Film Score Friday 11/6/98
by Lukas Kendall
I just had the best time ever. There is a film music festival going
on right now called the DIVX Soundtrack Festival. Yes, the world's most
unpopular video product in the history of electricity is sponsoring a four-city
series of concerts by film composers (nightclub style - no orchestras).
We would have mentioned this sooner, except we only heard about the festival,
like, last week. See www.soundtrackmusic.com.
The cities are Los Angeles, New York (with an all-day panel on November
10), San Francisco and Chicago.
Anyway, Carter Burwell performed at the El Rey Theatre here in L.A.
tonight. Now, the El Rey is literally half a block from my office, and
I did something I never thought I would be able to do: I worked all day
on a magazine about film music, quit in the evening, and walked half a
block and saw Carter Burwell perform music from Fargo live. This is amazing
to me. Burwell was on piano (and sometimes accordion) with a small ensemble:
two violins, cello, percussion, and David Torn on guitar. They also played
music from Rob Roy, California, Assassin (a French film), Gods
and Monsters and other Coen Bros. films. It captured really well the
spirit of Burwell's film scoring: intimate and almost trance/dance-like,
yet suspenseful, with characteristic licks for violin, accordion and piano.
Next in L.A. are Mark Isham and Stephen Endelman, performing at the
Dragonfly on Saturday night. See the aforementioned web site for more details!
Psycho
There's been a lot of speculation, and misinformation, about what Danny
Elfman is doing with Bernard Herrmann's score to Psycho for the
new remake.
Elfman recorded Bernard Herrmann's original score to Psycho at
the 20th Century Fox Newman Stage the week of October 19, with Steve Bartek
conducting an approximately 70-piece string ensemble. Elfman is staying
meticulously true to Herrmann's original score: he estimates that one-half
to two-thirds of the cues are being recorded exactly as Herrmann wrote
them, with the remainder altered only slightly--being shortened or lengthened
by as little as a few seconds. In a couple of cases, cues which Herrmann
wrote for one part of the picture (some of them unused) are being tried
out in other parts, with alternates prepared to cover scenes (unscored
in the original) which may require music this time around.
The ensemble is larger than the string group Herrmann used for the original
1960 film, but there are no instruments which Herrmann did not call for;
the larger group is to fill the stereo separation of modern theaters with
the same intensity of the original mono recording. Additionally, the recording,
engineered by Shawn Murphy, utilizes antique microphones in part to obtain
the same dry, "present" aesthetic of the 1960 recording.
The only thing that I don't have info on at the moment is on the album.
From the ads, it appears that there will be a song compilation (for Psycho?
this is too much for me...) with only some of the Elfman-recorded Herrmann
score. We'll bring you more info as wel get it.
Gerry Anderson Music
Fanderson: The Official Gerry Anderson Appreciation Society has embarked
on an series of CD releases from Anderson's TV shows. The first album is
Supercar/Fireball XL5 (Barry Gray) and is now available. Coming
for early next year is a 2CD set of the complete music for Space: 1999
Year One (Barry Gary, various) and, pending its success, Space:
1999 Year Two (Derek Wadsworth). These are completely authorized, and
mastered from the original multitrack elements--but they are available
only to Fanderson members. See http://www.kikgraphics.demon.co.uk/news.html#Soundtrack.
Polls
From: "Randy A. Salas" <salasra@mail.startribune.com>
Not to nitpick, because I enjoy the idea of a poll, but doesn't
your current poll question *for most people* (college-aged film score geeks)
basically boil down to "Who's your favorite composer?"
I got a few people who asked about this. You can see the results of
this poll (now closed) at the poll
archive; I think it ended up close to the results for the actual "What
is your favorite composer?" poll. But to me these were different.
I selected that I would most want to sit down and have lunch with James
Horner, who isn't my favorite composer, but the person I would most want
to talk to. Oh well.
From: Chris Kinsinger <76263.2355@compuserve.com>
Howard Liverance & I BOTH voted for the 60's. And, no matter
WHAT you say, we were RIGHT!!!
The best of Bernard Herrmann, Miklos Rozsa, Alex North and Alfred
Newman occurred during that decade. Not to mention the birth of Goldsmith
& Williams... OK, OK, so I'm a sore loser.
I was surprised that the '80s were selected as the favorite decade for
film music. I guess its freshest in our memories while still benefiting
from nostalgia. I picked the '70s.
Please do vote in our current poll (see the home page). This was inspired
by all the cheesy '70s John Barry scores I've been listening to at the
office. Right now: Starcrash!
From: Chris Robinson <chris.robinson@birchman.org>
I was wondering if your web site ever polled readers as to their
favorite STAR WARS main title scrolls, because John Williams changed the
instrumentation for each of the films.
We haven't, but maybe we'll do this. Funny, but I have never been able
to identify exactly how the instrumentation changes. Could anyone describe
the subtle differences between main titles?
DTS
From: Wayne O'Donnell <wobo@one.net.au>
I have just recently received the DTS (Digital Theater Systems)
recording of the Titanic Soundtrack, and WOW doesn't it sound incredible
in discrete 5.1 channel surround. It is a direct 20 bit transfer from the
original multi channel master tape. This dramatically transcends the previous
stereo version.
Comparing it to the AC-3 (Dolby Digital) Version ie:( the Laserdisc
version) it appears they have sent the music information to the same channel
configuration as heard in the movie. Different instruments appear and disappear
in different speakers, thus giving the score a heightened and dramatic
presence. The sub pounds away and one gets the feeling that the building
one is in will crumple and fall. It is a MUST recording for those who appreciate
good scores and incredible sound mixing.
What is Titanic? Is that a movie?
From: Michael Worden Skerritt <mskerrit@umich.edu>
In reference to Steve's question about the choice to use Uillean
pipes for Titanic, they were used because it was Irish labor that built
the ship. She may have sailed from Southampton, but she's an Irish vessel.
Incidentally, I was listening to some of the music recently (after seeing
the film again on video) and noticed that the Celtic stylings were far
less represented in he movie than on CD, at least that I noticed. Perhaps
they appeared in the director's cut (and we all know Cameron has one hidden
away -- great, another 45 minutes of DiCaprio's bad acting), or maybe they
were part of concert-type suites on the soundtrack (a la Darby's Theme
from The Pelican Brief).
As for Braveheart, I never quite understood the choice for those
specific pipes. They're native to Ireland, but the movie's steeped in Scottish
nationalism. Ah....the joys of commercial appeal :)
What are bagpipes? What is Ireland?
Star Trek: The Endlessly Postponed Album
From: LogieD@aol.com
No wonder I am a starving artist, I must have lousy business sense.
Sony feels it is not in their interest to release around another Star Trek
movie and OST? They feel that all that free Star Trek publicity and Christmas
shopping will not rub off on their issue of STMP? I was not looking forward
to the interview CD but the expanded would have been nice. I will not ask
for it now for Christmas from my daughters (they understand my Film music
problem). I will continue to listen to my original LP and CD and other
compilation versions on my Sony system and hope when they finally due get
my dollar, it is worth even less.
Also, is the John Williams on piano for Goldsmiths, Studs Lonigan,
the John Williams?
Yes, it is!
I am going to contribute one useful bit of information. Sony Legacy
had to delay their ST:TMP expanded CD because Paramount did not want the
disc coming out at the same time as Star Trek 29: Insurrection. So, everybody
is mad, but now you have TWO huge entertainment companies you can gripe
about.
Do you want to know my prediction? I think this thing will not come
out until next December, when the film celebrates its 20th anniversary.
That's just my hunch. We will have an article by Jeff Bond next week on
this delayed album, since we got an advance copy, explaining what all the
tracks are.
By the way, here is how huge entertainment companies think, because
it seems very counter-intuitive to collectors, who think EVERYTHING should
be out NOW. If you're Sony, you basically have hundreds of albums and properties
that you own, which you could potentially release. There's simply no way
to do it all at once, so you go, well this celebrates its anniversary then,
so we'll do it at this time, and this other property may be hot again when
an artist does THIS... see, it all gets scheduled out over years. It's
very frustrating, but these companies think in terms of years and years,
and don't mind delaying things in order to make more money later - because
they always have something else they can do right now.
Goldsmith Concert - Japan
From: Stéphane Auberger <auberger@gol.com>
Remember the Japanese film music concert John Williams vs Jerry
Goldsmith of last september in Tokyo? The concert was definitively recorded
and will be realeased in Japan November 26 (just saw an ad for this yesterday,
a lot of Goldsmith scores are also re-released as part of a "Welcome
to Japan Jerry Goldsmith" festival). Actually, only the Goldsmith
part of the concert seems to be getting a realease, and the CD will be
entitled "Jerry Goldsmith: Hollywood Symphonic Spectacular".
The content therefore should be:
"End title" from SUPERGIRL; "End Title" from
STAR TREK TMP; "End Title" from ALIEN; "The bees arrive"
from THE SWARM; "Main Title" from AIR FORCE ONE; "Suite
with Chorus" from THE OMEN.
Conducted by Orie Suzuki with the Kanagawa Philharmonic Orchestra
& Tokyo Cosmopolitan Chorus.
And if I'm correct, the concert began with a very short piece that
I later assumed could be the FANFARE FOR OSCAR, so that would make the
first CD release of it! Overall, the quality of the performance was good,
especially THE OMEN suite, better performed than on the recent Silva Screen
compilation. Goldsmith fans, watch for Japanese imports...
Thanks for the info! In case anyone asks, I know of NO plans to release
the recent Carnegie Hall concert.
Okay, have a great November weekend, and be here next week for some
groovy columns.
MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com
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