Intrada Soundtrack Forum

April 04, 2000

I've been in the studio all week and will have a new column next week.

April 11, 2000

Peyton Place
Composed and Conducted by Franz Waxman
RCA 74321720522
10 Tracks
Total Time 40:46

Famous book. Famous movie. Famous score.

Waxman’s haunting music certainly made the rounds. First written for the classy 1957 movie made by Mark Robson for 20th Century-Fox. Reprised four years later in the sequel Return To Peyton Place. Next featured weekly in the following hit TV series with newcomers Mia Farrow and Ryan O’Neal.

An RCA record album came out with the original movie, in mono. A reissue by RCA followed when the TV series grew popular, now mentioning the program on the jacket, still in mono but reprocessed for a simulated stereo effect. Yet another vinyl reissue arrived years later courtesy of the Entr’acte label, finally in true stereo. Highlights surfaced on an early 1990 CD of Franz Waxman film music controlled by RCA (Peyton Place, My Geisha, The Spirit Of St. Louis, Sayonara, Hemingway’s Adventures Of A Young Man) and finally disappeared - until now.

And so the rounds continue.

Waxman wrote music that moved effortlessly between the late-Romantics, early 20th century experimentalists, and post World War II modernists. Whatever the movie needed he delivered. He was one of the pioneers, with a lot of attention going to his 1935 music to Bride Of Frankenstein. But for my money he really flourished during his last years of composing. Years that included Peyton Place.

How many albums start off with nearly eleven-minute tracks? This one does, though a typo on this new CD from Spain lops off nine of those minutes. Happily they’re intact on the disc itself.

The two primary musical ideas both occur in this first track. Heard immediately is a staccato motif, a fanfare of sorts, that becomes throughout the score a major transitional device. Used under the many narrative scenes in the movie it also closes the score.

The actual main theme emerges not as a big, overt gesture, as might be anticipated, but as a delicate, gentle veil of high strings over warm harmonies. Waxman stated in his own words that the goal of this music was to remain "youthful" with the young cast, simple and direct. He was being modest. The harmonic base is shimmering, the melody one of the most flowing to hit the screen. It’s rich and original.

For scherzo fans the "Going To School" music works wonders. Listen to that main theme in violins over a racing flurry of virtuoso woodwind figures. You’ll be satisfied.

The album has a number of highlights. Easily standing out is the "Swimming Scene". In the movie Russ Tamblyn makes his leap away from boyhood. The scene looked great. Waxman sounded great. It’s a triumph of scoring, especially in a central section with soaring French horns.

There’s dark, aggressive stuff too. Like rape. And war.

For the former Waxman shows his dissonant side, trumpets, trombones, and pent-up fury. Arthur Kennedy plays a real trash can so Waxman shows him no mercy. For the latter Waxman weaves more somber threads, using "taps" in his music while on camera we see citizens of Peyton Place coping with the costs of war.

A sidebar. The cover art on the original RCA record stayed a favorite of mine. It’s preserved on this CD.

One discordant note. The sound, though in stereo and similar to the Entr’acte LP reissue, sounds like it is in fact the LP! Possibly just an oddity, but the background noise on this new CD sounds like fiddled-with vinyl surface noise. It’s no worse than the old record, no better. Ironically just pretty much the same.

If you’ve never owned the record then this is a must have. If you do own the vinyl then you really have it already.

But this one won’t wear out with repeated listening. And that you’ll be doing for sure.

April 18, 2000

The Challenge
Composed and Conducted by Jerry Goldsmith
Prometheus PCR 505
16 Tracks
Total Time 60:25

The kind of Goldsmith score that got you started in the first place. Flawed but interesting movie. But what a score. Ceremonies. Love scenes. Torture. Armies creeping around before battle.

And ACTION!

If Goldsmith has an equal in action music I’m ignorant. Not just loud, busy or chaotic. Plenty of that stuff going around. I mean composed, structured, a motif being created, worked at. And EXCITING! So it goes with this one. This is one of those scores I’m gonna hang superlatives on. And then some.

The eighties. A great decade for Goldsmith. A time when he’d string great ones together one after the other. Outland, Night Crossing, Final Conflict, Poltergeist, First Blood, Inchon, Secret Of N.I.M.H, The Challenge. In one two-year period alone! Whether scoring a chase, a rumble or a scare his music went off the page. Brass buzzed, woodwinds shrieked, strings pierced, percussion exploded.

He found a lot to do for this movie.

Scott Glenn arrives at the airport in Japan to deliver a sword. Simple chore. Then he’s abducted, thrust into a furious war between two brothers. One’s his employer, the other’s a good guy. Glenn learns soon enough he’s on the wrong side. Training, torture and determination follow and Glenn joins the right side.

The ceremonial opening of the score colors the locale, the seriousness of the affair ahead. Flute, koto, high strings and percussion draw the listener into a different world from our own. Almost immediately a line emerges. It’s amazing. In fact, it holds virtually the entire score together. This theme, a motif really, launches segments, sometimes sits on top of aggressive rhythms, plays solo in spots, even grows literally into a love theme at one point. Few composers can build so much varied music out of one idea.

But it’s the action I’m spotlighting in this one. Wow. For openers, take "The Wrong Sword". It’s the music for that initial airport abduction. Trombones hit you immediately, tension follows, and Goldsmith launches into one of those rhythmic odd-metered ostinatos he’s been worshipped for. And always those trombone figures. When he shifts the emphasis to percussion it’s really impressive. Timpani, mixing bowls, you name it. And still those trombones.

And that was just the opening set piece. It’s followed by another. The one people talked about in 1982. Yep, the "Fish Market" chase. Trombones, French horns, muted trumpets. They’re bonkers. Ditto the strings. Add timpani, the mixing bowls. Stir it all together and get out of the way.

Need more? If you like the kind of ferocious outbursts that make Poltergeist a standout, bring "Surprise Visitor/Forced Entry" to the fore. While good guys surround the huge industrial complex Goldsmith picks off opponents one by one. And always those trombones.

And yet there’s still another. The final sword fight, "As You Wish". Glenn refuses to give up the sword to the bad guy. Of course. The fight that follows is unusually fierce, swords clashing, staplers, desks overturned. It’s the kind of fight where you know someone’s gonna get cleaved in two. And they’re gonna show it. I won’t reveal the winner.

Four horns in unison send it vibrantly into motion. Appropriately, they declare that original main motif, unaccompanied. What follows could be a textbook definition of "action music". My textbook anyway. It’s so well-crafted, so frenetic, so exciting. Goldsmith combines a virtuoso swirl of music with a knowing manner of precise rhythm. The two elements make for one orchestral "tour-de-force". If you’re gonna push me then this is what the score comes down to for me. But don’t push me.

Of course there are quieter moments. A new idea develops during "Let’s talk", a warm descending melody. And, as earlier mentioned, Goldsmith uses the main motif as the launching pad for his love theme, "Stay With Me".

Movies with Oriental settings have always been a forte for Goldsmith. Inchon, Sand Pebbles, Chairman, Tora! Tora! Tora! Unquestionably The Challenge.

This is the first release of the score. Nearly two decades old, the recording has been engineered with incredible care. The mix is crisp, favoring an edge to the low brass and spotlighting in the center numerous percussive effects. The stereo image is wide, the dynamic range generous.

Producers Ford Thaxton and Luc Van de Ven have been focusing a lot on riveting Goldsmith action scores with great albums of late. And this one’s perfect. Nice packaging, informative notes. It was one of the most sought unreleased scores out there. Now it’s released to perfection.

This one’s Goldsmith with the gloves off.

April 25, 2000

Born Free
Composed by John Barry
Conducted by Frederic Talgorn
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Varese Sarabande 302 066 084 2
17 Tracks Total Time 53:33

John Barry has a career unlike any other film composer. Take the sixties. Follow a variety of pictures and styles over four decades. You’ll find his vocabulary evolved, grew, yet never belied any roots. John Barry stayed John Barry.

He also kept his audience.

From the early "John Barry Seven" and British rock music. The Bryan Forbes movies. There were always amazing new sounds, new textures. Something distinctive yet totally in touch with listeners.

Then there was James Bond, a phenomenon making him familiar just about anywhere. Bold, brassy music. Everyone loved it.

And amidst all of this secret agent stuff Barry would go sideways with another language, the one I liked best. Zulu, Mister Moses, Born Free. There was something about Barry in Africa. The drums, the dependence on French horns, those uncluttered strings.

Born Free is certainly important. It introduced Barry to an Oscar, created another best-selling record, and led to a plethora of "Born Free" recordings by name artists. The guy behind Goldfinger was sitting on top of the world.

But it also introduced a warmth not yet fully revealed. Major keys. Simple, yet distinct harmonies. It pulled viewers into the sentimental story. There were touching scores before but this was new. No solo violins, few sad melodies. Just lush, warm foreground music. It was always there, right with Africa. With Elsa the lioness.

The interval of the fourth is a big item. It literally starts the score. Soon horns play it again, trumpets pyramid with their own. When the theme emerges the opening two notes are, of course, a fourth apart. Unfolding against a major key this simple device immediately reaches the listener. No struggle. You’re left free to watch the movie and be moved.

Born Free is a strong theme. So much so one might dismiss the entire score as mono-thematic. Maybe so. But one of the neatest things here is how Barry sprinkles various unrelated motifs, fragments of ideas, bursts of color into the whole. His theme plays, then a new idea appears and disappears. Again and again this happens, bringing considerable variety into a score drawn around one tune.

Amongst the other ideas are recurring percussion figures associated with tense moments and short melodic fragments in octaves for trumpets and horns.

There’s a minor-keyed theme for "The Death Of Pati" (a household pet) that provides contrast with the balance of the score. Combined with an occasional twist of the main theme into minor keys the generally bright music does get some respite.

Varese Sarabande provides a generous amount of music including tracks previously unrecorded. A highlight is the "Elephant Stampede", lending rhythmic vitality to the score. The performance is fine, both expansive and balanced between brass and strings. Details such as the flutter-tonguing parts for flute come through quite crisply.

This new recording is not without flaws however, especially for those raised on the original Barry version from 1966. One problem is some odd labeling of the track that closed the first side of the original LP. Titled "Killing At Kiunga" it’s percussive, starkly dramatic, and important. Though labeled here it’s missing entirely, replaced with a much lighter cue substantially based on the main theme.

Also missing is the "Warthog Hunt", a piece given considerable interest by pauses in the music as a warthog repeatedly charges the curious Elsa.

By omitting any vocal of the famous theme (with Oscar-winning lyrics too) the distance between Talgorn’s version and Barry’s becomes apparent. The score can stand alone and many will prefer no vocal. But this is Born Free and few scores are wedded to lyrics as much as this one. So it’s noticed. Kind of like Breakfast At Tiffany’s without "Moon River" or something like that.

Anyone unfamiliar with this music will enjoy hearing an early sound that became a signature later on. Moonraker and Out Of Africa come to mind.

That’s one of the appeals of John Barry. He’s had a lot of styles. Rock, jazz, intimate, exotic, brassy, exciting, sultry, smoky, epic, historical, lush, romantic. And they all have followers.

No simple feat.