Jerry Goldsmith's First Knight (La-La Land 2CD Complete)

[WampaRat 1,105]

I really enjoy the musical narrative of Lionheart. And it’s interesting use of synths always keeps my interest. But I tend to favor Jerry’s more robust/punchy action sound in First Knight overall. 
 

I still dream about what his score to Paul Verhoven’s Crusade film would have sounded like. The love child of First Knight, The 13th Warrior, and a dash of synths (just cuz) from Total Recall. The Culmination of 90s Goldsmith epic scores. 

[Edmilson 7,473]

This is a pretty interesting discussion, so I turned it into a poll:

 

Goldsmith fans, please cast your votes  

[DangerMotif 1,038]

How is this release? Would anyone recommend getting this?

[Jurassic Shark 12,091]

I'm sure Yavar will.

[KittBash 282]

I'm criminally small on my Goldsmith collection but this is one I bought when it came out... I've always enjoyed it.. It's Jerry at his 90's best

[Marian Schedenig 8,211]

1 hour ago, DangerMotif said:

How is this release? Would anyone recommend getting this?

 

The score: Yes. The release: Yes, because the OST, while certainly a quite rounded listening experience, is woefully incomplete and among other things drops all statements of the heroic Lancelot theme, of which the extra tracks have many. (I've always wondered if Goldsmith omitted it because he didn't like that he took it from Mahler)

 

…and I see now that I already wrote all of that on the previous page.

[Yavar Moradi 2,603]

1 hour ago, DangerMotif said:

How is this release? Would anyone recommend getting this?

 

Yup. You'll probably regret it if you don't.

 

1 hour ago, Jurassic Shark said:

I'm sure Yavar will.

 

Yup, and plenty of other people besides. This is not SPYS where I'm in the minority liking it.  

 

1 hour ago, KittBash said:

I'm criminally small on my Goldsmith collection but this is one I bought when it came out... I've always enjoyed it.. It's Jerry at his 90's best

 

Yup... the only part I don't much care for is Arthur's Fanfare. But that's just briefly in a few cues.

 

17 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

The score: Yes. The release: Yes, because the OST, while certainly a quite rounded listening experience, is woefully incomplete and among other things drops all statements of the heroic Lancelot theme, of which the extra tracks have many. (I've always wondered if Goldsmith omitted it because he didn't like that he took it from Mahler)

 

…and I see now that I already wrote all of that on the previous page.

 

What you said, both times!

 

Yavar

[Andy 4,141]

5 hours ago, DangerMotif said:

How is this release? Would anyone recommend getting this?

Oh my god yes. 
 

You let this one slip by, you’ll regret it. 
 

On the off chance you Don’t like it, you’ll be able to sell it for triple when it goes OOP. 

[Jurassic Shark 12,091]

5 hours ago, Yavar Moradi said:

Yup. You'll probably regret it if you don't.

 

Judging from this fan-made suite, I can't see what's so good about this score.

 

 

 

[Richard Penna 3,695]

This score occupies a strange place for me - I like bits of it - Arthur's theme, the action material, etc, but I don't like the love theme and the score as a whole doesn't quite 'sit' with me.

 

I've been tempted to pick it up on multiple occasions, given that I've never owned it.

[Andy 4,141]

The word Epic is tossed around a lot. This score truly is.  I have no idea if the film was any good, but this score fuels the imagination.  It’s really, really big in sound. 

[Jurassic Shark 12,091]

Epic doesn't imply good, though. 

[GerateWohl 4,373]

I think, "epic" more or less just means "storytelling", doesn't it?

6 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Judging from this fan-made suite, I can't see what's so good about this score.

 

Even though the music is not that spectacular it has some benefits compared to other Goldsmith scores of that time.

 

It has hardly any of these today cheap sounding snthesizers like in "Lionheart" or "Poltergeist 2" and it does not have that extrem artificial airy reverb sound that often even made a real orchestra sound like a synthesizer like in "Star Trek Insurrection". Good old fashioned orchestra score. 

 

But I agree, I would always chose any medieval Rózsa score over this one.

 

Anyway, I rate Goldsmith's Western scores high over his later adventure scores like this.

[Yavar Moradi 2,603]

3 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Epic doesn't imply good, though. 

 

When I've seen people use the word as an adjective rather than as a noun (i.e. "one of those old Hollywood epics") it's almost always a compliment.

 

3 hours ago, GerateWohl said:

It has hardly any of these today cheap sounding snthesizers like in "Lionheart" or "Poltergeist 2"

 

Hardly any? It has absolutely ZERO synth elements of any kind. I think it was Goldsmith's first fully-orchestral score since... King Solomon's Mines about a decade before it?

 

That said, between First Knight and Lionheart, I prefer Lionheart, synths (and occasionally poor orchestral performance) included.

 

Yavar

[GerateWohl 4,373]

41 minutes ago, Yavar Moradi said:

That said, between First Knight and Lionheart, I prefer Lionheart, synths (and occasionally poor orchestral performance) included.

I agree, Lionheart has the better music. 

[Marian Schedenig 8,211]

1 hour ago, Yavar Moradi said:

When I've seen people use the word as an adjective rather than as a noun (i.e. "one of those old Hollywood epics") it's almost always a compliment.

 

It's *intended* as a compliment, but it seems more often than not, people call something "epic" just because they think it's great because it's sooo bombastic. It's used as a measure of quality and very often applied to things that do not have much quality. Being epic must be earned to be good.

 

That said, First Knight is both - epic and good.

[Yavar Moradi 2,603]

3 hours ago, GerateWohl said:

But I agree, I would always chose any medieval Rózsa score over this one.

 

Since Rozsa didn't really write all that many (I'm guessing you're referring to Knights of the Round Table, Ivanhoe, and ... El Cid?) I guess I agree with you!

 

3 hours ago, GerateWohl said:

Anyway, I rate Goldsmith's Western scores high over his later adventure scores like this.

 

Same, but I think we are in the minority. First Knight is exactly the kind of Goldsmith score most "normie" soundtrack fans gravitate to, over stuff I love more like Lonely Are the Brave or 100 Rifles.

 

Yavar

[scallenger 483]

I will echo that this score is fantastic, finally getting it about a couple years ago from LLL. And what a finale it has! It's pretty entertaining and interesting through most of its runtime too (I feel like it slightly sags in the middle, but not for long). You're best off NOT seeing the film, haha.

[Thor 7,520]

Love the score, but the OST is more than enough.

[Yavar Moradi 2,603]

2 minutes ago, Thor said:

Love the score, but the OST is more than enough.

 

For you and almost nobody else, Thor. It is *entirely missing a highlight central character theme*! It is frankly one of the least-representative and worst-produced original soundtrack albums Goldsmith ever did, omitting quite a few highlights of the score.

 

Yavar

[Holko 9,531]

The LLL samples are down. Weird.

[Thor 7,520]

11 minutes ago, Yavar Moradi said:

 

For you and almost nobody else, Thor. It is *entirely missing a highlight central character theme*! It is frankly one of the least-representative and worst-produced original soundtrack albums Goldsmith ever did, omitting quite a few highlights of the score.

 

I know. But the term 'missing' doesn't exist to me in this context. I think I sampled the expanded boot once, and yes -- it has a couple of highlights that wouldn't be out-of-place in the OST -- but as it stands, it's pretty damn sweet.

[Jurassic Shark 12,091]

40 minutes ago, Thor said:

Love the score, but the OST is more than enough.

 

I'd say it's too much. Even the 15 minute suite I posted is kinda boring, although it obviously has highlights. A 5-10 minutes suite would probably be perfect. 

[Yavar Moradi 2,603]

9 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

I'd say it's too much. Even the 15 minute suite I posted is kinda boring, although it obviously has highlights. A 5-10 minutes suite would probably be perfect. 

 

What on earth about it is boring to you? Just the love theme? (I think it's a really good love theme and obviously romance is at the center of this film, but if you're not prepared for that I guess I can see being bored by it.) I just checked the suite out and it's mostly very good cues. Again, I don't care for Arthur's Fanfare which is heard at the beginning of "Meet the Queen".... and among the great cues it (and I think the original soundtrack album) leaves off is "Boat Trip", a cue which adapts that love theme into an action context and gives it more flavor and development than you can tell from the suite:

 

 

I just can't fathom someone thinking 5-10 minutes is enough to have from First Knight, but I guess if all you're basing that judgement on is a 15 minute YouTube suite somebody made rather than the 78 minute complete score, I guess that makes more sense. Which cues in that suite would you cut out to reach a "perfect" 5 minutes?

 

45 minutes ago, Thor said:

I know. But the term 'missing' doesn't exist to me in this context.

 

In other words, the existing album is "more than enough" because you simply choose to ignore that any other great music exists as written for the film. No matter how good/great it is, it doesn't matter and can't ever matter in your world because the album is all that exists and ever should exist, for people to listen to outside of the film. Well, then just acknowledge that's your very idiosyncratic way at looking at film music (albums matter, any unreleased music always doesn't matter) rather than the album being somehow objectively "more than enough". For me Lancelot's Theme is an important part of the fabric of this score, and its absence negatively impacts it in a huge, substantive way.

 

43 minutes ago, Thor said:

I think I sampled the expanded boot once, and yes -- it has a couple of highlights that wouldn't be out-of-place in the OST -- but as it stands, it's pretty damn sweet.

 

"Pretty damn sweet" certainly isn't the same as "more than enough" (implying that the existing brief album is TOO long). Which is it?

Yavar

[Jurassic Shark 12,091]

Yeah, @Thor, don't be so inconsistent!

 

[Tallguy 3,401]

Forget it Yavar, it's Thor town.

[Jurassic Shark 12,091]

Sorry, Yavar, that's just a post too long. 5-10 words would be perfect!

[Thor 7,520]

14 minutes ago, Yavar Moradi said:

In other words, the existing album is "more than enough" because you simply choose to ignore that any other great music exists as written for the film.

 

Exactamundo! The film -- and the music within -- basically doesn't exist to me when I'm enjoying and/or assessing a soundtrack album. I only assess what's "in front of me". As such, the OST works wonderfully (as Marian alluded to earlier in the thread). But -- having listened to, and even owned, the extended bootleg (not the official expansion yet) -- I've realized there are a couple of cues that wouldn't be out of place on the OST without it losing its flow. "Lancelot's Theme", as you mention, is one of them. Perhaps one of these days, I'll combine the OST cues with a (short) selection of cues from the expanded release.

[Jurassic Shark 12,091]

17 minutes ago, Yavar Moradi said:

 

Not available in my territory. 

[scallenger 483]

1 hour ago, Thor said:

Love the score, but the OST is more than enough.

 

*sprays water bottle at you*

 

Hey, no! Back, get back! Jwfan, I thought I told you not to let him in this room!

 

*sprays again*

 

[Teasing. I value your opinion... but no. Of course, no.]

[Andy 4,141]

If I listened to the quantity of scores Thor does, I might prefer abridged presentations too.  What did I read, he said 500-600 a year?  That’s almost 2 per day. I’m lucky if I fit 40 minutes of score a day in on my commute.   Maybe his work is such that he’s already thinking about the next score before the current one is finished, thinking get on with it. 

[Jurassic Shark 12,091]

He's more OST than man now.

[Thor 7,520]

Just now, Jurassic Shark said:

He's more OST than man now.

 

Your best joke post so far.

[Jurassic Shark 12,091]

3 minutes ago, Thor said:

 

Your best joke post so far.

 

One of them was bound to stick.

[1977 1,743]

I think it's possible to enjoy an abridged presentation of a film score regardless of any significant thematic material that may be missing.

 

To this day I still think Charles Gerhardt's CE3K suite is an incredible 25 minutes of music which I vastly prefer to the longer OST release.

 

I'm quite fond of the First Knight 4-track suite on the Critic's Choice CoPPO comp conducted by David Michael Frank, which doesn't even feature Never Surrender, which many probably consider the highlight of the score.

 

That same orchestra's Under Fire suite is also my preferred presentation of that particular score (let the lynching commence).

[Jurassic Shark 12,091]

3 minutes ago, JTWfan77 said:

To this day I still think Charles Gerhardt's CE3K suite is an incredible 25 minutes of music which I vastly prefer to the longer OST release.

 

Yes!

[Marian Schedenig 8,211]

2 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

I'd say it's too much. Even the 15 minute suite I posted is kinda boring, although it obviously has highlights. A 5-10 minutes suite would probably be perfect. 

 

Goldsmith conducted a 13 minute suite in London in 2003, and it was still missing one of my favourite bits (that's on the OST).

[Jurassic Shark 12,091]

7 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

Goldsmith conducted a 13 minute suite in London in 2003, and it was still missing one of my favourite bits (that's on the OST).

 

So he made an overlong suite that didn't even have the best parts.

[Jurassic Shark 12,091]

11 hours ago, JTWfan77 said:

Never Surrender

 

I just listened to it and found it annoying. 

 

12 hours ago, Yavar Moradi said:

Arthur's Fanfare

 

That's one of my issues with the score. Its rhythm just makes it sound too modern, and regardless it's not very good.

[Yavar Moradi 2,603]

Yeah but it’s only in like 3 cues (all of which were on the original album I think lol).

 

I love all the other thematic material in the score besides it. Wish it had been the theme Goldsmith entirely left off the original album instead of Lancelot’s.

 

Yavar

[Marian Schedenig 8,211]

I like the fanfare very much. And its placement as an album opening track works better than in the chronological version, where its shortness stands out quite a bit. I haven't seen the film, so I don't know if it's source music, but on the C&C it sounds like score but feels like source music.

[blondheim 1,157]

This is one of my favorite Goldsmith scores. It works both ways. The longer score is never boring and the shorter OST is nice and tight. I don’t find Lancelot’s theme as necessary as some people although I like it just fine. I pull both out about equally I would say, at least since I started really liking the score.

 

I only listened to the OST in all the time it took me to really appreciate this score so I still recommend it as a starting experience as it is the presentation that got me to love the score so much. 

[Jurassic Shark 12,091]

On 17/02/2023 at 8:42 PM, Yavar Moradi said:

What on earth about it is boring to you?

 

You're asking why people have different tastes in music? Genes and environment, I reckon.

[Yavar Moradi 2,603]

I didn't ask "Why on earth is it boring to you?"

 

I asked "What on earth about it is boring to you?" (i.e. what elements) And I even asked if it was the love theme, because that suite somebody made had a lot of it (and not the action setting).

 

Yavar

[Jurassic Shark 12,091]

It's not about any particular elements, the music just doesn't grab my attention. 

[Yavar Moradi 2,603]

Except you said you did like 5-10 minutes of the 15 minute suite somebody made. Which 5-10 minutes clicked with you and which 10-5 minutes didn’t?

 

Yavar

[Jurassic Shark 12,091]

That was an overstatement. 

 

 

[Yavar Moradi 2,603]

On 17/02/2023 at 12:10 PM, Jurassic Shark said:

I'd say it's too much. Even the 15 minute suite I posted is kinda boring, although it obviously has highlights. A 5-10 minutes suite would probably be perfect. 

 

So... you don't think it has any obvious highlights? Or it's an overstatement that you like 5-10 minutes because you actually like <5 minutes? If you liked any of the suite, can't you say what part(s) of it you actually liked?

 

Yavar

[Jurassic Shark 12,091]

I was trying to be nice!

[DangerMotif 1,038]

@Yavar MoradiAny other Goldsmith recommendations for someone who thinks Arthur’s Farewell is one of the best pieces of music ever?

My copy is coming this week.