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Can anyone shed light on the reason Goldsmith did a string a of scores with the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra during the mid 80's? If memory serves he did Hoosiers, Extreme Prejudice, Rambo 3, Lionheart, and maybe Rent-a-Cop. I think the Islands in the Stream re-recording was with them as well.
King Solomon's Mines was also recorded in Budapest.
It was even rumored that Goldsmith may have lost Academy votes for Hoosiers because of having scored the film with the orchestra because of the country's ties to communism.
Communism my a**. It was the American musicians' union that penalized several composers for recording overseas. It has nothing to do with Communism, but everything with protectionism and petty union policy.
Lalo Schifrin was another composer who suffered during that time. I think he was even grey- if not blacklisted.
The Budapest orchestras (State, Radio Symphony, MAV) are/were very good bands, but not experienced in the pressures of film music recording (little rehearsal time for demanding, unfamiliar music). But when you compare these performances to the City of Prague Philharmonic of the same period, they're still golden!
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The Budapest orchestras (State, Radio Symphony, MAV) are/were very good bands, but not experienced in the pressures of film music recording (little rehearsal time for demanding, unfamiliar music). But when you compare these performances to the City of Prague Philharmonic of the same period, they're still golden!
I think the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra of the 1980s was pretty equivalent to the COPP of the 1990s. The Hungarians faded from the 'performing film music cheaply and poorly' scene and the COPP took their place.
I think Goldsmith found the best use for the Opera Orchestra by smothering it with electronics. Scores such as Lionheart ("The Wrong Flag" is so depressing) or King Solomon's Mines highlight their weaknesses while compositions like Rent-A-Cop and Extreme Prejudice sound almost like they're written to be performed by a cheap orchestra.
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I think Goldsmith found the best use for the Opera Orchestra by smothering it with electronics. Scores such as Lionheart ("The Wrong Flag" is so depressing) or King Solomon's Mines highlight their weaknesses while compositions like Rent-A-Cop and Extreme Prejudice sound almost like they're written to be performed by a cheap orchestra.
This is interesting. Although I don't mean to be disagreeable, I was actually going to post the exact opposite thought. Regardless of one's opinions of Jerry's electronics, the integration of the electronics in the Hungarian stuff is just completely terrible. The "King Solomon's Mines" performance doesn't bother me so much, as it's probably the best-sounding score he recorded there.
But consider "Twilight Zone," "Gremlins" and "Explorers," all of which have lots of electronic elements, but they have incredible, rich dynamics and tons of orchestral punch. But the Hungarian stuff is this really dodgy orchestral performance with bad acoustics on top of which some questionable electronics were layered, apparently in a London studio after the fact. "Extreme Prejudice" is one of my favorite scores, but really if I'm being honest it sounds like crap. The electronics are tinny and they clash with the boomy room sound. Worse, it seems like Jerry was trying to make up for the weak sound of the orchestral recording by doubling some instrument lines on synths, which he didn't do so much in other scores--instead, he chose to use the electronics in a more logical way, to make sounds the orchestra couldn't make.
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The "Unconfirmed Rumor" that was floating around for years was that there was some sort of "Kick Back" from the Hungary Government going to folks who recorded with that Orchestra during this time frame.
It would explain why why it was attractive to record there so much doing this period.
The scores recorded with the Orchestra by Jerry Goldsmith are
KING SOLOMON'S MINES
HOOISERS
Extreme Prejudice
Lionheart
Rent-a-Cop
RABMO III
He also recorded the album of ISLANDS IN THE STREAM with INTRADA after the sessions for LIONHEART.
Now it's worth mention that the producers of RAMBO III according to one source were very unhappy with the performance of the orchestra and replaced a number of cues with music from RABMO II for the final version of the film.
In 1987) Alan Silvestri went there to try and record the score to PREDATOR and after a a few sessions pulled out and came by to LOS ANGELES to re-record the score here.
After these two events, film scoring with this Orchestra stopped with American composers who then Switched to Germany, Prague or London.
Ford A. Thaxton
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Their performance in Basil Poledouris`s `Farewell to the King` was probably their best (but then, it was not a technically challenging score to perform).
According to Basil himself, getting the score to sound as good as it does was a lot of work…..He wasn't very keen on the complete release we did on it for PROMETHEUS RECORDS, but he did like the score he wrote..
As I recall he scored FAREWELL TO THE KING sometime in Late 1988 or early 1989...
He really HATED the performance of CHERRY 2000, I mean HATED IT.
Not as much as he hated the performance on CONAN THE DESTROYER by the Italian Orchestra, but it came close…..
Ford A. Thaxton
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The Graunke had the same experience with Superman IV.
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