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A nosey question, but does anyone who bought this know what the 'Hour of Prayer' track consists of? By its positioning, it should be a piece to accompany Olivier's call to prayer after his opening speech, which cuts to a close-up of Gladstone's newspaper. But that's always been meant as a short edit, obviously, so where's the music?
There's a later scene of a muezzin minaret that segues into the belly-dance routine of Soraya, which doesn't look as though it's listed. Could that be it, wrongly sequenced?
It'd be neat if this release had extra music unheard.
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Posted: |
Jun 20, 2016 - 10:20 AM
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By: |
Last Child
(Member)
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A nosey question, but does anyone who bought this know what the 'Hour of Prayer' track consists of? By its positioning, it should be a piece to accompany Olivier's call to prayer after his opening speech, which cuts to a close-up of Gladstone's newspaper. But that's always been meant as a short edit, obviously, so where's the music?
There's a later scene of a muezzin minaret that segues into the belly-dance routine of Soraya, which doesn't look as though it's listed. Could that be it, wrongly sequenced?
It'd be neat if this release had extra music unheard.
The track is about 18 seconds long, sort of a tension-building, thoughtful bridge. Would that match the scene?
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The track is about 18 seconds long, sort of a tension-building, thoughtful bridge. Would that match the scene?
Thanks, yes it might, giving a growing ominousness to the Mahdi's speech.
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The belly dancing music is not on this new release but can be heard on the Twilight Time Blu-ray isolated track. Curiously the Main Title on this release does NOT contain the opening three-bar martial intro found in the film (and on the Blu-ray isolated track, which Nick Redman tells us is courtesy of The Frank Cordell Estate). That is the same intro that opens the End Title, where it's a two bar into (the Main Title three-bar intro simply repeats the first bar). That intro might possibly have been recorded separately in order to extend the Main Title sequence a few seconds.
"The Hour Of Prayer" is an additional cue not heard in the film. As well, many scenes in the film do not contain the full cues scored for them. And yes, there is additional music on this release not heard in the film, and some of the cues seem to be placed in scenes that do not match the titles, particularly in Act II. For example the opening of "Battle of Berber II" appears in the midst of the final assault on Khartoum when the Mahdi's sailing vessels are sighted.
Another curiosity: the music for the Act I Finale and Intermission Title (in the film and on this release) is an editorial construction consisting of the middle ten (or so) seconds and last ten seconds of the Entr'acte, followed by the concluding elegy music from "Death of General Gordon" (without the final resolving chord). That explains why it did not appear as such on the LP/FSM CD, and why the Entr'acte is called simply "Intermission Music."
Having said all this, I'm prepared to suggest that the United Artists LP/FSM CD album IS truly an original soundtrack recording and not a re-recording made for the UA LP album.
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One more point.
In the "Gordon Enters the Mahdi's Camp" cue on this release (a composite of the mislabeled "Gordon Enters Khartoum" cue and "Gordon Enters the Mahdi's Camp" cue on the UA LP/FSM CD), Cordell paid tribute to the "fire-divination" music from Alex North's "Cleopatra" score. It is heard just before the moment in which Gordon gloriously reveals his full military uniform as proof of his identity to Mahdi's doubting tribesmen.
There is a second cue on this release ("Execution"), 48 seconds into which one hears another echo from "Cleopatra," that of North's "Give Me An Honorable Way To Die" musical sequence. In Cordell's "Khartoum," it accompanies the exodus from Khartoum of native Sudanese hitherto faithful to Gordon but now feeling betrayed by the British and going over to the Mahdi's forces in order to escape annihilation. In North's "Cleopatra," the original music accompanied Marc Antony's tragic sense of dishonor when he realizes his own troops have deserted him and gone over to Octavian -- repaying Antony in kind for his desertion of them at Actium. Cordell surely sensed the parallel between Gordon's and Antony's mixed feelings of betrayal and abandonment.
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Having said all this, I'm prepared to suggest that the United Artists LP/FSM CD album IS truly an original soundtrack recording and not a re-recording made for the UA LP album.
I don't have the FSM CD or the Stylotone set so don't know if this is already well-known but KHARTOUM is listed amongst paperwork I've seen for scores recorded at the Cine-Tele Sound (CTS) studios in Bayswater, London.
Chris
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I don't have the FSM CD or the Stylotone set so don't know if this is already well-known but KHARTOUM is listed amongst paperwork I've seen for scores recorded at the Cine-Tele Sound (CTS) studios in Bayswater, London.
Chris
Yes, recorded March 4-7, 1966 at CTS Studios.
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As Rory's avatar would say, "he had a definite gift for mimicry."
I prefer to think of it as a tribute to North, much as Elmer Bernstein did with respect to Alfred Newman in "Hawaii."
When the composer is as good as Cordell, I give him the benefit of the doubt.
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North and Previn turn up in several of Cordell's scores.
There is a previous thread here somewhere where Lukas Kendall says he thinks there was 'an early case of temp-track love' in Mosquito Squadron (which contains some 'Four Horsemen'). Most of Cordell's biggies were United Artists in the '60s I think, but stock temp music needn't be agonised over re rights, since no-one will hear it.
Then again, Magda Cordell was the champion of collage work, and Frank was part of that 'experiment' as he later called it, so perhaps he saw that as a sampling valid statement. He doesn't strike me as the sort of person who'd enthuse about film music or even watch a lot of films, pop art notwithstanding.
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I'll happily pay for just the high resolution download without the rest of the space shrinking junk.
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