Film Score Friday 5/11/01

Milan is releasing a new CD of Joe Hisaishi's score to the Japanese anime film Princess Mononoke, reinterpreted as a Symphonic Suite performed by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. This is due next Tuesday, May 15th. Nausicaa.net is currently running a promotion with Milan where they're giving away 10 free copies; see http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/mh/cdgiveaway.html.

Elmer Bernstein will conduct the BBC Concert Orchestra in a program of Golden Age film music at this year's BBC Proms at Royal Albert Hall in London on August 14th. For full information, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/listings/prom32.shtml. Pete Murfet writes in to say that standing tickets are being sold for only £3. The concert will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 2 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3).

Also Bernstein-related, Turner Classic Movies' Elmer Bernstein festival is going on this month -- featuring various Bernstein-scored films, some with new introductions by the composer. See http://www.turnerclassicmovies.com for listings.

Windflowers is a new Jerome Moross non-film CD of songs by the composer performed at a recent cabaret concert, originally from a 1954 musical by the composer, The Golden Apple, as well as other sources. See http://www.psclassics.com.

The International Flanders Filmfestival Gent in Belgium has annually spotlighted film music and this year they are going several steps further in their festival taking place between October 9th and 20th:

The First World Soundtrack Awards will be presented by the newly founded World Soundtrack Academy on October 18th. (The Academy is comprised of several dozen participating composers, musicians and related professionals.) Awards will include: Film Composer of the Year; Discovery of the Year; Best Original Orchestral Soundtrack of the Year; Best Original Vocal Soundtrack of the Year; Best Original Soundtrack not released on an album; and Best Use of Existing Material on a Soundtrack. Lifetime Achievement Awards will go to composers who have reached a milestone in their career, while film music fans can vote for the Public Choice Award. Nominations in each category will be announced on August 15. (Hey, when we do these things in FSM every spring we get eviscerated!)

The Soundtrack Awards will precede a film music concert of music by Gabriel Yared and Elmer Bernstein, who will conduct the National Orchestra of Belgium (musical director, Dirk Brosse).

Also in this year's program:

• Orlac's Hands World premiere of Henning Lohner's new score for Robert Wiene's silent film classic from 1924. The film will be accompanied live by the National Orchestra of Belgium. Conductor is Dirk Brosse. Date: 14 October 2001, 8PM. Venue: Flemish Opera House - Ghent.

• Film Music Seminar: In 1938, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first real original soundtrack album from a feature film. Chris Montan, President of Walt Disney Music at Walt Disney Pictures and Television, will give a keynote speech on the important role of music in Disney animation. Composers such as James Newton Howard (Atlantis, Dinosaur) and Mark Mancina (Tarzan), and some key film-makers linked to the Studios, will join Chris Montan to discuss the scoring process at Disney, as well as present a case study on the scoring of 'Atlantis'. A special screening of 'Dinosaur' is to close the event. Date: 19 October 2000, starts at 9.30AM. Venue: Decascoop - Ghent

For complete information on all of the above, see www.filmfestival.be.

From: "Jeffrey Graebner" <jgraebner@mediaone.net>

In case you haven't heard about them, I thought you might be interested in knowing about a couple new CDs that were just released by Disney for sale exclusively at the Anaheim theme parks. They just released separate CDs of music from each of the two parks and both have a few tracks that will likely be very interesting to film music enthusiasts.

The tracks on "The Official Album of Disneyland Park" that will likely be of most interest are the complete scores to "Indiana Jones Adventure" (3:27) and "Star Tours" (4:07). Both tracks represent the full musical soundtracks from the ride, adapted from John Williams' music for the original films. I'm not entirely sure whether or not Williams wrote any new music for either attraction, but the arrangements are certainly different than in the films. The "Star Tours" track does include brief dialog snippets at the beginning and end, but otherwise is music-only. There is no dialog at all on the "Indiana Jones Adventure" track.

Unquestionably, many film score enthusiasts will want "The Official Album of Disney's California Adventure" for Jerry Goldsmith's score to the "Soarin' Over California" attraction. The 4:43 track on the CD is the entire score for the attraction film. The other track that is likely to be of much interest to soundtrack enthusiasts is the "Seasons of the Vine Medley" (4:32) by Bruce Broughton. This music is the score from a film shown in the park's Mondavi Winery exhibit.

Both CDs do contain numerous other tracks of attraction and show music from around the parks. Anyone with an interest in Disney music in general or the parks in particular will likely enjoy much of the content of these CDs. The above mentioned tracks are just the ones that particularly interested me for their connections to major film composers.

Note that Disney does not generally offer these park music CDs for sale in regular stores. Folks that live in Southern California can get copies without paying admission to the parks by visiting the World of Disney store in the Downtown Disney shopping area adjacent to the parks. They also do take mail orders at 800-362-4533.

Thanks to Tim Kurkoski who also sent in this information. You can order online at MouseShoppe.com. Here are the links directly to the CDs:

CD with Goldsmith and Broughton: http://www.mouseshoppe.com/product.cfm?ProductID=871

CD with Star Tours and Indiana Jones: http://www.mouseshoppe.com/product.cfm?ProductID=803

The Mummy Returns

From: JCaterino@aol.com

Is it just me or is Alan Silvestri's THE MUMMY RETURNS the most exciting,exhilirating and robust action-adventure score since INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM. I didn't think it was possible to produce a score this dense and muscular in today's film scoring environment. And for once the music was actually mixed loud enough to hear it in both the theater and on cd.

Kudos to Bruce Broughton or whoever is responsible for putting together the talented musicians behind The Sinfonia Of London. I know Alan S. deserves some of the credit for his conducting, but I haven't heard a brass section sound this good since The LSO of the late 1970s.

Well...I think Bruce might be flattered to be credited with the Sinfonia's success, but I don't believe he had anything to do with it outside of using it to record various film scores and albums.

From: "Laird M. Malamed" <lairdo@cltc.com>

I was glad to see your column on computer game scoring by Peter Suciu. Having worked in games for the past 6+ years, and as a sound editor before that, I think it is important that composers of games be recognized for the amazing work they do.

Mr. Suciu talks both about the similarities and differences to scoring a game as compared to a film. I think the key element is that the goal of the music is very similar in both. That is, both media require the music to be a component of the whole. The music needs to feel integrated with the game. This challenge is heightened by the fact that linearity is in control of the player, so the score needs to be flexible. At the same time, the player can't be thinking - "Hey, that's the fourth time that looped!" Just as a bad edit or inappropriate music choice can knock a viewer out of a film experience, the wrong music can make a game less fun to play.

From: "Randy Derchan" <rderchan@visualdatainc.com>

How can anyone say "a couple of weak film scores, Goldsmith should retire." I guess the same kind of people who would say, "Oh, my wife has a few wrinkles. I better find a 22 year chick now." Goldsmith has and will continue to write many, many great scores and I will always stand by his work.

Another point, please stop comparing Hermann's and Newman's work to what Goldsmith is doing today. Those have been dead for decades and Hollywood has changed dramitically, no pun intended. Along Came A Spider isn't exactly whistlable, but it's effective for the genre it was written for. As for North, well, his last score few scores were not anything to write home about. Be greatful they still hire Jerry. Looking at the list of new composers today makes me very depressed and listening to a bunch of whining, ungrateful film music collectors really ticks me off.

Here are a couple of letters reacting to the news that the JPIII score will be at least in some measure an adaptation by Don Davis of John Williams's score from the first JP film:

From: Ian Robinson, IRobiUK@aol.com

In this week's Film Score Friday two people ask if this sort of thing has been done before, and I can distinctly remember one occasion - Superman IV. I caught the start on TV recently because I wondered who did the music and was shocked to see the credit 'Music by John Williams' come up (I mean, Wiliams on a IV?) but this was followed by 'Score arranged and conducted by Alexander Courage' which was slightly less unexpected.

I guess that when movies are so successful the film-makers can't simply discard any element that built audience popularity and identification. For instance, the Batman promos still used Danny Elfman's themes when Goldenthal was composing simply because it hooks the audience (though most don't realise it).

From: "Siska, Robert J" <SiskaRJ@LOUISVILLE.STORTEK.COM>

Please let me know if you disagree, but I've seen both The Robe and Demetrius several times, and The Robe has a couple of soundtrack versions that I have memorized. As far as I can tell, the only time Newman's themes are used in Demetrius are in the flashbacks where the soundtrack is directly from the first film. Everything else has Waxman's own original themes.

Another theory I'd love to see discussed: Waxman was adverse to repeating himself, and you have to listen pretty closely to identify him. Does anyone know of instances, besides rhythms and colorings, where he did repeat himself? Unlike Newman, who reused his music from film to film, especially his "rescue" theme (in Robe, Hunchback and more).

We've released Don Ellis's scores to The French Connection I and II -- a great disc for fans of the late jazz man. Here are some happy listeners:

From: "Mark Hasan" <markh29@sympatico.ca>

As many fans of Don Ellis must be thinking, "It's about time!" The French Connection remains one of the strangest yet admirable jazz scores ever written, and besides watching the film (which for years had awful sound), the only other source to enjoy the score was a short but dynamic suite Ellis recorded for the album, "Connection." (For that arrangement, Ellis primarily focused on the "Subway" track, with an incredible bass line, brass ensembles popping up from every corner, and a little electronic groove that's unbelievably addictive.)

Don Ellis still remains one of the most under-appreciated jazz musicians/composers. Pushing the limits of time signatures, experimenting with different cultural rhythms, using massive brass and percussion ensembles, experimenting with electronic effects (and fashioning new instruments), Ellis' body of work offers so much to listeners and burgeoning musicians, and yet little still exists on CD.

Fans have often scratched their heads in frustration as only a few albums were released on disc in Japan in Europe, while the bulk of his CBS output can only be found by tracking down well-worn vinyl. The albums used to be plentiful in used shops, but as one fan posted years ago, multiple copies were sometimes bought, because the records were ultimately played to death.

FSM's link with Fox has yielded the once-impossible: Ellis' 2 classic cop scores, in complete form. Some might regard this latest FSM disc as a bit risky, but like The Omega Man, I'll bet it'll be a solid seller - there's too many fans of his work out there, and maybe when the cd has sold out, it might bring more attention to his other film and jazz work.

Sadly, the bibliographical website that drew me in seems to have disappeared [it hasn't -- see below -LK], but it was clear from the assembled posts and emails that Don Ellis was a hard-working perfectionist that loved his art, and still managed to have a lot of fun. There were at least 20 candid, often moving recollections of Ellis' massive live bands, which toured, scared away, shocked, hypnotized and converted people from all walks of life. His humorous antics and incredible musicianship were consistently highlighted in those collected emails, and many young musicians shared the same awe at trying to figure out what new time signature Ellis had switched to, after baffling the finger-tapping audience with an already addictive passage.

Ellis isn't for everyone - some of his early 70s material is very much reflective of the time - but there's always some element that makes it clear Ellis was pushing the boundaries a little further, and succeeding.

The aforementioned Don Ellis site can be found at http://www.handofgord.com/donellis.

From: Henrik Jordan <henrik.jordan@snafu.de>

Finally: The French Connection!

By the time you started out with the FSM CDs I remember having put together an initial list of all my favourite seventies scores, which never saw a LP or CD release before.

Well, this list is getting smaller and smaller. The Taking Of Pelham 1-2-3, Enter The Dragon, The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, most of all The Omega Man, and now The French Connection. All Done. Still there`s a lot of unreleased scores to go, some of which seem to be unlikely, like Satan Bug, Marathon Man or All The President`s Men. But listening to that "Subway" cue from French Connection online with RealPlayer gives me total shivers already. And this experience is a great consolation for those scores which may still not see the light of day for the next few years.

As before with the Omega Man, The French Connection seems like birthday and Chrismas Eve at the same time.

Thanks again for knowing and remembering what's on our minds and bringing our wishes to life.

Thank you! The thing we are most proud of is that our recent releases cater to so many different groups, from Golden Age fans to jazz buffs to Planet of the Apes collectors. Here's another happy listener about our Untamed CD:

From: Edward Graff <ed@theantfarm.net>

I'm sure by now FSM has sold a boatload of TOWERING INFERNO cds, but I'd like you to know how much I was impressed with UNTAMED.

As always, the stereo sound was stunning: clear and well balanced, despite the age of the materials. I've always enjoyed Waxman and I think this score will soon become one of my all-time favorites.

And, as we've come to expect, the packaging and liner notes were first-rate.

It seems to me that many sound track fans lavish most of their attention on the big (recent) genre scores and believe me, I love 'em too. But it's a real credit to everyone at FSM that gems like UNTAMED and ALL ABOUT EVE have received the same care and stunning presentation that INFERNO got.

I don't know how long you'll be able to keep releasing the "old" stuff, but as long as you do, I'll be there.

Soundtrack Collector has updated their database to include 32,069 Movies, 16,524 Labels on Vinyl and CD and 2,424 Composers. Check it out at www.soundtrackcollector.com -- a great plcae to store information on your collection.

Finally, Harry Knowles gave us a great write up at Aint-it-cool-news.com! See http://aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=8897. Thanks Harry!

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