Film Score Friday 10/1/99

by Lukas Kendall

Things are looking up for James Bond fans: although Rykodisc's reissue of For Your Eyes Only has been delayed until next year, Silva Screen has recorded a new album of Bond music in Prague, including many unreleased music. Additionally, having settled their dispute with MGM, EMI has announced plans to reissue their Bond catalog (all EON titles from Dr. No through Moonraker) in 2000... now, we all have to wait to see if there will be unreleased music on the CDs.

Universal's forthcoming DVD of Conan the Barbarian will include an isolated score track of Basil Poledouris's thundering music -- and the composer interviewed in the supplemental materials.

I'm told that The Phantom Menace has been released on vinyl, at least in Holland -- catalog number SLT61816.

Rhino's Volume 2 of Simpsons music is back on track for release November 2: Go Simpsonic with The Simpsons features more score, songs and hilarious dialogue from the most consistently funny show on the air.

FSM CD Update

If you've ordered an FSM CD recently, you probably noticed that we haven't been sending out those little emails to confirm that we received your order. We're switching servers and although the process is otherwise invisible, it has disabled the autoreply function. Also, we only got our Comancheros CDs in the office this week, so we're sending them now.

Please have faith that we have been receiving orders and will have everything out by the middle of next week. If you must email for a confirmation, go ahead, but you may very well receive the CD before you receive the confirmation email!

We don't have a page for The Comancheros yet -- it's our newest FSM Silver Age Classics CD, a John Wayne western score by Elmer Bernstein -- but you can order it on our order form. We'll get the complete info up next week on Film Score Daily.

Also, once we're on our new server, we will have the most sophisticated autoreply and tracking functions known to man. Expect this to happen in the next 4-6 weeks.

Our CD of Prince of Foxes received a great review at: http://www.musicweb.force9.co.uk/music/film/oct99/foxes.htm

Mail Bag

Most of these are in response to recent topics. I gotta lump them all together sans my replies due to the usual deadline blues:

From: Scott Stein <scottie8@gte.net>

Hey, one more comment about film music, which I think is an important one:

Film music makes you aware that film is a PRE-RECORDED, TEMPORAL MEDIUM. Which it obviously is. In a great way. Unlike theater, every moment of film is perfected and recorded, chiseled digitally, even. You can view a film as a "you-are-there" theater-simulacrum, but in its truest sense it is a multimedia art form of visuals and sound that runs across time. What is FANTASIA but visuals and music? What better art form that music (another pre-recorded, temporal art form) to be married with film? Realism be damned!

From: Rune Karolius <rkaroliu@online.no>

Regarding the question about composer credits on the song "Beside You" from "What Dreams May Come", Martin Fulterman is in fact Mark Snow's real name. The song was composed by Fulterman and Michael Kamen back when they were members of the New York Rock Ensemble, in the late sixties/early seventies. Fulterman and Kamen both studied at Juilliard, and were rommates at the time. Fulterman changed his name to Mark Snow sometime after this, and is now most known for writing the "X-Files" theme. "Beside You" in its original incarnation is available on the New York Rock Ensemble album "Roll Over" (1971), which was recently re-issued on CD. See <http://www.michaelkamen.com/NYRARE/index.html> for further details.

From: Eric, Andante7@aol.com

In his book "Soundtrack: The Music of the Movies" Mark Evans writes:

"Inevitably, publishers and filmmakers realized that a much closer relationship between music and film could be achieved if music was composed or arranged specifically for a film. One of the more ambitious efforts was that of the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns, who wrote a score for strings, piano and harmonium for the film L'Assassinat du Duc de Guise (1908)."

It appears as though your memory is pretty good. Although this is not an absolute affirmation, it's probably as close as anyone can come.

From: "Sepcilka, Bob" <Bob_Sepcilka@bose.com>

The soundtrack music to the fim Assassination of the Duke of Guise was written by the French romantic composer, Camille Saint-Saens. The music itself is available on an LP released on some obscure Russian label, whose name escapes me at the moment.

From: "Dennis Logsdon" <logied@mediaone.net>

Well I,ll ask the experts. I have posted to 3 boards with no luck so, Who is the lady singing the title song on the Sherwood Lp of Robin and Marian by John Barry. There are no cue listings on the LP.

From: "Petros Protopapas" <harlock@uumail.de>

Do You (or any of "Your" people) know of an alterntive music score to Rouben Mamoulian's 1941 picture BLOOD AND SAND? As far as I know the music score was written by Mr. Alfred Newman and the film was released that way. Well, now to the reason i ask this: recently I was flipping through some used LPs in a record store in Athens and I found a Varèse Sarabande LP that featured Mamoulian's BLOOD AND SAND on it's B-side. Unfortunately I do not recall the score on it's A-side... well anyway, the score for BLOOD AND SAND on that LP was not by Alfred Newman but by another composer (no, don't hit me... I don't even recal his name... I only remember he sounded spanish or italian)(The featured artwork included a reprint of one of the originl posters with Tyrone Power and Rita Hayworth). Have You any idea how that score came into being? Do You know if the "original" score by Mr.Newman exists (even some parts of it)? Any ideas???

From: Lester Sullivan <lsulliva@xula.edu>

In response to the inquiry about the score to the 1984 film "Tightrope," the James Rivers Movement was not created by Clint Eastwood. Rather, it is a modern jazz group long active in New Orleans.

Also, cannot "Film Score Monthly" and all of us correspondents show greater respect for the music and the composers by taking the trouble to check what we write? The earliest movie score is indeed said to be by Saint-Saens. But "Saens-Saenz," Lukas? Midnight or no, cannot the web site aspire to at least the level of proofreading reflected in the printed magazine?

Hey, I wish it could!

Upcoming Concerts

From: Preston Jones <pjones@fulpat.com>

At the Hollywood Bowl's recent Universal Pictures night, John Mauceri conducted a Hitchcock tribute with clips from PSYCHO and VERTIGO. Kind of a cheat, really, since these were Paramount pictures which Universal now happens to own, but of course it was Herrmann, so who could complain? (Though it might have been nice to see/hear SHADOW OF A DOUBT clips with Tiomkin's score, one of Hitch's best films, and one that he DID make at Universal...) Now comes news in today's L.A. Times Calendar: "(Mauceri) will... conduct two programs at the Music Center's Dorothy Chandler Pavillion, on Oct. 27 and Feb. 9, marking the Hollywood Bowl's first performances in an indoor venue since 1992. The October program will be 'The Music of Hitchcock -- A Centennial Celebration.'"

Also, this bulletin went over rec.music.movies recently:

John Scott in Concert October 17th!

Join renowned film composer John Scott ("Greystoke," "The FInal Countdown") on Sunday, October 17th, for the premiere performances of his two chamber works "House of Shadows" and "An Inhabitant of Carcosa," which is based on a ghost story by famed author Ambrose Bierce. Scott will conduct this piece, with Bruce Kimmel narrating.

The concert will also include music by Darius Milhaud, Alex Shapiro, Jeannie Pool and Marilyn Wilson.

The concert will take place at 4 pm at the Church of the Lighted Window in La Canada, California. The adress is 1200 Foothill Boulevard (at Verdugo Blvd). The suggested donation is $10 ($5 for students).

Anime Music Links

If you're interested in music for Japanese animation, here are some links:

Piece on Joe Hisaishi, composer of Princess Mononoke: http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/laputa/music.html

Interview with Japanese composer Yoko Kanno: http://www.ex.org/4.5/16-interview_kanno1.html

Happy October!

MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com