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Posted: |
Mar 13, 2013 - 6:02 PM
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By: |
.
(Member)
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Well we know now that it's definitely going to be released, but I'm with Doug Raynes here, it's obviously Intrada (Doug Fake is in business, & is not in the habit of advertising Varese product), but people are still listing just about every other record label they can think of.
Here are just three of several pieces from "Doug's Corner" where the whole article focuses on non-Intrada releases. While he might not gush about other label's soundtrack releases, he's more than happy to lavish praise on RE-RECORDINGS from other sources. Might that suggest he's doing the same now?
The Rise Of The Roman Empire! The Fall of it! Whatever. Producer James Fitzpatrick nails it down, sets it ablaze, then stomps on the ashes! Here's the Tiomkin recording to beat.
Much has been said about Tiomkin's favorite musical devices, the abundance of notes, the colorful orchestrations, the sheer volume of music. So true, so true, so true. But MY favorite device is his incredibly complex harmonic vocabulary.
Not to be confused with atonality and dissonance, areas Tiomkin rarely dwelled upon, I speak of his non-stop, rapid-fire machine gun-paced change of chords within his cues. Relying mostly on tried and true major and minor chords, Tiomkin uniquely raced through an abundance of those chords within mere beats, often moving around chromatically from one harmony to another with the same ferocity Jerry Goldsmith applied rhythms to action music. No small feat! But enough of harmony. Let's visit THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE as in this brand new Prometheus 2-CD set. And once you visit it, you'll be back. I've been there twice now, all two plus hours of it, and after a brief respite I'll go visit it again.
Yes, it's that good. This is surely one of the best re-recordings I've heard. Being such an ambitious score only adds to the good vibes!
What Fitzpatrick's crew does is capture the sheer energy of this weighted score, finding all the right colors again and again. Here an imposing solo organ, there a tender violin line, here a flutter-tongue trumpet figure, there a sturdy unison cello section... and before you know it, all the sweep and majesty of a full-blooded procession through Rome, right there in your living room, or your car, or your earbuds or whatever. However you carry sound from the CD player to your ear, Nic Raine conducts it, the City of Prague musicians play it, Prometheus presents it... and you're the beneficiary.
Hail Commodus! Hail Caesar! Maybe even hail Livius if you desire! But mostly, all hail Dimitri Tiomkin and his score of a lifetime!
and...
The best they've ever done! William Stromberg. John Morgan. Moscow Symphony. And the music by Herrmann isn't too bad, either!
Two war film scores written roughly a decade apart. BATTLE OF NERETVA finds Yugoslavia invaded by Nazis, THE NAKED AND THE DEAD finds action in the Pacific. Bernard Herrmann battles on both fronts with music scored for massive forces, particularly in pumped up brass. Hit play on your CD, Herrmann hits back harder. Moments of respite in Neretva do appear, notably with strings during "From Italy" and "Pastorale". But it's a brief rest. War isn't pretty, even if heroic. So brass and percussion just keep coming.
THE NAKED AND THE DEAD shares the war concerns but brings in considerable color, particularly in an amazing array of muted effects for brass and shifting figures for woodwinds. At times it plays like music for Harryhausen!
Ok, so with all this muscle and war, some 77 minutes of it, what's my favorite part? I'll tell you. Track 37. "Wilson's Death". We're in the Pacific on this one. Standing out amongst everything surrounding it, Herrmann writes a brief tribute to the fallen with nothing but pure rock solid major chords for low brass. Wow! What power, even at mezzo-forte levels! Just major chords for a wall of trombones and tuba. Beyond that, I can't get enough of the Dead's "Prelude", which also has a stunning array of major chords as well as some piercing stuff for trumpets. And percussion up the wazoo keeps it marching forward... never looking back.
What performing the Moscow players do! What robust conducting Stromberg displays! And Morgan just knows the music inside and outl, how it's written, how to construct it, how to re-construct it, you name it. Just give him Herrmann and get out of the way.
I just have to lavish praise on what this album does right that so many other re-recordings of film music do not-so-right. It lets the music be the thing! No insane added reverb, no numbing pumped up bass that plagues many other such efforts... just crisp, tight, realistic, close-miked, dynamically recorded, well-played music. What a joy to crank that Prelude from Naked up really loud and hear real tympani and brass without mushy sound and over-burdened sub-woofers telling me the engineering was mostly done after the playing was over. Stromberg and Morgan and Moscow capture it all on the stage and you're there with them. Add the visions of producer Anna Bonn to see the recordings cross the finish line and you've get a top drawer album! Here's my choice for "Best Recording by Stromberg, Morgan and Moscow" of all-time. Or, at least until their next one.
and...
Wow! What a great album! If you haven't yet picked it up, you might reward yourself by doing so.
I speak of VILLA RIDES, as in the brand new recording just issued by Tadlow. What a winner! Crisp, tight sonics. Terrific stereo imaging, guitars are solid, percussion is spot on... it sounds like Jarre! And the score is a fun one.
Tadlow is the product of James Fitzpatrick, who seems to have a passion for not only Jarre but that wonderful sixties era when great soundtracks came at us from all directions. I met James in London when Intrada recorded RIO CONCHOS. He mentioned his love of Jarre back then. It shows. He also wrote our notes for THE NIGHT OF THE GENERALS around that time.
No, I'm not a PR person for James. But his new VILLA RIDES does that job very nicely! It hits the bullseye!
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It's nice to see the original tracks finally coming out on Bay Cities Records. They always do such a good job.
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Dear Driving,
Cute one, Peter.
***
DEAR BASIL,
Nu -- what do you have against notes by Julie Kirgo?
PNJ
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Reading FSM threads sometimes gets a bit funny.
I think Schiffy is so on the money when he compares FSM's last release with the final episode of a long running series. (If the series was good, why should we be surprised if it's tough to create a final episode that is so much better than the rest of the series?)
So, let's add this up: a classic film score gets a definitive release and some folks grumble. Isn't that what FSM was always about?
As for guessing the label for TEN COMMANDMENTS ... LOL! ... have we become *that* addicted to guessing games?
My personal theory: it's a reflection of collectors' impatience. Y'know, that: "Oooh, now I know it's coming, now I want it now!! Who? Where? When? Yummy!!"
Well, we are film score fanatics, so I guess I can understand that. It's still funny though.
Cheers
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Thank you, pp, that's a very interesting comment indeed from Fraser H., (who, of course, also played Moses in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS). Can you perhaps recall where you saw that interview? I'd love to read the whole thing.
As to the differences between TEN COMMANDMENTS and BEN-HUR, they may make for a very instructional contrast with each other if paired in a video box. (I wonder about what extras, if any, will be included from the two films' superlative anniversary releases.) Mr. Heston was a very astute gentleman where cinema was concerned, as his writings and interviews attest, and I'd be willing to bet he was aware of the differences between DeMille's film and Wyler's, as he certainly was aware of the different approaches of those two directors. But difference is not necessarily synonymous with inequality.
Personally, I regard those differences as significant more in terms of movies' historical evolution than in intrinsic quality. Heston the younger is of course quite right that COMMANDMENTS, the work of a Victorian, and BEN-HUR represent the original Hollywood epic and the modern Hollywood epic respectively, but if you take each film on its own terms it has its own unique virtues to offer in the way of cinematic entertainment. Apples and oranges, and all that.
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Precisely.
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Posted: |
Mar 14, 2013 - 6:01 PM
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By: |
pp312
(Member)
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Thank you, pp, that's a very interesting comment indeed from Fraser H., (who, of course, also played Moses in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS). Can you perhaps recall where you saw that interview? I'd love to read the whole thing.
T'was a documentary, Preston, called something like "The Great Epics" on TCM. Quite worthwhile.
As to the differences between Commandments and B-H, I just can't take Commandments seriously. As drama it's fustian. I made the mistake of seeing B-H first--not wise--then wondered what I'd run into with Commandents. In place of believable, thoughtful, frequently sophisticated dialogue was this Primary School pageant--"The Amateur Dramatic Society on its annual picnic", as one critic put it. I know a lot of people love this film and I don't want to trash it for them (except I just did!), but really, who can deny that Commandments, like De Mille himself, has its roots in the silent cinema, and only really differs from it in technical proficiency.
I know it's all subjective, and God knows there are plenty of people who hate B-H (is that even possible? Hmm, must be...). What troubles me about Commandments is that it's the film most critics of religious epics point to when they want to rubbish the whole genre.
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Thanks very much for getting back to me on the Fraser quote. I believe I've got that TCM documentary in my library, so I'll look forward to watching it.
***
As for the rest, there's nothing I can say, is there? In fact, I dare say you haven't said anything I can quarrel with, nor have I to you, I hope. If you never cared for TTC, then there's no point in trying to persuade you that you should have, and I certainly wouldn't want to try. Personally, I feel fortunate that I saw both movies when they were in first run, which means when I was young and impressionable. Perhaps that's why I can now embrace them both, for their respective virtues as well as their flaws. Also, being something of a film historian, I can see them both as chapters in the continuity of cinema, whistle stops, if you will, on the Nile River of film, each of them -- forgive me for this next word -- equally important in the growth and development of the medium. And, finally, if negative critics are going to seize upon any one film to use it for trashing an entire genre, then shame on them, and I won't hold it against the film -- any more than I'd hold it against DeMille's movie that you don't happen to like it.
By the way, to bring things full circle, I do hope you at least can enjoy Mr. Bernstein's score?
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Posted: |
Mar 14, 2013 - 9:56 PM
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By: |
pp312
(Member)
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By the way, to bring things full circle, I do hope you at least can enjoy Mr. Bernstein's score?
I don't dislike the score, but like the film it suffers from a certain obviousness, a lack of subtlety and--dare I say it?--sophistication. I don't blame Bernstein for this; he wrote any number of vastly sophisticated scores around this time. But he supplied Commandments with exactly the right score, which to me isn't necessarily a compliment. De Mille again, of course; the man just wouldn't have known subtlety if it had hit him over the head. He wanted a colourful, straightforward, picture-book score and that's exactly what he got. A typical Rozsa, Herrmann or North score (ye gods!) just wouldn't have been right, but Bernstein as a still up-and-coming composer knew how to please his master and was not above taking suggestions. Within that context, that envirement, I must say he produced a masterful score; it's hard to believe that this was so early in his career (but then you might think that about Man With the Golden Arm and several others). In that sense he seems to have emerged from the musical womb fully grown--an image that doesn't really bear thinking about. A fantastic talent, and one of my all-time favourite composers.
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Posted: |
Mar 14, 2013 - 11:32 PM
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By: |
Morricone
(Member)
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By the way, to bring things full circle, I do hope you at least can enjoy Mr. Bernstein's score?
I don't dislike the score, but like the film it suffers from a certain obviousness, a lack of subtlety and--dare I say it?--sophistication. I don't blame Bernstein for this; he wrote any number of vastly sophisticated scores around this time. But he supplied Commandments with exactly the right score, which to me isn't necessarily a compliment. De Mille again, of course; the man just wouldn't have known subtlety if it had hit him over the head. He wanted a colourful, straightforward, picture-book score and that's exactly what he got. A typical Rozsa, Herrmann or North score (ye gods!) just wouldn't have been right, but Bernstein as a still up-and-coming composer knew how to please his master and was not above taking suggestions. Within that context, that envirement, I must say he produced a masterful score; it's hard to believe that this was so early in his career (but then you might think that about Man With the Golden Arm and several others). In that sense he seems to have emerged from the musical womb fully grown--an image that doesn't really bear thinking about. A fantastic talent, and one of my all-time favourite composers.
Just when I thought of superficially agreeing with your points I started thinking about the hokey sea battle, the leper rain or the reaction scenes whenever Christ shows up plus what Rozsa does in some of those scenes and I am not sure about how superior BEN-HUR is. Then I think about how much BEN-HUR owes to the silent original as opposed to THE TEN COMMANDMENTS which owes little to the silent version which was mainly a modern fable. Then I think about the performances that do work in the De Mille epic, the competition between the two "brothers" Heston and Brynner and Anne Baxter's drenching obsession for Moses. And also the parts of Bernstein's score that do bring shadings to certain scenes, the more I can't accept this overly black and white distinction between the two films, and the scores, you present.
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This is obviously the time to remind everyone that Bernstein recalled DeMille's love of Wagner, and that this was one of his requests of the young composer, to employ the Wagnerian use of leit motif.
***
TO pp:
You may be right about the non-productivity of comparing the quality of these two Biblical epics, but -- forgive me -- just who started it...?
***
To MORRICONE:
I remember the lepers, and I remember the rain, but exactly what is "leper rain," and what was your problem with it?
Just curious.
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