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"Dracula" is a brilliant score. Clever, allusive, sly, intelligent, and a perfect, inspired match to the images it accompanies. As Williams touched on in the Bouzereau interview, it's oh-so-slightly tongue in cheek, but never condescends to the material. The cue "Dracula's Death" in particular is Williams working at the very top of his game, and embodies all the elements I just outlined. Goose bump inducing, particularly in it's middle section.
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I'm more disappointed that, just like with JAWS 2, the movie's sound presentation wasn't converted from stereo to 5.1 (as with JAWS).
You liked the Jaws 5.1 remix?
That's a new one.
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Jaws had an Oscar-winning mono sound mix, and the 5.1 mix was done in 2000 with completely changed sound effects. And in my opinion the music doesn't sound good in it. I can only watch the film with the original mono track. Jaws 2 was also a mono film and the same kind of thing would need to be done to make it stereo. But in the case of Dracula it was a Dolby Stereo film to begin with and there is a 4-track print master that could be re-purposed for 5.1 easily, but the DVD and Blu-Ray only offer 2.0.
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I find the expansion much more listenable than I expected, more enjoyable throughout. For me, it is a better program than the original album, with more variety than the more focused and repetitive presence of the main theme. I've listened through to the first disc at least twice, and surprised each time that I'm already at the end credits when they come up. Even happy to hear the bonus tracks, and I usually skip those.
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Posted: |
Nov 19, 2018 - 11:36 AM
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By: |
nerfTractor
(Member)
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Someone in the other thread, (nerfTractor), complained that there was no separate thread for 'listening impressions' after hearing the new 'Dracula' that wouldn't be mixed-in with complaints of shipping and booklet anomolies etc. Well, here you go. I just finished listening to this, but will withold my impressions to see if they...evolve over a day or so.
Thanks for doing this! The soundtrack to DRACULA came along when I was 14 and right during the prime of my awestruck journey through the masterpieces that John and Jerry were turning out constantly way back then. As I recall the movie came out in summer and it took longer than usual (close to Christmas?) before the album came out so there was even more anticipation than usual. I think I was originally let down because it wasn’t Close Encounters 2.0, but it grew on me and became one of my favorites from this era, especially because it sits in such beautiful contrast with its mates from that year.
The expansion has been sinking in over time and I appreciate it more with every listen. The build of the score to the triple climax of “The Capture of Lucy,” “To Scarborough,” and “The Death of Dracula” makes more sense to me now in sequence and with the added material, especially of course the Van Helsing motif which turns out to permeate the score. I still love the album presentation of course but this deluxe edition is the grand slam of the year so far and I am loving every moment of getting newly acquainted with this old friend.
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Posted: |
Nov 19, 2018 - 11:40 AM
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By: |
davefg
(Member)
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It's a very nice score, and I'm glad it became available for all of us to purchase it. That being said, there's something about all of this extra music (on disc one). To paraphrase a couple of words that Thor used in his comments near the beginning of this thread, '..the music doesn't flow, at least for me. I'm very glad all the extra music has been found and restored, but, the more satisfying listening experience (again, at least for me), is the music on disc two, which is the album presentation.
I agree with this sentiment. I think because there was so much mythology built around the score, the fact the stereo masters were supposedly lost, its rarity on CD and the period that it came from, built up huge expectations for me which were not meet thus far on disc 1. Disc 2 might change things for me, overall I have not been that impressed by the score.
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Well, just like that wait I endured to finally hear that bit of music from THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK where Luke and Dack felt ready to take on the world, at 40 seconds into Give Me Your Loyalty, I finally got that moment again.
And It Felt GOOD!!!!!
Haven't played through the whole thing yet, but my word, John Williams was having a good go in the late 70s, wasn't he 
Soundtrack listening and collecting doesn't get better than this.
And you should see the other stuff that arrived with it I've got to listen to!
Joy upon joy.
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I posted this on the other Dracula thread, so I'll post it here as well....
DRACula.... is specTACula!!!!!!
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Which one?
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Yes, echoes of The Magic Tree and Space Slug Cave and Cloud City abound in this score, together with countless other
Williams-isms of that period. Even Poseidon Adventure!
Just Grade A Williams all the way.
What a friggin year it's been for film score aficianados!
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Pure magic. A magnificent score, one of Williams´best.
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The content on disc 1 has no real musical value to me, and I think the C&C robs the music of some of its inherent flow.
Funny that you think so, because Disc One actually gives the music back its symphonic sweep and flow, whereas the OST feels more like a more or less arbitrary arrangement of cues with not much real musical flow at all (at best, a suite, but not even really that).
In any case, I have done some listening comparisons between the OST disc and the new Varése Deluxe, and I have to say the sound improvement is considerable, even though it is probably never going to sound as splendid as it could be (take, for example, John Mauceri's recording of "Night Journeys", which shows how glorious that could sound).
Disc One has better sound and better flow, so that's the one I will be turning to more, though I had my own LP for so long, it's nice to have the LP OST arrangement as well (the individual cues are very well done), I'm very familiar with that album, as it is one of my earlierst John Williams items in my collection.
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