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Michael Kamen's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves released by Intrada!


crocodile

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OK, i tried this as i had filed it under complete misfire and many people told me i were wrong. Halfway. Kamen remains a composer for me i mostly avoid, mainly because his music seems to be glued to the picture, compromising its musical qualities (Kamen sometimes edited his albums cleverly, cf License to Kill, so he obviously understood this problem, too) and being too densely orchestrated but Intrada's release unleashed a more nuanced score than the old album, favouring softer material that is easier on the ears.

 

The love theme is a beaut, and when the more busy orchestral adventure writing is leavened with the faux-medieval touches (mostly the merry men in the forest scenes), it plays indeed like a score that is better than the rest ultimately can honour. All the material for Alan Rickman and his witch and the often overbearing, frenetic action battles start to grate really fast and it does the music a disservice to put it all out there - also the sound is still dubious, like they reused the chamber where Goldsmith recorded 'Inchon' in.

 

So i probably will get a good 50-minutes worth of material out of it. And post the results here, 

 

 

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On 1/26/2018 at 2:01 AM, jwalk713 said:

It's marvelous! The newly-released cues are wonderful, and we're able to hear great variety and thematic development previously confined to the film. The liner notes are good, but I would love to read a more extensive write-up of the history and production of the score. In a fascinating twist-- there are moments in the score that I was previously convinced were tracked in, editorial creations-- that are NOT; and vice versa. There are nearly 15 minutes of music that were not available for this release (explained by Doug and others as possibly being the work of other writers/orchestrators, and not part of the archives in which Kamen's work was stored). For my part, this is a loss, as I think they're glorious and accompany some grand moments in the film (notably, Robin emerging in silhouette after the Celt battle with his theme performed by horns and haunting, full, high register strings; and part of the gallows scene: from the moment that Will Scarlett is tied to the explosive barrel, through the hanging of the young lad, Robin's severing of the noose, and the first flaming arrow barrel explosion). Other than that, however, I think it's fantastic. (that was long and specific. sorry!!) 

 

 

It must have been a case of missing files or what they [Intrada] could gather. If they had found them then it would have been presented and the actual co-composer/orchestrators would have been duly credited for those additional cues. Just my cents here...

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Oh I'm sure you're right. And I don't hold that against them in the slightest. I am enthralled by what they were able to present. And they've been known to locate missing cues and re-re-release these albums after, so I'm confident that could happen here.  

2 hours ago, publicist said:

OK, i tried this as i had filed it under complete misfire and many people told me i were wrong. Halfway. Kamen remains a composer for me i mostly avoid, mainly because his music seems to be glued to the picture, compromising its musical qualities (Kamen sometimes edited his albums cleverly, cf License to Kill, so he obviously understood this problem, too) and being too densely orchestrated but Intrada's release unleashed a more nuanced score than the old album, favouring softer material that is easier on the ears.

 

The love theme is a beaut, and when the more busy orchestral adventure writing is leavened with the faux-medieval touches (mostly the merry men in the forest scenes), it plays indeed like a score that is better than the rest ultimately can honour. All the material for Alan Rickman and his witch and the often overbearing, frenetic action battles start to grate really fast and it does the music a disservice to put it all out there - also the sound is still dubious, like they reused the chamber where Goldsmith recorded 'Inchon' in.

 

So i probably will get a good 50-minutes worth of material out of it. And post the results here, 

 

 

Fair enough. I'm glad it at least turned out slightly better than you expected. I'll certainly agree with you about the quality of the sound-- someone here described it as sounding very dry. Re-watching the movie recently, there was a LOT of reverb added to the entire score (too much, I think), so it seems they were trying to compensate for that in post-production. I have a special place in my heart for the action cues, even the Celt Battle, which has a particularly blunt and tinny sound in the brass. I've been curious about that, and it turns out that the some of the brass players used what Kamen described as 'cone shells' for this particular piece. Strange and fascinating little facets of this thing keep surfacing.  (here's a link to the interview if anyone's interested: http://www.runmovies.eu/michael-kamen

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I arrived at this, 66 minutes with a few welcome redundancies (love theme):

 

CD 1:

01 Main Title – Prince of Thieves

06 Escape to Sherwood

07 The River

08 Little John Fight

10 Robin Escapes

13 Training Sequence (cut after 01:04 or so)

15 The Merry Men Ambush Gisborne (cut after 02:25)

16 Marian at the Waterfall/Camp

 

CD 2:

01 Medieval Dance Source

02 Baby

05 Celt Battle

07 Plans for Rescue

10 Reunited and Finale

18 Marian at the Waterfall_Camp (alt.)

20 Join Robin (Alternate)

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Just saw this quote from Doug about the missing cues

 

Quote

Regarding the absent cues, it may help for listeners to realize at least some of them are the result of the unusually large number of orchestrators on this score listed by the AFM, who did some "ghost writing" to get the massive amount of music completed on time. So some of these pieces are really just adaptations of Kamen's material orchestrated by others to blend in with Kamen's actual work. Some of those cues appear to have been done separately and those rolls of tape appear to be AWOL. The execution drumming material was mostly done live to picture with on-screen extras and was not recorded during the orchestral scoring sessions. These sequences may have been done as "pre-records" during filming and might've been recorded wild long before actual scoring took place... but this is just my sort of educated guess. In this case Kamen might not have been involved. So Kamen's own actual score itself is pretty well represented. If any of these other items eventually do show up, we'll sort out what to do with them when that time may arise. :D


--Doug

 

 

http://www.intrada.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=78733#p78733

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 year later...

So I recently received this.  Huge fan of this score.  Finally decided to give it a listen, and a cue I always wanted was the bit during the scene where Robin rescues Little John's son.  I assumed it was in the 13:26 long cue 'Rescue Marian'.  But to no avail.

 

Reading through this thread and the links throughout, did explain why pieces are missing.  I get it.

 

But goodness, those two 'Training Sequences' alternate takes.  Absolute chills. :o

 

Oh well, still a wonderful score to have.  Also here's the bit of music I was talking about:

 

 

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Yeah I made a mistake in my initial listens. I thought some of the missing music was just cobbled or pulled from other cues but I was wrong. Still more than enough music there.

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1 minute ago, Ollie said:

Yeah I made a mistake in my initial listens. I thought some of the missing music was just cobbled or pulled from other cues but I was wrong. Still more than enough music there.

 

Yes, it was not going to hinder my purchase of this at all, either.

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  • 4 months later...

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