash of Americana, warmly lyrical.

Horner stands in front of his large orchestra but reaches for inner voices, leaving big moments to hang meaningfully only when needed. Note several warm clarinet solos, some delicate piano writing. Horner sums it all up with "The Gift Of Mortality". Rich harmonies abound. The theme lingers. And all comes to an expressive, quiet finish.

Not unexpected, Horner teams with Celine Dion and Will Jennings to provide a closing song, a very listenable presentation of his key theme.

Numerous other strong scores abound. Thomas Newman did a fantastic job on The Green Mile. The long album from Warner Sunset has most of the score, including an important Fred Astaire number featured in the movie. Much of the score is delicate, with nuance. But not always. One terrific highlight is "The Bad Death Of Eduard Delacroix". Unusual for Newman the piece is terrifying, violent. With brass clusters and hammering percussion the music vividly underscores an intense execution.

Michael Nyman provides The End Of The Affair with a rich and melodic score. Lyrical, passionate, some steps away from his concert work, the music shows another side to this major composer. Not just gently lyrical, this one has some soaring moments. And a very strong theme in "Diary Of Hate".

James Newton Howard creates a very strong, dark, ultimately passionate work for orchestra and chorus with Snow Falling On Cedars. For awhile the score is subdued, avoiding sunlight, moving amongst darker pads of color, strings amongst the electronics. Then moods shift, some power is revealed. Choral moments are truly impressive. Much power is derived from an overall moodiness in the score, a lack of bright, soaring melody. But it’s still pretty in a way. And powerful.

With Anna And The King George Fenton provides a vivid, hugely melodic, sometimes subtly Asian sounding score. Moving from Anna’s world to the King’s and back again, the score hits numerous high points. Particularly strong is "The Bridge". Note also the strength of Fenton’s primary theme. And the recording is impeccable.

Add The Cider House Rules with a rich and moving score by Rachel Portman to your stack and leave the century rolling in melody.