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Posted: |
Jun 17, 2015 - 3:09 PM
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By: |
SteveP
(Member)
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I remember as I queued outside the Albert Hall in 1998 to get my autograph after the Barry concert, thinking this will probably be the only time I get to meet him - what do I say? At the time I was listening to The Scarlet Letter a lot and especially loved the long love scene music. I was going to tell him what I thought of it and how I wish he'd write a whole album of romantic music. Well, he already had - it just hadn't been released in its complete form. Indecent Proposal is hugely melodic music that pulls you into its sumptuous, tranquil and emotionally rich waters. The world feels a much warmer and meaningful place while you're there. This is absolutely sublime music to be savoured with eyes closed and lights out, from a uniquely creative stylist who did it his way.
Each new Barry release creates a greedy hunger for more. We have fortunately been well served over the last 18 months, and yet there are still plenty more possibilities - Year Of The Comet, Goodbye Lover, Cotton Club and the TV scores to name a few.
Sadly, after getting my autograph, I bottled out thinking I may come across as too sycophantic. All I managed was an all too brief and lacking in how I really felt, "Thanks a lot." Aaaah...
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Incidentally, one of my favourite John Barry scores of the 1960s is DEADFALL.
In many ways, INDECENT PROPOSAL is the one and only other score that is, in places, very DEADFALL-esque.
But you could only deduce that from listening to DEADFALL film score, not the soundtrack album which contains hardly any of the film's actual score apart from song and concerto in fact.
Okay, INDECENT PROPOSAL doesn't have a Shirley Bassey song, nor does it have a short guitar concerto, but when you look / listen to the score in DEADFALL apart from those two things, it's dominated by a sumptuous but sort of pained love theme which, with it's long, crossing and slightly discordant string lines, is slow, distant, low-key and mysterious.
Just like INDECENT PROPOSAL.
The DEADFALL love theme is lovely but somehow longing, unresolved and hinting away from the happy end.
Just like INDECENT PROPOSAL.
The difference is that INDECENT PROPOSAL finds resolution (it has a happy ending), whereas DEADFALL never finds resolution and fades-to-black on unresolved chords (it has a tragic ending).
Sadly, that DEADFALL theme is not satisfactorily represented on disc. In fact, the 'film version' of this strange love theme which is the main line running through the whole score, is not represented on the soundtrack album at all. There's an album version of it (end of Side One), but it's not the same. So you need to dig out the DVD and listen to the isolated score track to really appreciate what I mean.
And it's interesting that both films are about love triangles, albeit moving in different directions.
Cheers
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Great post and interesting points. I adore Deadfall, especially the concerto, so I should probably pick up the DVD for the isolated score at some point.
Yavar
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If I was rich, DEADFALL is a score I would pay Tadlow to record for me.
The only thing is that while John Barry's music is ostensibly simple, I suspect, perhaps ignorantly, that DEADFALL might be a difficult score to get sounding really right. I'm no musician but I suspect that underneath that ostensible simplicity, there might be some depths and subtleties to how Barry got that sound which are maybe difficult to reliably decypher. Hell, I'm probably just being ignorant. I'm also certain that Barry used a synthesizer to subtly but powerfully augment the orchestra just as he did in THE LION IN WINTER.
Even so, that's a score I would love to recreate. The album is FANTASTIC as an album, it really is, but as I said above, it contains hardly any of the actual film's score apart from the song and concerto.
I actually think DEADFALL is John Barry's overlooked masterpiece. Despite his Bond scores, we all know he wasn't really an action composer but may—may—have been the best composer ever at those strange, exotic, slightly dark, doom laden love stories.
James Fitzpatrick, if I ever get rich, this is the score I'll be giving you a phone call about!
And perhaps this is why I'm playing INDECENT PROPOSAL so much right now, because of the kinship I sense between that and DEADFALL.
Cheers
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Incidentally, one of my favourite John Barry scores of the 1960s is DEADFALL.
Sadly, that DEADFALL theme is not satisfactorily represented on disc. In fact, the 'film version' of this strange love theme which is the main line running through the whole score, is not represented on the soundtrack album at all. There's an album version of it (end of Side One), but it's not the same. So you need to dig out the DVD and listen to the isolated score track to really appreciate what I mean.
Cheers
I was happy with the cd until you revealed this sad fact; a fact
I never knew . Damn you Woolston - LOL!
Isolated score track? On the US dvd?
The film is beyond terrible and I will never watch it again. But, I would LISTEN to a iso score track with the picture turned off....
b
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For those who've listened to this, how is the balance of repetition to variety? The clips suggest there is a good deal of variety of themes and figures, but I'm just wondering how frequently main themes return in the main program? (Not counting alternates, and of course not talking tempo.  )
Some expanded Barry albums play better than others to me (Hanover Street is a toughie for me even with the highly varied music in the second half). Im just wondering how this compares....
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Mitch, thanks so much for answering my question, and with such nuance. You've got some good programmatic sensibilities there!
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Finally giving this a proper listen in anticipation of Dances with Wolves coming next month. Honestly I prefer Barry's more dynamic scores - so in this case much more a partisan of Wolves than Proposal. (And so of course it's not fair to listen to this one while thinking of that one, since they are by their natures so different.)
What I'm struck by is how beautifully varied the full score really is (something I had asked about above before I decided to buy it). In my fifties, I'm finding more sedate music is often more to my taste, and the album program here actually has a good bit of variety while being very much in the same feel and manner throughout. It's sort of reminds me of the aesthetic of an ambient or new-age album translated to orchestral film music. It is suffused with the melancholy Barry did like no other but with enough understated joy within to keep it from feeling unduly maudlin or depressing.
Plus it's always great these days to hear more Barry when it seems like we will never hear his like again.
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Posted: |
Nov 30, 2015 - 11:40 AM
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By: |
MusicMad
(Member)
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I've played this score twice in the last 48hrs ... firstly during dinner with friends and then yesterday in the quiet ambiance of a sleepy Sunday. So very beautiful, so moving ... it's downright gorgeous music.
I had been slightly unsure just how much extra the score would add over and above the lovely 25' (approx.) suite which I've lived with for 20+ years. I had so wanted the variation heard when Redford's character explains his motivations to Moore's character re: girl on the train ... for me, the pivotal scene in the film.
But there's so much more, and that's without considering the bonus tracks!
As with most Barry, it just gets better with every play but I won't be playing it again ... not just yet ... not for another few days at any rate. 
As for Dances with Wolves, I'm not as excited as others about this new release. As magnificent as the score is, it's almost unique in his 40 years of film scoring in that, for me, it doesn't hit me quite so well on CD as it does married to the visuals. Perhaps this new release will change that but, to date, I find the score has a majestic quality which doesn't fully transfer to the audio-only arena.
Mitch
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