Film Score Friday 2/1/02

Disney's CD of Tron (Wendy Carlos) is out. Better late than never! I can't wait to get this one. Hope they do Black Hole one day, except I can't imagine even nostalgia giving that movie a lift out of obscurity. Disney is, however, reissuing Bruce Broughton's Rescuers Down Under CD (long out of print) in April; see http://www.magicmusic.net/discuss/?read=15171.

Elmer Bernstein will return for an unprecedented 4th time as guest conductor of the Walnut High School Symphonic Orchestra on Thursday, February 21st, 2002 at 7 PM in the Walnut High School Performing Arts Center. Tickets are $8 for Adults and $6 for Students/Seniors. For further information call (909) 594-2263.

BAFTA (British Academy Film Awards) nominees for Achievement in Film Music have been announced:

"Amelie," Yann Tiersen
"The Lord of the Rings," Howard Shore
"Moulin Rouge," Craig Armstrong
"Mulholland Drive," Angelo Badalamenti
"Shrek," Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell

From: Jon Kowing

I've enjoyed your magazine and Web site for several years now, and I thought you might find the following interesting.

I just got back from a recital by the violinist Gil Shaham tonight in Kansas City. I was really surprised to arrive at the recital and read that his final piece listed in the program was going to be "Devil's Dance" from "The Witches of Eastwick." This after a program of Schubert, Brahms, Ravel and Paganini.

The program notes said that Devil's Dance was a recent arrangement by Williams. It was a fairly short and showy piece that used most of the main themes from the movie. It made a great companion piece with the work played right before: William Bolcom's "Graceful Ghost Rag" - which the program noted has a motive identical (other than key and tempo) to the opening motive from Devil's Dance.

Together with his recent recordings of William's Violin Concerto, Treesong, and 3 Pieces from Schindler's List, it seems Gil Shaham is a really big fan of John Williams.

Sent to us by our favorite newspaper archivist, G.D. Hamann:

3/20/1946 Daily News Erskine Johnson

George Antheil, the bad boy of music, confessed to us the other day that he is probably the only Hollywoodite who has ever fooled the old master, C.B. DeMille. When Antheil was hired to write the musical score for The Plainsman, DeMille wanted the music to be authentic so he had a real Indian advise Antheil on one of the ceremonial chants. "We worked and worked on it until C.B. said it was authentic," Antheil recalls, "but as matter of fact what the Indians were chanting in the dance was 'Chicago, Tuscaloosa, Chicago, Tuscaloosa.'"

Since my life has basically degenerated to staying at home alone, watching anything I used to like when I was a kid, I've been watching the new DVDs both of Robotech (the '80s American TV series) and Macross, which was the original Japanese series which made up the first 36 episodes of Robotech. The Macross discs are wonderfully restored -- the picture is immaculate -- and it's very enlightening to see the original, slightly more mature Japanese presentation. (Some violence, adult themes, nudity/drinking/swearing, and what the Robotech people call "ethnic gestures" were stricken from the U.S. versions.)

In general, the Japanese version has less music and virtually none of the voiceovers and narration that was jammed into the Robotech presentation. The music is quite different, and although many of the Japanese cues by Kentaro Haneda are elegant and interesting, many others are too slushy, like ersatz '60s French art film music. I was already familiar with the Japanese soundtrack because I had bought it on CD before the American soundtrack was available -- which is the height of madness, buying music I had never heard, because it was the original overseas music to a show I had liked. It's funny because some things I thought were intended to be comical were used as straight dramatic cues...not very good. The American Robotech soundtrack is still closer to my heart although it is so constantly played in the episodes in comparison that it dilutes some of the effect.

As people familiar with these shows know, the Japanese Macross series (and hence Robotech) has a major plot point being a character's songs which unite alien monsters and earthlings. The Japanese songs are fun as early '80s Japanese bubblegum and much superior to the English-version songs which are like pop music by someone who knows nothing of pop music (sorry, Ulpio Minucci, whose main theme I love). It's funny because the Japanese lyrics for one of the major Minmay songs is about a pilot -- tying into the Minmay and Hikaru/Rick characters -- whereas the English counterpart, "My Time to Be a Star," misses that point entirely. By the way, I get a kick out of the English subtitles to the Japanese songs on the Macross DVDs -- I guess it's the way the language translates, or doesn't, but they're along the lines of "I am disrespectful of dirt" (Simpsons fans will remember).

I also watched the Macross movie ("Do You Remember Love?") which has awesome animation combined with completely stock, inane dramatic ideas which I guess don't cross over well culturally. But it's fun to see the battle scenes rendered with more realistic gore. The Haneda score is an improvement on the TV tracks, richer and like Godzilla music.

The Southern Cross and Mospeada (i.e. New Generation) segments of Robotech are coming to DVD later this year in their original Japanese versions. Apparently the Southern Cross, relocated to Earth for Robotech, takes place on some far-off planet in the original presentation -- they had to cut out or airbrush a second moon when they did the adaptation. See www.robotech.com and have fun as it takes five hours for each page to load.

Finally, the best Japanese anime soundtracks I have heard are Yoko Kanno's songs and score for the Macross Plus four-part series. Holy cow, it's terrific!

See http://www.sptimes.com/2002/01/27/Floridian/2_Composers__Philip_G.shtml for a Floriday newspaper article on Philip Glass. (Thanks to Howard Liverance for the information.)

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