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Musical impressions of the sea


karelm

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Clifton Parker has done some absolutely awesome stuff in this area. I think someone already shared his Treasure Island (1950) score, but this one is pretty damn awesome too:

 

 

And some more seafaring goodness:

 

Oh, and if you like the stormy sea stuff, William Alwyn's Main Title from Swiss Family Robinson is pretty badass:

 

He also wrote an awesome score for The Crimson Pirate (super fun campy-but-it-knows-it pirate flick long before Pirates of the Carribean did it):

 

Yavar

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The videos load super slow on my (slow) PC/Mobile so, some of the videos are blank.

Still there are more cues in J2 that have that sound more than BfD!

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6 hours ago, Fal said:

The videos load super slow on my (slow) PC/Mobile so, some of the videos are blank.

 

Always a problem when people go nuts with Youtube videos. I prefer just posting comments myself (using language is underrated these days!). Then perhaps links (rather than embeds) to YT videos if absolutely necesssary. A tantalizing comment about a piece of music will always leave me exploring more than just a block of 15 Youtube videos.

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12 hours ago, Batman's Diet Coke said:

The first page of this thread crashes my browser.

 

Did anyone post the pirate stuff from The Pagemaster?

Good call.

Towards the Open Ocean:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRdkSpXq2tA

Pirates! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-Zc7BDiNDE

 

Didn't John Debney score a huge pirate film in the 90's?  How is that?

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I have always enjoyed this dreamy theme, from an old computer game, accompanying player on the sea.

 

As a bonus I add phone recording of an orchestra performing this music in a concert setting: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1rT6jBvz8rhtfXuLmBtFles94OJ18nmY4

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1 hour ago, Yavar Moradi said:

Cutthroat Island is one of the best scores of all time, IMO. :)

 

It is, but it doesn't really connote "musical impressions of the sea" to me. More a rambunctious pirate/action-adventure score.

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15 minutes ago, Thor said:

 

It is, but it doesn't really connote "musical impressions of the sea" to me. More a rambunctious pirate/action-adventure score.

 

The two clips I posted do have at least moments of sea/seafaring type music.

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16 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

I've never really understood the fascination with this score. Maybe it's because I've never seen the film.

 

Everyone hates the film except me. Never understood the intense dislike people have towards it. I'll watch it over any of those POTC movies. Great fun of the check your brain at the door variety. Adore the score too.

 

But then I also love Hook (the film).

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It's brilliant pastiche. Old-school Golden Age-isms with a modern 90s twist. Not terribly original, of course, but neither is it supposed to be.

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13 hours ago, Thor said:

 

Always a problem when people go nuts with Youtube videos. I prefer just posting comments myself (using language is underrated these days!). Then perhaps links (rather than embeds) to YT videos if absolutely necesssary. A tantalizing comment about a piece of music will always leave me exploring more than just a block of 15 Youtube videos.

I'll keep that in mind next time I go full The Bangles fanboy :P.

On topic, however, Miklos Rozsa's Plymouth Adventure should be mentioned, maybe.  And Korngold's Sea Hawk if it hasn't been already.  Even if these are more sea-faring pieces than pieces about the sea per se.

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19 hours ago, JTWfan77 said:

For me, John Barry's Swept From the Sea evokes the melancholy of the aquatic beautifully (as only Barry can).

Any particular tracks?

This is very beautiful.  Philip Sainton (whose Moby Dick has already been mentioned) also wrote this lovely tone poem, "The Island".

 

Evocative and beautiful...Rimsky Korsakov's Tsarina adrift on the sea

 

and of course this gem, Arnold Bax's Tintagel

 

Though about the legend of a castle, Bax said, "music to offer images of cliffs and the castle of Tintagel and impressions of the sea on a sunny but not windless summer day."

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9 hours ago, Thor said:

It's brilliant pastiche. Old-school Golden Age-isms with a modern 90s twist. Not terribly original, of course, but neither is it supposed to be.

 

I think one of the problems is that it lacks memorable themes.

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Not only is the theme memorable, IMO, it's been an 'earworm curse' to me on many occasions since the mid 90s. I'm in the shower, for example, and suddenly the theme (both the A and B theme) as it appears in the opening track comes in, and won't let go for many hours. This still happens, btw. In fact, it happened now just by talking about it! Damn you, CUTTHROAT ISLAND! :D

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29 minutes ago, Thor said:

Not only is the theme memorable, IMO, it's been an 'earworm curse' to me on many occasions since the mid 90s. I'm in the shower, for example, and suddenly the theme (both the A and B theme) as it appears in the opening track comes in, and won't let go for many hours. This still happens, btw. In fact, it happened now just by talking about it! Damn you, CUTTHROAT ISLAND! :D

 

I just listened to the opening track again, and I've already forgotten the themes! :lol:

 

On 6/26/2018 at 12:27 AM, Marian Schedenig said:

 

I love Gerhardt's recording of the Hornpipe:

 

Curiously, it seems to be the exact same piece that shows up at around the 5 minute mark in your video, only on the Gerhardt recording it has a snare drum.

 

Why would that be curious?

 

On 6/27/2018 at 12:08 AM, Fal said:

surprised no one has mentioned Jaws 2 yet.

 

Jaws 3? :sarcasm:

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On 6/25/2018 at 7:30 AM, Thor said:

 

I have it. It's OK, but a bit too massive without the dynamic range of his purely electronic efforts. It gets somewhat tiresome eventually, and I'm not convinced Vangelis works with orchestral forces. I much rather prefer his ROSETTA album from 2016.

 

We can't forget Vangelis' Oceanic

 

Of all of his albums that one takes you on an entire journey through the sea. It is one of those albums that never gets tiresome to me and can listen to it over and over again.

 

 

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I don't even have this album. To me Soil Festivities is his last interesting one. Mask is still sorta okay but only if you look for a certain dense mood. Emotionally it does nothing.

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2 minutes ago, Alexcremers said:

I don't even have this album. To me Soil Festivities is his last interesting one. Mask is still sorta okay but only if you look for a certain dense mood. Emotionally it does nothing.

Have you listened to it?  It's one of those that deserves to be heard from beginning to end in one sitting.

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12 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Why would that be curious?

 

 

Well, who arranged the Gerhardt version, and why did they add the snaredrum when they didn't seem to change anything else? It fits in perfectly and to my ears it's missing from the original recording. Was it perhaps originally written and simply dropped for the actual recording?

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2 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

 

Well, who arranged the Gerhardt version, and why did they add the snaredrum when they didn't seem to change anything else? It fits in perfectly and to my ears it's missing from the original recording. Was it perhaps originally written and simply dropped for the actual recording?

 

Maybe it was in the original recording, but in another version than included in the Youtube video?

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28 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Maybe it was in the original recording, but in another version than included in the Youtube video?

 

Also possible. That's why I'm curious about it.

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22 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

I think one of the problems is that it lacks memorable themes.

 

It's memorable (the main theme) albeit it's a bit too much on the nose (the same problem plagued 'Waterworld' for me),  though it's probably Debney's best score.

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A LOT of fantastic examples here but my favourite (which are to me personally also most persuading) are Scheherazade's first and final movements.

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For calmer sea days, I'm partial to these.  Thought I'd just post straight links instead of videos since this thread is swamping my browser-boat.

MK Čiurlonis - The Sea

Pinar Toprak - Dreams Are to Pursue II (The Wind Gods)

Jeff Rona - Still Waters (White Squall)

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