Two 80s Goldsmith action/adventure scores, with prominent use of synth farts and funny burps. Admittedly one is much better performed than the other (London vs Hungary). Both also start with the letter L. But which one would win in a fight? Which one rises to the top, crushing the other underfoot?
Two 80s Goldsmith action/adventure scores, with prominent use of synth farts and funny burps. Admittedly one is much better performed than the other (London vs Hungary). Both also start with the letter L. But which one would win in a fight? Which one rises to the top, crushing the other underfoot?
Two Scores Enter! One Score Leaves!
Lionheart would win. Legend is a very pleasant listen. I can't list too many bad things about it, other than it has very little replay value. I've owned the Silva Screen release for maybe over 20 years, and I don't recall playing that score more than 3 times.
Lionheart is more memorable. There are several tracks I liked to put on repeat, and tracks I'd recommend being put on a compilation. I'd also recommend Lionheart to those who just now are getting into Goldsmith or film music in general.
Perhaps my disconnect with Legend is that I've never heard it in context. I've seen the movie a couple of times, but it always had the Tangerine Dream score.
Lionheart has grandeur, Legend has whimsy. It might be nice to hear Lionheart without synths... but I *yearn* for Legend without synths. Blasphemy? Perhaps. I can't choose one over the other!
Legend is *obviously* the better-performed score... and it might even be the better composition, objectively speaking.
But I have to be in the right mood to enjoy Legend. With Lionheart, I can put it on any time and I always adore it. Goldsmith wrote more than a half dozen themes for it, and they are all winners! I love the thematic development and the journey expressed in the music. In its new complete and chronological form, Lionheart has climbed onto my top 10 favorite Goldsmith scores of all time (a difficult feat to say the least), and I have to admit that as superb as Legend is, I respect and appreciate it more than I actually love it.
Bernstein was good at poking fun at his own style, with spoof scores like "Airplane". To me, Lionheart sounds like Goldsmith's "Airplane". It's as if he purposely gave us a corny spoof version of one of his great masterpieces, Legend.
Seconded. Legend is as close to the same brilliance of Ravel's and Stravinsky's stage works as any film composer ever got. If people get too stuck on the DX7 blats that underscore the goblins, they are missing out on the other 99% of the score which is as complex and evocative as anything written for the concert hall in the 20th century.
Bernstein was good at poking fun at his own style, with spoof scores like "Airplane". To me, Lionheart sounds like Goldsmith's "Airplane". It's as if he purposely gave us a corny spoof version of one of his great masterpieces, Legend.
The styles of the two scores are completely different (Legend is much more impressionist in sound). What cue in Lionheart sounds like a spoof of a cue in Legend? We all get that you think very little of Lionheart, but give me a specific example if you're going to make a silly claim like that.
And if you think Goldsmith didn't take a collaboration with Franklin J. Schaffner seriously, you're nuts. Goldsmith's "Airplane"? Good grief.
Ok, I’ll play. Though I can’t see how to objectively compare them. To me it comes down to which is the greater musical accomplishment in Goldsmith’s career and by that measure it’s Legend. Lionheart is still a tremendous score nonetheless.
Bernstein was good at poking fun at his own style, with spoof scores like "Airplane". To me, Lionheart sounds like Goldsmith's "Airplane". It's as if he purposely gave us a corny spoof version of one of his great masterpieces, Legend.
This would be better as a spoof score for Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Are you now going to ask me which scenes of the Monty Python film would Lionheart match best?
In Legend, the synth content serves a purpose. Every sound seems like it is specifically crafted to represent a creature of the forest or identify the actions or sounds of a fantasy character and place. I detest most synth scores, but even I am won over by Goldsmith's creation of a magical forest filled with magical creatures. The synth sounds like an interwoven essential fabric throughout the score, which if it wasn't there would leave the rest to fall apart. Inspired. Not so with the out-of-place, seemingly tacked on, synth-for-the-sake-of-it Lionheart.
I asked you for a specific Lionheart cue that you thought sounded like a “spoof” of a specific Legend cue. You have failed to provide me with one; am I supposed to conclude that your entire premise that Lionheart is an Airplane-like spoof version of Legend is based entirely on the general fact that they both use synths, and you hate the synth usage in Lionheart while you love it in Legend?
This would be better as a spoof score for Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Are you now going to ask me which scenes of the Monty Python film would Lionheart match best?
Um...okay, go ahead, since you seem to want to tell me. I think your opinion on this is bizarre to say the least. It’s like you’re listening to a completely different score. To my ears Lionheart isn’t played as anything other than straight, musically speaking. Jerry was trying to support the drama of the film, not any comedy (even in a “playing against it” sort of way).
Simply take issue with the synth usage or the performance and I might understand your point of view, but acting like the score to Lionheart is somehow a laughable joke or work of spoofery, and I think you’re the one who looks silly.
Despite the dumbed-down orchestration and weak performance the material itself is quite strong: the anthem is riveting, the love theme affecting, and something like "Mathilda" is hardly Goldsmith takin' the piss.
The suggestion that Lionheart is in some way a "spoof" score is bizarre to say the least.
Are you really suggesting that Goldsmith would approach a Franklin J. Schaffner film with anything less than absolute sincerity?
He held the director in the highest of all possible regards.
In fact at the concert he gave in London, shortly after, he expressed his hope that the theme properly reflected the recently-deceased director's dignity.
