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I want to express an important distinction that I don't seem to have noticed has been specifically mentioned when folks express their "Holy Grail" wish lists.
There are a few qualifications that I think are needed to be met with before a score qualifies to make one's "Holy Grail" list, as opposed to one's "Most Wanted" list.
"Holy Grails," I would offer, are a VERY special subdivision of "Most Wanteds".
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"HOLY GRAIL" QUALIFIERS (at least in my mind)
(1) QUALITY OF THE MUSIC
-------The general opinion of a large portion (you pick the percentage) of the film music audience is that this a a very high quality score. This is regardless of whether the film was a multi-Oscar-winning recognized masterpiece or is was a bomb. Many excellent scores were written for much-less-than-excellent films. Most great films seem to have had appropriately excellent scores, with exceptions, of course. YOU, individually, may think this is the greatest score ever composed, but most do not. Or most may think it's the greatest film score ever composed, but YOU do not. This happens all the time.
(2) AVAILABILITY & RARITY OF THE MUSIC
-------A score that is completely unreleased and never-before-available fulfills this requirement. This does seem to narrow the field a bit. While I personally do feel that most of the "cream of the crop" film scores have seen some sort of release, even if given the Charles Gerhardt, Erich Kunzel, Stromberg/Morgan, Raine/Tadlow, etc. etc. treaments, there are still plenty of scores to take up quite a few years in the future. Collectors can argue with "original film soundtracks" (even if in mono) [versus] digital stereo 5.1 re-recordings [versus] "completely complete" [versus] what will fit on one CD [versus] in film order [versus] all alternate/rejected/unused cues, etc, etc. There will always be things to argue about and there will always be those who love to do the arguing. But no matter which way the music gets out, we are all winners.
-------An "expanded, remastered" score with 15-20 more minutes of unreleased score is most welcome and I will most definitely buy it to support the current and future efforts of the releasing labels. But I personally don't get too, too excited about such releases, the way I see some others just gushing endless enthusiasm. A lot of the times there were "expanded" unmentionable CDs (which I usually already have) or individual discs of scores released for the industry-only (like "Academy promos") which have the same music, so it's not like I haven't heard the music before. Just not "legitimately." Alternatively, not to be too jaded, at other times the extra music is "completely new" to all of us and this situation is most exciting and most desirable and most welcomed.
(3) STATURE OF THE COMPOSER
-------This would be a score by a recognized Golden Age or Silver Age master composer. You all know the names. For me to name names, unless it is a completely complete list, would degenerate into "Why did you leave out...???" or "How could you include....???" type of discourse, which I am not seeking to start. We all have our favorites, and who they are is a very personal choice.
(4) FILM MUSIC HOLY GRAIL versus PERSONAL HOLY GRAIL
-------I have seen a number of posts by an interesting fellow whose Personal Holy Grail is the TV music from THE MAN FROM ATLANTIS by Fred Karlin. This would seem to be a "Personal Holy Grail" for him, but not for most folks. Me - no opinion - I never saw the show.
-------I think if someone were to locate and release some complete, heretofore "lost" score by a major composer - let's say the Oscar-winning THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER by Bernard Herrmann. This would be a "Film Music Holy Grail" for almost all of us.
That's all I have to say. Any comments?
Ron Burbella
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Nicely summed up! Choose wisely!
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Fine intelligent thread, i agree thoroughly
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My personal definition of a Holy Grail is:
Being so taken by a score heard in the film, only to find wasn't available to experience as a music only presentation. Leading to years of prolonged and sometimes wasted time and energy in the pursuit of, so that when it finally comes, this 36 screams "Oh, my god" over and over for about two minutes, jumping up and down like a little schoolboy (as I did on Black Friday last year with Star Trek 5) while my roommate (whose now familiar with the noise and physically exuberance by now) screams out to me from the other part of the house "Which one came out this time?"
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Ron makes a good point, in that the term holy grail is over-used.
And I tend to think that the personal aspect is very dominant. There is not a single film score that we all would share as a grail. No matter how scarce or well-loved a score is, some of us will not be interested.
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Obsessive-compusion?
That is spelled Obsessive-compuLsive being the adjective of OCD.
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Yes, very over-used term which, from my observation, actually means none of the things Ron alludes to in practical application.
What it REALLY means is: This is a score from a movie I saw when I was a kid and I have very fond memories of that movie and I just really LOVE the score because it reminds me of that movie and nobody has ever released it, or did but then it went out of print, and I just really really want somebody to release it so I can buy it and it can set on my shelf gathering dust along with everything else in my collection ('cause upon listening to it again I realize that it's pretty corny stuff and I realize in my heart of hearts that it wasn't really as good as I remembered it was). So... ON TO THE NEXT GRAIL!
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Posted: |
Sep 7, 2011 - 9:54 PM
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By: |
joan hue
(Member)
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This is an interesting topic, Ron, and I doubt that I have any answers. I like your breakdown
definitions and Kevin’s emotive response. To me Grails were pieces of music that I adored or
even worshipped and were unattainable. Many of us stood in movie theaters near
speakers or hovered over TV sets with our cassette players hoping, even with muffled
sounds and sometimes dialogue, to hear repeatedly a favorite theme or whole score.
Before Internet and CD’s, many of us read copious LP catalogues and wrote to far away
countries hoping to find LPs of our personal Grails. Later, we combed racks of cassettes
looking for that rarer than rare Grail. No luck. With the advent of the Internet and CDs,
the hope against hope searches continued. We migrated towards music boards with
our requests, often discovering experts that said original tapes had been destroy or that
Disney would never release its music.
But then once in a while, a Grail is discovered and produced. Disney released One Little
Indian, Bruce produced Love With A Proper Stranger, and Slipstream slipped into our hands.
Stromberg and Tadlow recorded new versions of lost tapes.
Sometimes the impossible becomes only slightly possible. I loved the love theme from The
Paradine Case. I doubt that it will ever be released, but the New Zealand Waxman Suites
contain two minutes of that theme. I’ll take those two minutes over silence. I doubt that
Bernstein’s rejected score for A River Runs Through It will ever be released, but I have
90 seconds of his main theme from the UCLA homage to Bernstein. Sometimes the
complete Grail is unattainable, but wee snippets lessen the futility.
Holy Grails: A life long journey or search where one hopes the impossible becomes
possible.
P.S. LOL, Dana
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Posted: |
Sep 7, 2011 - 10:05 PM
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By: |
.
(Member)
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I think hardly any purely orchestral scores are worthy of the title "holy grail" as they can theoretically be reproduced virtually exactly (given the right orchestra, conductor and production) at any time, now or in the future. The unavailability is down to little more than the labels not bothering to record it.
I see the term "holy grail" being more valid in circumstances where an individual artist's performance is so personal and irreplaceable to the whole that a replacement recording could never be satisfactory.
For example, any re-recording of Gunfight at the OK Corral would be doomed to mediocrity because it would not feature Frankie Laine. It's his UNIQUE performance that makes that original recording a "holy grail", not the score in itself.
An example of "false" grails of mine would have been The Alamo and El Cid. I'm so happy with the re-recordings that the original tracks are no longer of such vital importance to me. They'd be lovely to have of course, but my fanaticism for those grails has become, let's say, less of a "quest". Surely a "holy grail" must be all-consuming, with nothing being able to replace it, ever.
The only true "Holy Grail" I have is Laine and OK Corral. It's apparently lost, and no talent on earth could adequately duplicate it. That's what I'd call a Grail.
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Posted: |
Sep 7, 2011 - 10:06 PM
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By: |
Dana Wilcox
(Member)
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This is an interesting topic, Ron, and I doubt that I have any answers. I like your breakdown
definitions and Kevin’s emotive response. To me Grails were pieces of music that I adored or
even worshipped and were unattainable. Many of us stood in movie theaters near
speakers or hovered over TV sets with our cassette players hoping, even with muffled
sounds and sometimes dialogue, to hear repeatedly a favorite theme or whole score.
Before Internet and CD’s, many of us read copious LP catalogues and wrote to far away
countries hoping to find LPs of our personal Grails. Later, we combed racks of cassettes
looking for that rarer than rare Grail. No luck. With the advent of the Internet and CDs,
the hope against hope searches continued. We migrated towards music boards with
our requests, often discovering experts that said original tapes had been destroy or that
Disney would never release its music.
But then once in a while, a Grail is discovered and produced. Disney released One Little
Indian, Bruce produced Love With A Proper Stranger, and Slipstream slipped into our hands.
Stromberg and Tadlow recorded new versions of lost tapes.
Sometimes the impossible becomes only slightly possible. I loved the love theme from The
Paradine Case. I doubt that it will ever be released, but the New Zealand Waxman Suites
contain two minutes of that theme. I’ll take those two minutes over silence. I doubt that
Bernstein’s rejected score for A River Runs Through It will ever be released, but I have
90 seconds of his main theme from the UCLA homage to Bernstein. Sometimes the
complete Grail is unattainable, but wee snippets lessen the futility.
Holy Grails: A life long journey or search where one hopes the impossible becomes
possible.
P.S. LOL, Dana
Good stuff, Joan. As you correctly deduced, I was just kidding around, sorta. For me, the never-released original tracks from Elmer Bernstein's TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD score fits perfectly into your definition. You pretty well nailed it.
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Holy Grail = A score I want released on CD.
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All this talk of grails is idiotic. The whole point of the metaphor is singularity. The Holy Grail was the one cup that Jesus drank from at the Last Supper. I'm not complaining about irreverence here. This isn't about religion. The quest for the Grail is only a medieval legend. But the whole essence of the thing is that there can be only one true Grail. Even that comic Indiana Jones movie understood this the point. It's all about truth, essence, perfection. If you have more than one "grail," you've already missed the point.
Sorry for the lecture, but I hate to see a good word spoiled. The knights of the Grail dedicated their entire lives to an all-consuming quest. Here folks seem to expect a "grail" every week. Such talk is cheap.
Awesome, I'm the same way. If you're going to use a word or phrase, use it correctly. There's no such thing as a "list of grails" going 25 deep. Your "Grail" should be the ONE score you want more than any other. Ever. The score you'd hold onto at the exclusion of all others. THE most important score to you and no other release would make you as happy. Everything else is just a list of "really very much wanted" albums.
This and the constant misuse of "begs the question" are my two pet peeves on this board. But I love you guys anyway.
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