Simon Franglen / James Horner's "The Magnificent Seven" (2016)

[Muad'Dib 1,802]

The last hurrah

[Thor 7,504]

Whenever I see Simon Franglen's name, I can't help but think of these:

 

 

[crocodile 8,016]

22 hours ago, Jay said:

 

There's stuff he wrote prior to this that never had a release and only a select few have heard, like his score to the 2013 Romeo and Juliet film that was rejected.

Oh yeah, we need that!

 

Karol

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

1 hour ago, Thor said:

Whenever I see Simon Franglen's name, I can't help but think of these:

 

 

 

That is funny Thor! You can do it!

[publicist 4,643]

7 hours ago, crocodile said:

Oh yeah, we need that!

 

I'm still on it but the damn guy doesn't answer his emails anymore.

[crocodile 8,016]

 

Karol

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

But have you heard it???

[crocodile 8,016]

Haha nope.

 

Karol

[mrbellamy 6,287]

Tracklist on Amazon, OST is 77 minutes

 

 1. Rose Creek Oppression

  2. Seven Angels of Vengeance

  3. Lighting the Fuse

  4. Volcano Springs

  5. Street Slaughter

  6. Devil in the Church

  7. Chisolm Enrolled

  8. Magic Trick

  9. Robicheaux Reunion

  10. A Bear in People's Clothes

  11. Red Harvest

  12. Takedown

  13. Town Exodus - Knife Training

  14. 7 Days, that's all You Got

  15. So Far So Good

  16. Sheriff Demoted

  17. Pacing the Town

  18. The Deserter

  19. Bell Hangers

  20. Army Invades Town

  21. Faraday's Ride

  22. Horne Sacrifice

  23. The Darkest Hour

  24. House of Judgment

  25. Seven Riders

[mrbellamy 6,287]

No samples yet but keeping an eye on Amazon....they've updated the track list into player format 

 

Also Elmer Bernstein's "Magnificent Seven" theme has been added to the tracklist, so I guess they're tacking that onto the end credits.

 

ETA found this interview from April which I don't think was ever posted here. Confirms that they do use Elmer's theme in moments.

 

Quote

Are we hearing James Horner’s final score here?
FUQUA: You’re hearing a lot of it. Well, yeah, we just did an 80-piece orchestra so a lot of it’s not in it yet, you heard a lot of the temp stuff as we put it together. But a lot of that is James, which I’m excited about.

I heard, maybe I’m wrong, but the grapevine is telling me that you might have more of a modern soundtrack to this.
FUQUA: Yeah, I mean a lot of stuff you heard, like during the takedown, that’s Horner’s.

I was thinking more like maybe hip-hop or…
FUQUA: Nah.

So nothing like that?
FUQUA: No, I wouldn’t do it. I mean, it has more bottom sometimes. Like I said, we have an orchestra, but it has a bigger bottom. Part of it wasn’t just hip-hop to me, what it is is I was trying to pay homage to a lot of Kurosawa’s with the bigger drums. And nowadays they call it more bottom, in hip-hop music it’s the base. But it’s actually from a timpany type of rhythm. So I would not put hip-hop in the Magnificent Seven. By any stretch of imagination. But the score itself feels contemporary. Like I said, 80-string orchestra, we don’t even get to do that much anymore. So that was fascinating to sit there and see all these, the greatest, one of the greatest orchestras in the world. The strings and the drums, it was fucking amazing to watch that. You don’t get to do that anymore. And adding a modern twitch, there are some sounds that feel more electrical. Electronic and things like that. That’s the modern. That’s as modern as I would go. I’m not going to put hip-hop in a Western, I love them too much.

I want to make sure I understand correctly how it happened, James Horner, you thought he hadn’t written it yet before he passed and then you found out he kind of wrote it.   
FUQUA: Yeah, I was shooting and I got a call that he had died. That was a tough day. You know, it was hard to discuss composers with anybody. I figured out how to do it later on in post. And Simon [Franglen] and Maria, his agent and Simon and Joey had been working with Horner for 30 something years on all his music and they said “We want to come down and visit you, James left you a gift.” And I thought it was a gift. Because I went to James’ house and he has these amazing toys from around the world, I mean it’s like walking into a beautiful mind, it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my life. He was into all these trinkets and like, he had tornado makers and toys from the 1800s, it was just amazing. He had no film, nothing. No Academy Awards, no posters, it was all toys and beautiful things. And he loved airplanes hanging from the ceiling. In no particular order, by the way. Rooms and rooms full of it. It has to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

I thought it was something from there that he showed me when I went to go hear the music for Southpaw. And they came down and they said that James had written a lot of the score from the script for you, he was going to surprise you. And it kind of just blew me away, I thought, “How do you do that? How’s that going to sound?” And they played it for me and it just blew me away, it was glorious. It was just like, the guy’s a genius. Because he was trying to get ahead of it. And we had discussed doing that. But I didn’t know he was going to actually write it, actually have an orchestra do it. It’s almost like, how do you know you’re going to pass away? Of course, I don’t know if he knew that, but that’s a weird feeling. That someone can write to your script and give it to you after he’s gone.

Did you have to bring anyone in to kind of finish?
FUQUA: Yeah, his guys did it. Simon and Joey and all of them. The guys had been working for him for years, they’re all composers in their own right, but they did it. They came in and they gave it their all and they’ve been amazing. Really amazing.

The original has such an iconic theme, and we heard it reworked a bit here and it sounded pretty fucking awesome. Can you talk a little bit about what conversations were like with James about how and when to use the theme?
FUQUA: What was weird is that we didn’t get to have a whole lot of conversations with James about that. I tell you a quick story with James. James always says the reason I should wind up making the movie is because when I was doing Southpaw, I went to his house and before we even went inside his room, we stood outside in his garden area. And I was just fucking complaining, to be frank. Couldn’t get the money, it took seven actors, movie stars, the whole Hollywood system sometimes is tough. And you gotta get a certain level of actor to get the money to make a Western because Westerns, all this shit. And I just wasn’t feeling the love at that moment. And I was trying to get Denzel at that point to agree to the deal and everything. And I sat with James, and I said, “I don’t know if I’m going to do it, I’m having a tough time trying to get the money to match the level of actors, blah blah blah.” And he started telling me about, in Calabasas, just out of the blue, he said, “You know, they used to ride horses out here in Calabasas. There used to be a whole horse trail,” and he started telling me all this stuff. And if you guys have ever met him, he’s a slight guy, soft-spoken and he kind of look at me and said, “You have to do it.” He said, “Antoine, you’ll make history. You, Denzel, Chris, Magnificent Seven. Don’t worry about the money, I’ll do it for whatever. But you gotta make that movie. You’ll probably never get to make another Western in your lifetime, you just gotta figure out how to do it.” And I was just looking at him, it was a weird little moment where I thought, “Fuck yeah, you’re right I gotta figure this out. I gotta stop fucking whining and figure out how to do it.”

And after that I called Chris and I called Denzel and I said, “If I do this, we can shoot it here and if I do this…” And I call Gary Barber, and I said, “If I can get these guys to say yes to X, Y and Z, I need an answer by Monday.” And he said, “If you can get them to all say ‘yes’ to that, I’ll get you your money.”  And everybody said yes. But it was James that fueled it. It was that idea like, you get to make a movie, man. Fucking figure it out, stop whining. It’s a Western. And he was right. So, we didn’t talk about the score, it was more about, figuring out ways to make movies regardless of how difficult they might be. And that’s really what we talked about. So, that’s as far as our conversations went. We talked about the original score and stuff, but not what he was going to do. I just know James would bring his own creativity to it.
 

 

Also in this Hollywood Reporter interview he claims Horner wrote seven pieces for the film.

[Pieter Boelen 740]

I found this one posted on another film music forum: http://jameshorner-filmmusic.com/magnificent-seven-exclusive-first-listen/

Seemed like some very interesting information, if you hadn't seen it yet.

[Thor 7,504]

15 minutes ago, Pieter_Boelen said:

I found this one posted on another film music forum: http://jameshorner-filmmusic.com/magnificent-seven-exclusive-first-listen/

Seemed like some very interesting information, if you hadn't seen it yet.

 

Bit of a misleading headline, though -- there is no "exclusive listen" there. Where's the sound file?

[mrbellamy 6,287]

"Exclusive listen" for the webmaster, not for us

 

[Pieter Boelen 740]

14 minutes ago, mrbellamy said:

"Exclusive listen" for the webmaster, not for us

 

^ That.

[Faleel 5,349]

Apparently the first track is here:

 

http://www.awardsdaily.com/2016/09/08/interview-simon-franglen/

[mrbellamy 6,287]

Sounds good!

 

I like the interview too, some encouraging thoughts from Franglen in there. Seems like they really gave it their all and the "Seven Riders" track does indicate that they've retained Horner's voice.

 

2 hours ago, Pieter_Boelen said:

^ That.

 

Only one more week, anyway

[Muad'Dib 1,802]

That track sounds like the perfect farewell to Horner

[Cerebral Cortex 3,357]

So glad we'll be getting a reinterpretation of Bernstein's original theme. From the marketing of the movie, it seemed like a film that wouldn't really gel with that theme, and figured they wouldn't include it. Really anxious to hear Horner's spin on it. 

[Thor 7,504]

11 hours ago, Fennel Ka said:

Apparently the first track is here:

 

http://www.awardsdaily.com/2016/09/08/interview-simon-franglen/

 

Thanks, man!

[mrbellamy 6,287]

Direct link: http://www.awardsdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/25-Seven-Riders.mp3

 

8 hours ago, Muad'Dib said:

That track sounds like the perfect farewell to Horner

 

It really does, actually.

[Will 2,215]

Not too impressed by that track, at least after one listen, but I'm still super excited for this score. Particularly, that "epic" theme mentioned in the "first listen" article.

[Wojo 2,453]

11 hours ago, Cerebral Cortex said:

So glad we'll be getting a reinterpretation of Bernstein's original theme.

 

Every time I hear that theme, I space out and find myself smoking a box of Marlboro's. 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Smoking isn't good for you, son!

[leeallen01 2,136]

I love that you can hear the brass players breathing.

[Wojo 2,453]

Proper placement of breaths can be as important as the phrases played between the breaths. 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

That will be probably be cleaned up for the official release though.

[leeallen01 2,136]

I'm getting major vibes of other composers styles in the piece too. It starts off with a Silvestri Captain America vibe, then feels like Wanker and Kloser's Day After Tomorrow, then it goes into a half Doyle in Potter and Thor mode and half Goldsmith in Trek mode. Then finishes off with some Arnold's Independence Day. 

[Jay 37,364]

Sounds more like someone imitating Horner than Horner himself, but I'll refrain from any further judgement until I've actually heard the whole album

[leeallen01 2,136]

Yeah I get that imitation feel, but I guess it's because it is. I have the same feel as I do with DOS and BOTFA compared to LOTR and AUJ.

[Jay 37,364]

Wha??? DOS and BOFA are pure Shore through and through, no imitation feel at all!  I can't believe you feel that way!

[Faleel 5,349]

Heh "Initiation feel".

[leeallen01 2,136]

My bad. I wasn't clear. I meant that I feel the way I do when I listen to Shore's and Pope's differences. I wasn't meaning to imply that DOS and BOTFA were imitations. I meant just that they are both written by Shore and Horner, and then an extra element is added of someone else, like Pope and Franglen.

[Will 2,215]

On 9/9/2016 at 7:49 AM, Will said:

Not too impressed by that track, at least after one listen.

 

I'm liking it more with each listen, actually. 

 

----------

 

This doesn't really matter of course but I noticed while watching the international trailer last night that the music credits were as follows:

 

"Music by James Horner"

 

"Additional Music by Simon Franglen"

 

I'd think it will be the same in the film credits.

 

Nice honor for Horner to get the sole "Music by" credit, despite it being technically more accurate to say "Music by Simon Franglen" and "Music based on themes by James Horner."

 

I wonder if there will be a "For James" card or something in the end credits.

[Muad'Dib 1,802]

Samples are up

 

http://www.neowing.co.jp/product/SICP-4949/track?from_cdj=1

[mrbellamy 6,287]

Danger motif in track 3 

[Will 2,215]

Well. 

 

Obviously the full OST could change my opinion, but overall this seems to be a dark and generic score.  (By generic I mean "like lots of other modern blockbusters; not particularly representative of a western specifically.")

 

Now, there are several great moments in the samples (and the previewed "Seven Riders" track). One of these is the theme heard in the Bell Hangers sample (that's the only time we've heard it so far), which must be the one mentioned here (http://jameshorner-filmmusic.com/magnificent-seven-exclusive-first-listen/):

 

Quote

Of all the themes and motifs that run through the score, a symphonic and epic theme stands out. It is probably one of the most powerful ones composed by James Horner. Horner reveals it gradually as the Magnificent Seven come together as a gang. Hinted at in So Far So Good, its first real appearance occurs in Bell Hangers, rather late in the album. Then again, it dominates the last quarter of the disc as it blossoms during the heroic rides that are Army Invades Town, Faraday's Ride and The Darkest Hour. Finally in House of Judgment, it is sung by a female voice in a brilliantly emotional Morricone-like moment.

 

We've seen articles mention more appearances of the Bernstein theme, as well as of course the above paragraph hinting at some bigger epic statements of Horner's theme. Those could significantly improve my opinion of the score.

 

That said, at this time, based on what we've heard so far, this GQ article (http://www.gq.com/story/the-magnificent-seven-review) perhaps best sums up my overall thoughts, notwithstanding the occasional outstanding moments, and perhaps confirms that this is indeed a dark film/score overall (although, of course, film critics are, rightly, not revered for their music analysis, with the exception of Thor and maybe a few others of course):

 

Quote

The score for the new Magnificent Seven, by the late James Horner and Simon Franglen, quotes Bernstein extensively, but it's a sign of the film's joylessness that it doesn't go full Bernstein until the closing credits, when the Aaron Copland-esque percussion and strings finally come alive. Before then, the musical quotes mostly come out in dribs and drabs, all to emphasize the glum seriousness of seven mercenaries inspired to band together to defend a rural village under siege. 

 

This all sounds really negative but I'm still really excited for the OST, and I hope to go see the film at some point as well, largely to experience the score in context. I can't wait to hear the various usages of the Bernstein theme, Horner's epic theme, and the other assorted brilliant moments that I'm sure exist and we haven't heard yet (after all, each sample is only 45 seconds long). 

 

I was just hoping for a little more fun -- it's a cowboy movie! -- and what we've heard so far hasn't had much of it. Dark, brooding electronics are the name of the game nowadays...

 

[publicist 4,643]

4 hours ago, Will said:

Obviously the full OST could change my opinion, but overall this seems to be a dark and generic score.  (By generic I mean "like lots of other modern blockbusters; not particularly representative of a western specifically.")

 

Going by the clips i'd say there are some pretty distinctive elements that are clearly out of Horner's toolbox (the first track for instance). Elmer's Marlboro county music just can't be put behind a modern blockbuster anymore so i think the way Horner approached this is actually quite apt.

[Thor 7,504]

I like what I'm hearing!

[Will 2,215]

The build-up of the Bernstein theme in "Seven Riders" is great. I've had it running through my head on and off. 

[karelm 2,913]

So this is the last time we hear new music by Horner. 

 

I was also sad to see the trailer to Gibson's "Hacksaw Ridge" which would have been scored by Horner.  It would have been great to have him score a WWII epic and I love what he did for Gibson.

[Thor 7,504]

1 hour ago, karelm said:

So this is the last time we hear new music by Horner. 

 

It is, but there is still a lot of completely unreleased material out there -- so if labels can dig out some of that, we still have years of "new" Horner music to look forward to:

 

http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=114840&forumID=1&archive=0

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I'm shocked to hear that from you Thor! Finally you have loosened up, now drink with me!

[Faleel 5,349]

I am sure he is referring to completely unreleased scores etc. Not expansions

[Wojo 2,453]

Didn't Horner stop writing new music decades ago? Everything since was just recycled. Good, but still. 

[Thor 7,504]

19 hours ago, Fennel Ka said:

I am sure he is referring to completely unreleased scores etc. Not expansions

 

Indeed I am. See the thread I linked to.

[Will 2,215]

Holy crap! With all the RO buzz I'd forgotten this OST drops tomorrow. Can't wait!

[Faleel 5,349]

Apparently it  on spotify.

 

[Will 2,215]

Yep. 

 

 

All but one of the tracks (the Bernstein theme) are on YouTube here, albeit randomly uploaded (not in a playlist):

 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCttp1DF4y8BMlW9il_V3pcw/videos

 

The Bernstein theme can be found here:

 

 

I'll have to give this a listen after school! 

[crocodile 8,016]

Didn't know Simon Rhodes wrote some additional music for this as well. And I also didn't know Horner began working on this just a week before his death. So that makes it his very last work.

 

Karol

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

You didn't know this was his last?