Jump to content

The Jerry Goldsmith Memorial Appreciation Thread


timbox129

Jerry Goldsmith Memorial Appreciation Quiz  

31 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you like the music of Jerry Goldsmith

  2. 2. What is your favorite Film/TV score from Jerry Goldsmith

    • Star Trek: The Motion Picture
    • Ridley Scott's Alien
    • Other(s)
    • Patton/Tora! Tora! Tora!
    • Poltergeist
    • Gremlins
  3. 3. Are you sad to see Jerry Goldsmith dead and gone, even for ten years?



Recommended Posts

Also, one interesting thing Leigh Phillips posted in connection to this post: He claims that Goldsmith overdubbed synth brass because the original brass performance was too poor. That's something I've been speculating for years, and may have mentioned a couple of times here, but it's the first time I've ever heard anyone else comment on it. Do we have more info on that?

Video of Goldsmith performing the synth overdubs for Lionheart:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's a nice video, thanks (and funny that Coma is used in the beginning). It doesn't really answer my question though, although it makes it seem like the synths were meant to be a part of the fabric all along and not added to save the performance. But it's not clearly stated (obviously), and in the reverse situation, he might have said the same thing.

Drax: I like the score and I don't dislike the recording, but it's one of the few instances where I'm rather unhappy with Goldsmith's synth augmentations. Because they *sound* like they are there to save the brass. And they're certainly not, as Goldsmith says in the video, discreet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm realising that Goldsmith has now been dead for half of my soundtrack listening era. In fact, while I got my first CD in September 94, I discovered the Star Wars suite sometime during the summer of that same year - which can't have been far from the day on which Goldsmith would die 10 years later. So, in other words, I've been listening to dead Goldsmith longer now than I had been listening to live Goldsmith before...

And he still makes up about 50% of my overall playlist according to last.fm.

And I wouldn't have the score any other way.

Of course, I'd even more like to have a rerec of Rambo 3. Because that score DOES suffer from its performance. Significantly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After The National Philharmonic for the first two, it's a step down.

And even to the NPO Rambo 2 seems to have been quite a challenge. No wonder Goldsmith went back to them for Total Recall. Just imagine that being done in Hungary (or what the aborted Graunke recording sounded like).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The NPO always sounded well up to the job on Rambo II!

The performance is savage in places!

I love the performance, but there are some rather dirty string passages in the action writing. I have to be told to listen for them to notice them, but ask some of the orchestra players around here.

It's just Goldsmith's fault for writing it like this, of course. ;)

I like some of Graunke's work like Masters of the Universe, King Kong Lives, The Wind and the Lion and Hellbound: Hellraiser II.

Yup.

They probably are quite good in slower paced music, but fall about when they have to do furious Goldsmith action music.

There's some serious action stuff in Wind and the Lion, of course. But then, the whole recording is rather dirty - appropriately so, in this case.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Raw. Unrefined. Primal. Like an orchestra from an older time with cruder instruments and without the level of control over their instruments orchestra musicians have nowaday.

As I said, it fits the score, and may to an extent have been intentional - i.e. not ("just") the result of an inferior orchestra.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well with Rambo 3 you really sense that the orchestra loses control at times (they can't even keep time).

With the NPO on First Blood part II I always went it was intentional, ingrained in the music too. Testosterone driven, raw, savage, unbridled POWER!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Of course, it's totally different issues. With #3, it's an insecure orchestra not able to keep up with the tempi and sounding clearly beyond their capabilities. With #2, it's just a few flubbed notes, but it never affects the performance beyond those notes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Let's face it, apart from KING SOLOMON'S MINES, no HSOO recording was ever a match for Goldsmith's writing. Why he ever relented to go there...who knows (hardly a peer was sighted in Hungary in the mid 80's).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If the orchestra fares better in a score that's simpler to perform than another, that doesn't change the fact that the performance is a better match for the former score. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

KSM is rather well performed. There are complicated parts where the brass isn't struggling and stumbling. I am still curious about newly recorded THRILLER suites. It would be more interesting than a surefire thing like LIONHEART that would gain but not immeasurably. We have all of that score released in bright strereo, performance issues aside.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I remember sitting in the car, listening to the news when in a shocking turn of events even german news radio announced Goldsmith's passing. My first thought simply was 'oh shit...'

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe because there is a hidden demographic of STAR TREK fans working predominantly in newsrooms here, this was featured quite prominently. Another strange thing is that the name JERRY GOLDSMITH somehow registers with people, at least those watching movies on tv in the 70s/80s, even my mother once commented on the stunning fact that Jerry Goldsmith did the music to PAPILLON when his name came up in the credits, long before i knew who he was. When i asked her years later about it, she said his name came up so frequently in movie and tv show credits of the time that it just became familiar to her.

Of course, my music heroes tv-wise were named Mike Post & Pete Carpenter.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I actually shed some tears that day.

In the days after Goldsmith's death, I listened to all the CDs I had by him, taking them off the shelf one by one until the Goldsmith section was just a gaping hole (this was before I ripped all my CDs to FLAC). If I were to do this today, it would take me 8 days of continuous day and night listening.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What do JWfaners think are, say, the 5 scores that JG would like to be remembered for?

I would like to say:

"The Blue max",

"POTA",

"ST:TMP",

"Islands In The Stream",

and "Chinatown".

Any more suggestions?

DEEP RISING

IQ

FIERCE CREATURES

THE STRIPPER

RENT-A-COP

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But Richard asked which ones JG himself would like to be remembered for, not what our own top 5 lists would be.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I seem to recall that when Soarin' Over California opened, some people loved Goldsmith's music, while it seemed like a lot of the film score community considered it fairly average or unremarkable, at least by Goldsmith standards. It's only like 10 minutes of music he recorded (that we've heard), but I think it's some of his most magnificent work. What say you?

Listening to Ba'ku Village.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines.