I could never understand why Barry didn't include that 20 seconds of Hand glider music with "Bond Lured to the Pyramid."
The cue is called "Rivers and Pyramids" and can be heard reconstructed here:
Click on "gkgyver" to find dozens of such reconstructions from "Moonraker" and "The Man With The Golden Gun," plus a handful from "Octopussy" (including the "Welcome to Delhi" cue).
I'm afraid I wanted to express the opposite with my posting. Nobody (except for The Cat perhaps ) seems to know where the tapes for "Moonraker" are. I merely tried to imply that TMWTGG seems to be available...
TMWTGG's 16-track tapes are absolutely available, as are TSWLM's 24-track tapes. They're at the Abbey Road studio in London. Lukas said so in the magazine (June 2003). It was only budget limitations that kept those titles from getting expanded editions.
After Tadlow´s superb QB VII-re-recording, partly done by transcribing notes from listening to the DVD (!!!), I am sure they could do anything.
Me! John Barry often used some synthesizers, so it's not easy to transcribing some part. Also NOTHING can compare with original session with ORIGINAL orchestra & conductor. That's why even if I respect Tadlow & Mr. Raine, I don't have ANY new re-recordings in my collection - they always miss something (notes, intonations, spirit of the score).
Me too, I totally agree with JB Fan.
The sessions from Moonraker were complex for Barry because of problems with the orchestra (finding the right sound). John Barry stated it took longer than usual recording sessions in London, for example.
Forgive me for saying so, but I felt the re-recorded Moonraker tracks on Silva Screen's "Bond Back In Action 2" disc didn't hit the mark.
But then again that was also, what, 15 years ago?
I have no doubt that a very good Moonraker re-recording could be made today.
That said, I think you are kidding yourself if you think a 2014 recording of this score would sound indistinguishable from the 1979 recording. It would be a new, different recording with its own life, perhaps with a subtly different orchestration if the original orchestration was distinctive and undocumented, with it's own conducting nuances, performance nuances, and recording nuances. I would welcome it, but I don't expect it to be 100% identical in all nuances to the original. And that wouldn't be a fair expectation either. All recordings are unique. And for that reason there would be space on my shelves for both that and a release of the original recording, if that were ever possible.
In other words:
Re-recording? Yes, please.
Original? Yes, please as well.
It doesn't have to be either/or, for me it's both/and.
That said, I think you are kidding yourself if you think a 2014 recording of this score would sound indistinguishable from the 1979 recording. It would be a new, different recording with its own life, perhaps with a subtly different orchestration if the original orchestration was distinctive and undocumented, with it's own conducting nuances, performance nuances, and recording nuances. ...
To amplify, another thing to bear in mind is that, as has been noted elsewhere, Barry, on more than one album, used synthesizers, often quite subtly, as components of the orchestra. Moonraker is one of these, and actually uses synthesizers more prominently that most.
Unfortunately, unlike violins, for example, synthesizers have changed dramatically in the last thirty years, and without knowing WHAT synthesizers he used, and HOW they were set, trying to recreate the "Barry sound" will be problematical, to say the least.
Unfortunately, unlike violins, for example, synthesizers have changed dramatically in the last thirty years, and without knowing WHAT synthesizers he used, and HOW they were set, trying to recreate the "Barry sound" will be problematical, to say the least.
You'd actually be surprised how many vintage synth experts and enthusiasts are out there; professionals, some of them, who specialize in this type of listening and apery.
I could never understand why Barry didn't include that 20 seconds of Hand glider music with "Bond Lured to the Pyramid."
James
I love this film. It's so over the top wonderful. Great Barry score too.
Hello, gang! Well, here I am late to the party as usual. This is a fun thread; just read the whole damn thing. But I digress. Late to the party and late to Moonraker, which I just saw for the first time. I was in high school (or college for you blokes across the pond) when my 007 cinema watching days pretty much came to an end after enjoying Live And Let Die (twice). Yeah, at the time I was one of them burgeoning Sean Connery or bust kinds. Can't say why. Eh, I digress again.
Anyway, couldn't help but feel this loco entry from 40 years ago was some kind of Abbott & Costello Meet James Bond thing, like it was time to go nuclear on the franchise. Weird! But entertaining in its intentionally overblown way.
This was also my first taste of its score. It may as well have been 1979. It may as well be the best score of 2022. Because all it took were a few notes and...Good God I miss John Barry.
This was also my first taste of its score. It may as well have been 1979. It may as well be the best score of 2022. Because all it took were a few notes and...Good God I miss John Barry.
Yes, the Barry sound. So good.
But on the subject of further Bond expansions, they still aren't coming. Feel free to play your existing CDs.
Oh this was most definitely a must purchase from those first few notes-on. 'S been a long time since that happened. Then again, it took me forever to see/hear the damn thing. The ignoramus within never fails to chagrin.
I’m honestly not trolling and I am most certainly not criticising fans of this score, but honestly I remain mystified by the love Moonraker gets. I’m hardly a fan of John Barry but I am (was) a Bond fan (and the Moore era was the height of my love of the series) and genuinely I find Moonraker the weakest 007 score up to that point, by some margin. And just to be clear, I actually really like the film apart from the music.
Don’t get me wrong, some of the music is for sure very good in its own right but to me it simply isn’t a Bond score because it is just so ponderously slow throughout, to such an extent that it renders some of the action scenes themselves unexciting.
Played independent of the visuals, I’d challenge anyone unfamiliar with the film to identify Barry’s work for scenes like the space battle and the speed boat chase as action scenes. The latter in particular I just think to be totally out of place - perfectly fitting for a scene where Bond has a leisurely cruise down the Amazon but hardly appropriate for a great chase.
Likewise, the song, whilst actually a nice little ballad in its own right, is neither suited to a Bond movie or to the light-hearted popcorn flick that Moonraker was - it just seems to me to have been written for something else. And don’t even get me started on the disco version at the end.
Moonraker simply has never worked for me as a Bond score.
I’m honestly not trolling and I am most certainly not criticising fans of this score, but honestly I remain mystified by the love Moonraker gets. I’m hardly a fan of John Barry but I am (was) a Bond fan (and the Moore era was the height of my love of the series) and genuinely I find Moonraker the weakest 007 score up to that point, by some margin. And just to be clear, I actually really like the film apart from the music.
Don’t get me wrong, some of the music is for sure very good in its own right but to me it simply isn’t a Bond score because it is just so ponderously slow throughout, to such an extent that it renders some of the action scenes themselves unexciting.
Played independent of the visuals, I’d challenge anyone unfamiliar with the film to identify Barry’s work for scenes like the space battle and the speed boat chase as action scenes. The latter in particular I just think to be totally out of place - perfectly fitting for a scene where Bond has a leisurely cruise down the Amazon but hardly appropriate for a great chase.
Likewise, the song, whilst actually a nice little ballad in its own right, is neither suited to a Bond movie or to the light-hearted popcorn flick that Moonraker was - it just seems to me to have been written for something else. And don’t even get me started on the disco version at the end.
Moonraker simply has never worked for me as a Bond score.
I respect your opinion. It is the complete opposite of mine.
As for slowness being not right for Bond, you should listen to the other Barry scores for Bond.
Quite the contrary, Moonraker is the coolest John Barry / Roger Moore score canon. It has everything, seduction, action, suspense. John Barry had quite a difficult time scoring Moonraker in Paris for various issues but the result is astonishing . "Bond lured to Pyramid" says it all.
I'll need to give it another spin, though I've heard it dozens of times over the past 40+ years.
i always thought the song was very evocative and underrated, and it works well in the score.
The two space cues are sublime and well beyond the film they were composed for, two of the best cues in Barry's canon.
The rest of the score is good but unremarkable. Hence, another spin in light of some of the above comments.
I sometimes wonder, given the album's 31-minute length and not all that much else not on the record, what did Barry have in mind for a 2 LP Moonraker Symphony? Any thoughts?
As for slowness being not right for Bond, you should listen to the other Barry scores for Bond.
I have done, for many, many years. The first soundtrack album I ever bought was Thunderball, decades ago. Just because ai don’t like Barry doesn’t mean I don’t know Barry. As I said, I was a huge Bond fan back in the day.
I can’t recall any of Barry’s Bond scores where the action sequences are so pedestrian. From memory bits of Thunderball perhaps but that’s it. But Moonraker doesn’t have a Kobe Docks, it doesn’t have a Pussy’s Flying Circus, or a milkman raid, or a he’s dangerous etc., etc. No batho-sub smash, no escaping from Piz Gloria. Not a single one of those great cues was slow. I’m sure there were a few slow ones of course.
The car chase in TMWTGG isn’t the greatest bit of second unit in history (until the spiral jump - ruined by Barry’s stupid penny whistle although probably not his fault, that’s very Guy Hamilton-esque) but the music makes it far more exciting than it actually is.
The Amazon chase in Moonraker is, IMHO, the worst scored action set piece in any James Bond movie ever until Goldeneye set a new bar for shit scoring.
Quite the contrary, Moonraker is the coolest John Barry / Roger Moore score canon. It has everything, seduction, action, suspense. John Barry had quite a difficult time scoring Moonraker in Paris for various issues but the result is astonishing . "Bond lured to Pyramid" says it all.
Hmmm, I respectfully disagree - Bond lured to Pyramid could easily underscore a commercial for Yves St Laurent perfume.
Not the strongest Barry Bond score for me as well..it 's in the OCTOPUSSY...A VIEW TO A KILL and LIVING DAYLIGHT group... Cant compete with GOLDFINGER..THUNDERBALL...YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE...ON HER MAJESTYS SECRET SERVICE...DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER..FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.
) seems to know where the tapes for "Moonraker" are. I merely tried to imply that TMWTGG seems to be available...
