Intrada Soundtrack Forum

June 05, 2001

Pearl Harbor
Composed by Hans Zimmer
Conducted by Gavin Greenaway
Hollywood Records/warner Bros. 9 48113-2
Total Time = 46:20

Nice score!

Strange movie!

There's certainly great material for an epic movie about America's forced entry into World War II. But this movie missed the marked. It went so far sideways I sat wondering about Zimmer's inspiration. The real thing I guess.

Michael Bay's new movie stages the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor with great detail, just like TORA! TORA! TORA! - better movie. There's a fictional love story in the foreground, just like IN HARM'S WAY - another better movie.

Zimmer's been in the Pacific theater before, at Guadalcanal. It was Terrence Malick's THE THIN RED LINE - another better movie. The music was remarkably restrained, elegiac.

So what's my problem with this new movie? Okay, since you asked I'll tell you.

Everything with the three leads. Which is almost everything. The battle is tense, Cuba Gooding, Jr. is terrific. There's this great subplot about a group of nurses during the war, their friendship, their baptism under fire. The movie should've been about them. Instead it's a triangle between one nurse and two best friends, both pilots.

Somehow both pilots manage to survive Pearl Harbor and go on to be a part of Doolittle's raid over Tokyo but I wasn't interested by then. The movie was three hours long, the Pearl Harbor part had already happened, it didn't matter anymore.

On to Zimmer's part.

Like his other WW II score, the approach here is elegiac. No noisy, dissonant battle stuff. Instead Zimmer writes music about how sad war is, how glorious things are one moment and then boom, there's nothing. It's like Samuel Barber.

PLATOON took this approach (literally), then SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, then THE THIN RED LINE. Something about slow motion shots of people amidst combat and carnage, screaming with horror, and no sound other than music. Rich, elegiac music.

One of the neatest things Zimmer does is color the score, not with dark, somber minor chords, but rich major chords. Even the war half has major-key cadences. Zimmer divides his score into roughly two parts, like the movie. There's background story, romance for awhile, then war.

After an obligatory song (start with track 2 and you'll be fine) the main love theme begins with little introduction. Strings, piano dominate. It's got passion, but more than that it's got nostalgia. It unwinds slowly, moving through strong, uncomplicated harmonies with gentle grace. John Barry-like. Maybe it's Zimmer's prettiest tune.

It continues in similar manner for part of "Brothers". A new idea emerges later, something of an anthem. It gives way to a return of the main theme, in a new (but still major) key.

Romantic music for "... And Then I Kissed Him" emphasizes major sonorities even more. Zimmer's established his tone. Warmth, nostalgia, beautiful melodies that'll last.

But there's the war half. A chorus emerges in "I Will Come Back". It suggests something new, then Zimmer takes a look back at his earlier material. Interestingly, this cue does end in minor.

Then Zimmer goes on the "Attack" . There's power to be sure, and there's rhythm. But a surging line in lower strings keeps motion to a minimum. Now the elegiac mood takes over, all chorus and strings. Zimmer visits THE THIN RED LINE, but he takes it to higher levels. It's a long track, drawn from a couple of cues. It's also a high point. Zimmer's managed to move his score from nostalgia and warmth to loss and war while remaining coherent.

"December 7th" is an emotional set piece. Strings in place, Zimmer winds melody and counter-melody together in unusually rich fashion. Again, there's a chorus and a supply of major sonorities. Rare for movie scores, it's pure music, classically drawn. Genuinely emotional stuff.

A tiny idea I love comes at the end of this piece. Zimmer closes on a major chord. But he doesn't cadence it on the tonic as expected, rather he leaves it suspended on the dominant. In other words, rather than end in a minor key as implied, he stops one chord short. He never completes the piece! There's more to be said!

For fans of action music (aren't most of us!) there is a piece called "War". It's thematically strong, still uses lots of major chords. But rhythms echoing in the background usher in action. Zimmer doesn't stray from his themes however, thus still keeping his busiest piece on the album part of the whole work.

It's the emotionally draining side that Zimmer ultimately goes for. His final "Heart Of A Volunteer" develops the saddest material at length. Here Zimmer also allows for higher violins to play a role, something rare in this score. Interestingly, Zimmer also writes a lean trumpet solo into the melody, the only moment where upper brass carry a load.

It moves finally to a return from whence it came. Nostalgia, warmth. But with a brilliant twist. Echoes of chorus remain, reduced to a single female voice blending with strings and piano.

It all comes to a warm, comfortable major chord finish.

Maybe someday Hans Zimmer'll get a chance to score a really great war movie.

He's certainly got something to say.

June 12, 2001

The Conversation
Music by David Shire
Intrada Special Collection Volume 2
Total Time = 37:19

I rarely talk about our releases in this column. People ask why and I answer it's like self-promotion, like making a sales pitch. Yesterday someone said that's what I should be doing.

Okay, I'll make a plug.

Normally, I pick some random album I like, tell everyone what I get from it. Positive stuff, a simple analysis about some of the good parts, but not a review. I only talk about music I like. I'm a crummy reviewer anyway because if I don't like an album I just ignore it and don't say anything about it at all. There are plenty of reviewers out there who tell you what's good or bad. You read their stuff in SOUNDTRACK!, FILM SCORE MONTHLY, MUSIC FOR THE MOVIES, etc.

That's not to say I like everything. I don't like Burwell's BOOK OF SHADOWS: BLAIR WITCH 2. I think Badalamenti should have done more with THE BEACH. Goldsmith annoyed me on ALONG CAME A SPIDER and Revell missed on RED PLANET and Kamen flunked EVENT HORIZON and Bernstein didn't bring anything to BRINGING OUT THE DEAD and other stuff like that. Top composers don't always hit home runs. But I know what they go through. Is an Eb clarinet in the upper register too screechy for this funny scene? Are three trombones in parallel thirds below the staff too thick for the punch line? Two drums with snares off or one tenor drum when the battle starts? All that stuff. Trying to second guess producers and directors, too.

THE CONVERSATION is one of the most asked for soundtracks of all time. I've spent years saying "it doesn't exist" to people looking for an album. When I first met engineer Joe Tarantino at Fantasy Studios in 1989 and told him I had this little soundtrack store the first thing he said was, "Great, do you guys have THE CONVERSATION?" I just shrugged no.

But not any longer. THE CONVERSATION is our next "Special Collection" release and a lot of work went into making it happen. Here's something to help get you excited.

Francis Ford Coppola wanted to make the movie for some time. After GODFATHER made history he had the chance to do it. Gene Hackman was still shining with an Academy Award as "Best Actor" for FRENCH CONNECTION. He literally became Harry Caul. Also appearing were new-ish actors like Teri Garr, Frederic Forrest, Cindy Williams. There was John Cazale near the end of a tragically short career. Robert Duvall's got a scene!

And there's Harrison Ford.

David Shire wrote an amazing score. Nothing Mickey-mouse, here's one of the great mood scores of all time. It's everything Harry thinks, does, is. It's never flashy, just a thought winding throughout Harry's day. There's a theme, two actually. Bare music, exposed music. And always that piano.

Harry plays sax, tries to anyway. He even plays along with a record or two. Very alone, of course.

Shire wrote the combo music Harry listens to, recording it with some of the greatest players around. Names like Shelly Manne, Don Menza, Pete Jolly, Conte Candoli. Shire himself plays the solo piano stuff.

This was a great time in American movies. Political films, paranoia. Stuff like THE PARALLAX VIEW and ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN.

THE CONVERSATION was so good it received an Academy Award nomination for "Best Picture" of 1974. Coppola wrote it, directed it, sandwiched it between his two other masterpieces - GODFATHER and GODFATHER PART II. That's one helluva trio!

Shire recorded the piano music mostly on his own home tape recorder. Along with the music he got hiss and tape wow. When these "demos" were brought in for Coppola to ponder the director went for them. Not just the compositions, the primitive recordings! This sound WAS Harry.

Our album was prepared from the original masters housed at Zoetrope Studios. Brand new stereo mixes were made there with personnel involved in the DVD restoration.

A major part of the music is the "sound montage" created by Walter Murch. Using manipulations of Shire's music, prepared piano effects and his own ideas, Murch layered complex textures into key sequences - the dream, the murder. Our album includes these complicated layers mingling with the straight piano cues, weaving under and about. As originally created by Murch, there were numerous mono sounds designed to enhance the original mono film soundtrack. They've been included, woven into newly-mixed stereo tracks.

When we were doing the mixes a real gem turned up. Shire had recorded a full version of his hypnotic Harry Caul theme, not for piano but for a larger ensemble. It was never used in the finished movie, nor mixed for the DVD restoration. We proceeded to mix and master a genuine world premiere of this "once-in-a-lifetime" performance, in full stereo, for the very first time.

With David nurturing every nuance of his landmark score onto CD, and efforts from people at Zoetrope and Fantasy, we've made a great listening experience out of this landmark score.

We're also excited about the liner notes. David has interesting stuff to say about the project and there are paragraphs from Walter Murch as well. Looks like he's moving from the world of sound to the world of print!

Finally, and this is pretty cool, we've got some words by none other than Francis Ford Coppola.

Great stuff to read, incredible music to hear.

Yep. THE CONVERSATION is one "special collection".

June 19, 2001

Outland
Composed and Conducted by Jerry Goldsmith
National Philharmonic Orchestra
Warner Music France 9362-47881-2
Total Time = 39:06

A new reissue to a genuine Goldsmith classic.

Kind of odd movie. Promising director Peter Hyams kept it exciting but not credible. A friend always reminded me of this movie's basic story flaw. Not the HIGH NOON one, that works okay. The mining one. Lead just isn't uncommon enough to make an outer space search for it necessary!

I don't know what the future holds. But my friend probably has a point.

Jerry Goldsmith worked with Hyams three years earlier on the high-tech thriller CAPRICORN ONE. Neat movie, absolutely terrific score. CAPRICORN ONE and OUTLAND share a lot in common. Both movies are thrillers, both pit a small group against a bigger conspiracy, both hide something. A faked Mars landing, a drug cartel. Bad guys in both movies rationalize their misguided efforts by whatever good they do, no matter what the price. And in both movies, unyielding honesty in the smaller group ultimately triumphs.

The scores are quite different, though. CAPRICORN ONE is the brighter, OUTLAND is the nastier.

1981 was a fertile time for Goldsmith. Music-wise, not movie-wise. A lot of pictures he did around then were pretty mediocre. CABOBLANCO in 1980, INCHON after that, which took another two years before finally reaching theaters. THE FINAL CONFLICT, RAGGEDY MAN, NIGHT CROSSING, OUTLAND.

But what music these had!

OUTLAND has some of Goldsmith's most terrifying, and most cohesive stuff. He establishes two main ideas, then proceeds to explore in every direction without losing sight of them. Everything, no matter how distinctive, can be traced back to one of these two motifs. It's fascinating.

The first opens "The Mine". Introduced in the lowest regions of the orchestra, it's a series of notes, sometimes changing slowly, sometimes trilled rapidly. Whichever, they remain limited to the interval of a major second. That's an extremely small melodic shape. Even as things increase in scope, this extremely limited interval of a second remains in focus. No matter which direction Goldsmith moves a narrow, claustrophobic effect remains. Appropriate. Though the setting is outer space, things are confined to an interior colony. There's no place to go. Logically, Goldsmith refuses to resolve his final cadence.

The second idea comes soon after the first, though initially disguised. Trumpets play a repeated series of three notes, next imitated by the flutes. Like the first idea, this one uses a limited quantity of notes to make its point. But in terms of intervals, this three-note figure is just the opposite. Here, instead of being limited to one step, the intervals are unusually wide, angled. How Goldsmith weaves this second idea into longer material makes for the heart of OUTLAND.

"Early Arrival" spends some time with dissonant clusters of material before the first motif is explored. A trilling outburst on French horn calls attention to the motif, everything that follows comes from it.

"The Message" remains the gentlest music of the score. It also reveals interesting depth. A solo flute enters, but initial notes launching this tune comprise Goldsmith's second motif. Soon, with remarkable subtlety, Goldsmith weaves a longer line from his limited three note idea. Strings enter on a new theme, itself a variation on the first motif! In contrast to the rest of the score the violins remain high.

Low colors are a big part of OUTLAND. Lots of bassoon, contrabassoon, bass clarinet, tuba. Melodic passages designed to showcase high violins, as in "The Message", are rare.

Fans of Goldsmith action music will find one of his greatest thrill-rides on this album. This is the movie with "Hot Water". Actually, this is the movie WITHOUT "Hot Water". It's written for the movie but director Hyams dumped it!

Funny parenthesis here. I'm not making this up. In 1990, Bruce Broughton wrote one of his fiercest compositions for the train/helicopter chase in NARROW MARGIN. This same director dumped that music too!

Back to the action. "Hot Water" is the yardstick for excitement on this one. But attention must be given to my own particular favorite moment. It's action too, albeit a shorter ride. But what action!

"Spiders" opens with solitary timpani on the three-note motif. Things get complicated, low brass begin repeating the figure, a rhythm takes over. The activity increases. For a few seconds there's chaos, then finally that cast-iron tympani hammering, exploding. Which is the on-screen idea. Wow!

There's a brief digression of style with "The Rec Room". It's a synth vision of a future relaxation bar complete with sex and drugs but Hyams dropped it in favor of a noisier piece by Michael Boddiker and Richard Rudolph. Ironically, in notes for this new reissue, credit is given to those two writers for the track included here by Goldsmith.

Goldsmith does end the score in terrific form. In the movie, Sean Connery makes a final call to his waiting family. Goldsmith swells with his three-note motif, again letting it become a longer, fully realized melody. A fanfare of brass bring things to a triumphant finish. Immediately following, end credits roll to a reprise of the opening music for the mine, this time cadencing with finality. On album, the order has been reversed, with great impact. The score ends with a real bang.

This new issue by Warner Music France features the same tracks available on the original Warner Bros. LP and GNP/Crescendo CD. However the Crescendo disc offers the original album to CAPRICORN ONE as a bonus.

That's some bonus.

Either way, this is a must-have recording. Strong playing by the National Philharmonic Orchestra, incredibly detailed sound by Eric Tomlinson.

And great music by Jerry Goldsmith.

June 26, 2001

On The Waterfront / West Side Story
Composed and Conducted by Leonard Bernstein
New York Philharmonic
Sony Classical SMK 63085
Total Time = 68:48

Leonard Bernstein wrote a lot of New York music. Well-known titles like ON THE TOWN and FANCY FREE. Like WEST SIDE STORY and ON THE WATERFRONT. He wrote for theater, for the symphony, for other occasions. Once he wrote a movie score. There aren't many better.

1954's "Best Picture" was ON THE WATERFRONT. Marlon Brando, the taxi cab scene. It doesn't get any better. Amongst numerous Academy Awards Leonard Bernstein's music missed out. Watch the movie today and you'll wonder why. Didn't they notice the ending of this score? Is there a more impressive one?

The "symphonic suite" from ON THE WATERFRONT has been recorded numerous times. Sony Classical currently has available the best performance, albeit with somewhat dated sound.

Made in May of 1960 with the New York Philharmonic, Bernstein recorded a suite lasting some 20 minutes. This wasn't just a compilation of themes. In 1955, a year after the movie had opened, Bernstein worked his score into an extended suite, premiering it with the Boston Symphony. It became standard repertoire for orchestras. This Sony 20-bit reissue of the 1960 recording, itself issued many times, remains the strongest.

It's amazing how little talk this score gets amongst classic movie music fans. Certainly they've seen the picture! Perhaps not surprisingly, this score remains one of the most musically literate film scores ever done.

No other film score starts with greater subtlety. Solo French horn. Just the one player and that's it. An arching theme winds upwards, then finally down, starting in minor, ending in major. Here the player drops out. Muted trombone and solo flute assume the position. The theme plays again, still without harmony, still in minor, still ending in major. What follows is equally subtle. A descending secondary idea by a pair of muted trumpets. The first sign of harmony, yet it's still muted. Literally. The main title music then closes with a tiny group gently playing the main theme in unison.

Incredibly, Bernstein relies little on his main theme. It's presented without introduction or accompaniment, given total control for a moment, then set aside. It recurs in part for strings, in bridges to other ideas, but doesn't play again with detail for some time. That time does come, of course, and eventually becomes one of the grandest perorations in all movie music.

Meanwhile, at this point, percussion take over, the subtle mood disappears. A slicing motif for sax cuts into the rhythm. Careful listening shows the percussion figure to be an actual theme! Soon the entire orchestra jockeys between the percussion theme and the sax motif. Both are integral ideas of the score. In the movie this music sets up the opening crime on the rooftops over the docks.

Bernstein keeps the whirlwind going by segueing into music that underscores the violence surrounding a union meeting. Beginning with a powerful series of "pyramid" effects in the brass (from a later scene) Bernstein sets the angry mob violence into motion with swirling woodwind and string figures. Horns and trumpets play a jabbing figure which soon reveals itself to be yet another theme! Bernstein now juggles no less than three important ideas. And his most heartfelt theme is yet to come!

Brando does have a love interest. Eva Marie Saint is the girl that inspires him to be more than just "a bum". Bernstein created a theme for them that is tender and melodic without being overly sentimental. In the film it's introduced as a three-note ascending figure on trumpet at the precise moment Brando bumps into Saint during a dockyard scuffle. In this suite it comes at a musically important moment.

Halfway through the suite there's a long, dark passage for strings (third movement, Andante Largamente.) It's here Bernstein brings back his main theme for the first time, again on solo French horn, again without accompaniment. Immediately following is an entrance by harp. The three ascending notes thus played, arpeggio-like, literally melt into a line for solo flute. With incredible subtlety, Bernstein has allowed his love theme to emerge.

Symbolic of the movie, this melody generally winds upwards, yearning. Brando and Saint struggle to climb out of the violence. So the love struggles, so the tune climbs out of the fabric, providing the most gentle and harmonious segment of the score.

Jagged figures interfere (the struggle), then the melody soars, rising through cellos, violas, then violins. Finally Bernstein turns the melody over to solo trumpet, working the material back downwards, finally retreating. Interestingly, this time it doesn't retreat to the violence beneath so much of the score and picture. Instead It gives way to solo horn playing the main theme, once again, without accompaniment.

In the movie this powerful idea comes, of course, when Brando looks out over the waterfront, takes his hook, heads down to "get his rights". Bernstein now develops this theme in a lengthy segment scored for this suite, not appearing in the movie.

Violence does erupt again. Brando is savagely beaten to a frenzy of wild rhythms in the orchestra. A new idea takes command. When the beating stops, Bernstein works with a variant of the sax tune heard early in the picture blended with the new idea just introduced.

At this point Bernstein lines up for his grand finale, one of the most impressively composed endings a movie score could hope for. Musically, it's truly profound.

The scene is famous. Brando stumbles, walks up the pier, goes back to work. The huge doors close, the end.

Bernstein launches this magnificent cue with his main theme, developing it through the orchestra in one long crescendo. Now harmonized, it gathers power from the unyielding pair of bass notes that play off the beat. Along with tam-tam, these notes grow with the theme, bringing the material to a dynamic peak. Suddenly the orchestra drops out, leaving upper brass and cymbals alone to suspend the intensity. What follows is the stuff of musical dreams!

The brass section comes crashing down with the main theme, pounding forth in triumphant blocks of sound. Yet within this grand peroration, trumpets sing out with their own tune. That tune is nothing less than the delicate, subtle love theme that originated way back on flute.

No longer yearning to climb from the surroundings, this tune emerges a magnificent and grand statement for trumpets singing above the orchestra. How Bernstein blends the two completely diverse melodies into one magnificent passage is a splashy bit of derring-do.

That climax reached, Bernstein now hammers his main theme forward. With percussion pounding, tam-tam, gong, the kitchen sink perhaps, Bernstein closes his score with one of the most impressive climaxes in film music history.

There's an incredible amount of power generated in the music. Bernstein certainly has no peer in capturing it. Sony's current CD has been remastered using their "Super Bit Mapping" process and results are quite stunning. Dynamic range is reasonably good, stereo imaging somewhat hindered by reverb. The sum of the two still equals impressive sound.

The CD also features the "symphonic dances" from WEST SIDE STORY, recorded in 1961. They'll be highlighted next time.