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Posted: |
Sep 15, 2021 - 6:48 AM
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By: |
Hurdy Gurdy
(Member)
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I'm listening to this right now...and practically breaking down at the religious beauty and heartache of some of the tracks (I've got the North conducted Varese Deluxe Edition).
Just absolutely stunning and gorgeous music.
I am in AWE at some of this music!!
Here are some comments from another thread about TA&TE that I really dig and can get on board with..
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By: Hank V (Member)
"When I first saw this film I was involved in a choir and we used to sing a lot of gregorian. I remember being immediately taken with North's music and not even noticing the prologue which screened before the movie. I consider this to be North's most captivating score and emotionally relates well what is happening on screen. One of the things which still sticks with me is North's ingenious use of a few bars of the Dies Irae when being gazed upon by the Pope to suggest Michelangelo's feeling at not being allowed to continue his painting. The vision in the clouds, the fall from the ceiling. Everything North composed here is first class and less jazz orientated than the other epics. It remains my favorite North"
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By: WILLIAMDMCCRUM (Member)
It's genuinely amazing as a score. He uses all the tricks and conventions of Renaissance music, but with modern post-impressionistic uses of dissonance, and Romantic dramatic sense. And seamlessly.
The closest to 'jazz' is the warrior pope material where modernistic militaristic music, Praetorius style brass fanfares, Renaissance stuff and war interplay with ease.
There's a genuine religiosity in there too, a sort of yearning.
Perhaps someone can remind me: I always seem to recognise a period fanfare at the end of the 'Warrior Pope' cue. Is it a quote?
I like the Goldsmith, but seriously, why is everyone trying to push that to the heights of Alex's great score? Why does that seem so odd to me?
Goldsmith can describe the painter at work in a decorative sort of way, but North takes it to the big universal and spiritual truths the images are windows to.
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One of those '60s epics that was largely derided at the time but today looks richer and more intelligent than anything made in the last five years.
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As a side note, the Sistine Chapel looks better in this film (a subdued vinous palette) than it does in real life after the restoration (garish Disney colors).
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The Agony and the Ecstasy is my #1 favorite Alex North score (at least, until a new recording of Unchained is produced and possibly wins me over; that central melody is amazing and my favorite single thing he ever wrote).
The short documentary "Prologue" to the film (The Artist Who Did Not Want to Paint) is my #1 favorite work by Jerry Goldsmith. I do think it's an even greater work despite its brevity and I would have loved to have heard what Goldsmith could have done with the film proper, if North had been unable to score it too (as happened with The Sand Pebbles, when he passed on the assignment to his younger friend and colleague). Kev is right of course that the canvas of the feature film provides a lot more scope than the brief documentary film. I haven't noticed any links between the two scores, so I appreciate pointing out those moments and I'll relisten closely and see if I hear a connection!
As for re-recording... I agree with most folks that the Goldsmith re-recording of the North feature score (on Varese) is far inferior to the original film recording (Deluxe Edition including the Goldsmith "Prologue" score also on Varese). On the other hand, the Goldsmith re-recording of his short "Prologue", The Artist Who Did Not Want to Paint (on Intrada, conducting the London Symphony Orchestra) is a rare case where I actually do prefer the new recording to the original recording (which I still adore as it has different qualities, feeling more "intimate" of the two). I talk more about why here:
https://goldsmithodyssey.buzzsprout.com/159614/8724952-odyssey-soundtrack-spotlight-rio-conchos-the-artist-who-did-not-want-to-paint-1989-intrada-recording
I do not think this is necessarily a case of Goldsmith treating his music better than his friend and mentor's. I think it comes down to the respective film music labels and what those running them favored. Doug Fake of Intrada (as he explains in that conversation linked above) valued a more dry and crisp recording, the way that film scores are usually recorded. As my friend Tom Hudson recently commented, "the precision of the LSO is all the more richly on display *because* of the engineering of this recording." Robert Townson of Varese generally preferred more of a "concert hall ambience" (this makes sense since he has a long history of championing live concert performances of film music); the recordings he produced with Jerry for Varese Sarabande were typically not close-miked or dry, and IMO for film music this makes the impact weaker. I feel similarly about Goldsmith's re-recordings of his own work for Varese (The Sand Pebbles, Patton/Tora! Tora! Tora!) as I do about Goldsmith's re-recordings of North scores for Varese. The biggest exception to that is Frontiers, which IMO is a great sounding album, excellently performed and recorded.
Yavar
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