 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Posted: |
Dec 4, 2002 - 8:12 PM
|
|
|
|
By: |
MWRuger
(Member)
|
But whose INTENTIONS?
Remember what you hear in the film can be vastly different from what the composer wanted, thnigs get but about,changed,watered down,etc during the recording process by directors,producers and studio types.
What you hear in the film is their vison of the score, not the compoers many times.
So whose vison do you go for?
Ford A. Thaxton
Well, the one you like better seems the best answer if a bit simplistic.
If the original recording does it for you, warts and all, that is what you should get.
If your desire is just the music without attachment to the film (Arranged in suites, re-recorded) then re-recordings are just fine.
In an ideal world both would be available, personally I prefer originals when available. Re-recordings that come as close as possible to the originals fare better in my view than interpretations of the original score, even if it’s the composer.
Of course that rarely happens, so you end up with whatever is available, good or bad.
While I can understand the frustration of composers who hear their work slaughtered during editing or new cues shoehorned in due to timing concerns, there is a certain synergy that goes beyond just the composer’s work. I’m not sure why this is so, but it does seem to be true in many cases.
Take the re-recording of How to Steal a Million as an example. The re-recording is ok, but compare it to the original track that can be heard on the Music of Audrey Hepburn. There is not only a major difference in the sound, but the lack of power and vibrancy is clear to these ears.
Modern re-recordings are better, but it all boils down to whether it is just music that came from a film or whether it is an artifact of the film itself.
My rule is take it all with a grain of salt and try to get a listen to a re-recording before I buy it. If it is a bad re-recording, then it’s just bad music. If it is a bad original soundtrack than it at least has authenticity and provenance and remains an artifact of the film.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Dec 7, 2002 - 8:54 AM
|
|
|
|
By: |
Sparkdog
(Member)
|
Whether an original or a re-recording, these are art items--each can be considered on its own, and whether or not the artist preferred one over the other won't affect a listener's opinion of how much he enjoys it, only how he regards it as "the real McCoy". For example, Jerry Goldsmith may prefer his recent re-recording of "Patton", but I prefer the original album re-recording and the movie soundtrack over that version. (On the other hand, I like his revisiting of "Tora!" over the OST.)
Ford mentioned one of my favorite/least favorite OST's, "Golden Voyage of Sinbad". I love the Kali Fight cue in the movie, yet stripped of sound effects, the performance on the album was kind of...bare? I enjoyed the rerecording much better. Same with the chase from "Taras Bulba", which is more full-bodied on the Gerhardt.
It shouldn't be a surprise that, as with classical recordings, we simply like what we like, whether (in classical music) it is performed on period instruments or (in film) the exact version we heard in the movie where we were exposed to the score in the first place.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
But whose INTENTIONS?
Remember what you hear in the film can be vastly different from what the composer wanted, thnigs get but about,changed,watered down,etc during the recording process by directors,producers and studio types.
What you hear in the film is their vison of the score, not the compoers many times.
So whose vison do you go for?
Ford A. Thaxton
What I would find to be ideal is the score recorded as it was written by the composer...
Of course producers and directors want changes all over and use the score as they see fit, but then again, there just is NO film music that is written exactly as the composers wants, since there always is some form of intervention by producers/directors beginning at the spotting session.
Perhaps Alien is among one of those scores that ARE the CLOSEST thing to the score as the composer INTENDED (as recorded - not as used in the film!)... since Scott left it almost entirely to Goldsmith during the composing proces...
-----------------------
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Dec 11, 2002 - 2:32 AM
|
|
|
|
By: |
SoundScope
(Member)
|
I'm a little late to this table but. . .
I have nothing against re-recordings if they are an improvement in sound quality from the originals that may or may not be mono or are so deterioated that their sonic range is compromised.
But I do have a problem with re-recordings where, in most cases, the readings are so lugrubrious and conducting so sluggish that it takes minutes longer than the original. I don't know what it was about the studio orchestras of the 50's, but they all had such snap and crackle. Percussive blows were astonishingly quick and punctuated. The playing by the orchestra members is nothing short of miraculous! One has only to listen to the original soundtrack (on film or new dvd) from SUNSET BOULEVARD and then compare it to the new Varese disc to see what I'm talking about! As an old episode of ILOVE LUCY once proclaimed: "Speed it up!" If your going to do a re-record why would you not want it to sound like the films original representation. The score was conducted for a specific pace and action on screen and is indelibly linked to that. Unlike music written for the concert stage, film music, where ever and when ever it is performed, should read as close to the original film as possible. Personally,I want to relive the score the way I remember hearing it in the film. NOT through some pompous "interpretation" of a conductor.
Based on what has been released recently, I'm affraid that no one, no orchestra, no conductor, would be up to the task of recreating the astonishing punch and drive of the original SPARTACUS cues.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Dec 11, 2002 - 2:50 AM
|
|
|
|
By: |
Dana Wilcox
(Member)
|
I'm a little late to this table but. . .
I have nothing against re-recordings if they are an improvement in sound quality from the originals that may or may not be mono or are so deterioated that their sonic range is compromised.
But I do have a problem with re-recordings where, in most cases, the readings are so lugrubrious and conducting so sluggish that it takes minutes longer than the original. I don't know what it was about the studio orchestras of the 50's, but they all had such snap and crackle. Percussive blows were astonishingly quick and punctuated. The playing by the orchestra members is nothing short of miraculous! One has only to listen to the original soundtrack (on film or new dvd) from SUNSET BOULEVARD and then compare it to the new Varese disc to see what I'm talking about! As an old episode of ILOVE LUCY once proclaimed: "Speed it up!" If your going to do a re-record why would you not want it to sound like the films original representation. The score was conducted for a specific pace and action on screen and is indelibly linked to that. Unlike music written for the concert stage, film music, where ever and when ever it is performed, should read as close to the original film as possible. Personally,I want to relive the score the way I remember hearing it in the film. NOT through some pompous "interpretation" of a conductor.
Based on what has been released recently, I'm affraid that no one, no orchestra, no conductor, would be up to the task of recreating the astonishing punch and drive of the original SPARTACUS cues.
Hear hear! This man obviously knows what he's talking about. I have tried -- God how I've tried! -- to love the Varese rerecording of SUNSET BOULEVARD, because the MUSIC is so great. But I watched the new DVD of the film, and listened once again to Gerhardt's kick-ass, snarling rendition of the music in his Classic Film Scores suite (which is an accurate representation), and I now have no choice but to admit it to myself: McNeeley and the RSNO have mucked up a great score with a tepid, limp-wristed performance, rendered even worse by the distantly-miked, echoey recording. YES, an orchestra rerecording a film score should attempt as much as possible to recreate the energy and emotion of the music that accompanied the film. If they want to make "art items" then they need to do suites and provide fair warning to consumers, phrases like "based upon the film score" or "inspired by themes from..." so we know that they are not really making any effort to recreate a film score. Such terms, alas, could appropriately appear on the back of the SUNSET BOULEVARD recording. What a damn shame!
GOD FORBID that crew should ever go anywhere near SPARTACUS! 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Dec 11, 2002 - 3:47 AM
|
|
|
|
By: |
MMM
(Member)
|
If you listen closely to many original soundtrack recordings done by the best film music orchestras in the world (those belonging to the Hollywood studois), you will hear many errors caused by many factors, but the most common was "TIME." There simply wasn't enough time to go back and do it right every time because original soundtrack recordings are so often rushed. So, while you might love to hear the original tracks to music composed by Goldsmith, Herrmann, Rozsa, Korngold, Waxman, etc., despite the skills of the conductor, composer, orchestrator, and musicians, what you're hearing might be highly enjoyable, but perfect it is not. I have known composers who couldn't stand to listen to some of their cues after all these years because they still painfully remember the mistakes made by the orchestra when they were first recorded.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Dec 11, 2002 - 10:59 AM
|
|
|
|
By: |
estgrey
(Member)
|
If you listen closely to many original soundtrack recordings done by the best film music orchestras in the world (those belonging to the Hollywood studois), you will hear many errors caused by many factors, but the most common was "TIME." There simply wasn't enough time to go back and do it right every time because original soundtrack recordings are so often rushed. So, while you might love to hear the original tracks to music composed by Goldsmith, Herrmann, Rozsa, Korngold, Waxman, etc., despite the skills of the conductor, composer, orchestrator, and musicians, what you're hearing might be highly enjoyable, but perfect it is not. I have known composers who couldn't stand to listen to some of their cues after all these years because they still painfully remember the mistakes made by the orchestra when they were first recorded.
Yes, there are often errors of this sort in original recordings, but the modern ones rarely fare any better. (The performers are almost always aware of errors that most listeners will never even hear, just as lots of actors won't watch their own performances in a film because they obsess on everything they know they did wrong.) Even if a re-recording does get all the notes right, they often lose the energy and style which give added life to the original. In the classical world, Horowitz, the famous pianist, was well-known for making errors, but his performances were prized for their daring and excitement. I remember seeing Isaac Stern instructing a class of children taught to play the violin by the Suzuki (spelling?) method. The best violinist in the class came forward and played a selection, which was very competent, hitting all the right notes (very impressive for someone who was hardly 12). Then Isaac Stern stepped forward and played the same piece and it was the same notes but completely different, full of passion and feeling totally lacking from the child's. Obviously, there is more than just the notes in the music. It may seem odd, but too much emphasis can be placed on rigid accuracy, especially if it is at the cost of other things we value in the music.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Dec 11, 2002 - 11:54 AM
|
|
|
|
By: |
Thor
(Member)
|
I don't have much to add that has not already been said, but I always air my opinion whenever this topic pops up (which is frequently).
I am a HiFi freak and love good sound quality. That is a very important criterion for me, so even at that point, original recordings have a disadvantage. If that is because I am a child of the CD age or STAR WARS age or whatever, I will not say. All I know is that older, archival recordings have a higher degree of "curiousity" value than pure "engrossment" value for me. The pops and hisses become verfremdungs-effects - to a certain degree, anyway.
But I also agree that performance will have to be put into consideration. As most of you know, I listen to film music/soundtracks as musical entities that have NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the films they were born in. A consequence of this is that I do not automatically put greater emphasis, artistically, on the original recordings than on rerecordings. When the music is separated from the film and presented audio-only, it is pretty much "raw material" that can be formed in various ways. Now, I'm not saying that Meco's versions of STAR WARS are as legit as Williams' originals...a certain JUSTICE to the original score sheets must be implemented. As such, there are many times where rerecordings SURPASS originals. For example, I am pretty sure that Marco Polo's KING KONG - with a large orchestra and Morgan's faitful orchestration - fares BETTER than Steiner's original, who had to cope with a too-small orchestra.
In other words: Rerecordings should not use the ORIGINAL FILM SOUNDTRACK as their point of departure, but the ORIGINAL SCORE SHEETS. Evaluative judgements should be put to the musical performance thereafter (just as with any symphonic performance).
In my opinion.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Dec 13, 2002 - 11:42 AM
|
|
|
|
By: |
Thor
(Member)
|
That's min venn, Howard. "Min" is "my", "meg" is "me" (that sounds like a song!). But a valiant effort, it was! 
estgrey, I would actually be very curious to hear what Morgan feels about this issue. Does he really put weight on the original performance, or does he concentrate on the score sheets, first and foremost? I hope he would tend towards the latter.
I certainly respect your view on film music and how you want it tied to the film, even in an audio-only format, but I do not agree with it. I, personally, LOVE suites and the principle that guides them (95% of the time, anyway). Last night, I was listening to the brilliant suites of Korngold's ELIZABETH AND ESSEX (Davis/Munich SO). I wouldn't want it any other way.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Dec 13, 2002 - 12:37 PM
|
|
|
|
By: |
John Morgan
(Member)
|
John Morgan speaks!
Okay, here are my takes on rerecordings with Marco Polo. These are my opinions only, but I feel they are based on sound judgments, again in my opinion. Also I will give you my reasons that recording to the original film is impossible for our rerecordings.
1. The actual recording done for the film and heard in the film is the only legitimate and proper performance for that particular film. Whether it is badly played, or badly recorded makes no difference. It belongs to the film as much as the actors, photography, etc. As an example was when they tried to rerecord the FANTASIA score in digital sound for a re-release some years back. Irwin Kostal had all the original music and timing sheets, but trying to imitate every nuance and "hit" rendered the music forced and not natural. Of course, this is an unusual case, as Stokowski performed the music first, with all the rubatos and idiosyncrasies and the Disney people animated to that, but it just didn't feel like it belonged to that film.
2. Film Music can have two criteria. Since its function is primarily to enhance a film, the most important aspect is how does the music work within the framework of the film. In this function it becomes part of FILM art. Much film music that is considered a great film score may not be great music in the sense of standing alone as music. It can be repetitive, meandering, formless and sometimes even played badly on purpose for a dramatic effect, but nevertheless a great FILM score WITH the film. Now, when we rerecord a score for an album, my primary concern is not at all how the music works with the film, but how does it work AWAY from the film--as music. Of course Bill Stromberg and I are flattered when we get comments from film buffs who say we captured the sound and feel of the original performance, but I get an even bigger thrill when I read a review from someone who hasn't seen the film, but finds the music compelling and interesting and fun on its own.
3. Recording to picture for a rerecording is an interesting concept, but one that simply would not work with the scores we do. First off, my loyalty is always with the composer and his music, not with what ends up in the film. In all our rerecordings, I try to go back to primary sources, which are the composer's original sketches. Ideally, I would like these sketches, the original orchestrations, the original parts, the original conductor parts and a music only track. Unfortunately, this is almost never the case. More than 50% of the music we choose to record, no full scores survive and we must orchestrate the music from original sketches or conductor-piano scores. When a composer composes his music to a timing sheet, this reflects the cut or edit of the film at that time.
By the time the music is ready for orchestration, more often than not, editing changes have occurred within the film which forces the composer to cut bars or add repeats. This reediting of film often continues after the orchestrations are prepared and even after the score is recorded, which further changes the composer's original music. With very few exceptions, I find the music the composer originally wrote when he started is the best and most interesting presentation of the music AS MUSIC. I would say that at least 80% of the total music we record would not fit the film's final timings. These additional edits in the film are strictly for filmic reasons and the music simply has to be adjusted to fit and film to work as film music. Often entire cues are dropped because a scene was cut or the producer or director just didn't think the music was right. Well, when we rerecord, if the music is "right" as music, we'll do it.
4. When Bill conducts this music, he certainly has studied both the film and its music. He understands the music's meaning as drama, but he also understands that this is a performance of a musical work and his feeling for the music. I have heard many performances (on acetates) from most the Golden Age greats and often a great musical performance of a cue must be eliminated and a lesser one substituted because the initial great performance just didn't hit all the filmic marks, so to speak. Herrmann disliked his film performances as he did all film composer's performances because he was aware of the conductor "hitting" cues and varying tempos to make that hit. It distracted from the music. I feel much the same way, but I certainly don't say rerecordings are automatically better...they're not. In fact, in Herrmann's rerecording, I feel he was much too leisurely with the music in more cases than not, but I do think any GOOD music certainly can stand up to different interpretations. Complex orchestrated music can never display all its details in one reading or performance.
5. Studio orchestras: They were unique and certainly different. The two best in the forties were Warners and Fox. Both were never less than 100% in all areas, but both had their 100%plus sections. For Fox it was their strings and the way Newman shaped them. For Warners, it was their brass, which was primarily the result of Steiner and Korngold. As I mentioned before, it would be interesting if we could go back to the forties and have Steiner record Newman's CAPTAIN FROM CASTILLE at Warners and have Newman record Steiner's ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN at Fox. I think they both would be great, but extremely different. I sort of liken Fox to the great Philadelphia Orchestra that Ormandy shaped and Warners somewhat like the great Chicago Symphony that Reiner helped shape. Just as the Warner orchestra was different and made up of different players, recording emphasis and acoustics than Fox, so is the Moscow orchestra different from Prague, or Chicago different from the Boston, etc., etc., etc. They all have their uniqueness and differences. This is not to say one is necessarily better than another....they may or may not be, but they are unique because they all are made up of 80 or 90 musical personalities and minds. I would think it would be insulting to play a piece of music for musicians and tell them to emulate that playing. That would be like telling an actor who is doing a play to emulate a previous actor. Performing music and making it live is not like a Rich Little or Frank Gorshin routine. Music that has more than one performance is more like a written play than a painting. A painting is a fixed work of art, as is a film and its score. A play is newly interpreted by the different actors, staging and even audience. A play, like music, is renewed and reborn every time it is performed. Different performers bring different meaning to the music. Good plays like good music can work on many different levels, but all levels cannot be emphasized at the same time. I am always delighted when I hear inner parts of a score in a new recording that have always been in the music, but never heard before.
AND
Of course the actual recording is very important, and much could be said about different recording philosophies, but this post is already too long. Suffice to say, we try to create an acoustic envelope that is best for the music at hand. Since so much of this music I have to orchestrate, I certainly want the millions of notes committed to paper heard and not obliterated by undue reverberation that conceals the inner lines.
I think to automatically damn "symphony-hall" sound as bad is not correct. Some of the most pleasant and fine recordings have been done with symphony orchestras in big concert halls, where the music's details have not been lost. I refer you to those great Chicago recordings by Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony. Also, listen to the Wagner operas that Solti conducted for London-Decca. They are dramatic, in your face and spectacular.
Many years ago I had the occasion to meet and talk at length to Murray Spivack, who had been one of the great film recordists. He worked with Steiner on KONG and other RKO films and he recorded THE EGYPTIAN and other big stereo films including WEST SIDE STORY and SOUND OF MUSIC (if I recall correctly). We got to talking about why film music is recorded differently than regular symphonic music. As I recall, some of his points were:
1. Film Music was recorded as dry (free of reverb) as possible because when cutting music, it was much easier and smoother to cut a bar here and there and put them together without the reverb, which hangs over and makes it more difficult. He also stated that films in the thirties through the sixties normally played in large theaters, which acted like auditoriums themselves, and created their own natural reverberation.
2. He rightly despised that artificial reverb that was added to so many recordings for home listening because this artificial reverb...at least the way it was done then, sounded awful and took a lot of the "roundness" out of the music.
3. That intimate sound you mention was another way of recording film music which enabled the music to be heard, fairly fully, when up against dialogue and soundeffects. By placing microphones for the music at a distance that was more or less the same as the recording of dialogue, you could blend the two more effectively.
4. Most of the music from the "golden" age was somewhat compressed. Although you are aware of a soft versus loud passage; on a sound meter, they would register almost the same. This way you could set a balance between the various sounds needed for a completed mix and again, you could hear everything more clearly. (By the way, I am in favor of some compression in today's digital recordings. Too often, the soft is really soft and the loud is really loud, it is difficult to get a good point with your volume knob.)
Some of our early Marco Polo recordings...those done in Germany were performed in a church. The acoustics were just too mushy for me and I was so disappointed in CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE because I spend 3 months orchestrating it and so much of the details in the orchestration were lost. Again, the music my determine the sound. An open sound with natural reverb would be perfect for something like FAHRENHEIT 451 or some score that had a string emphasis.
For the normal big symphonic film score sound, I prefer no artificial reverb, a somewhat in-your-face recording, with interior details heard. But there are limits. I generally despise those PHASE 4 recordings where every instrument sticks out equally. It is as though every single instrument had its own microphone! What bothers me about this, although it can be spectacular with some music, is it can often ruin a composers orchestration. For instance in Debussy where he has a low flute, bassoon and clarinet playing unison, you are not supposed to "hear" three instruments playing the same line, but a NEW single color created by those three instruments. Christopher Palmer told me that Herrmann really didn't like those Phase 4 recordings. Herrmann thought they were gimmicky and although they were a great toy for someone like Stokowski, Herrmann was especially irked that his classical recordings were done in that format.
From sound film's beginnings, music recording underwent many changes throughout the years. In the early days of film music, even the orchestration reflected what would and would not work with the recording technology of the day. Steiner always reinforced the bass line with tuba and would use saxophones because they recorded better than some of the other, more traditional woodwinds. In the mid-thirties when the push-pull recording technique was utilized, Steiner said the improvement in recorded sound was as great as the introduction of stereophonic sound.
Although it is true that film music is somewhat written for the microphone, it is also true that the real composers and orchestrators of film music knew how to write acoustically and certainly knew the character of ranges for the instruments and what it took to properly blend them in a musical way. One thing I just hate is when I am listening to a piece of music and the bassoon in its high range comes on as loud as a horn or trumpet, through the fingers of the mixer! A proper composer would know what kind of balance and instrumentation that would allow the bassoon to be heard without knob manipulation. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule, and one of the great things about writing a piece of music just for recording is you can experiment and do things that you can't acoustically.
I can't think of any music we have rerecorded for Marco Polo that would not work in a live performance. That is why I am drawn to the music from this era. It is performable away from the film. The art of this music is contained in the notes. There is a great deal of wonderful film music from the sixties on that I think is among the best written, but it is so "player" dependent, or dependent on technology, it would be impossible to do justice to it. Mancini wrote some fine scores, but for so much of his stuff, the original tracks or album rerecordings done at the time of the original sessions are so unique that they would be impossible to do...unless you "concertized" them. For instance, I love his score to THE GREAT RACE, but the unique performances of many of the musicians (ad lib solos, etc.), the kind of manipulation of sound after the recording, the use of a specially prepared piano roll for some of the piano playing, the unique overdubs, etc., would make it difficult if not impossible to duplicate with any faithfulness to the original. There is so much terrific film music to do and that can be done, I have no fear of running out of repertoire.
Due to pure happenstance, our last Moscow sessions contained music from complete opposite eras of classic film music. We first did two Malcolm Arnold scores. One the exquisite music from the 1970 version of DAVID COPPERFIELD, which is the most current score we have ever done and the other was for the 1958 production of THE ROOTS OF HEAVEN. The other recording was Max Steiner's Son of Kong (1934) and the earliest score we have ever done, The Most Dangerous Game (1932). For the Arnold, we were able to find his original orchestrations, with the exception of a couple of pieces I had to orchestrate that Alfred Newman wrote for The Roots of Heaven. David Copperfied is orchestrated in the vein of say Herrmann's Fahrenheit 451, with an emphasis on the beauty of the string writing and the use of harp and celeste and woodwind articulations. We took a great deal of time to get the recording right for this kind of music. We didn't "spotlight" instruments, as this music needed to meld together. The Steiner, on the other hand, was wonderfully bombastic (not a dirty word in my vocabulary) and needed to have all the inner lines and orchestral touches kind of in your face. This clarity in the Steiner, which I orchestrated (with the help of Bill Stromberg) was necessary so the music would not become just a jumble of noise. In this respect, Steiner is closer to Mahler in his music where inner line is important, as compared to Korngold, who was closer to Richard Strauss with the blend of all this color that sort of washes over you.
I must also give a tip of the hat to David Schecter's marvelous Monstrous Movie Music Series. He and his talented wife, Katy demonstrate only the hightest standard of quality in rerecording the music they are passionate for.
John
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Dec 13, 2002 - 2:14 PM
|
|
|
|
By: |
estgrey
(Member)
|
I think there are a couple of disconnects in part of this discussion.
Firstly, I did not mean to suggest that I do not like suites of scores, merely that I do not apply the same criteria to the suites. (I have the Davis recording of Elizabeth and Essex and am quite fond of it. I even like the fairly recent Previn recording of selected Korngold suites, which has, I think, been unduly criticized by others. Previn, of course, takes his tempos much slower than Korngold did.)
Secondly, I have emphasized the importance of adhering to the intentions of the original performances, not necessarily the final edit of the music as it appears in the film. (I am, in fact, very pleased when an OST gives the full recorded cues rather than the trimmed version that may have ultimately ended up on the final soundtrack. I believe that I specifically mentioned Five Graves to Cairo as an example of how the final edit of the film may actually destroy the intentions of the original score.) By extension, I mean the original intentions of the composer, who often had at least some role in the performance. If I correctly read John Morgan’s very interesting and long (but certainly not too long) post, they are indeed adhering, in some degree, to these intentions. They are aware of the music as it appears in the film, and to some extent it informs Morgan’s orchestration and Stromberg’s interpretation. (My statement was that they did not “ignore” the film. They may give special consideration to the musicality of the score, but so did the original performers.) Although they make no effort to slavishly reproduce exact timings (which is perfectly understandable) they do exert effort to capture a sense of the golden age sound (within reasonable limits) as well as the idiosyncratic demands of a particular composer, such as Steiner. Whether or not they have intentionally attempted to capture that “Hollywood” sound, part of the popularity of the series surely rests on the fact that they at least seem to have done so.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
