Intrada Soundtrack Forum

INTRADA Announces:



THE RIVER WILD
Composed and Conducted by JERRY GOLDSMITH
Unused Score Composed and Conducted by MAURICE JARRE
INTRADA Special Collection Vol. 301

The 1994 Universal Pictures film The River Wild features Gail (Meryl Streep) in a troubled marriage and on a family outing to go rafting in the country to get away from it all. Along the way they meet a pair of thieves who hijack a ride on the raft, turning a family bonding adventure into a family survival ordeal. The decision as to just what music would be heard was a challenging issue for the filmmakers. Composer Maurice Jarre was hired to record a lengthy, large-scale symphonic score in June 1994. The score is on a massive, epic scale, focusing on the grand outdoor adventure -- the majesty of nature itself -- and later the thrills as the tale progressively gets darker. The action material speaks to the conflict between that natural power and Gail’s determination to conquer it. This approach apparently did not work for the filmmakers.

Jerry Goldsmith was then brought in and recorded a score in August, taking a much gentler approach, featuring a main theme that speaks to the serenity Gail finds in nature and her enjoyment in navigating its waters. This transparent theme is typically heard on solo flute or trumpet and is based on the folksong, “The Water Is Wide.” Where Jarre avoids using that familiar tune until the end of his score, Goldsmith anchors his entire score with it. Where Jarre works variants of his original main theme to focus on the action and hits hard with dissonant brass figures, Goldsmith moves away from the traditional melody he started with and instead creates an entirely new secondary theme for the river rafting sequences, an imposing minor-key idea that assumes prominence as the action unfolds. For the action sequences, Goldsmith opts for rhythmic intensity over dissonance.

And yet for the lengthy action set-piece where Gail successfully negotiates the deadly gauntlet as well as the equally lethal villains, both composers feature a plethora of energetic, jagged brass rhythms over massive blocks of percussion. Ultimately, both scores are musically riveting and worthy of the showcase Intrada presents on this 2-CD set. This new release features the complete scores from the masters housed at Universal that not only include the complete scores, but the numerous rewrites for both scores as the filmmakers honed in on the approach for which they were looking.

INTRADA Special Collection Vol. 301
Retail Price: $29.99
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For track listing and sound samples, please visit
http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.9198/.f

Terrific release! Looking forward to listening to the unused material as well as the unreleased elements of a great Goldsmith score. Thanks, Intrada.

I am so buying this release!!!

That Jarre score is breathtaking. The film score on album concept is truly made for this kind of work.

As an after-thought, I wanted to mention how I really enjoy reading Doug's 'Tech Talk' section of the releases. I hope that continues into the future.

Where is the "tech talk" thing you're referring to??? I can't find it ANYwhere!

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I-love-Goldsmith, yes-I-do...
I-love-Ber-nard-Herr-mann-too! EVERYBODY SING!!!

By the way. Somewhere in the "tech talk" there is a comment referring to the percussion overlays having survived in a sentence beginning with the phrase "almost all... " which is not correct. They all did survive. Every one of them. My proofreading skills are not so good, obviously.
--Doug

Well at least the web copy can be easily corrected, Doug! This looks like an amazing release, better than I could have possibly hoped for! Thanks for going the extra mile to include both scores in comprehensive form.

And for the record in regards to your writing Doug, I really miss your album/score reviews...I remember one you did on The Perfect Stirm which made me totally revise my opinion of it (which was originally along the lines of 'Horner on autopilot')

Yavar

THANK YOU INTRADA! THANK YOU. Have waited a long time for this as it one of my fave Goldsmith scores, I just love it. To have so much more of it to enjoy is just awesome. You guys are great. To give us the Jarre score too.....now you are just spoiling us! Thank you. I love being spoilt.

Ordered along with your previous release of Psycho II (among others).

Like in The Scarlet Letter (John Barry & Elmer Bernstein) is very interesting to see two giants of film music thinking about the same movie, I'm very anxious to hear the complete Jerry Goldsmith's score, I love his main theme, his action music and to hear the entire Maurice Jarre's score, I already have heard excerpt of Jarre's score and seems very interesting too. Rare oportunity to hear two big voices in the same CD and in the same subject, Great Intrada, many thanks!!!!

Amazing edition!

And... ordered, with 5 other titles.

Thank you so much to everyone involved!

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Rame Tep! Rame Tep! Rame Tep!