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"Monsignor"


FilmManiac79

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  • 4 years later...

we haven't talked about this score and its themes much.

I was trying to identify more themes than the 3 (monsignor waltz, gloria, italy scherzo)..

Maybe a religous theme in the "Audience with the Holy father" (the one starting with parallel harmony), but still it's not very clear.

 

(edit: starting at 1:36'')

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The score is great for what it is (for a bad movie), but curiously absent of Williams' trademark religious/pastoral sound, given the subject matter.

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2 hours ago, Richard said:

The film is a about a man who has to disguise his faith - to lie - and, as such, "religious" music would be inappropriate.

The music reflects Father Flaherty's inner struggle, and it supports it well.

 

Yes, there's that. There's also -- if I remember the plot correctly (it's been years since I saw it last) -- the fact that it's mostly about forced political intrigue inside the Vatican, so again not something that perhaps calls for the type of glorious Williams pastorality/religiousity á la "Angela's Prayer" from ANGELA'S ASHES.

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Hey, a dude's alright when stuff like this is on his worst!

 

 

2 minutes ago, artguy360 said:

I am not a fan of the main theme at all. It's an odd piece of music that sounds nearly comical and yet builds in tension in a kind of disjointed way. 

 

The main theme actually reminds me as a cousin of stuff like The Fury and Seven Years in Tibet, interesting that you find it funny. Is it the harpsichord thing at the beginning? It has a little Italian flair to me.

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Yeah I think it is an attempt at Italian styling done poorly. The the textural distance between the trumpet and harpsichord is also kind of comedic as well. In the string writing I do hear the more familiar signatures of JW's dark, moody, drama writing but just not as successful. 

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I don't understand why people say it's a copy of the Godfather.

Other than a trumpet in waltz rhythm, I don' see any other connection, either in melody or harmony.

Anyway, I love the theme.

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Because it obviously is modeled on exactly that piece. Williams wrote on of his more shifty drama themes and set it exactly like the Rota tune (Godfather Waltz). 

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15 hours ago, Richard said:

Yes. Any "religious", is "spiritual" music, would sound hypocritical, within the context of the film, rather like (some would argue) the organisation that it portrays.

On the contrary, I think there is religous music in the score.

The whole Audience with the Holy Father track, and especially a motif that i identified as the religious theme.

top voice at 0.36-0.48 and flute at 1.10-1.23.

And that opening motif of the theme emerges some more times in the track.

 

Also we have the instrumental version of the Gloria in Santoni's Confession: 1.24-....

 

 

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That album was a great addition to my collection. Of course the movie did'nt have the expected impact, nor the score. I think Williams wrote it in a period where he was particularly busy. But yet, this is a score to discover, altought it may now appears, many many many years later, like an anachronism in the career of JW.

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There is indeed some religioso writing in a few cues, such as "Audience with the Holy Father" and "Santoni's Compassion". Some of those gestures were also used in the "Death of Yoda" cue in ROTJ a year later. Also, the motif in "Santoni's Compassion" which develops from the Gloria material always reminded me a bit of Andre Previn's Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse main theme.

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Not the type of Ralph Vaughan Williams/pastoral-type religioso writing I had in mind, and which Williams is so brilliant at. There's nothing of that in this score.

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The mix of the OST was done quick too. It may be a good candidate for an "expansion", or at least just a new mix from the original material.

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4 hours ago, Thor said:

Not the type of Ralph Vaughan Williams/pastoral-type religioso writing I had in mind, and which Williams is so brilliant at. There's nothing of that in this score.

 

There is some "Tallis Fantasia"-like string writing in "At the Forum" (which is an arrangement done just for the OST album, it doesn't appear in the movie).

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More of a mysterioso waltz piece, I'd say. Not really psalm-like chord structures.

 

But despite the absence of this particular sound, it's still a fine, romantic score. Nothing "Razzie" about it, as previously mentioned by someone, even if the film itself is mediocre.

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I agree. It's somehow a strange and obscure element in JW's filmography, mostly because it's sandwiched between huge popular hits like Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. and the Star Wars series, but it bears the same greatness and profound operatic tones of his works from those years, in pure musical terms.

 

5 hours ago, Bespin said:

The mix of the OST was done quick too. It may be a good candidate for an "expansion", or at least just a new mix from the original material.

 

The OST sounds fine in Intrada's remastering, at least to my ears. The score is virtually complete, it only misses a couple of short cues. One of them is actually featured in this promotional clip for the DVD release:

 

 

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On ‎5‎/‎26‎/‎2018 at 8:53 PM, Batman's Diet Coke said:

It's one of his worst scores from an era when he could do no wrong. Eslanade Overture doesn't count because it's repurposed, but it's obviously the highlight.

Gloria is the highlight of the score, which to me is quite good.

Does anyone think that, given the short period of time Williams reportedly had to write the score, that pieces like Gloria may have already existed in Williams' mind or in sketches before he started the project.  It would not surprise me.  

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On 4/15/2014 at 5:52 PM, Luke Skywalker said:

i heard the ominous music preceding ''dark side beckons'' and some "chairman's waltz" while listening to the score the other day.

 

Definitely "Chairman's Waltz." Uses a lot of the same melodic chromatic alterations and chord progressions. Maybe a little slower, but I hear it as well.

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Wow, I thought Intrada said the short cues missing weren't really worth it, but that's a great unreleased cue. I want the complete score now.

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