FILM SCORE FRIDAY 5/2/08
By Scott Bettencourt
Two figures in film music have recently left us.
Tristam Cary died in Adelaide, Australia on April 24 of natural
causes, at the age of 82. The son of novelist Joyce Cary (The Horse's
Mouth), Tristam was considered a pioneering figure in electronic music,
and his scores included episodes of Dr. Who as well as the original
The Ladykillers, A Boy Ten Feet Tall, Blood from the Mummy's Tomb,
and Hammer Films' greatest work, the feature film version of Quatermass
and the Pit (released in the U.S. as Five Million Years to Earth).
Cloud Nine released a compilation CD of Cary's scores, and both Blood
and Quatermass were released on CD by GDI.
Avant garde composer Henry Brant died on April 27 in Santa Barbara,
California of natural causes, at the age of 94. Besides his concert pieces
(including his Ice Field, which won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize), he
was a regular collaborator with Alex North, orchestrating many of North's
later scores as well as orchestrating and conducting North's rejected score
for 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Kritzerland has just released a limited edition (3000
copies) CD of Stephen Sondheim's score to the 1966 original TV musical
EVENING PRIMROSE, starring Anthony Perkins as a man who discovers
a society of people living in department stores during the off-hours. Sondheim
wrote four original songs for the program, including the popular "I Remember"
and "Take Me to the World," and the Kritzerland disc, the first commercial
release of the original music tracks, features his complete song and score
contribution. The disc can currently be ordered from the Kritzerland
site and has already begun shipping.
On May 10th, Varese
Sarabande will commemorate their 30th anniversary at Dark
Delicacies (4213 W. Burbank Blvd. Burbank, CA 91505, 818-556-6660)
with a massive CD signing event featuring scheduled guests Christophe
Beck, Marco Beltrami, Charles Bernstein, Mychael Danna, Don Davis, John
Debney, Cliff Eidelman, Michael Giacchino, Mark Isham, Richard Kraft, Joel
McNeely, John Ottman, Matthew Joseph Peak, Trevor Rabin, Lalo Schifrin,
Robert Townson, Brian Tyler, and Christopher Young.
For those who consider this group an unparalleled gathering of composers,
one of our readers (okay, it was Richard Kraft) recalls an eight-night
series of lectures in 1977 at UCLA Extension/Los Angeles Film Exposition
moderated by Tony Thomas, with guests including John Addison, John Barry,
Elmer Bernstein, John Cacavas, George Duning, Sammy Fain, Jerry Fielding,
Hugo Friedhofer, Bronislau Kaper, Fred Karlin, Ernest Gold, Billy Goldenberg,
Henry Mancini, Johnny Mandel, Alex North, David Raksin, Leonard Rosenman,
Miklos Rozsa, Walter Scharf, Lalo Schifrin, Richard Sherman, David Shire,
Fred Steiner, Harry Warren and John Williams. Gulp. My mind is officially
blown.
From Monday, May 19th to Friday, May 23rd, Franz Waxman
will be the Composer of the
Week on BBC Radio 3, including stories from Waxman's life as well as
excerpts from his film and concert pieces.
CDS AVAILABLE THIS WEEK
Evening Primrose - Stephen Sondheim - Kritzerland
The Most Beautiful Themes for Flute and Oboe - Georges Delerue
- Disques CineMusiques
Mutant - Richard Band - Perseverance
Pathology - Johannes Kobilkie, Robert Williamson - Lakeshore
IN THEATERS TODAY
Anamorph - Reinhold Heil, Johnny Klimek
Fugitive Pieces - Nikos Kypourgos
Iron Man - Ramin Djawadi - Score CD due May 6 from Lions Gate
Made of Honor - Rupert Gregson-Williams
Redbelt - Stephen Endelman - Song CD Behind the Velvet Curtain
on Great American Music
Son of Rambow - Joby Talbot - Score CD due May 27 from Bulletproof
Standard Operating Procedure - Danny Elfman - Score CD due May
6 from Varese Sarabande
COMING SOON
May 6
The Dark Hour - Alfons Conde - MovieScore Media
Iron Man - Ramin Djawadi - Lions Gate
Lost: Season Three - Michael Giacchino - Varese Sarabande
Speed Racer - Michael Giacchino - Varese Sarabande
Standard Operating Procedure - Danny Elfman - Varese Sarabande
Sudden Impact - Lalo Schifrin - Aleph
May 13
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - Harry Gregson-Williams
- Disney
May 20
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - John Williams
- Concord
May 27
The Film Music of Constant Lambert and Lord Berners - Constant
Lambert, Lord Berners - Chandos
Son of Rambow - Joby Talbot - Bulletproof
Staccato/Paris Swings - Elmer Bernstein - DRG
June 3
The Happening - James Newton Howard - Varese Sarabande
Mongol - Tuomas Kantelinen - Varese Sarabande
June 24
WALL-E - Thomas Newman - Disney
Date Unknown
The Deaths of Ian Stone - Elia Cmiral -Perseverance
THIS WEEK IN FILM MUSIC HISTORY
May 2 - Van Alexander born (1915)
May 2 - Satyajit Ray born (1921)
May 2 - Elliot Goldenthal born (1954)
May 2 - Aram Khachaturian died (1978)
May 3 - Hugo Friedhofer born (1901)
May 3 - Delia Derbyshire born (1937)
May 3 - David Raksin begins recording his score for Two
Weeks in Another Town (1962)
May 4 - Albert Glasser died (1998)
May 5 - Patrick Gowers born (1936)
May 5 - Andre Previn begins recording his score for House
of Numbers (1957)
May 6 - Recording sessions begin for Bronislau Kaper's score
to The
Glass Slipper (1954)
May 6 - Recording begins on Alfred Newman and Hugo Friedhofer's
score to The
Bravados in Munich, Germany (1958)
May 6 - Tom Chase born (1965)
May 6 - Michel Legrand begins recording his score to Ice
Station Zebra (1968)
May 7 - Jack Elliott born (1914)
May 7 - Anne Dudley born (1956)
May 8 - Nathan Van Cleave born (1910)
DID THEY MENTION THE MUSIC?
BABY MAMA - Jeff Richmond
"The movie is sometimes conventional to the point of being formulaic,
as if [Michael] McCullers -- who also wrote the script -- didn't want to
take the chance of offending those obsessed with childbearing: It used
to be that people who were unsuccessfully trying to conceive found the
disappointment too painful to talk about; now it's often all they can talk
about, a phenomenon 'Baby Mama' only hints at. And there are too many places
where the score (by Jeff Richmond) works too hard to cue emotion: There's
something wrong when the music in a comedy sets off a buzzer, even a faint
one.
Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com
"Craft contributions are handsome, although Jeff Richmond's score veers
toward on-cue preciousness."
Todd McCarthy, Variety
DECEPTION - Ramin Djawadi
"What can compare with the white-knuckle suspense of uploading a file?
'Deception,' that's what. This is a movie jam-packed with all the thrills
of watching that little progress bar grow and grow until it fills the alloted
space in the pop-up box on your computer screen. The most thrilling sequence
in the movie actually does involve a race between a disconnect countdown
and a file upload on accountant Ewan McGregor's IBM laptop. If you had
a lot of rhythmic, percussive music blaring away while you were transferring
files on your laptop, you might find it exciting, too. But maybe not...
Soon Wyatt and Jonathan are hanging together at the gym (mixed doubles,
anyone?) and visiting clubs where plasticine hookers wear lookingglass
eyes... while straddling ladders and cozying up to brass poles to the steady
throb of medium-volume techno-lite muzak. (In the movies, all clubs play
this gaudy music so you'll know lewd sex is available -- and that the characters
are willing endure excruciatingly banal synth tracks in order to get some.
If the music is any good, wanton sex is unobtainable)."
Jim Emerson, Chicago Sun-Times
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