Intrada Soundtrack Forum

December 04, 2001

Project X
Composed and Conducted by James Horner
Varese Sarabande VCL 1101 1002
Tracks: 16
Total Time = 74:58

It's back! So says Varese Sarabande regarding their long-asleep CD club. It sleeps no more!

The fun resumes with treasure from the eighties. MARIE WARD (Elmer Bernstein), HEARTBEEPS (John Williams), PROJECT X (James Horner). Great trio!

Jonathan Kaplan elevates family fare into heavier stuff, Matthew Broderick (Jimmy) and Helen Hunt (Teri) bring it alive. James Horner makes it soar.

Virgil (the chimp) is brought from jungle surroundings to civilized ones, sort of. Teri is his teacher in captivity but government agents bring him to experiments in radiation. Not so civilized after all.

Horner takes a multitask approach to the music. There's menace to the government experiments, rollick to the monkey shenanigans. There's a strong line for animal/human relationships. In addition, Horner bookends everything with music for the jungle locale.

But doing what he does best, Horner anchors his music in the heart of things. Virgil's desire to fly. This gets a rich, ascending melody usually heard in low instruments working upwards.

Adding depth, Horner creates two lines remarkably similar in architecture, uses one to link Virgil with Teri, one to link Virgil with Jimmy. Teri's link is, of course, reaching out to the animal, connecting, teaching. Jimmy's link is more resonant. Both want to fly, both are prisoners. Horner ensures both tunes are cut from the same cloth. Both begin with a sizeable, ascending leap in intervals, continue with a cluster of notes closer together. Both play in major. And in Horner's best move, there's a link between them and the main flying theme! To reach Jimmy's melody, Horner always plays the flying theme first, uses Jimmy's music as an extension of it. Three tunes related to each other. What a neat, complex idea!

The "Main Title" establishes locale (the jungle) but also allows Horner opportunity to sneak in his main theme for Virgil. It's a brief glimpse, followed by material not used in the movie. Here Horner expands the jungle music into somewhat confined rhythms of civilization. The jungle's still there, but so's the city.

Teri's melody begins on solitary guitar during "First Lesson". Horner keeps his jungle instinct close at hand with woodwind solos, particularly flute. The guitar keeps it human. There's considerable development of the material but ultimately the jungle closes in. Virgil's flying theme on solo French horn closes the piece.

"Losing Virgil" combines Teri's music with a dramatic shift in locale. Virgil's isolation with Teri gives way to meeting numerous similar captives in his new government surroundings. The colors change. With almost subliminal use, Horner allows piano in the background to introduce a descending, zigzagging line. Menace. When Virgil sees some of the flight testing going on, Horner nods to his tune.

"Learning To Fly". Virgil finally gets his due. Flight training, simulation-style. Horner keeps the jungle flute around, merges it with a surging statement of the flight theme. It reaches upwards, but what really makes it float are cascading figures in upper woodwinds, strings. It's a wonderful shimmering effect, flying, but not really. Imaginary. It's here that Virgil's theme meets Jimmy's linking tune. As Horner reaches the top of his flight melody a second idea grows from it, played on high tuba. Jimmy and Virgil will connect!

Horner takes several elements, makes a rich, varied piece out of "New Friends". Particularly effective is a quote of Teri's link on French horn. Ties with the past, new friends ahead. There are also hints of the jungle but Horner balances them with energetic woodwind material suggesting new military surroundings. Virgil leaves one jungle only to become part of another, Horner skillfully suggests both.

Animated music, Virgil's flying theme, Jimmy's link, all get their say during "Student Pilots" . Horner has worked all of his basic material up to this point. He's about to move sideways.

A turning point arrives with "Bluebeard's Flight". A lengthy cue, Horner uses the music to bind his flight material with a now-apparent "evil" element of the story. Radiation experiments. The animals are expendable. At this crucial musical juncture, Horner takes the major key flying theme, twists it into minor, introduces material associated with the reactor. Inevitably, they collide. Highlighting the cue is a long, winding segment with dissonant, suspended upper strings against flute. They literally blend into a single line for unison violins. As other instruments re-enter, descending and ascending lines play together. Fate takes over, the chimp dies, the flight ends, Horner comes down to earth, literally.

Jimmy has to rescue Virgil from similar fate. Interestingly, Horner now abandons his flight theme for a spell. Not without reason. Dramatically, much of the movie now deals with Jimmy's revolt against his superiors, Virgil's efforts to mobilize the other chimps into an escape force. Full scale rioting ensues. The chimps go bonkers, equipment is broken, the reactor damaged. When the flight theme finally emerges, late in "The Rescue", material associated with the experiments-gone-awry literally drown it out. Horner drops it as quickly as it starts and works with the reactor music.

For some twenty-five minutes Horner works with an array of agitated material, aggressive outbursts from the orchestra, frantic cadenzas for trumpet. From the above rescue Horner goes to "The Tower", twists with a "Chimp Rumble", averts a "Chain Reaction", leads an "The Escape". Along the way are virtuoso displays for percussion, riotous Carl Stalling-ish cartoon strains, literally an orchestra gone ape. Amazingly, throughout the chaos, Horner keeps his main melodic ideas in focus. Careful listeners may even catch a tiny interpolation of the flight theme imperceptibly becoming the reactor music at one point during a later part of the "Chimp Rumble". The flight theme eventually emerges from hiding in the "Chain Reaction" section. It's soon tossed about, other stuff interferes.

Horner's trump action music is "The Escape". Virgil and Jimmy do finally get out. Now they have to get away.

One of them does.

Teri's effect on Virgil remains, they have a connection. She helps Jimmy free Virgil. Another connection. During "Flying" Horner literally "connects the dots", uses Teri's line, then Virgil's, finally Jimmy's. Bells introduce Teri's melody, flutes answer with Virgil's. Following a moment of suspense, the magic moment arrives. Virgil goes solo!

In Horner's crowning peroration, in fact arriving at an extraordinary triple climax (!), the music finally emerges with a triumphant horn statement, a variant on the flight theme. Woodwinds, strings rip, turn. Horns split into harmony, everything swells. A second climax takes over, joining a progression of major chords with minor ones in a powerful fortissimo. Earth and heaven meet. Horner melds the two tonalities into a single major key. His flight theme can at last take off.

In his third, most impressive climax, rather than emphasize Virgil's flying theme (an obvious expectation) Horner soars with Jimmy's link. Virgil's freedom is Jimmy's triumph.

As Horner winds things down with a reprise of the jungle locale one becomes aware of the massive scale of material that has gone by. It's a credit to Horner that with such a wide, impressive amount of music to work with, he manages to keep the heart of everything in focus. Indeed, to climax with it!

Producer Nick Redman has prepared a spectacular album of the entire score. Original 20th Century-Fox campaign artwork is featured on the booklet. Classy, enthusiastic notes (by Redman) compliment the package. The stereo masters reveal a lot of detail, especially impressive in powerful percussion and brass sections.

If Virgil really flies, Horner is the aircraft he does it in.

This one soars!

December 11, 2001

The Black Stallion / The Black Stallion Returns
Composers: Carmine Coppola and Shirley Walker / Georges Delerue
Prometheus PCD 151
Tracks: 25 Total Time = 65:41

Music for THE BLACK STALLION made a long journey from start to finish. When first conceived it was a project for William Russo. When completed no less than seven composers contributed music. In between, Carmine Coppola scored the movie, Shirley Walker was brought in to do some re-writes, other composers (mostly musicians from the orchestra) added still more stuff.

Results are both subtle, striking.

Carroll Ballard makes movies about man and animal. THE BLACK STALLION, NEVER CRY WOLF, FLY AWAY HOME. No one walks away from his pictures without noticing music. His methods for getting Walter Farley's boy and horse tale onto the screen were demanding.

Action plays second fiddle to mood, mystique. Viewers become voyeurs, hiding behind natural formations, watching intimacy. We're immersed in natural beauty, beaches, the sea. As boy and horse first connect, then bond, we get long patches of movie without dialog. Magnificent visuals, introvert music become one. Ballard has strong ideas about what music can, should do. A variety of contributions were the result.

This is no patchwork of ideas, however!

By fate or design, there's a method. Coppola supplies the framework, a gentle, rolling theme from the outset. Harmonically, it's sparse, languid, played in major. Chords are frequently embellished with sevenths, literally sliding about against a lean melody full of drops and leaps. Working from this bottom layer are incredibly transparent sections for flute, percussion, harp. Often composed by the players, these diversions add an array of texture without interfering with Coppola's theme. They compliment it.

Shirley Walker has the burden of contributing size to the affair. Where intimacy yields to bigger gestures, Walker adds brass, a bustle of activity. In fact, she works with Coppola on the major set piece. Boy and horse approach, back off, watch, approach again. They swim, they feed. Finally they merge, become one. The scenes are scored with personal, layered music, finally culminating in "The Ride". Here Walker and Coppola rejoice, melding boy and horse with triumph. Their dashing allegro starts with percussion. Brass soon enter, then strings. Within measures their orchestra sings with exhilaration. Heard following such earlier intimate material, it's a joyful celebration.

Spotlighting a favorite cue, "Henry" takes Coppola's part into a brief, somber direction. Rich minor to major chords shift under a saddened melody for first strings, then piano, finally clarinet. It foreshadows his later haunting, wistful music for THE OUTSIDERS.

THE BLACK STALLION RETURNS was a more conventional movie. Directed by Robert Dalva, editor of the original, action and pace now came first. Mystique is left on the beach as desert settings, horse-napping, chases play out. It's not without locale and color, but nothing's introvert. Certainly not the music.

Georges Delerue was saddled with bringing adventure and excitement to everything. Since he didn't need to hide behind natural surroundings he was free to create sweep and grandeur.

He does!

Whatever his inspiration, Delerue creates some of his finest work. His main theme is passionate, major key, moves forward with energy and excitement. But his richest stroke is a secondary tune, often associated with Raj, new friend to the boy and his horse. The more complex of the two themes, it's ironically the more flexible. Of all Delerue's melodies, his haunting themes for Truffaut, his sensitive romantic lines, his masterful INTERLUDE, this may be my favorite. It epitomizes Delerue's signature work: ideas playing in minor keys but cadencing with major chords. Particularly rich harmonies under tender melodies.

The secondary theme gets introduction and full treatment during "Raj Comes Home". It's used often.

A resounding brass fanfare version launches the "Race and Escape". A solo quote is plucked at the outset of "Together Again". The latter cue, in fact, affords Delerue an opportunity to blend the idea with a minor-key variant of his main theme.

The skill in which Delerue weaved melody remains a world of his own, one missed today.

This release on Prometheus Records has superlative, detailed sound. Producers Ford Thaxton and Luc Van de Ven have fashioned a winning marriage of both scores joined by the obvious. Where twin scores often make for uneven listening one followed by another, this album satisfies. Each work is anchored by themes of man and nature, warmth and beauty.

THE BLACK STALLION provides inner thought, quiet beauty. It allows study. THE BLACK STALLION RETURNS thinks for you, soars, plays beautifully. Both scores have moments of exhilaration, one with grace and subtlety, one with passion and enthusiasm.

Both celebrate the joy of making great music.

December 18, 2001

Damien: Omen II - The Deluxe Edition
Composer: Jerry Goldsmith
Conductor: Lionel Newman
Varese Sarabande 302 066 309 2
Tracks: 26 Total Time = 68:10

DAMIEN: OMEN II completes the cycle of OMEN scores on Varese Sarabande. All three carry Jerry Goldsmith music. Impressive, heart-stopping music.

The movie trilogy starts well, rapidly goes downhill. A fourth movie fogged the small screen but made no impact. For most people the OMEN movies remain a threesome.

An LP for DAMIEN appeared in 1978. 20th Century Fox made it, Goldsmith fans bought it. A CD appeared in 1988. Silva Screen made it, Goldsmith fans bought it. Now Varese Sarabande gives it another look, two looks in fact, on one disc.

Goldsmith fans will buy it too.

For 34 minutes, hear Goldsmith's re-recording made in London. Lionel Newman conducts the National Philharmonic Orchestra. For another 34 minutes, hear Goldsmith's original film recording, made in Los Angeles. Lionel Newman again conducts, this time with American musicians. Robert Townson's intelligent, readable notes, explain. Costs of issuing an actual soundtrack back then were prohibitive. A re-recording, made under optimal conditions in London, using a world class orchestra, actually cost less! This is the version fans have grown used to, endeared.

Continue endearing, and love again. This incredible release allows you to enjoy the familiar version and discover the original one for the first time!

Jerry Goldsmith was a 1976 Oscar winner for the first OMEN score. The movie was successful, causing another chapter. Missing the original director and writer, part two seeks help elsewhere. Inspired by OMEN's sensational violence, DAMIEN increases the gore. It also has veteran actors giving it class. William Holden, Lee Grant follow in the footsteps of Gregory Peck, Lee Remick.

Jonathan Scott-Taylor plays Damien, gives the best performance. Affecting, even commanding, he picks up and runs with the movie, never stops.

Jerry Goldsmith doesn't just reprise his first score. In fact, he does one of the neatest things. His structure is interesting because he takes the bass line of his first movie, then quickens the pace. On top of it he plays another chant, a new one. Well, sort of. Actually, he takes later portions of the first OMEN theme, adapts them into a new main theme! DAMIEN emphasizes action. Goldsmith drops the slow, methodical pace of the first movie, replaces it with more urgent stuff. Then he cloaks it in new material for trombone, later muted trumpet. The results? A new theme, born of the earlier one!

Goldsmith loses his love theme from THE OMEN too. Missing romance, the second movie has no room for serenity. Only two sequences call for quiet, not aggressive music. "Thoughtful Night" is sedate, but opens nonetheless with an abundance of low woodwind trills, glissandi in strings, various ideas to keep things cold. As Richard Thorn reads a mysterious letter, Goldsmith lets it get scary. In fact, "Snowmobiles" remains the only true respite. With swirling strings, dancing woodwinds, muted brass in tow, Goldsmith plays the fun scene as just that. This happy moment appears on recordings for the first time.

Still, it's action that guides this one home. People often refer to "Broken Ice". Action and then some. I give it second place, even with that incredible zigzagging organ under unrelenting rhythms for icy cold death, a drowning that highlights the movie.

In first place? "Fallen Temple", the best cue, my favorite of many highlights.

Here's a dilemma, a grand one to have but a dilemma nonetheless. "Fallen Temple" plays twice, like all the other cues. But no where is there a better chance to explore two different takes on the same music. In the London re-recording, the familiar version, the one I grew up with and lived with, "Fallen Temple" uses a powerful quotation from the original OMEN score. This culminates in a playing of the original, now famous OMEN rhythm, of course. It pounds in trombone under chorus.

On the original American version, presented here as in the movie, this cue turns out to have been constructed from two shorter cues. The first is "Fallen Temple" but it stops before the almighty trombone ostinato. To hear that section you need to play a much later cue titled "Number of the Beast". Okay, so far, so good. But once arriving here the trombone no longer commands. So you say stuff like dammit!

But hang on. This world premiere opportunity does have something to offer! While both versions of "Fallen Temple" begin together, play alike for awhile, the re-recording edits into the aforementioned later cue. The original, however - and this is neat - culminates instead on a powerful fortissimo not available on the re-recording. And the instrument at the front of all this power? You guessed it - the almighty trombone!

It's a thrill to hear little things making a difference between the two versions throughout. A trumpet here, a mute there, a glissando here, a bass moving there. Here a measure is dropped, there a measure is added. So forth.

Goldsmith takes the opportunity in his re-recording to enhance ideas, monkey with things, assemble the album into his idea of good listening. We've enjoyed it for over twenty years. Producers Nick Redman and Robert Townson now assemble the other version, the one Goldsmith recorded for the movie. It works too.

Jerry Goldsmith was a busy beaver in 1978. CAPRICORN ONE, BOYS FROM BRAZIL, SWARM, COMA, MAGIC.

Plus not one but two versions of DAMIEN: OMEN II.

And now you can play 'em both!

December 25, 2001

Big Jake
Composed and Conducted by Elmer Bernstein
Prometheus PCR 512
Tracks: 21
Total Time = 60:17

Great score! Exciting, tuneful. And it has one of those "moments"!

Readers may recall I mention this one in "nailing the moments", that place where I spotlight movie scenes scored to perfection. Scenes no one could've done better.

Elmer Bernstein "nails the moment" in BIG JAKE, big time! And he does it without even touching his main themes!

But first, a look at how Bernstein attacks the score from two sides without the usual good guy bad guy stuff.

Protagonists are big Jake McCandles (John Wayne) and John Fain (Richard Boone). Kidnapped grandson, aging rancher out to get him back. Two sons (Christopher Mitchum, Patrick Wayne) help grandpa Wayne deliver a ransom, provide physical action. Outlaw Fain and gang make things tough, violent. "They asked for gold" shouted a line above Boone's artwork on posters. "They gave 'em lead instead" said the one over Wayne and company. Something like that.

George Sherman directs, Maureen O'Hara adds sparkle. But it's about action. Outdoor action, meaner, bloodier than the usual John Wayne fare.

Interestingly, Bernstein provides two themes (expected) but makes them both noble, stalwart tunes (unexpected). Wayne's good guy melody is heroic, typically Wayne, typically Bernstein. But equally impressive is Boone's bad guy theme. No minor key, dissonant stuff here. Boone's tune packs an imposing, quasi-noble punch. Interesting idea!

Of all Bernstein's westerns (notable ones include MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, COMANCHEROS, SONS OF KATIE ELDER, TRUE GRIT) BIG JAKE has the most striking action music. Fight scenes have edge, energy to spare. But they've got something else. By using both main themes, juxtaposing them one after the other (never on top of each other) Bernstein creates action music with an unusual melodic slant. You notice it underneath the noisy bullets, horse whinnies and death cries on screen. You feel the two protagonists are equally matched, up for the battle, "getting it on".

The "Main Title" needs explanation for those unfamiliar with the movie. Turn-of-the-century events play on screen, old-time newsreel style. There's narration, music to match. Moving images alternate with freeze frames as credits appear. Without fanfare, Bernstein's primary ideas (Mitchum's motorcycle tune, the riding theme, Big Jake's theme, etc.) mix with silent movie stuff, support the montage. Suddenly a shift to reality, shots of Fain's vicious gang. Here Bernstein plays a trump card, Fain's music in an expressive, somewhat elegiac guise. Narration continues, tells us about the outlaw gang. Bernstein sees them as the last of their breed.

The McCandles ranch minus Jake, a housemaid watching riders in the distance. Fain's gang approaches. Typical ranch work is scored with a Copland-esque rodeo of activity. An abrupt shift, Fain's theme salutes in fully exposed, triumphant manner. It's "Delilah's View/The Riders", a display of memorable music playing for what we know are vicious killers.

The outlaws arrive, kill the hands, kidnap the boy, demand ransom. Bernstein delivers his first of three major action set pieces. The "Massacre" mixes aggressive music with Fain's impressive tune on French horn. The setting is violent, the orchestral fabric chaotic, but the noble tune cuts in, darts about.

In the second action set piece ("Survey/Ambush/Buzzards") Bernstein scores a clash between posse and outlaws again with emphasis on Fain's theme. The killers overpower the posse, sting them. So does Bernstein.

It's during the third action set piece that Bernstein shifts the tide. An eleven-minute track ("Tricks/Little Jake Again/Going Home") follows the battle of Jake and sons vs. Fain and gang. Bernstein tips the musical scale, quotes portions of Jake's tune as things unfold. When the movie wraps, Bernstein affords a brief, rousing flourish of Jake's theme in full.

And that "nailed moment"?

Interestingly, it doesn't occur during the frequent displays of violence or action, but rather in one brief, tender moment. Jake's group meets with Fain's gang for a trade. Fain doesn't know Jake is the boy's grandfather, assumes he's just a hired gun delivering the ransom.

"Reunion".

Jake requests to see his grandson before parting with the strong box. Fain agrees, brings the boy out, head covered. Bernstein scores this with nary a theme at all. Instead, a gentle progression of harmonies sets the tone. Jake commands Fain to show him the goods, remove the head cover. Fain pulls the cloth away, a face appears.

Bernstein "nails the moment". In fairness, so does John Wayne, giving the tenderest expression of his long career. In the brief and gentle scene, Jake sees his grandson at last. Bernstein colors it with a brief new line for solo violin, one of the warmest snippets of musical scoring ever done.

This limited edition CD features a world premiere of the original soundtrack. Source tapes were in terrific shape, but mono. Mid-range sound dominates. As such, a boosted low end seems intrusive, muddying the works. You may find it desirable to reduce the bass.

Prometheus delivered the album just in time for Christmas.

What a present!