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Troy: Gabriel Yared


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There's been some on again off again conversation about this score on this forum in various threads but I thought I'd post a thread specifically about it to really get people interested in this score.

If you haven't heard it, I suggest you find it. There are certain 'Mos Eisley" esque forums where it is available.

I actually had the oppourtunity recently to speak with Gabriel Yared about the score so I'm gonna include a little bit of that information he provided as well.

To those unfamiliar, here's the story:

TROY is based on the Epic Poem "The Iliad" by Homer. One of the greatest things about the film, however, is not that it tries to follow the exact story telling, but that instead, it tries to present the events as if they were real. In "The Iliad," Homer makes great use of the Gods and Godesses of the Greek Pantheon, intervening and interceding in the lives of those who were fighting the war.

The greatest of the Aeneas (Greeks) was Achilles, of which many myths have been created. He, and whom the film controversially calls his cousin, Petroclus, fight with the Greek army to over take the great city of Troy. The reason for this is because while in Sparta, creating peace with the Greeks, the Queen Helen stowes away with one of Troy's ships due to her love of prince Paris. Upon arrival at Troy, she is immediately taken in as "Helen of Troy" and it is her "face that launched a thousand ships."

Greece, eager to over take Troy, sends a thousand ships to fight this war and in the end, most of the characters fight for love (Paris for Helen, Hector for Troy, Achilles for Petroclus).

Upon this backdrop, the film is based in the mode of the great classic films like Ben Hur with a distinctively modern flare of Gladiator and the like.

Having been brought onto the project a year earlier than most composers, Yared began working on themes and writing source cues for dance numbers within the film and when it came time to score the film, Yared had developed a rich tapestry of themes and techniques for building the sound to be the biggest and most epic sound possible.

This is not to say the score is without its tenderness. The love affair between Paris and Helen has great tenderness and warmth with quiet winds and harp.

With all this praise and appropriateness, the story takes a dark turn. I'll let Yared speak for himself on what happened next:

The Score of Troy — A Mystery Unveiled

by Gabriel Yared

For the many people who have contacted me through email and other means, I would like to summarise and present the facts which led up to the rejection of my score for the film Troy, after nearly a year of great and very fruitful collaboration with the director Wolfgang Petersen.

I first met Wolfgang Petersen in March 2003 when he presented to me the idea of working on the score for Troy. We got off to a great start and he explained that he'd come to me to bring a deeper level of emotion to his film, and that although he knew I wasn't well known for writing big epic scores he told me he was confident from the things he had heard from my previous work that I would be more than capable of delivering a great score that would have a great original flavour.

In April 2003 I began work on the source music which needed to be pre-recorded as it was featured in the film. This was a great challenge as it required the creation of a convincing and effective ancient sound. The scenes included dances, funerals, mourning women, and even drinking songs. In order to recreate the wailing and crying of the mourning women I used a Bulgarian choir and some Eastern European soloists to make what turned out to be a great sound, very evocative of the setting. These mourning women pieces also gave me some great ideas that I would later incorporate into the underscore and soundtrack as a whole. It was also at these sessions that I met a young Macedonian singer, Tanja Tzarovska, who was to later go on to feature in the score and the song.

Later in this year I started to think of the score and I knew there would be a lot of music (in fact Wolfgang spotted just over two hours of music). I knew I had to have a good overall plan and structure in mind. After much research, writing, rejecting, and revising I finalised the thematic ideas for each of the important characters, groups, and locations, ensuring that these thematic cells could be related and readily combined, expanded, merged, or superposed.

My overall concept was to create a classic-yet-modern score, epic and yet subtle and emotional. Classic in its elaborated harmonies, architecture, and structure, harking back to classic forms (such as the fugue based on Priam's Trojan theme). Modern in the way it was shaped and moulded to the action, and also in the sound of the score. I decided to supplement the large orchestra with a 25-piece brass section to provide a different colour, and a large choir which was sometimes triple-tracked to give support and drama in the large battle scenes, as well as to provide colour and give an overall feeling similar to that of an epic Cantata. The choir would say meaningless, invented-but-sonorous words written to enhance colour and emotion, as the choir of an ancient Greek tragedy. I also had a group of six percussionists who would overdub many interesting ethnic and conventional sounds and rhythms to work with other sampled percussion created by my sound designer Nathaniel Mechaly. The other significant colour would be based on the Bulgarian and ethnic vocals inspired by the source music. I would use a phrase of the Bulgarian choir to act as a distant siren (as in the very opening of the film and the ending), and then at certain important moments of the film I would use Tanja's voice (sometimes accompanied only by percussion), like a "voice of destiny" (for instance in key moments such as the fight between Hector and Achilles). So this was the vision and plan of the score that came through after many approaches and much help and support from my team.

Having settled on the overall ideas and concepts I then set to work writing each cue in detail and providing demos so that Wolfgang could hear what I was doing and become familiar with the themes and concepts. In November 2003, working together with Kirsty Whalley, I provided a very detailed, orchestrated demo with full orchestra, choir, percussion, and even vocal samples for every single cue. Wolfgang was genuinely delighted with everything we sent to him, he loved the big epic sound, powerful and yet still moving and emotional. Of course he had some comments here and there which we always endeavoured to fix straight away. I also composed and demoed a beautiful song based on the love theme of Helen and Paris. Tanja Tzarovska, who was to sing the song, also wrote lyrics in Macedonian.

14th February and the next stage was to join my friend and engineer Peter Cobbin at Abbey Road Studios for the recording of the score. The next three weeks of recording were very tough and tiring with very long days of intense work, recording a 100-piece orchestra for two sessions a day followed by evenings of overdub sessions. It was a wonderful time, however, of creation and realisation and much enthusiasm from Wolfgang and the producers and production team. Wolfgang was over the moon and could be heard in the corridors of Abbey Road Studios singing the main themes, he was enchanted with the music and began to wonder about the temp music he'd been using thus far for the test screenings. So it came that Wolfgang used all his charm to persuade me to allow him to use some of our unfinished monitor mixes to replace the temp music. Despite my misgivings he seemed so keen and proud of the music that I agreed, providing he promised that it would be used just to help him for the previews and would not be judged at all since it was work in progress — completely unmixed and often without all of the final overdubs. So, it fell to Allan Jenkins (music editor) to work tirelessly to conform all of these monitor mixes to the appropriate cut at very short notice whilst we all continued with the work of finishing recording the score. The monitor mixes, however, were very well received by all the sound department working at Shepperton Studios, and Wolfgang was delighted with the way in which the music worked at the temp dub. Indeed, after the run-through in the theatre the evening before the preview Wolfgang called the team at Abbey Road from Sacramento to say how great the music sounded.

After the test screening on 10th March, though, everything had changed. The focus group at the preview decided my music was "overpowering and too big, old fashioned and dated the film." Thus in this 24-hour period my score was completely rejected by director and studio, and a collaboration of one year came to an end, despite the fact that it was unfinished work and that the dub was temporary and, although good, not always perfect. What shocked me the most was that I wasn't given the chance to fix or change my score or even to answer to any of the questions or accusations being leveled at my work, despite the fact that I had sessions booked to redo some cues to the new picture and new versions of other cues. Indeed, the decision to replace me had been taken and meetings with other composers had already taken place before I even spoke personally to Wolfgang. I was later informed that it was "...a problem with the writing" and that the score was beyond the hope of being fixed and they were happy to have a new composer write the whole score just a month-and-a-half before the worldwide release on the 14th May.

Throughout the whole project I had felt that my relationship with Wolfgang was very strong and I am convinced that he was more than happy with my score, he was very supportive and enthusiastic and attended nearly every recording session.

In the end I am proud to say that with the great help and support of all my team I succeeded in producing what I firmly believe to be my finest score. It is original, musical, and every single cue is crafted with a great deal of thought, heart, and inspiration in a way that I feel works fantastically with the picture. I feel that my score lifted the picture and gave some depth and emotion to many of the scenes which gave another element to the film as a whole in amongst the terrific and exciting action scenes. My music was fantastically recorded and mixed, and the detail of each overdub layer gave a great and characterising sound which was completely up-to-date, but with the scale and class of a great epic.

I apologise to those reading this who will never get to hear this score. Unfortunately it is not my property, so I will have to hope that one day it will get a commercial release, albeit in this unfinished form. As they will not be credited in any formal way I would like to thank my team for their fantastic skills, support, and indefatigable and enthusiastic hard work. I would also like to thank the wonderful musicians, not only for their fantastic performances, but for all of them who came to visit me (after they heard the bad news) to give their support, and for the respect and affection which they always show me. The messages of how they enjoyed performing the score and how much they enjoyed playing it to the picture on the big screen mean so much to me, this and the support of my team is the best award I could have.

So it then came to pass that the score, being judged in two test screenings, was dubbed too "old fashioned." In the mean time, James Horner had been contacted about the doing a rescore before they even had decided to do so.

Here's an interview with him:

DANIEL SCHWEIGER: Now, two films, two recent films that you've scored that I imagine were very challenging were Troy and The New World.

Now, on Troy, you were coming in as the replacement composer for Gabriel Yared and you had already done The Perfect Storm for the director, Wolfgang Petersen. In a way, was it as hard as it was easy? Because, I think you've got two to three weeks to do this score, but because there is like no time for you to do it, that there isn't gonna be the kind of studio second guessing that may have, you know, messed up the first score that was done for it.

JAMES HORNER: Uhm, let me see where I start with Troy.

Wolfgang is very opinionated. And a very proud man. And he wants everything to be huge. The biggest ever, the most grand. "We've never had a shot of 5,000 people or 50,000 army before - look at the shot of the ocean and you see 5,000 ships - that's the biggest shot in history!" I mean, he's very much into this huge old-fashioned grandure, and I think that he was making what he felt was the best film of the decade. I think that was his mindset.

And I wasn't asked to do the original, which was sort of - at the time - a bit of a twinge for me, because I did such a nice job, or he seemed so pleased on The Perfect Storm. Even though everybody, including myself, very very vocally begged him to take down the ocean water sound effects, which he wouldn't do in The Perfect Storm. And I think ultimately it didn't do as well, because people just got overwhelmed by the constant barrage of noise. So it didn't do as well as it was supposed to or as it was promised and hyped to. And I think he felt that he probably could do better musically.

So he started Troy with Gabriel, and of course Gabriel is very well known in Europe. He was going to make this huge Movie of the Decade, the Trojan War, you know, very dramatic. And he worked with Gabriel and gave Gabriel free reign to do whatever Gabriel wanted, without thinking of how an audience might react, or whatever. And the two of them worked, and Gabriel dutifully did whatever was asked of him by Wolfgang, and Wolfgang's musical tendencies are to overscore everything, like a Wagner opera. He's not into subtlety. At all. Not in the slightest. And emotion to him is a 3,000-pieced orchestra playing a sappy violin theme.

I mean, I'm being nice, but not being nice. I'm being - this is what I mean by being direct.

He's a lovely man. These are only issues that become issues when you're in the trenches and you're really working on a film and it has to be stunning and these are the issues you come up with another -- with your employer, or your -- somebody you're working closely with.

So, Wolfgang gave a lot of instructions to Gabriel that were hugely wrong. And just so old-fashioned. And Gabriel dutifully did his job and Gabriel also brings to the project a certain quality that is not necessarily the most cinematic, but perhaps is a little more operatic, and didn't have the experience of scoring a big action movie. His movies are a little bit more refined.

And, you know, his previous, The English Patient, was really very much based on Bach's music. I mean, if you listen to Bach's preludes and fugues and those things you'll hear Gabriel's score. And I suppose I could say you would have to be a trained musician or a musician with some sort of education to know that, but when you hear the two things you think: "That's Bach."

I don't say that to denigrate Gabriel, I only say that to give you an example of how Gabriel was not familiar with this big action movie thing that Wolfgang wanted. And Gabriel and Wolfgang made the score together, fifty-fifty.

So what happens is, they have The Score from God in The Movie from God and they're in London doing post-production. Gabriel has a huge choir, huge percussion, huge this, huge that. And, before they put the chorus on, they brought it to California to preview - the studio insisted on a preview. And Wolfgang was so sure of himself he thought, "Oh my God, you wait until you see the reaction to this movie." And Gabriel hadn't even put the choir on. The choir was doubling some of the string stuff, and it was going to make it more massive, okay?, and he had lots of sort of Middle-Eastern stuff and --

The audience -- They played it for an audience in Sacramento and took the usual focus group and the cards, and there were lots of comments about flaws in the movie, but to a man, everybody said the music is the worst they had ever heard. To a man. I mean, 100 percent take out the score. I'd never heard of a preview where people are so in tune to the music that they even notice it, much less demand that it ruins the movie for them. And in the focus group, the same reaction, they all said, "it's horrible music. Who did this music?" And, you know, I hadn't seen the film. I didn't -- this is all sort of in hindsight, cause I hadn't -- I didn't keep up with the movie.

They previewed it again with the same result, and Wolfgang was white. Completely shaken. Totally lost his confidence. Warner Brothers asked me, I guess because I had experimented with so much music of different cultures in various films, but somebody suggested me, and they approached me, and said, "would you look at the film and tell us what you think? And do you think you could do this if we took out the score?"

And I looked at the film, and it was -- I don't even know how to describe how atrocious the music was.

It was like a 1950's Hercules movie.

And it wasn't because Gabriel's not a gifted writer, it's because he just doesn't have any knowledge of writing film scores. Real film scores like that. And it was like -- It was so corny. It was unbelievable.

And apparently it made the audience laugh in places during serious scenes. And this combination of this "please do it bigger and bigger and bigger" and "more is better" from Wolfgang and Gabriel's, you know, not knowing what cinematic, big cinematic action music should be, they both came up with this score that was absolutely dreadful. Absolutely dreadful.

And I looked at it and I said, "when do you need this score?" And they said, "well, they're dubbing it now, they basically need it -- you have to be finished nine or eleven days at the very most." So I didn't even have the two or three weeks that you alluded to before. I had nine or ten days to do it.

And I met with Wolfgang, and he of course, is completely cowed out, apologetic, emberrassed, everything. Gabriel, meanwhile, in Europe, is furious. Because -- And he's going on his website saying he was cheated and short-changed and they put his music in the film without the chorus and the chorus makes the differenc. And you know, you're saying to yourself, "this guy just doesn't get it." The chorus would have made it worse. If the problem was it was like thick, thick, black loudness over everything. And corny at that. But they hadn't completely -- I hadn't taken on the assignment yet. And I met with Wolfgang, and he was very emberrassed, and said I would be allowed to do whatever I wanted - would I please, please, please, do this, as a favor? And how grateful he would be at that trouble.

Well, that's Hollywood talk. I don't ever expect people to be grateful. If it happens, it happens. Usually it happens with the low-budget filmmakers, because they truly are grateful. But with the big guys, when they say how grateful they are, I, it's not something I put on the bank and put in my pocket. And the example is that, of that is that he didn't ask me to do the next movie he did. He, after all the work we went through, I would not have done - what was the movie he just finished? - the one with the wave that turns the boat over.

SCHWEIGER: Oh, Poseidon.

HORNER: I would not have done Poseidon Adventure if you'd paid me 10 million dollars. I would not have done that movie, honestly. But before I even knew what the movie was, he asked another composer to do it. So it shows you how, after all we went through on Troy, it shows you sort of how people's minds work. They're really not really grateful. They just want you to do it, help them out, and that's where it ends.

So I took it on as a challenge, because I didn't know if I could do it in nine days, I had never done -- well, I'd worked on very short schedules on Paramount films and Disney films, which had very short post-production, Patriot Games and some of those films that, you know, Paramount. But I thought it would be a real challenge for me as a writer to see how much music I could write in nine days.

And I promised that I could do, you know, 75 minutes. I didn't know if I'd be able to do 95 or 100 minutes. I would do my best effort. But I was contractually bound to do 75 minutes. The film needed, when we went through it and spotted it for where the music went, it needed actually close to 118 minutes.

I took the liberty of highlighting all the arrogant, rude, crass, or down right disgusting things Horner said about the score and the experience. Between these two, I can honestly say that Yared is a very upstanding man, while Horner is a complete child.

Horner says Yared had free reign, and moments later says he did exactly what the director wanted.

Horner acuses Yared of plagarism. "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" anyone?

Horner says that Yared knows nothing about film scores--I will argue that.

Horner then complains that HE wasn't first choice for Troy or the next film.

Horner also argues that Yared was bitchy on his website: he's talking about the first quote I posted which is far from being bitchy.

I've been listening to the score as of late and must say I'm completely impressed by it. I cannot speak too highly of this score honestly. It is a glorious score. In the interviews, I was curious exactly how much of the score was recorded and finalized so I emailed Yared. Here he talks about what was and wasn't finished.

Hi Bernard,

My office in Paris has forwarded me your email .

Thank you for your thoughtful words .

Actually I have recorded the whole score but, since there was some re-editing going on, some of my cues have not been updated to it , only that .

To make the story very short : at the time my score had been rejected in a despicable way, I had decided to put many excerpts on my website along with a personal statement explaining the whole story, and this ended up by Warner threatening me with legal procedure if I didn't remove it immediately . I did !

I don't see any possible future for your offer to release my complete score . I'm truly sorry .

Thank you again and Happy New Year !

Best

Gabriel

So from that, it would seem the score had been fully recorded excepting rescores and any and all music he posted would be the finalized mixes. He only posted about 18 tracks which equates to a little over an hour of the score.

But honestly, having listened to this score, I don't see HOW it could have been rejected. There are small moments... moments... that could have easily been edited out. "The Mourning Women" cue for instance would need some editing as its kinda...weird at moments... and there are small moments where it goes slightly too big... btu honestly... Williams has moments like these and they get edited out. Almost every Spielberg film has microedits. They wouldn't be difficult to fix at all.

I recommend anyone who has the ability to get a hold of the score, to listen to it and if they can, try to sync it up with the film.

Here are some time codes:

The Opening - [03:54]

Opens with opening of the film. [00:35] should sync with the reveal of "TROY" which is a little over [00:35.5] into the film so almost right away.

Achilles and Boagrius - [03:45]

The cue begins as the King of Thessaly calls out "Boagrius" at [04:19]. There are obviously some micro edits in this sequence but syncing isn't too hard, just gotta pause the film briefly in moments and vis versa.

Sparta - [01:55]

This is the source music to be heard as the dancing begins after the announcement of drinking to peace. It would be heard in the background of the following Paris and Helen scene. It starts a little later than where Horners almost direct interpretation begins in the film so it starts more around [10:16] or so. I've been trying to get it to line up with the finishing of the source cue in the film. There are probably some micro edits here too.

Helen and Paris - [01:41]

This is one possible placement of this cue. It would begin just as Paris raises a pearl necklace to offer it to Helen at [12:30] into the film and ends at the cut his ship returning to troy.

Achilles Destiny - [05:38]

Meant to line up with [23:22] as we transition from Achilles and Petroclus being asked to join the war against Troy ( who's theme plays ominously in the background) to Achilles mother searching for seashells, this cue has some beautiful depth to it, exploring the virtue of fame and glory vs family. As his mother tells Achilles his possible fates, we learn of his choice to go to war (knowing it would mean his doom) and the music glorifys him as we pull out further and further revealing more and more ships.

There is also a fanfare that syncs up with cuts to Paris and Helen in the chariot along with a soft melody playing as Hector and his wife embrace and she shows him his son.

Helen and Paris (Possibility 2) - [01:41]

It would start at the cut to Helen over looking the sea at [30:40] and continue to the end of the scene. If this isn't the placement, based on the rest of the score, a similar derivative would have gone here.

A Thousand Ships - [03:31]

I still can't quite find the sync point of this. I can only guess it was havily edited.I thought maybe it was once the bells started tolling so the fanfare would hit once you see the ocean and the ships small in the distance but it didn't seem to fit much past that. But editing may have changed it greatly.

As I track more in i'll update this

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I'll be blunt, Horner starts off fine but when he starts criticizing Yared's music, he's full of shit.

I wonder what Horner would think if someone came up to him and asked why all his music, well almost all, sounds like Prokofiev?

The problem with Yared's Troy is that it's too good for the film. The movie is a joke. I also wonder what idiots they screened the movie for?

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To be perfectly honest, Horner criticized Yared's score, not his music. And he might be right. Amelia is a good example. Terrific music, so-so score.

Karol

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The problem with Yared's Troy is that it's too good for the film. The movie is a joke. I also wonder what idiots they screened the movie for?

Word. The movie was asking for an "old fashioned" score, it wasn't that "modern" or groundbreaking, and if people were laughing, it was probably because the movie is really lousy.

I stand by what I said earlier, in my opinion, Horner's replacement score didn't work. At all. From what I recall, it never did anything to help the movie, it was lacking where the movie actively needed musical support, and it was obvious and grating where it wasn't necessary. And since Horner is talking about plagiarism... his Troy score is full of it, even more so than we're used from Horner. As I remember, he very directly lifted a whole sequence from Battle on the Ice for a film sequence that was already based on that scene. That hardly helps in making the film more modern, or individually outstanding.

Yared's score is brilliant, and I really hope it will be released someday. Sadly, the movie isn't nearly good enough to expect, or even want, some future "restored version" with the original score in place.

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To be perfectly honest, Horner criticized Yared's score, not his music. And he might be right. Amelia is a good example. Terrific music, so-so score.

Karol

Is it really Yared's fault or the continuation of the dumbing down of film music and movies?

The problem with Yared's Troy is that it's too good for the film. The movie is a joke. I also wonder what idiots they screened the movie for?

Word. The movie was asking for an "old fashioned" score, it wasn't that "modern" or groundbreaking, and if people were laughing, it was probably because the movie is really lousy.

I stand by what I said earlier, in my opinion, Horner's replacement score didn't work. At all. From what I recall, it never did anything to help the movie, it was lacking where the movie actively needed musical support, and it was obvious and grating where it wasn't necessary. And since Horner is talking about plagiarism... his Troy score is full of it, even more so than we're used from Horner. As I remember, he very directly lifted a whole sequence from Battle on the Ice for a film sequence that was already based on that scene. That hardly helps in making the film more modern, or individually outstanding.

Yared's score is brilliant, and I really hope it will be released someday. Sadly, the movie isn't nearly good enough to expect, or even want, some future "restored version" with the original score in place.

When I sat down to watch Troy, I had to turn it off about 20 minutes into it. Just a poor film.

Horner's music was just a continuation of everything he's composed before. And like you mentioned, and I mentioned in another thread, even more old fashioned with his Prokofiev lifts.

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Yes, but you can't blame Horner for being derivative when he had like 10 days to write this thing! Can you imagine any composer writing more than 10 minutes of score a day? It's a miracle the score as solid as it is, really.

To be perfectly honest, Horner criticized Yared's score, not his music. And he might be right. Amelia is a good example. Terrific music, so-so score.

Karol

Is it really Yared's fault or the continuation of the dumbing down of film music and movies?

Neither. You see, I enjoy Yared's Troy very much. But I can't see it working as a film score. I've seen some bits with it being restored, and they work well enough. But this is different from seeing the whole 3-hour self-important film with this kind of music that starts loud and finishes pretty much the same way. I'm not defending Horner's music here. I'm just saying he's a better dramatist than Yared. Who is a very good composer but not terribly good film composer. You see, LOTR works, because it is better structured piece and develops its epicness over long time. It doesn't really explode to these apocalyptic proportions until the very end. That's why it works.

Karol

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I will say I refused to see Troy when I heard they were making it for the same reasons I saw Alexander only once...

Did you know that Achilles and Petroclus (which some authors have called a second cousin, others a close friend, and still others a lover) had both of their bones mixed in a singular tomb. Alexander and Hephastian saw themselves as the reincarnation of these two heroes and while in Sparta I believe, they paid homage with their army watching to the tomb of the two, signifying their love for eachother, and belief in the love of Achilles and Petroclus?

Anyway, I knew the film was glossing over it so I didn't want to see it and even now, I abhore Brad Pitt in the film as much as i can barely stand Colin Ferrel as Alexander.

So its only recently I watched it (honestly, not until after I HEARD the Yared score which I had no knowledge of. I remember when the film came out hearing the Josh Groban song and just being so disgusted by the Horner score I wasn't interested at all in the film).

As for the score, it IS too good for the film. That was the bigger issue. The scores not perfect, but who's is? Williams missed a great opportunity in Star Wars when he scored "Binary Sunset." It took Lucas to convince him to write something else that we got whats in the film today and I think thats probably the bigger issue. The director went out on a limb to get Yared, and one of the easiest things to do to a film to change the tone is get a different composer... so that's what they did.

I love the score honestly and the more I see it against the film, the more I like the the film lol.. it really raises it up. The "Helen and Paris" and "Achilles Destiny" as well as "Sacking of Troy" are all aMAZING cues....

I just am so disgusted by horner...especially since he almost completely copies Yared's score for most of the film...taking the same percussive ideas, same instrumentation, just different themes...even same performers lol

The opening of the yared film has the ethnic voices, which Horner adapts and then uses again in the opening of AVATAR so its kinda funny to notice that as well heh

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Yes, but you can't blame Horner for being derivative when he had like 10 days to write this thing! Can you imagine any composer writing more than 10 minutes of score a day? It's a miracle the score as solid as it is, really.

[...]

I'm not defending Horner's music here. I'm just saying he's a better dramatist than Yared.

My main point is that with this score, Horner, in my opinion, completely fails as a dramatist. Which you could blame on just the short amount of time he was given to score it, but judging from his comments above, he seems to be convinced that he has written a significantly better score than Yared. And while I've never heard his score in the context of the film, I can't see it so completely failing what the film needs as Horner's.

Did you know that Achilles and Petroclus (which some authors have called a second cousin, others a close friend, and still others a lover) had both of their bones mixed in a singular tomb. Alexander and Hephastian saw themselves as the reincarnation of these two heroes and while in Sparta I believe, they paid homage with their army watching to the tomb of the two, signifying their love for eachother, and belief in the love of Achilles and Petroclus?

So?

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Which you could blame on just the short amount of time he was given to score it, but judging from his comments above, he seems to be convinced that he has written a significantly better score than Yared.

The only thing I get from his comments is that he's bitter about this whole experience. And just frank. After all he's a professional who knows his craft. Surely he can have an opinion. And I don't blame him.

And remember we are film music fans. We want it to be loud and prominent. Which sometimes works against the picture. I'm not saying I want it to be quiet and humble, but let's have some larger perspective on things.

But there is a problem I have with this score's rejection. I don't like the way they did it. It could have been fixed with the same composer.

Karol

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Only just noticed that Horner clearly also doesn't know Wagner:

Wolfgang's musical tendencies are to overscore everything, like a Wagner opera. He's not into subtlety. At all. Not in the slightest. And emotion to him is a 3,000-pieced orchestra playing a sappy violin theme.

I thought having ripped him off a couple of times, he'd be more familiar with his music.

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Wow...never really liked Horner but this interview's just the icing on the cake. :eek:

First time I heard Yared's Troy, especially The Opening and the gorgeous End Title Song, I got instant goosebumps.

It definitely was too good and too refined for that movie.

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My opinion from the start (or at least from when Horner's interview came out) has been that Yared did a superb score, Horner is an arrogant hypocrit, and Warner Bros were too scared to try something a bit different.

"I don't even know how to describe how atrocious the music was. "

That goes beyond professional discourtesy. And casually deciding that he can compose a better score in 10 days than Yared can in a year really makes me not like the guy.

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Yareds score is overrated.

Agreed entirely, I've just re-listened to about half a dozen synced cues on Youtube. While I'm far from a fan of Horner's music, or the Horner the man (I think he's a spineless, slimy, hubristic bastard) - but he produced a far more subtle and nuanced score for the film.

Yared's score on the other hand, sounds about as musically dire and heavy handed as your average orchestral sample library demo. There's no breathing space, lulls - everything is constantly hammered home to us. He implies that his score follows in the great tradition of Rózsa, Tiomkin, Bernstein et al - but despite being of an older sensibility, they were a great deal more sensitive to the dramatic content and images on screen, than this. Sure they could be bombastic and heraldic on occasion, but not all the time. Only in the right moments. Yared's score seems to hopelessly misjudge these moments on a regular basis.

This is more than bombastic, it's plain obnoxious.

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Id argue its a slightly different type of composing for film. Not as intimate, true, but not entirely out of place. If anything, it seemed to try to make up for the film at times and heighten what little background detail there was to develop a slight depth to the film, more so than it rightly deserved.

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There are plenty of quieter subtle cues on Troy. Far more emotive than I heard from Horner.

Obnoxious is the furthest adjective that would describe Yared's music for Troy for me.

You're about to enter a world of pain!

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To those comparing the two works: Do you know what is the difference between 10 months and 10 days?

I wonder what the two scores would have sounded like if the situation was the other way around. Then we would know for sure how weak or strong Horner's score really is. As it stands it is really unfair to compare the two. No one but the insiders has seen the film with the original score in it.

Yared spoke publically about his music, thus causing other people to bash whatever eventually ended up in the film. Mind you, that was neither mature nor professional. I think we can agree Horner is a more experienced composer and he probably knows what he's saying.

Karol - who enjoys both scores... for what they are

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When I sat down to watch Troy, I had to turn it off about 20 minutes into it.

And that's why noone will remember your name :D

(i'm pretty sure that was brought up in the first 20 minutes, so the reference should make sense)

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YAred's web guy posted only about 30 minutes of the score; the long edition we all have was a promotional item sent out to certain people, who -- as I recall the story -- were very few and were to not make copies; someone did not keep their word, appearently.

After some legal dick yanking by WB, the clips were ordered to be removed from Yared's site. Yared's web guy, however, did not and simply hide the links, and people continued to find the 30 minutes. Needless to say WB were not very nice about this. The exact details I cannot go into, as per Yared's request -- the details were rendered to me and removed from my interview with him at the time.

A few months ago I e-mailed him about something -- I don't recall what now, and he brought up "Troy" and the possibility of a release (I didn't ask) after the years. Using my own words to describe what he said: no chance in hell.

http://RejectedFilmScores.150m.com

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To those comparing the two works: Do you know what is the difference between 10 months and 10 days?

The sad thing is, even given a whole year, I think Horner's score would still feature the Prokofiev bits.

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How about the difference between 10 months and two years? Hint: "Avatar"

Time doesn't seem to be a deciding factor for Horner ... lest everyone forgets the time frame for "Aliens".

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A few months ago I e-mailed him about something -- I don't recall what now, and he brought up "Troy" and the possibility of a release (I didn't ask) after the years. Using my own words to describe what he said: no chance in hell.

Well hopefully WB is happy that the music is out there anyway and they're not seeing any $$ for it.

:shakehead:

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I've been watching some of the sync jobs people have done to the video on youtube and I don't think they all got it quite right. I only found one that was good and it was the "Sparta" source music which fits the extended cut better. The others are wrong like Opening to the extended cut... I don't think that's what it was honestly... it doesn't fit that like it does the theatrical...

Out of curiosity, does anyone know if the tracks Yared put on his site were different than the ones on that promo cd?

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I could have sworn Priam's Fugue was different on the site. However, I could be remembering it wrong.

That was the one track for me that literally made me sad his music wasn't used. It's brilliant.

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There are plenty of quieter subtle cues on Troy. Far more emotive than I heard from Horner.

Any track titles?

Obnoxious is the furthest adjective that would describe Yared's music for Troy for me.

Many moments.

The Opening - particularly the scene with the dog wandering through the remains of the battlefield. Too overblown.

Achilles vs. Boagrius.

Hector vs Achilles.

Achilles Destiny.

And more.

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You're assuming you know the placement of these. I'd argue that the directors cut is NOT the cut he scored. The opening fits the theatrical version perfectly as does Achilles Destiny and Hector vs Achiles fits... the Achiles VS Boagrius fits most of it but there's a small insert of a scene where Achilles almost doesn't fight... and that it doesn't cover. I'm making videos and will post them

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There are plenty of quieter subtle cues on Troy. Far more emotive than I heard from Horner.

Obnoxious is the furthest adjective that would describe Yared's music for Troy for me.

You're about to enter a world of pain!

Excuse me?

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There are plenty of quieter subtle cues on Troy. Far more emotive than I heard from Horner.

Obnoxious is the furthest adjective that would describe Yared's music for Troy for me.

You're about to enter a world of pain!

Excuse me?

Smokey, this is not 'Nam. This is jwfan. There are rules.

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Here at least is "The Opening" and "Achilles and Boagrius"

Watch it before it gets pulled lol

[i pulled it as not to lose my account but I'm reuploading on another account. Give me a few]

more to follow

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Didn't we already have this thread and all its contents at the time? I mean, I'm fine with a tribute to Yared's terrific work...but must we rehash the Horner interview?

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I attempted to find some sort of thread and all I found was a weekly "vote" thread about it but past that, i found no thread devoted to it. Having fallen for the score recently, I felt it necessary to try to enchant others with its charms.

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Didn't we already have this thread and all its contents at the time? I mean, I'm fine with a tribute to Yared's terrific work...but must we rehash the Horner interview?

The funny thing is to imagine how this would work today, with Steve Jablonsky taking Yared's place, drenching the celluloid with DARK KNIGHT leftovers and power anthems.

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Yeah I'm going to suggest not posting that stuff. If they are yanking it down there is a good reason and it violates the message board rules.

There's nothing wrong with discussing Yared's Troy but no linking to the actual music.

And I will add this, Yared, as well as whoever was responsible for making the music available, openly criticizing Warner Brothers, even though he had every right to, didn't help matters in this situation. And leaking the music, handing out promos is probably a good reason as to why a proper release may never happen.

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Why do they spend so much energy shutting down low-quality video clips of the movie with snippets of rejected score, while the complete rejected score in stunning quality is so much easier to find and remains available?

Or is that next?

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