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Posted: |
May 16, 2009 - 11:31 PM
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By: |
Josh
(Member)
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The recent FSM release of Angela Morley's CAPTAIN NEMO AND THE UNDERWATER CITY has me once again donning scuba gear in anticipation of plunging into yet another great film score featuring aquatic sonorities. Historically, the harp seems to be the instrument of choice for describing musically the fantastic mysteries of the deep blue sea, as made evident by two of my other underwater favorites, BENEATH THE 12-MILE REEF (Herrmann) and VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA (Shefter/Sawtell), both of which were also released by FSM. Although the harp is featured prominently in the score, the harpless track "Martineau and Organ" from CAPTAIN NEMO takes underwater music to a whole other fathom, a place where sirens beckon those who dare follow to drown themselves in its sheer loveliness. Powerless to resist its current, I can't wait to be swept away. (Please pardon the predictable puns, I was on a roll.) So, what are some of your favorite "underwater" scores? Which have yet to be released on CD that demand attention?
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Leviathan
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Posted: |
May 17, 2009 - 3:52 AM
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By: |
MusicMad
(Member)
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So, what are some of your favorite "underwater" scores? Sorry to be predictable, but Thunderball defined underwater scores for me. It was my cinematic introduction to the sub-aquatic region, and I measure all others by it. The action in those sequences is often rubbished, but I don't recall anyone criticizing the music. Oh, I think Thor has ... but I'm happy to be corrected. Just as he created the sound for gold (in Goldfinger) so John Barry perfected the sound for being underwater in Thunderball. I don't just mean the action scenes in the final segment of the film ... but throughout the film, where Bond dallies with Domino or when he's below the Disco Volante, or investigating the sunken bomber. But he didn't stop there: the short sequence in You Only Live Twice where Bond is "buried at sea" and "resurrected" is perfect, too. Or his masterpiece a few years later: The Deep. He just seems to get the sound so right. I also rate very highly: Michel Legrand's work on Ice Station Zebra ... slightly specialised in that the sound depicts the submarine under the ice but it does work perfectly. Roy Budd's beautiful piano arrangment for the end title of Fear Is The Key ... short but gorgeous. I also like Bernard Herrmann's Beneath The 12 Mile Reef and, in the film (I don't have the score), Alan Silvestri's The Abyss is very effective. I haven't seen the film but on disc I find Jerry Goldsmith's Leviathan very much an also-ran. It's better now that I have a decent stereo hi-fi system but it's a score I have to think about playing rather than being attracted to playing.
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The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. Music by Walter Scharf.
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I also really like John Barry's music for Raise The Titanic(1980). Wouldn't it be nice to have a disc from Budd Boetticher's City Beneath The Sea(1953) which 'harvested' the combined talents of such Universal International Pictures luminaries as Mancini, Rosen, Salter, Skinner, and Stein, maybe David Schecter can further 'illuminate the murky depths' of this composite opus ? And, while we're at it why not 'throw in' Jacques Tourneur's City In The Sea(1965) which I seem to recall had some 'bubbly music' from Stanley Black...yikes, I need a cup of tea!
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Sphere, Goldenthal. The Abyss, Silvestri.
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Richard La Salle's MERMAIDS OF TIBURON Paul Dunlap's DESTINATION INNER SPACE (actually recycled cues from ANGRY RED PLANET) Mark Snow's 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA any VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA (film or TV scores) and can we forget Lloyd Bridges' lost series SEA HUNT?? (probably lots of stock library cues)
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