Titanic Sequel CD

Horner in the Corner News Report

by Paul Tonks

On the evening of 17th July, an unprecedented media circus surrounded the world of soundtracks. London's Air Studios hosted the world's press at a special "open recording session" of James Horner's Back to Titanic album.

Sony Classical are quite happy with Titanic you know. In case you didn't, they're confident enough of the name-equals-success evidenced so far, that they commissioned Horner to put together a "sequel" album. It will feature the Irish pieces from the film's down below scenes. Apparently hordes of fans have been clamouring for this particularly. There's a version of "My Heart Will Go On" that has only been heard on radio. It has dialogue...

For your money you'll also get the on-screen band I Salonisti with their renditions of "Nearer My God to Thee" and "Alexander's Ragtime Band." Bookending the whole thing are some new pieces from Horner. "The Titanic Suite," and the more imaginatively entitled "Epilogue: The Deep and Timeless Sea, A Shore Never Reached." At the Air session it was the first of these two that got put on display for the flashing cameras and whirring recorders.

Horner conducted the London Symphony Orchestra, with featured artists Eric Rigley (uilleann pipe), Eileen Ivers (violin - a new signing to the Sony label), Tommy Hayes (bodhran), Zan McLeod (bouzouki) all getting a look in. When Norwegian singer Sissel stepped forward to the mike it became apparent that the term "recording" was a little inappropriate to the proceedings.

Unless the album intends to be drowned by orchestra spill into the solo instrumentalists. Let alone the noises of camera shutters and mobile phones! After about an hour and a half of familiar material from the Suite, Horner disappeared into make-up before facing the anticipatory hordes. Many of the representatives there were disappointed at the door; their interview requests having been turned down at the last minute.

In fairness, the number of people still catered for was pretty high. Horner ended up experiencing the regular turnmill most actor stars get on a movie's promo tour. In the middle of one interview the next would be setting up, while the previous broke their equipment down. He literally turned from one barrage of questions to the next. I was there on behalf of a British magazine, and found myself grouped together with both BBC Radio 4 and CNN News! This was the solution by Sony to cram everyone in.

Given only a 10 minute slot we decided to pool our resources and questions. Hence while the camera rolled, our recorders all took the one feed and one person asked the questions. He took the repetition of many questions in his stride. In particular, and unsurprisingly the most often asked question was why had he agreed to a second album. The gist of his collective responses seeming to be that the idea of getting a more emotional response out of the material appealed to him.

Oh, and he keeps his Oscars in a closet...

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Tomorrow: Andy Dursin takes a look at Saving Private Ryan in "The Aisle Seat."