Intrada Soundtrack Forum

INTRADA Announces:



SILENT RUNNING
Composed and Conducted by PETER SCHICKELE
Vocals by JOAN BAEZ
INTRADA Special Collection 369

At long last, Intrada presents Peter Schickele's much-sought after science fiction score to the 1972 Universal Pictures film Silent Running. Director Douglas Trumbull’s pursuit of Joan Baez to provide songs for the movie led to one of the most unusual and haunting science-fiction movie scores ever written—from a musical talent known far more for his comedy than for his serious compositions. Trumbull had noticed the name Peter Schickele as an arranger on some of Baez’s albums and sought him out to write music for Silent Running. Schickele’s score is lyrical, taking its cue from the film’s opening macro-cinematography of tiny animals— snails, rabbits and frogs—going about their lives in what amounts to an outer-space terrarium.

Schickele's score is relatively brief, and the original 1971 Decca album featured almost all of his music, as well as Baez's three vocals. An exhaustive multi-year search revealed a disillusioning discovery – every master element had vanished. With the album continuing to receive numerous requests for release on CD, Intrada proceeded using a new copy of the original vinyl release. Because Schickele’s music is very transparent and involves a unique and masterful use of very exposed “high end” instruments (extreme upper-register left-hand piano, high electric piano, orchestra bells, crotales, triangle, marimba and glockenspiel), Intrada was very judicious in applying noise reduction, leaving just enough “air” around the delicate passages to retain what in actuality is part of Schickele’s intimate musical soundscape.

Set in a future where Earth’s ecosystems have long since died off, Bruce Dern stars as astronaut and ecologist Freeman Lowell, a crewman aboard the space freighter Valley Forge—part of a small fleet of ships entrusted with preserving the last of Earth’s forest environments. Lowell faithfully tends the gardens until the government issues an order that the forests are to be ejected and destroyed. Horrified, Lowell disobeys his orders, eventually killing his commander and the rest of the Valley Forge’s crew and taking the freighter past Saturn in a desperate bid to prevent the destruction of these last remaining patches of natural life from Earth.

INTRADA Special Collection 369
Barcode: 7 20258 53692 1
Retail Price: $21.99
SHIPPING NOW
For track listing and sound samples, please visit:
http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.10636/.f

One of my few remaining sci-fi movie grails.

Fantastic.

Can't wait to get my ears around this one. All I know of Shickele's work is his PDQ Bach material, but it was always skillful, historically informed, and super smart (besides being hilarious). This ought to be awesome.

_________________
Randy Wilson
Dallas, TX

You'll probably enjoy SILENT RUNNING, as long as you don't expect this to be hilarious. In fact, the title song is gorgeous (melodically as well as Joan Baez's gorgeous rendition); but in film context, you don't have to be a "tree hugger" to find its orchestral main-title version incredibly poignant.

A stunning soundtrack in my opinion!
I own a vinyl copy, but having it on CD, with extensive sleeve notes is most welcome!

It's a shame the original masters couldn't be located, but this is still a must have purchase and another grail to add to the collection!

Many thanks Intrada!

When I was a little kid, the Joan Baez song would always make me cry -- especially when coupled with the ending of the film, which still strikes me as incredibly sad. I couldn't stop thinking that the poor little robot, Dewey, was going to be incredibly lonely by himself -- that he would never have any friends -- and the last forest would just float off into eternity. That was how my eight year-old mind worked.

I have to echo the sentiment that it's too bad the Silent Running masters couldn't be found. Makes me even more pessimistic about the stereo masters of Williams' Dracula ever turning up.

_________________
Most Wanted: Moonraker - complete; Inside Moves (John Barry), Volunteers; The Hand; Brainstorm - complete (James Horner); MacArthur; Supergirl -expanded (Jerry Goldsmith).

Any chance of a redo if the Varese employee's comment about their new vinyl coming from tapes (that I imagine should belong to UMG) is true? This is such a strong album that I would buy it again without all of that transfer noise.

https://www.facebook.com/varesesaraband ... 1821704106

No new info to shed on this topic... and don't worry, it's not an annoyance for people to mention it. It is an annoyance that Varese "lost" the master elements during our lengthy search and then "found" them after we finished our release. And yes, they should've been returned to UMG at some point. So what happens down the line is just unknown at this time.
--Doug