 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I'm sitting here relistening to this CD and am, once again, just knocked out by the Scoring of this Music by Andre Previn. I know there's now 2 separate threads on Previn but this Rhino Soundtrack CD deserves separate mention. How often do we get a Soundtrack CD from a Musical that includes just about every single note of Music heard in the Film as well as expanded sections that did'nt make it into the final cut. Rhino has really done some fine work on this as well as the 2 CD "American in Paris" and many others. But it makes me hungry for Complete Musical Scores from other Studios. What are the chances of Rhino tapping into the vaults of Paramount, Columbia, Universal etc?
And why are there no Fox Musicals from Varese lately?
Once again, I must strongly recommend to Musical Fans who dont already have it this terrific Soundtrack from "Gigi". Too bad some of the extended Music didn't make it into the Film. Although I've read that "Gigi" was a shambles when filming finished. And it was shaped into an Oscar-Winning Musical in the cutting room. Anybody else hear this?
N.P. GIGI (Lerner, Loewe & Previn)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I've read that "Gigi" was a shambles when filming finished. And it was shaped into an Oscar-Winning Musical in the cutting room. Anybody else hear this?
N.P. GIGI (Lerner, Loewe & Previn)
It's hard to say "Gigi" was actually a shambles at any point in time.
According to Hugh Fordin's "MGM's Greatest Musicals," when the film was initially finished shooting, it had two overwhelmingly successful previews -- in Santa Barbara, then Pomona. The Rhino CD booklet is very detailed and thorough, but it is frankly misleading on this point, saying of the previews that "audience approval was high for Chevalier and the location shots, but not much else was appreciated." Fordin, on the other hand, reports the actual preview card scores! Santa Barbara preview: 223 out of 252 cards rated the film "good" to "outstanding." Pomona preview: 248 out of 263 "good" to "outstanding."
(Incidentally, page 5 of the Rhino booklet casually credits Loewe with the music to Lerner's lyrics for MGM's "Royal Wedding." That score was by Lerner & Lane, not Lerner & Loewe. Oops.)
However, Lerner, Loewe and Arthur Freed thought the first cut was about twenty minutes too long. They saw enough areas for improvement, and felt strongly enough about them, that they were able to convince MGM of the necessity of reshooting roughly a quarter of the movie, and completely rerecording the orchestral parts of the score.
In his memoir, "The Street Where I Live," Lerner amusingly describes the meeting wherein he and Frederick Loewe convinced the MGM top brass to spend the additional money for reshooting, rerecording, redubbing, reediting, etc., by offering to buy the negative from MGM outright for three million dollars. (As full owners of the production, they would pay for the improvements themselves.)
The two then proceeded to the men's room to be sick, knowing that, even though "My Fair Lady" was already a smash on Broadway, they did not have access to that kind of money at the time. When they returned to the office, the executives had taken their bluff seriously enough to agree to fund the changes deemed necessary.
By the time the Culver City retakes were sceduled to take place, Minnelli had moved on to his next picture, "The Reluctant Debutant." Charles Walters was engaged to direct the additional shots. His most noteworthy contribution may be the closeups of Louis Jourdan during the "She Is Not Thinking of Me" number, set at Maxim's. They are absolutely essential to selling the song as an internal soliloquy, taking place entirely inside Gaston's mind -- so much so, it's astounding to think that Minnelli neglected to do any closeups when he shot the number in Paris. The tiny part of Maxim's where Jourdan and Eva Gabor were seated was meticulously recreated at MGM, just for the pickup shots. Walters did as good a job as anyone could. Even so, I find it hard to watch the scene without remembering that the wide angles were shot in Paris, but the closeups were shot in Hollywood months later.
Interestingly, one of Lerner & Loewe's major objections to the first cut of "Gigi" was . . . the orchestrations! Lerner describes the original attempt as "too creamy and ill-defined." Loewe thought that the orchestrations were "far too lush and Hollywooden and did not have the sharp, brilliant tone of a smaller orchestra -- something that sounded more like the theatre than motion pictures." According to Lerner, "Fritz went over all the orchestrations with Andre from the Lion's roar at the very beginning to the final frame before 'The End.' Andre was in total agreement with Fritz's concept of a small orchestra, and the entire film was reorchestrated."
Terrific as the Rhino "Gigi" CD is, I still wonder what happened to the original "Gigi" orchestrations, and whether they'll ever turn up anywhere. Sometimes I study the recording dates listed in the Rhino booklet while listening to the CD, trying to tell if any of the first orchestration attempt is recognizable or traceable in any of the cues. Has anyone here found any inconsistencies in orchestral color or ensemble size worth mentioning?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thanks Joe & Sigerson. This is fascinating stuff. The actual "Gigi" orchestrations are so lush & Hollywood sounding, it makes me wonder how the first attempt sounded.
N.P. Walk on the Wild Side (Elmer Bernstein)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Posted: |
Apr 11, 2004 - 7:17 PM
|
|
|
|
By: |
Jaquandor
(Member)
|
Once again, I must strongly recommend to Musical Fans who dont already have it this terrific Soundtrack from "Gigi".
Oh, agreed. What a wonderful disc this is -- I've only had it for a year or so, but it's come close to the rarefied place that "My Fair Lady" and "Singin' In the Rain" hold in my heart.
BTW, it's not a film recording, but a disc that I find an essential part of my Lerner&Loewe collection is a recent "operetta" style re-recording of "Brigadoon", on the Angel label. If all you've heard of "Brigadoon" is the Rhino release of the Gene Kelly film soundtrack -- as great an album as that one is -- you need to hear this, both for the songs in their original Broadway conception (i.e., "The Heather on the Hill" as a love duet, as opposed to a Kelly&Charisse dance number) and some songs not even allowed to be in that film because of their racy content ("The True Love of My Life", some of the funniest lyrics I've ever heard).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Posted: |
Apr 11, 2004 - 9:22 PM
|
|
|
|
By: |
CH-CD
(Member)
|
Oh, agreed. What a wonderful disc this is -- I've only had it for a year or so, but it's come close to the rarefied place that "My Fair Lady" and "Singin' In the Rain" hold in my heart.
BTW, it's not a film recording, but a disc that I find an essential part of my Lerner&Loewe collection is a recent "operetta" style re-recording of "Brigadoon", on the Angel label. If all you've heard of "Brigadoon" is the Rhino release of the Gene Kelly film soundtrack -- as great an album as that one is -- you need to hear this, both for the songs in their original Broadway conception (i.e., "The Heather on the Hill" as a love duet, as opposed to a Kelly&Charisse dance number) and some songs not even allowed to be in that film because of their racy content ("The True Love of My Life", some of the funniest lyrics I've ever heard).
For my money, the best recording of "Brigadoon" is the 1956 Columbia recording, with Shirley Jones and Jack Cassidy.
This album was released to cash in on (and try to emulate) the (then) huge success of the Broadway cast album of "My Fair Lady".
It succeeded in capturing Lerner & Lowe's lovely score perfectly, and indeed, it sounds like it is itself, an Original Broadway cast recording.
Columbia, where is the long-overdue release of this album on CD ???
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Apr 12, 2004 - 1:06 PM
|
|
|
|
By: |
SoundScope
(Member)
|
God help me I LOVE muscicals and ALL of their lucious underscoring - some of the most imaginative stuff ever done. I never tire of listening to the likes of MY FAIR LADY, KISMET, BRIGADOON, KISS ME KATE et al. One can only hope and pray for continuted interest and new releases for the likes of DOCTOR DOLITTLE, PORGY AND BESS, CAMELOT, FINIAN'S RAINBOW, DADDY LONG LEGS (I just go nuts over the song "Somthin's Gotta Give"!), ROSE MARIE, LES GIRLS and countless others.
And boy, am I glad for what we've got!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It IS mind-boggling!
I was quoting Alan Jay Lerner's "The Street Where I Live," W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1978.
The "music too creamy and ill-defined" quote is from page 174.
". . . far too lush and Hollywooden . . . more like the theatre than motion pictures" is from 175.
"Fritz went over all the orchestrations . . . the entire film was re-orchestrated" is from 179.
I tried to find corroborating sources. The Fordin book doesn't mention the re-orchestration. Neither does Minnelli's autobiography, "I Remember It Well." Edward Jablonski's "Alan Jay Lerner" and Stephen Citron's "The Wordsmiths" do mention the orchestrations, but both seem merely to be quoting Lerner's book.
On the one hand, Lerner is famous for embellishing his own life story (a firm believer in "when the legend becomes fact, print the legend"). On the other hand, it seems doubtful that he would make up, or mis-remember, such a specific technical detail.
Could he possibly have mixed up the making of the original film with the eventual re-orchestrating of the score which was done for the later stage version? It seems unlikely.
Unfortunately, I don't have any books by, or about, Andre Previn nearby. I'll have to check next time I go to the library!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Regarding the GIGI orchestrations, as luck would have it a friend just faxed to me a copy of an interview with Alexander Courage, focusing on his musical-comedy orchestrating days, conducted by Leonard Maltin for his MOVIE CRAZY (looks like a periodical, but the MOVIE CRAZY website may also have it on file). Apparently things weren't always quite as sympatico between the songwriters and their orchestrators as Lerner has reported. QUOTE:
LM: By the time you worked on GIGI the MGM musical unit had pretty much fallen apart but then it was pulled back together, it seems.
ALEXANDER COURAGE: Well, actually, I did very little on GIGI. I was working somewhere else so GIGI was done by Andre and Connie (Previn & Salinger, PNJ). Completely. And when I came in Andre said, "Listen. I've had it up to here with Beethoven and Schiller. (his names for Lowe and Lerner)." (Laughs) He said, "I can't stand it any more. We all had a big discussion at the beginning of the picture about the fact that we were going to make it very French, very light, very soignee, very beautiful, Parisienne. Then we got through and Beethoven said to me, 'You have to have balls.'" He said, "Look, the big problem apparently is when they come into Maxim's. We had it nice and light and apparently they wanted a brass band. Could you just do that over again?" So, that's what I did. I did the entrance to Maxim's and a couple of other little things and that was it.
UNQUOTE.
The whole interview is fascinating. I'll just mention a couple of highlights, such as when Courage identifies the trumpeter heard in the "Girl Hunt" ballet in THE BAND WAGON as the same guy Jerry Goldsmith picked to play HIS bluesy trumpet in CHINATOWN. Also, Courage refers to an LP of RAINTREE COUNTY in which John Green thanked all of the orchestrators, "because we wrote the score!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
