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AGATHA – MUSIC INSPIRED BY THE MOTION PICTURE
https://tinyurl.com/s2y2kst
AGATHA – MUSIC INSPIRED BY THE MOTION PICTURE is presented as a limited edition of 500 units.
LISTEN TO A SOUNDCLIPS FROM "AGATHA – MUSIC INSPIRED BY THE MOTION PICTURE”
Prelude
https://tinyurl.com/vu7ftcz
The Notebook and Climax
https://tinyurl.com/qprlfsw
The first 50 copies sold through our website will include an autograph by the composer.
Dragon’s Domain Records, to be distributed through buysoundtrax.com, will be releasing AGATHA – MUSIC INSPIRED BY THE MOTION PICTURE featuring music composed and conducted by Howard Blake (THE DUELLISTS, THE RIDDLE OF THE SANDS, THE SNOWMAN) but ultimately not used for the 1979 feature film directed by Michael Apted (21 Up series, GORILLAS IN THE MIST, THUNDERHEART, ENIGMA) and starring Vanessa Redgrave, Dustin Hoffman, Timothy Dalton, Helen Morse and Celia Gregory.
In 1926, legendary mystery writer Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days. To this day, no one knows the details of what she did during that period of time. AGATHA presents a fictional account of Christie’s time away, showing her as a woman fleeing from her own life following the death of her mother and the announcement from her husband that he’s leaving her. Fleeing to a spa in Harrowgate while the whole country is looking for her, American reporter Wally Stanton (Hoffman) finds her and ultimately tries to help her.
Howard David Blake was born in the London borough of Enfield in 1938. At the age of eighteen, he was awarded the Hastings Festival Scholarship and attended the Royal Academy of Music where he studied piano and composition. His interest in the cinema led him to a number of outside jobs and he worked as a projectionist at the National Film Theatre. Turning down a second scholarship from the British Film Institute, Blake instead became a piano session player, arranger and orchestrator at Abbey Road and other studios for several composers, including Stanley Myers, Quincy Jones and Bernard Herrmann. It was Herrmann who introduced Blake to Laurie Johnson, staff composer for THE AVENGERS, leading to his first television scoring assignment in 1967. His work in television and advertising music continued and his frequent collaboration with celebrated commercials director Ridley Scott led to his scoring of the director’s debut feature THE DUELLISTS in 1977.
Blake’s most prolific film composing period followed with a string of features including THE RIDDLE OF THE SANDS, S.O.S. TITANIC, FLASH GORDON, THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINE. In 1982, Blake accepted the invitation to write the music and lyrics for an animated film, THE SNOWMAN. Instantly hailed as a classic, the score topped the British pop charts and the concert work is still regularly performed around the world each Christmas.
In 1989, he won the BFI Anthony Asquith Award for Best Musical Score for A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY. Since the mid-1980s, Howard Blake has been the Musical Director of the Sinfonia of London, a leading film session orchestra. The composer was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1994 for his artistic contributions in music.
Dragon’s Domain Records presents the world premiere release of Howard Blake’s music for AGATHA. While his music was ultimately not used in the film, it was composed during one of his most prolific years and worthy of preservation. The booklet contains liner notes written by noted author Randall Larson, including insights by composer Howard Blake on the creation of the score.
AGATHA – MUSIC INSPIRED BY THE MOTION PICTURE is a limited edition release of 500 units. The first 50 copies sold through our website will include an autograph by the composer.
1. Prelude (3:00)
2. Look At Me / Breakfast /Agatha in Bed / Car Accident (4:48)
3. Agatha on Train / Agatha’s Room (3:00)
4. Pierrot’s Old School Tie / Certainly Not (2:45)
5. Schnee (2:32)
6. Yes Sir / Date (1:17)
7. Following Baths (2:53)
8. Agatha and Wally (4:06)
9. Wally on the Phone / Appointment Book (1:54)
10. Agatha Asleep (3:29)
11. Therapy Room Door (2:05)
12. The Notebook and Climax (5:52)
13. They Don’t Believe / Closing (6:06)
14. Dixieland Stomp (0:40)
Total Time: 45:04
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Highly recommended score, folks.
Here's what I wrote about it over at MainTitles back in 2016:
The original recording, not the re-recordeding suite by Carl Davis. Unreleased.
An old fashioned orchestral score in the vying of a 1970's or early 1980's melodramatic work. Replete with all the standards of lush strings, woodwinds, harp, even a little glockenspiel, and the professionalism you'd come to expect from Blake.
The tagline to the film reads (as stated on IMDb):
"A fictional solution to the real mystery of Agatha Christie's disappearance."
The production companies include Warner Bros., so perhaps La La Land can make this happen one day.
Indeed, the music somehow seems to fit the bill is a way even apart from it you'd think it might go to something like this if you did not know where it came from.
There's plenty of mystery, suspense, moments of tenseness and even a little dissonance, as well as a few wonderful dreamy cues with melodic harp, xylophone, light use of glockenspiel, and various woodwinds.
If I had to fault this score for anything, it's the odd and un-fitting use of a theremin in some cues, make it sounds like a cheesy science fiction film at times. Thankfully those cues are rare.
There's one dramatic cue with snare and staccato trumpets in quick bursts with the snare, interspaced with some dramatic music of the themes in the score.
The score concludes with two wonderful cues: a slow and short sorrowful piece with strings, followed up by an over six minute end credits piece that opens on a somber note, before picking up with the major theme of the score and building it up beautifully from mournful to wistful, then pausing briefly and giving us new orchestral ideas of the score not heard elsewhere in the film.
It's a wonder he didn't score more. Heck, I think he would have been a prime choice for a "Columbo" movie. I assume he's retired, as he hasn't scored anything since 1999.
As I posted in another thread about a month ago, Carl Davis re-recorded some cues years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtZx16Ivpv8
It's fairly faithful to the original, but changes some things, loses some of the strength of the original recording, added new dramatic flourishes not in the original, and goes too heavy on the timpani. A small part of the end credits is featured. The dreamy harp/xylophone/glockenspiel piece(s) is not featured and neither, thankfully, is the theremin.
Blake talks about what happened at length on his site:
http://www.howardblake.com/music/Film-TV-Scores/497/AGATHA.htm
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Sign me up. Sounds great. Thanks to those who made it possible!
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OMG! One of the true holy grails of rejected scores. And the music sounds amazing - a beautifully old school Hollywood score. Great, great release!
You can't go too wrong with Mr Blake's work
If you haven't heard his scores to THE DUELLISTS / Riddle of the Sands by all means go to our website and check out the samples
Ford A Thaxton
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Put a space after the colon and before Agatha so people in the future if they search for this title, they will find it in the FSM search area  Helpful hint and great release guys!
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I ordered it two minutes after stumbling on the announcement on this board. This (along with the simultaniously released Conrad Pope Collection) is one of the most exciting releases for me for some time. Blake and Pope are sadly underrepresented on disc despite being better composers than most of their contemporaries.
The Riddle of the Sands used to be one of my holy grails. I can't recommend that score highly enough (and it's paired with The Duellists on CD). I am looking forward to listen to Agatha tonight - with Blake there is just no need to listen to the samples before ordering.
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I keep hoping for more rejected scores and they rarely pop up, but in the last few months DD has cranked out two. Hope there are more coming.
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I ordered it two minutes after stumbling on the announcement on this board. This (along with the simultaniously released Conrad Pope Collection) is one of the most exciting releases for me for some time. Blake and Pope are sadly underrepresented on disc despite being better composers than most of their contemporaries.
The Riddle of the Sands used to be one of my holy grails. I can't recommend that score highly enough (and it's paired with The Duellists on CD). I am looking forward to listen to Agatha tonight - with Blake there is just no need to listen to the samples before ordering.
We're working on a few more releases of both Mr. Pope and Mr. Blake.
I'm hoping these will appear before the end of the year.
Ford A. Thaxton
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I ordered it two minutes after stumbling on the announcement on this board. This (along with the simultaniously released Conrad Pope Collection) is one of the most exciting releases for me for some time. Blake and Pope are sadly underrepresented on disc despite being better composers than most of their contemporaries.
The Riddle of the Sands used to be one of my holy grails. I can't recommend that score highly enough (and it's paired with The Duellists on CD). I am looking forward to listen to Agatha tonight - with Blake there is just no need to listen to the samples before ordering.
if you have not seen RIDDLE OF THE SANDS it appears to be available to view on AMAZON PRIME.
Ford A. Thaxton
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I hope that more Blake would include The Lords of Discipline, a very good score with a versatile theme; HB also wrote unused cues that were deemed not patriotic enough, if I recall.
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I hope that more Blake would include The Lords of Discipline, a very good score with a versatile theme; HB also wrote unused cues that were deemed not patriotic enough, if I recall.
A Very good score that I suspect will see the light of day before too long (With luck)
Ford A. Thaxton
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From my Rejected Film Scores website, sumemd up from the book Torn Music:
THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINE -- Howard Blake. Originally Blake did a darker more dissonant score, but the White House felt differently and wanted a change (whom at the White House, was not specified). So Blake went back, wrote a lighter score, and recorded the new one; a rare instance of a composer replacing his own score. [Howard Blake.]
(http://rejectedfilmscores.125mb.com/list.html)
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fyI, if you ordered this from BSX directly, We're just now waiting for Howard Blake to finish signing the CDS and shipping it back to us from the UK.
With luck we'll start shipping by Next Tuesday.
Ford A. Thaxton
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Thanks for update, Ford!!!
So... I ordered directly from BSX, got tracking number, but package still not shipped...
This means that I'll get autographed copy!!!
That is correct.
It's ready to ship the moment we get the autographed booklets.
Ford A. Thaxton
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To any Customer who purchased our release of Howard Blake’s AGATHA Album.
Shipping on this title has been delayed because
we are still waiting for the autographed booklets for this
title to arrive from the UK which has been delayed due to recent world events.
We should have them by late this coming week and we apologize for the delay.
The Staff of BSX
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