Intrada Soundtrack Forum

July 03, 2001

Symphonic Dances from "West Side Story"
Composed and Conducted by Leonard Bernstein
New York Philharmonic
Sony Classical SMK 63085
Total Time = 68:48

Origins for WEST SIDE STORY go back to 1949. Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins planned a musical version of "Romeo And Juliet" with modern twists. They wanted to present drama and tragedy to audiences of musical-comedy. Not opera, mind you, musical-comedy. Some said it couldn't be done.

Arthur Laurents wrote the book, time passed, eventually it fell into place. Stephen Sondheim entered the project in 1955, lyrics began.

The show opened on Broadway on September 26, 1957. The rest, as they say, is history.

WEST SIDE STORY proved to be a genuine first. This was real serious stuff. Powerful storytelling through music. Broadway had grown up. Here was dancing without precedent. Raw movements, exciting, vital.

And there was rhythm!

Robbins teamed with co-director Robert Wise, filming the production with an almost completely new cast for the Mirisch brothers and United Artists. Their movie won 10 Academy Awards including "Best Picture" of 1961. WEST SIDE STORY'S popularity had only grown stronger.

The songs have always endured. People can hum the tunes, quote the words. But there's an amazing "background" score under all of this. Energetic, exciting, extremely well-crafted.

Also important, unlike many musicals, the background score for WEST SIDE STORY is an essential part of the storytelling. Songs advance specific plot points, touch with the audience. But here's a production with an unprecedented number of purely instrumental dance pieces used as part of the actual storytelling. A story with a "background" score in the center spotlight!

Amazingly, it's all cemented together by a single device, an interval known as the "tri-tone". The distinctive three-step interval shows up endlessly! It's in the famous opening motif, it plays in every tune, the chord progressions. It's everywhere! Yet it never bores.

Bernstein premiered a 21-minute suite of symphonic dances from WEST SIDE STORY in February of 1961 with the New York Philharmonic under Lukas Foss. Again, without much precedent, here was a suite of music to a famed Broadway production that didn't rely on famous song melodies, yet worked brilliantly. "Maria" appears but it's introduced in the story first as an instrumental dance at the gym anyway. Gone are such famous melodies as "Tonight", "I Feel Pretty" and "America". So essential is Bernstein's background score to the fabric of WEST SIDE STORY, familiar tunes aren't missed. Indeed, the dance music is just as popular.

The opening of Bernstein's orchestral suite is a declamatory six-note figure, emphasizing the tri-tone, played in unison by brass and woodwinds. This becomes a signature of the entire work and uses three important elements of the entire score in just six notes! First, the aforementioned tri-tone highlights the first three notes. Second, a dramatic, unison sound (everyone playing the same melodic line without harmony) colors the figure. Third, a crescendoing (read exploding) swell from the orchestra culminates in a snap of energy, a rapid twist of the last three notes.

All three devices occur often. They provide the nervous energy, the twitch, the explosion of violence that runs beneath the story.

Never more clearly than during the "fugue" can these elements be heard. Using the music of "Cool" the entire dance is a display of pent-up energy that finally bursts. The shifts between thick harmony and stark unison are dramatic, with the entire orchestra at one point becoming one single screaming voice.

One of the most powerful moments occurs at the conclusion of the fugue. An "allegretto" suddenly gives way to a fortissimo in the orchestra. "The Rumble" music explodes with violence. The catalyst is a massive statement of the rumble theme in - big surprise, here - unison.

The melody for "Maria" is heard as a cha-cha during the dance at the gym. It's an innocent treatment, giving away little clue of the love that will later emerge. The movement is preceded by a rousing "mambo", another gym dance. The transition from the latter to the former is striking. Within a few measures the orchestra drops from a savage display of energy to a whisper. The forward motion remains, still dance-like.

I can easily pinpoint a favorite spot of the entire work.

Endings, my fixation, aren't problems with Leonard Bernstein. As in ON THE WATERFRONT (discussed last time) this piece ends profoundly with two ideas joined into one. But whereas the ending of WATERFRONT derives power from a resounding quote of the love theme amidst a spectacular playing of the main theme, in WEST SIDE STORY the dynamics are reversed. And impressively so.

Bernstein concludes with a little-known melody ("I Have A Love") that occurs late in the original production. It's a tune allowing the rare use of soft, gentle major chords as a final cadence. But Bernstein, ever the genius, melds the pleasant sound with a repeating, solitary bass note. The note is, of course, a tri-tone interval downwards from the rest of the orchestra. Bernstein, with this single tone, unifies his entire work. Even with a rare major chord at the end, a suggestion of peace, Bernstein's brought things full circle with his opening.

The violence will, no doubt, continue.

As with ON THE WATERFRONT, the major companion piece on this album, "Symphonic Dances From WEST SIDE STORY" has been heard numerous times since the 1961 recording debuted. This Sony 20-bit re-mastering of that original performance provides the best sound available to date of the original version. Playing by the New York Philharmonic under Bernstein is definitive, to say the least.

ON THE WATERFRONT and WEST SIDE STORY.

Two New York scores of the highest order.

July 10, 2001

A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Composed and Conducted by John Williams
Warner Sunset/Warner Bros. 9 48096-2
Total Time = 70:11

John Williams, orchestra and chorus, the future, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg. That's about as "A-list" as you're gonna get!

A.I. has an unusually complex, very personal score. You can enjoy it on the surface or dig around and find a lot inside. Something like the movie, only more successful.

No spoilers here. I can skip plot, important cue titles and still get thoughts across.

The movie was started by Stanley Kubrick, finished by Steven Spielberg. Man vs. machine. Man AND machine. There's more, of course. I stayed with it, sometimes aloof, never bored. But anyone interested in movies as "film" should see it. We're talking not one auteur but two! How often does that happen?

You can feel Kubrick's part, see Spielberg's part. It all seems important, at least.

John Williams had similar musical challenges to Elmer Bernstein's with TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Exploring grown-up emotions through the eyes of a child. Bernstein tackled it beautifully through simplicity of color, with innocence in his textures. Williams goes for particular shapes to his melodies. Orchestral colors remain rich, complex. How the melodies work within such rich textures makes the score interesting.

The main theme carries the generic title "For Always". Actually, a secondary melody often follows, acting like a chorus to the main theme. It's strong enough to function alone and does, becoming a second theme. In the ending vocal (I don't recall this in the movie) both tunes are used.

Williams must have spent time working on these melodies. They're both framed worlds apart but, incredibly, share the same infrastructure! Where one has wide leaping intervals to launch it, the other has just the opposite. It's in the center of both that Williams' brings a childlike side to his music.

There are an unusual amount of stepwise ideas in the heart of both tunes. Quite literally, there are scales. The most basic of melodic skills, the musical ladders that go up and down, the places where every child begins his study.

Behind the scales, however, there's an almost unlimited amount of material to take in. There's the wonder of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THIRD KIND but there's something more. It's not the playground of Indiana Jones or Luke Skywalker yet has some of the same lightning-fast strokes.

A.I. is a new score. Here are some of Williams' most ambivalent harmonies. Yet there are some of his warmest. While there is a lot of gentle, transparent writing, there's also much that is dense, complicated.

For album purposes Williams opens with the most rhythmic material. Here are fanfares and glorious brass figures that sign his name yet Williams keeps his harmonic center somewhat distant. As in the movie, moods are important. Where there's warmth, where there isn't. Someone thought this out.

Towards the end of this piece harp, then French horn move briefly into harmonically rich territory. This gives way to an outburst of dissonance, then melts into amazing moments for solo oboe over strings. In a single piece Williams has moved from ambivalence, through fear, into complex harmonic texture. It's clear that Williams is digging, not just into routines of man and machine, but where they're going down the line. It's gonna get complicated.

One piece carries the unmistakable thumbprint of Kubrick. Like a modern-day Khachaturian, John Williams develops a sequence for the industrial company with first, a lean melody for upper strings, then adding a second one for lower strings. It's an economical idea, somewhat clinical, ultimately creepy.

So's the quiet, harmonically challenged choral segment of track 8. Never rising in volume, the voices sing without words, without accompaniment. Ultimately the orchestra joins, the texture grows, the harmonies remain aloof, quasi-mystical. Midway the mood rises, cello plays the theme. Dissonant clusters remind but the theme prevails. The cerebral moods vanish. Gentle harmonies, delicate voices.

It's pure warmth. In fact, during track 9, Williams begins with that most expressive of instruments, piano, then adds that most human of instruments, voice. It's the side of Williams that knows so few equals. Not since SCHINDLER'S LIST has Williams allowed so expressive a line to play against such emotional tapestry.

Both tracks 8 and 9 are lengthy. In fact, many of the tracks are. With so many soundtracks becoming a succession of short, non-melodic snippets, this is welcome. Development of material, slow and careful unraveling of ideas, joining them with others, all are domain to a very exclusive composer's club. Thank the gods one of those members does movie scores!

There's a substantial amount of music in the movie, a lot in the final half section. This is a great looking part of the movie, made more so by Williams. Seldom growing over a whisper he paints with a combination of complex sounds and serene ones. Hearing the first theme melding into the second, the scales, the harmonies. It's really some of the composer's most personal writing, and it's moving.

This is a strong recording, too. Recorded and mixed by Shawn Murphy at Sony, there's a lot of delicacy captured - and a lot of low end. While dynamics stay quiet for long periods, the textures and colors are extreme.

The serene and cerebral nature of this one may leave the STAR WARS crowd behind. Then, I'm in the serene and cerebral club.

This one haunts long after.

July 17, 2001

Best-Produced Soundtrack Albums
Various Composers

I'm playing the CD to AIRPORT. It's a 1970 album, first on Decca Records, later a CD on Varese Sarabande. It's well enough produced, captures most of the various styles Alfred Newman put into the score. But not all. Suspense music, eerie string passages hovering through several scenes, mostly gets ignored. Still it's a decent production. Someone took some time to prepare the record.

So what's a great production? The best highlights? The whole score? Cues in sequence, out of sequence?

My criteria is simple enough. A great production is a great listening experience. Not necessarily the entire score, certainly not just the entire score in sequence. Where it might work for STAR WARS it doesn't work for THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. Where the former has material spread evenly across the board the latter has large chunks focusing on single moods for long periods.

Many great short albums have come from longer scores. KRULL makes a terrific single disc, a somewhat padded double disc. ON DEADLY GROUND misses a considerable amount of the score yet captures the primary material perfectly. EL CID offers a fraction of the score yet plays incredibly well, with a strong beginning, middle and end.

I love the expanded E.T. but actually prefer the original album. The former plays like a souvenir of the movie, the latter like an extended concert work. Just the opposite of TOTAL RECALL. Here the original issue deleted several tracks. While not automatically a problem this first version left off "The Implant", the very cue that starts the propulsive odd-meter action cues off and running. It's a foundation, a necessity in establishing the musical action that follows. The recent reissue figured this out, got it right.

More recently, albums getting rushed into production are sacrificing musical merit for commercial ones. THE MUMMY RETURNS has a magnificent opening and middle but, alas, no ending! Before Silvestri was done with his part Decca needed the album in production. Artistic merit be damned. Watch the movie and hear Silvestri bringing the lengthy work to a magnificent close. There's a lot going on in the final reel of INDEPENDENCE DAY too. At least David Arnold was able to get his exciting finale on the album, albeit the action music leading up to it wasn't included. Arnold had this problem twice, happening also with TOMORROW NEVER DIES. He'd saved some great stuff for the movie's climax but it wasn't ready yet when A & M wanted their album done. All turned out okay, eventually. A later version on Chapter III got the last part right.

Over the years a number of relatively brief original albums to longer scores have made valiant, wholly successful listening experiences. Some of these, though missing substantial portions of the complete score, remain genuine classic albums, thoughtfully presented with sequences that start, go someplace, end perfectly. THE GREAT ESCAPE, SPARTACUS, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, CAPRICORN ONE, THE SWARM, BLESS THE BEASTS & CHILDREN, TARAS BULBA, JUDGE DREDD, GORKY PARK, MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, THE NEGOTIATOR, BEYOND RANGOON, THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. All make great albums. Complete, fully expanded issues may offer more for the soundtrack junkie, but not necessarily better listening.

Some expanded albums have resulted in longer, but lesser experiences. I'm happy to have a greatly expanded version of THE 4 HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE but miss the tighter, more exciting 37-minute version. Perhaps both are in order.

But lest you find me inexplicably on the attack against "expanded editions" let me change sides. After Varese Sarabande issued the lengthy and complete CLEOPATRA who in their right mind would choose the shallow experience of the Fox original issue? Alex North created one of the great battle cues of all time, requiring some of the most virtuoso brass playing in all film music. Fox missed virtually every measure of it the first time around. Every measure, every note!! Thankfully we've got Varese Sarabande to the rescue.

Ironically, when Henry Mancini prepared his albums he preferred to re-record substantial portions, favoring "source" music and pleasant arrangements to give the albums wide appeal. While this resulted in several strong albums the results were, admittedly, all over the map. Where HATARI works incredibly well, CHARADE is missing every piece of the background score. Every piece! As to these re-recorded projects, I do find ARABESQUE to be a masterpiece, however. Footnote: Mancini once described how the album was being prepared, came in a bit short, and RCA needed just a little bit more stuff. With no time to monkey around, Mancini grabbed a sample of the "background" music, his "Zoo Chase", and figured he'd pad the album a bit!

One of the most truncated albums, yet excitingly done, is for Howard Shore's SEVEN. While the album carries a mere 20 minutes of Shore's music, the presentation of his suite is so thoughtfully prepared the results are stunning. Add terrific songs by Billie Holliday, Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk and it gets even better.

For all of you who are waiting for me to dump on really bad productions, figuring with my smiley face I could never label anything crap - come back for part two. I'll prove you wrong. I'll call a spade a spade. I'll rip holes in sacred albums. I'll spit on nasty "high profile" disasters.

Coming next week: Ptttooey!

July 24, 2001

Worst-Produced Soundtrack Albums
Various Composers

If you got started on movie music during the sixties you worshipped Elmer Bernstein. No way around it, you just loved his albums. Especially westerns, which is odd because so few of them got released!

Nothing came out on his early ones (SADDLE THE WIND, TIN STAR) and, incredibly, nothing came out on his landmark MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. Back then nothing happened with COMANCHEROS either. Then HALLELUJAH TRAIL opened in 1965 and an album - finally a western - hit the market.

But little of that terrific Bernstein western music showed up. Oh, it's in the movie. Lots of it. But the record went off sideways, lots of songs, the more comic stuff. What a shame.

Soon there was RETURN OF THE SEVEN and SCALPHUNTERS. Now we're getting somewhere. All those years of waiting are gonna pay off at last.

In 1969 this certain seventeen-year-old fan got really excited when that payday arrived. TRUE GRIT. John Wayne's Oscar winner. One of Elmer's best ever. It's a long score but that rousing showdown music would be on a record for sure!

Yep, an album came out on Capitol. Wow! But wait a minute... what the hell? They've got the artwork right but what's this "Elmer Bernstein Conducts Themes From His Original Score Arranged By Artie Butler" all about?

Something contractual? A big typo? I nervously put the record on and within minutes I was buried knee deep in... big band music, country style! Yep, real up-tempo trumpet wailing harmonica gushing drum banging swing stuff. Everything sounded like jazzed-up accompaniment to missing country-and-western vocals.

What was Elmer thinking? Thank God it only played for 26 minutes!

And to think it's actually on CD too!

People say I like everything. Don't I have any complaints? Don't I agree there are some pretty crappie albums out there?

Yep, I agree, so here's some. No easy pot shots either. Song albums with one score cut don't count. They're not trying to please me. I'm talking real honest to goodness score albums that - quite simply - suck.

An old one here. CIRCUS WORLD. Dimitri Tiomkin wrote a decent score, the album's his. But it's mostly the "under the big top" circus band stuff. Not the score. You can keep it, Dimitri.

Michael Kamen made a lot of his score to LETHAL WEAPON available, but none of the freeway chase music! The very music collectors wanted! He got a second chance when similar music showed up in LETHAL WEAPON 2, yet he still blew it! I was certain that LETHAL WEAPON 3 would finally settle the issue.

Man, three for three. Three chances to get the album right and he blew it every time.

Sometimes length is the enemy. Take the Varese Sarabande club release of THE 'BURBS. They only put half of the score out. The other half is more exciting! Michael Kamen's ROBIN HOOD runs a while but there's just too much missing to feel satisfied. Having several cues just fade off while still going adds to the frustration.

On to Basil Poledouris. CONAN is king, champion of the eighties, all that stuff. It's a great album, even with lots missing. Everything clicks, every track is superb, nothing gets wasted. So what happened on CONAN THE DESTROYER? A very long score, a very short record. And how could all that neat stuff from the beginning be missing?

Basil once told me it had something to do with the intonation of the brass in the orchestra. I guess that's how.

If the album has no ending I'm frustrated. Here's one that just quits. I'm stepping on hallowed ground here, I know, but whatever Jerry Goldsmith was doing with ALONG CAME A SPIDER it certainly didn't end with a bang. It didn't even end. I had to check to see if my disc had skipped forward. It hadn't.

While on Goldsmith, his worst production might be STAR TREK V. Several set pieces are missing, as is a large portion of the opening music. Track sequencing is odd. Musical structure is minimal, an oddly anticlimactic piece plays before the end credits, the score finishes and a song follows, feeling very belated. GREMLINS is pretty crummy too, but the "mini" album was intended and the brief results were certainly playable.

Short takes. Most of the Bond albums deserve spots on the pedestal, even with significant tracks missing. Some are simply classic albums. But what's up with DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER? And people like KELLY'S HEROES. Maybe they're only familiar with the music in the movie, not what ended up on the album. Alfred Newman's got a lot of gems but NEVADA SMITH remains a weak album. There's a lot of intense, brooding score but little of it made the album.

I'm frustrated with the large amount of music missing from THE PATRIOT. Since it didn't capture the hearts and minds of most John Williams followers I'm not holding my breath for a two-disc set. Though most are fans of his long fantasy adventure stuff, PATRIOT is the one I'd like expanded.

An oddball here but a mess none-the-less. Neal Hefti wrote a strong, tuneful score for HOW TO MURDER YOUR WIFE. A United Artists record managed to avoid nearly every major score cue!

If you asked me to pick the worst, I guess I could name one. Somehow, for reasons only United Artists would know, the sturdy Alex North score for DEVIL'S BRIGADE made it to records with nice credit to North on the cover, terrific graphics from the movie, and for some reason, none of North's actual orchestral score! Leroy Holmes conducts a couple tracks of (poorly) re-arranged music attempting to represent the score, and odds and ends, Christmas music and whatnot dominates.

Did people actually buy the album to DEVIL'S BRIGADE looking for Christmas music???

There. I've come clean.

I don't like 'em all.

July 31, 2001

Between Heaven And Hell / Soldier Of Fortune
Composed by Hugo Friedhofer
Conducted by Lionel Newman
Film Score Monthly FSM Vol. 4 No. 9
Total Time = 72:55

Hugo Friedhofer was no stranger to war movies. He saw action in the first world war, the second. He brought soldiers home from WWII with some of the greatest of all American music.

Friedhofer's early professional career wasn't only behind the scenes, it was behind other composers. Stuff by Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Max Steiner gained benefit in Friedhofer's orchestration talent. Finally, after success with THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, Friedhofer shifted emphasis from orchestrator to composer.

He was probably the most important composer in movies after Aaron Copland to dump European tradition in favor of an "Americana" vocabulary. His output was significant. Most of his conspicuous work comes from Twentieth Century-Fox. Two such scores are examined on a new album from Film Score Monthly.

Late in the fifties Fox assembled what amounts to a WWII trilogy. BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL, IN LOVE AND WAR and THE YOUNG LIONS. Unrelated in story, the three share some actors (Robert Wagner, Hope Lange play in two) and all carry masterful scores by Friedhofer. If you read this column you know I'm partial to the first one, particularly the climax. There aren't many equals.

BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL is a low profile war drama from 1956. It focuses on insensitive Southerner Sam Gifford (Robert Wagner) during service under a demanding captain named Waco (Broderick Crawford). Gifford's not likable at first, his fears under fire are examined. The movie's flashbacks "between heaven and hell" are unorthodox, reasonably dramatic. Finally the war changes him, culminating in a flashy final action sequence. Friedhofer nails it with music that's not just exciting (it's certainly that!!) but unquestionably one of the most powerful perorations in all movie music.

Friedhofer immediately establishes a military sound with an unrelenting cadence of snare drums, tympani, cymbals. His main title is unusually aggressive, matched only by the climax of this same score. Thematically, his center is the "Dies Irae" (Day of Wrath), that oft-used melody associated with hell. Friedhofer's basic architecture is roughly that of a large arch. Framing consists of the powerful, massive music for the war machine. Most of the score weaves between an exquisite "love theme" and dissonant, nervous music for Gifford's inner struggle.

It's interesting that most of the power Friedhofer draws from his opening (Dies Irae) comes not just from volume or intensity but from unique harmonies. The familiar melody (used by Berlioz, many film composers and so on) is usually played without chords, in unison or octaves. Friedhofer, in fact, first proclaims this line in similar fashion. But soon he introduces chords underneath, each block of the melody carrying an individual major or minor chord. The results are stunning.

One other important structural device stands out throughout the score. Friedhofer's sumptuous love theme is but one aspect of Gifford. There's also his growth, coming to grips with combat. For this Friedhofer creates an amazing musical device, a line both angled and complicated. And yet it's actually a broadly drawn variation of his love theme! One line portrays Gifford's past, the other points to his future growth. The two ideas are inseparable!

The angled melody comes at a dramatic turning point in the movie. Gifford is sent on a dangerous mission that brings him to "Norzagaray". He's shown developing strength of character. Subsequent combat becomes disorienting, even futile. Gifford will eventually be damn near alone.

The tune is developed substantially during "Parade George", a scene set atop a cliff. From this point on it becomes the center of much attention. It's heard in moving fashion on trumpet during "Flash Raid". It's richest presentation ultimately brings about the climax of the score.

In the strongest scene of the movie Gifford and close friend Willie (Buddy Ebsen) become stranded atop a hill, lone survivors of the carnage. Willie is badly injured, immobile. There's only one option left. Gifford bids farewell to Willie and girds for battle, alone. Brass declare strong statements of the angled line. Friedhofer brings the martial snare drums back in cadence.

Then Gifford runs like hell.

For several minutes it's all Friedhofer. Nothing but Friedhofer. I mean, literally, one of the great film music cues of all time. We're seeing action, guns are blazing, yet it's music you're hearing!

Snares pound, brass punch a jagged figure emphasizing intervals of a third. This is fierce music.

But where Friedhofer goes with it!! In a brilliant stroke he brings back the Dies Irae, not just in quote, but literally a full and exact reprise of his opening - with one incredible change. He raises everything a third!

This forces the brass into higher registers, adding majestic splendor to a grim and gripping scene. When Friedhofer finally proclaims his melody with all accompanying chords in high brass you know Gifford has conquered his troubles!

Film Score Monthly presents the entire score to BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL in dynamic stereo. Hearing that last "Desperate Journey" cue in sound like this is heaven for me. And as a bonus they've provided highlights that survive (from badly damaged masters) to a 1955 Fox movie called SOLDIER OF FORTUNE. The main theme is but one highlight of a strong score. Though large segments did not survive, the 23 minutes here provide a sturdy representation of Friedhofer's effort.

Customarily detailed liner notes and a dramatic cover punctuate this terrific presentation.

I'd certainly be remiss in not thanking Film Score Monthly for this footnote. Producers Nick Redman and Lukas Kendall, knowing my love for BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL, dedicated their album to me, just for being wildly excited about it. (And obviously I’m not the only one who likes it, since the score got an Academy Award nomination.)

Gee, maybe I can come up with some more unreleased favorites!