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What Is The Last Score You Listened To? (older scores)


Ollie

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7 hours ago, JohnSolo said:

Cover.jpg

 

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (35th Anniversary Remastered Edition) :music:

 

 

Man that set is great and the design by Jim Titus is wonderful, especially that cover.

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It's the right season for this not-quite-top late Horner entry that still manages a few tricks not ploughed to death over several decades (yes, there is a 2-second allusion to the danger motif). 15 minutes of evocative music can be salvaged from this (tracks 1, 2, 5, 9, 10, 12), the rest is mostly halting string chords forever wafting away into the ozone. Still, the Brahms-inspired piano lullaby and dreamy, minimalist arpeggios foreshadowing a doomed end are welcome diversions. 

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6 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

Indeed, but I believe it's easier to get inspiration if the music is commissioned for a specific use, like film music, ballet, and so on.

 

Do you mean in general?  Because I don't think that's the case with Glass. 

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The Empire of the Sun by John Williams: The LLL set is just awesome. I love the score from start to finish. The additional material is sprinkled throughout the expanded edition and in my opinion enhances the overall architecture of this eclectic score and the second disc with alternates is just as interesting not only as a glimpse to the creative process of film scoring but on purely musical grounds. Top drawer JW drama score that really dives surprisingly deep into the subject matter.

 

The Fury by John Williams: Another terrific LLL set (although the Varese one is almost as good) of a wonderfully visceral dark horror and delicious melodrama with brief glimpses of lighter material for Gillian and Hester. The OST re-recording is the more powerful version with LSO providing a resounding performance but the original film score does have its moments. I especially like the smaller subtler variations on the main theme Williams provides amidst the often raucous horror scoring which btw is absolutely awesome in its thunderous might. I remember being enamored with this music from the first time I heard the main title on the Varese OST album and time hasn't diminished the appeal.

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Listened to the new ET release.  It's great, of course, but can't touch that other abbreviated Williams score.

 

Justice League was ok.  Pretty flat and unengaging but well written, and I liked the recording.  I fully expect it to be tonally at odds with the film to at least some degree though.

 

4 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

Maybe that explains why so many of his film scores sound uninspired. :)

 

I'll let him know you're not a fan.

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Darkest Hour by Dario Marianelli

 

Less subtle than his usual work. This score is not shy about its intentions, as I suspect the film might not be. But it's all cleverly crafted nonetheless. Not unlike a Desplat score, but with Marianelli's characteristic cadences. There are a lot of well-thought out constructs buried in here. And as with most of the composer's work, I expect this to be even more rewarding with repeat visits.

 

Also, one of the main themes seem to draw from the Dunkirk material in his Atonement score, perhaps intentionally so.

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It's solid. In the 5 Stages of Grief & Loss i have long arrived at 'acceptance' level in regards to boring minimalist trailer music clichés that Marianelli has to serve time and time again, but then you get a droll classicist miniature like 'Winston and George' and all is well again. Sadly these moments are fleeting and why oh why anyone requests a Churchill biography to sound like a Zimmer Batman score (at times) is beyond my comprehension.

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8 minutes ago, publicist said:

It's solid. In the 5 Stages of Grief & Loss i have long arrived at 'acceptance' level in regards to boring minimalist trailer music clichés that Marianelli has to serve time and time again, but then you get a droll classicist miniature like 'Winston and George' and all is well again. Sadly these moments are fleeting and why oh why anyone requests a Churchill biography to sound like a Zimmer Batman score (at times) is beyond my comprehension.

 

9 hours ago, KK said:

Darkest Hour by Dario Marianelli

 

Less subtle than his usual work. This score is not shy about its intentions, as I suspect the film might not be. But it's all cleverly crafted nonetheless. Not unlike a Desplat score, but with Marianelli's characteristic cadences. There are a lot of well-thought out constructs buried in here. And as with most of the composer's work, I expect this to be even more rewarding with repeat visits.

 

Also, one of the main themes seem to draw from the Dunkirk material in his Atonement score, perhaps intentionally so.

So is it a Dunkirk spin-off then?

 

Karol

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Let's just say it has more in common with V for Vendetta (also a very fine genre score) than it does Jane Eyre.

 

16 minutes ago, publicist said:

It's solid. In the 5 Stages of Grief & Loss i have long arrived at 'acceptance' level in regards to boring minimalist trailer music clichés that Marianelli has to serve time and time again, but then you get a droll classicist miniature like 'Winston and George' and all is well again. Sadly these moments are fleeting and why oh why anyone requests a Churchill biography to sound like a Zimmer Batman score (at times) is beyond my comprehension.

 

Lovely cue, that one. The only parts that I'd take out are some of the bombing cues. Parts of it bring Desplat's The Queen to mind. And as with most Marianelli scores, its well written. I just wish we had more harmonically interesting material in there. 

 

One of the finer scores of the year.

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Thanks to Prometheus' recent digital frenzy you are now able to enjoy most of their recent re-recordings and this old John Sturges western merits special mention (as in dark horse). It's another Wyatt Earp story, though told through the perspective of a later trial about what happened at the OK corral. It's of course as far as removed from the Tiomkin bombast of the classic 1958 Kirk Douglas movie - James Garner fills his shoes here - as possible. It's another great musical character study with a catchy theme that may not be the first Goldsmith you would choose for a new interpretation, but hey...

 

The main theme is introduced tentatively, fragmentary in the 5-minute opening cue that accompanies the build-up to the shootout and cold stops when the gunfight begins. Like the movie itself, the music is more of a haunted character study with a few exciting breakouts of action and scenery-painting along the way. That the nuanced orchestration really shines is one of the achievements of this recording: it's not a huge orchestra but when it roars it's sounds impressively big (The Ballot Box, The Ambush, Whose Cattle) even if those moments soon make way for more suspenseful, even anguished material that forms the bulk of the score.

 

The final moments of thoughtful americana (A Friendly Lie) for the goodbyes of Earp and Holliday and a few developed readings of the main theme warrant mention, though my final verdict is that it's a great, intelligent score from a time when movie music was not just another molass-like layer on the sound track but the understated nature of the movie make it more an interesting curiousity item for Goldsmith fans than an out-and-out listening pleasure (The Blue Max is the clear winner here). 

 

Listen for a short (indeed, perfect) suite of Goldsmith's own 'Red Pony', about 14 minutes in length, with maybe his best tip of the hat to Copland next to 'Wild Rovers', another painterly classic western story (probably the 'Waltons', too, though i never heard much of that). It's classic americana in the best sense, and easier to get acquainted with than the darker 'Gun'. Playing is mostly top notch though you wish a few times the engineer would have payed more attention to Goldsmith's own mixes on the old soundtrack: a big horn counterpoint late in 'Ballot Box' is botched even if it practically begs to be at the center. Overall it's still impressive and recommended.

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7 minutes ago, crocodile said:

:music: Cliffhanger by Trevor Jones. My CD album arrived this morning. It's almost hard to believe action thrillers used to feature actual music back in the day.

 

Karol

 

Waiting for it myself (at a bargain price of 5 Euros). Not as good as The Last of the Mohicans, though.

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I really love this album, perfect for a little rainy sunday!

 

But I have to say the arrangement of Marion's Theme on this album is... a bit short and the end is rather strange. Thanks the maker, John Williams finally wrote a proper arrangement of it for his last album!

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Well remember it was recorded long, long before Williams' official "Marion's Theme" arrangement from 2008 so I assume they just lopped off the crate from "Marion's Theme/The Crate."  I don't have that album so I am just assuming.

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58 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Well remember it was recorded long, long before Williams' official "Marion's Theme" arrangement from 2008 so I assume they just lopped off the crate from "Marion's Theme/The Crate."  I don't have that album so I am just assuming.

 

It's a very conservative arrangement... the guy who made it clearly was walking on eggshells... and It shows. That's not very good.

 

That's my face each I listen to this version:


image.png

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25 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

Turbulence? Not familiar with that. Any good?

Very entertaining action score from Shirley Walker. It's probably bit over-the-top and sometimes cheesy but in a charming 1990's way. It also does feature interesting development of Carol of the Bells and ends up twisting it into this Dies Irae motif. Which is exactly the opposite to what Williams tried to achieve in Home Alone. The lengthy album might be bit too much to hold attention all the way through but it's often colourfully orchestrated.

 

 

Karol

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9 hours ago, crocodile said:

Very entertaining action score from Shirley Walker. It's probably bit over-the-top and sometimes cheesy but in a charming 1990's way. It also does feature interesting development of Carol of the Bells and ends up twisting it into this Dies Irae motif. Which is exactly the opposite to what Williams tried to achieve in Home Alone. The lengthy album might be bit too much to hold attention all the way through but it's often colourfully orchestrated.

 

 

Karol

 

Interesting, I like both Carol of the Bells and the Dies Irae motif a lot.

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