This is frankly the best piece of modern classical music that one can comprehend.
That's true...and it's called The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky.
But semi-kidding aside, I do think this is a very good score and I like Trevor Jones in general.
Yavar
This finale is indeed great, Stravinsky nod aside. I LOVE the sweeping string wash near the end, and of course that gran powerful organ. I think INTERSTELLAR would have benefitted greatly from this kind of scoring as opposed to what we got - Inspired in its aspirations, lackluster in their delivery.
Still, I wouldn't put this on par with THE DARK CRYSTAL or NATE AND HAYES. Those are still Jones' best scores, and some of the most wonderful and sumptuous scoring of the 80's - His early sound was just remarkable. The main theme from THE SENDER is also amazing.
I agree those are excellent scores, Dark Crystal possibly his best. I still have a special place in my heart for Last of the Mohicans, The Mighty, and Dinotopia though. I never bought Thirteen Days but it works like gangbusters in the film.
I agree those are excellent scores, Dark Crystal possibly his best.
Frankly I'm amazed it's not held in the same regard as BEN-HUR, CONAN, KRULL, STAR WARS etc.
It's FABULOUS and some of the lushest-sound music ever written for film. The Overture, Love Theme, Landstrider Journey, Great Conjunction, Finale... This is some of the best music our beloved idiom has to offer. It's just ravishing and overflows with passion and lyricism. It's from that special era where lots of the great scores were recorded in London, engineered by either Eric Tomlinson or John Richards, and had a great LP assemblies specially recorded just for album.
How times have changed.
I really wish Jones had kept writing in this vein and I can't help but wonder why it is that this sound abruptly "stopped" after his go-to orchestrator, Peter Knight, passed away.
Not to say he didn't write some great later music, mind you. But still... A special spark was gone.
I agree those are excellent scores, Dark Crystal possibly his best.
Frankly I'm amazed it's not held in the same regard as BEN-HUR, CONAN, KRULL, STAR WARS etc.
It's FABULOUS and some of the lushest-sound music ever written for film. The Overture, Love Theme, Landstrider Journey, Great Conjunction, Finale... This is some of the best music our beloved idiom has to offer. It's just ravishing and overflows with passion and lyricism. It's from that special era where lots of the great scores were recorded in London, engineered by either Eric Tomlinson or John Richards, and had a great LP assemblies specially recorded just for album.
How times have changed.
I really wish Jones had kept writing in this vein and I can't help but wonder why it is that this sound abruptly "stopped" after his go-to orchestrator, Peter Knight, passed away.
Not to say he didn't write some great later music, mind you. But still... A special spark was gone.
Agreed. Though I'd hate to live on the difference, for me Dark Crystal sits right at the top of the many excellent fantasy epics that for some reason all emerged in the early 1980s. I don't know that there's a score that does more to paint a unique world all to its own, simultaneously accessible in the best Romantic tradition yet overflowing with subtle alien avant-garde textures. It's such an organic extension of arguably the most organically realized fantasy film ever made. Jones only wrote a handful of scores I care about, but Dark Crystal is a masterpiece.
Agreed. Though I'd hate to live on the difference, for me Dark Crystal sits right at the top of the many excellent fantasy epics that for some reason all emerged in the early 1980s. I don't know that there's a score that does more to paint a unique world all to its own, simultaneously accessible in the best Romantic tradition yet overflowing with subtle alien avant-garde textures. It's such an organic extension of arguably the most organically realized fantasy film ever made. Jones only wrote a handful of scores I care about, but Dark Crystal is a masterpiece.
Most, MOST aptly put, good sir. And I agree about the film - For all its character imperfections (seriously, the lead character Gen sucks as a protagonist for most of the film!), the picture itself is a just a marvel of design, innovation and imagination. It just bristles with creativity, and gave Jones an amazing canvas to work with as a result, a canvas he did an excellent job milking to the fullest.
I assume you're familiar with NATE AND HAYES? If not, I think you'll love it. It's basically an extension of THE DARK CRYSTAL's sound-world. And it's also just magical, but also heroic and exhilarating. The lush romanticism heard throughout is gorgeous. Here's a suite I posted back in, like, middle school or something - Kinda badly edited, but whatever:
Agreed. Though I'd hate to live on the difference, for me Dark Crystal sits right at the top of the many excellent fantasy epics that for some reason all emerged in the early 1980s. I don't know that there's a score that does more to paint a unique world all to its own, simultaneously accessible in the best Romantic tradition yet overflowing with subtle alien avant-garde textures. It's such an organic extension of arguably the most organically realized fantasy film ever made. Jones only wrote a handful of scores I care about, but Dark Crystal is a masterpiece.
Most, MOST aptly put, good sir. And I agree about the film - For all its character imperfections (seriously, the lead character Gen sucks as a protagonist for most of the film!), the picture itself is a just a marvel of design, innovation and imagination. It just bristles with creativity, and gave Jones an amazing canvas to work with as a result, a canvas he did an excellent job milking to the fullest.
I assume you're familiar with NATE AND HAYES? If not, I think you'll love it. It's basically an extension of THE DARK CRYSTAL's sound-world. And it's also just magical, but also heroic and exhilarating. The lush romanticism heard throughout is gorgeous. Here's a suite I posted back in, like, middle school or something - Kinda badly edited, but whatever:
Yeah, I have Nate and Hayes and like it well enough - I definitely agree that it's an extension of the Dark Crystal sound world. For some reason though, the album doesn't hold up for me the same way - like it's a series of wonderful parts that never cohere into something larger than themselves. Dark Crystal has such a meticulously crafted arc - both as an album and as a full film score - where each moment develops seamlessly into the next. Jones fudges this slightly on the album by including the finale music in the overture, but even in this format the narrative shape is so well-considered. Nate and Hayes has some wondeful moments, but I feel like if I put the album on my phone and accidentally hit the "random" button, I wouldn't know the difference. Maybe I'm being unfair?
Yeah, I have Nate and Hayes and like it well enough - I definitely agree that it's an extension of the Dark Crystal sound world. For some reason though, the album doesn't hold up for me the same way - like it's a series of wonderful parts that never cohere into something larger than themselves. Dark Crystal has such a meticulously crafted arc - both as an album and as a full film score - where each moment develops seamlessly into the next. Jones fudges this slightly on the album by including the finale music in the overture, but even in this format the narrative shape is so well-considered. Nate and Hayes has some wondeful moments, but I feel like if I put the album on my phone and accidentally hit the "random" button, I wouldn't know the difference. Maybe I'm being unfair?
No, I don't think that's an unfair assessment - The musical storytelling or arch isn't as rich as it is in Dark Crystal. But the highlights of Nate and Hayes sure are so very lovely and Jones-ian.
His main theme from THE SENDER is brilliant too, like something out of an enchanting and melancholy dark fairy tale, and frankly could have been dropped right into The Dark Crystal as a theme for the Skesis or the like without anyone ever noticing otherwise.
I own the 2-disc complete Dark Crystal album, which I paid very handsomely for back when I first started collecting (only to have the LaLa Land album come out about a month later! Oy!) and would be interested in hearing a cleaned up complete score. The complete album is extracted from the DVD Isolated score if I recall correctly, and has a lot of volume shifts, abrupt fades, bad edits etc. paramount in such endeavors. I assume there are great-sounding masters of the whole thing out there somewhere, but Jones has them under lock-and-key if I recall correctly.
Please don't throw any tomatoes my way, but I've never really cared for the two Jones favourites DARK CRYSTAL and LABYRINTH. But it's been a long time since I owned/heard them. Maybe it's time for a revisit.
That being said, I'm a fan of the composer, and I think DARK CITY (both film and score) is excellent. Whatever happened to THIS Alex Proyas, I wonder?
Please don't throw any tomatoes my way, but I've never really cared for the two Jones favourites DARK CRYSTAL and LABYRINTH. But it's been a long time since I owned/heard them. Maybe it's time for a revisit.
As scores, they both work really well in their respective films. The impossibly florid sound of The Dark Crystal both anchors the film in a heroic symphonic tradition but embraces its otherworldliness. Album-wise, I often point to The Dark Crystal as a great example of reconceptualizing a score for a different medium. I would have thought you would have loved it.
I didn't like the score for Labyrinth so much when the film came out, although I liked the film, and the Bowie songs. I have since warmed up to it as has my taste for 80s pop scores in general, as a by-product of getting older is that you often come around to stuff you didn't like before (e.g. Ladyhawke). By keeping the music contemporary for its era, the score perhaps does a better job of reflecting the film's coming-of-age themes better than a more so-called “timeless” score might have. And it often dovetails really well with the Bowie songs.
That being said, I'm a fan of the composer, and I think DARK CITY (both film and score) is excellent. Whatever happened to THIS Alex Proyas, I wonder?
If this has now suddenly turned to Trevor Jones in general, I can just as well say that he's never topped THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS.
But some other scores I enjoy -- in addition to DARK CITY -- are EXCALIBUR (although it's mostly medieval pastiche music), RUNAWAY TRAIN, G.I. JANE, parts of CLIFFHANGER (mostly the theme), DINOTOPIA and THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMAN.
I also need to re-assess ARACHNOPHOBIA, DARK CRYSTAL and LABYRINTH after two decades.
If there's love for "Labyrinth", I don't get it. There's really only one cue of note (not even on the commercial CD) and the rest of unmemorable cheapness that offers nothing [tra la la].
This is a stark contrast to the David Bowie songs, which are all fantastic.
I still like the movie though.
I'd certainly be in for a deluxe edition of "Dark City", but so far we've heard twice the labels have tried to show Jones some love, but he seems disinterested. He's rather release something on his own label once every five or so years. Maybe he means well, but he's become the roadblock for this score fan, that is holding things up. It's been my top want from him since I heard the score (in a complete release, Thor; we know about commercial CD's -- they're commercial). My second, though I've never heard a lick, would be his rejected score to "Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker".
Jones is an adaptor. He adapted in the early 90s to the synth&orchestra trends with Freejack and Last of the Mohicans.
But I think he encapsulates the beauty of late 90s scoring. Clearly Jones caught on the trends that were happening with composers like Arnold and Debney. The bigger the better.
So he adopted his more integrated orchestra&synth approach into full scale London Symphony Orchestra works. GI Jane in 1997 was a commission he did for Ridley Scott which showcases his ability to play with the Zimmer template in a much more orchestral setting. The music is Zimmer (with Jonesian idiosyncracies) performed by a massive orchestra
Since then, his work has been about power and scale. Hard to beat this range of scores:
Merlin Dark City Dinotopia Cleopatra League of Gentlemen
Simply some of the largest scores known to man. And not only largest but most intricately composed. No Jones score is an afterthought. There is a rationality behind selecting instrumentation as well as emotional approach.
For all of you who moan about contemporary composition
Perhaps the "moan" about current film music is attributable more to film producers, executive producers, film editors, music editors, focus groups, etc. People (those who are in positions to enforce pop music aesthetics into cinema) issue instructions to composers on which musical styles are to be heard.
From this perspective, blame should not be leveled against the abilities of composers but rather directed towards the film production situations within the industry.
This is frankly the best piece of modern classical music that one can comprehend. The performance by the LSO must have exhausted them.
While I like the overall output of Trevor Jones, I don't agree that 'modern classical music' is incomprehensible. Nearly 50% of my music collection is 20th century/contemporary compositions (600+ albums) and I love most of it. I can listen to and enjoy works by Van Rossum, Van Keulen, Tabachnik, Solbiati, Skrowaczewski, Saariaho, Rands, Prodromides, de Pablo, Heininen, Gagneux, Dufourt, Cerha, Canat de Chizy, Birtwistle, etc. to cite only a few.
If modern classical music is deemed as incomprehensible, then this only reveals the limitations of most listeners...
