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The Official Jerry Goldsmith Thread


Faleel

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25 minutes ago, Tom Guernsey said:

If you want a compilation with a fairly good range and generally decent performances, Silva’s 4CD set isn’t bad at all and features a number of performances conducted by the composer as well as others by the City of Prague Philharmonic.

 

Thanks! I'll make a start with this - hopefully once I've narrowed down the kind of things I like I can get some more recommendations based on those. :)

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3 hours ago, Anthony said:

 

Thanks! I'll make a start with this - hopefully once I've narrowed down the kind of things I like I can get some more recommendations based on those. :)

 

Let me recommend some stuff from my three favorite Goldsmith scores of all time to you, because not a single one of them has been mentioned:

 

1. The Artist Who Did Not Want to Paint -- This was a score for a short documentary film that played before roadshow showings of The Agony and the Ecstasy (scored by Alex North). It is my single favorite work by Goldsmith and there are two great recordings of it (the original and a re-recording with the London Symphony Orchestra). Here is the latter (which was my introduction to the work): 

 

2. QBVII "A Kaddish for the Six Million" -- Next up, we have *one* of the greatest cues from what might be Goldsmith's magnum opus (if anything is...there are so many contenders) -- an Emmy-winning TV miniseries score with the Holocaust as its primary subject. This was Goldsmith doing incredible choral writing a year before The Omen; this performance is from the 2012 complete Tadlow recording:

 

3. Lonely Are the Brave "Worlds Apart" -- This is my #1 favorite cue from my #1 favorite Goldsmith feature film score. Alas, I can't find it online anywhere to share with you and the Varese edition of the score is long out of print, but if you have a way to get it, get it. It's a masterpiece.

 

Yavar

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Yavar's favorite score list is certainly not what I expected from such a big fan!.

Totally different than mine yet  we both adore his music!😊

Btw I agree about the MUSIC for AGONY but i.never considered it a " score"- just a fantastic cue!

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13 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

@Yavar Moradi,

I found WORLDS APART online. It's on YouTube, with the rest of the score :).

Apparently, it was "updated" (don't ask me what that means) two days ago.

LONELY ARE THE BRAVE is a score I like, from a film I like.

 

I'm glad! In the film that cue is even more powerful, thanks to the incredible performances of Kirk Douglas and the luminous Gena Rowlands.

 

15 hours ago, bruce marshall said:

Yavar's favorite score list is certainly not what I expected from such a big fan!.

Totally different than mine yet  we both adore his music!

 

I learned this past year that none other than Joe Dante has the same favorite Goldsmith feature score: Lonely Are the Brave. He's the first other person I've heard declare it as their favorite besides myself, probably because the film is comparatively so obscure. But it's just incredible. I even wrote an academic paper on the film with emphasis on the score.

 

15 hours ago, bruce marshall said:

Btw I agree about the MUSIC for AGONY but i.never considered it a " score"- just a fantastic cue!

 

Technically it was written as five cues designed with seamless transitions between them:

 

1-1 "Rome (Prologue)," 6 pages

1-2 "Florence," 7 pages

1-2/3-1 "The Crucifix," 5 pages

2-2 "The Stone Giants," 8 pages

2-3 "The Agony of Creation," 5 pages

 

These cue titles are reflected on Intrada rerecording with the London Symphony Orchestra: http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.12350/.f?sc=13&category=-113

 

But it's remarkable how these five cues flow together so brilliantly, with the final impression that it feels like one continuous piece, almost like it was conceived as a concert work. That's why I call Lonely Are the Brave my "favorite Goldsmith feature score", because this one (my single favorite work by Goldsmith) is still a film score...it's just for a short documentary film, not a full length feature.

 

Yavar

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I'm intrigued by your high praise for Lonely Are The Brave!  I own the Varese Club CD, but haven't listened to it yet.

 

Since it's now 12 years old and OOP, do you have any reason to believe a remastered edition could be coming this year?  Any idea how complete/incomplete the 2009 edition is?

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5 minutes ago, bruce marshall said:

I remember posting about AWDNWTP on FSM.

I had just heard it, for the first time, upon receiving the FOX BOX.

I was blown away!

 

Oh so you never got the 1989 Intrada recording with the London Symphony? That was my introduction, so it was cool many years later to get the original recording and compare the differences.

 

19 minutes ago, Jay said:

I'm intrigued by your high praise for Lonely Are The Brave!  I own the Varese Club CD, but haven't listened to it yet.

 

Since it's now 12 years old and OOP, do you have any reason to believe a remastered edition could be coming this year?  Any idea how complete/incomplete the 2009 edition is?

 

I have no reason to suspect a new edition could be coming out, but I certainly hope Varese doesn't control it (like they weirdly do for The Ballad of Cable Hogue, also another Goldsmith western Club premiere release which has never been revisited later by another label). It seems like it would be a natural release for Intrada, since they have a good relationship with Universal, and Doug Fake and Jerry Goldsmith were originally planning to re-record Lonely Are the Brave with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1989 instead of Rio Conchos, and only made the switch because the written scores for Lonely Are the Brave could not be located...

 

Yavar

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  • 1 month later...


Sorry if this isn’t the correct place to share this. And double sorry if it’s already been shared. But I’d never heard this interview with Jerry. It’s just audio not a video. Comments suggest it’s cerca Star Trek The Final Frontier(?)

 

Nothing super revelatory probably for hardcore Goldsmith fans. But Jerry seems genuinely engaged. 
 

(Side note: He talks about how established themes for franchises are often cast aside in subsequent films. He cites John Williams own Temple of Doom as not using the Raiders March enough 😆. I’ll let you decide if he’s right or wrong)

 

Favorite quote: “They ain’t gonna be whistling to sound effects”

-Jerry Goldsmith

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7 hours ago, WampaRat said:

 (Side note: He talks about how established themes for franchises are often cast aside in subsequent films. He cites John Williams own Temple of Doom as not using the Raiders March enough 😆. I’ll let you decide if he’s right or wrong)

 

I think he just confused 2 with 3, because he's clearly just seen Last Crusade, which indeed uses the tune more sparingly (TOD decidedly doesn't).

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  • 2 months later...

Wow... I remember hearing bits and pieces at the time.... Safe to assume Lukas isn't Carol's favorite person. Probably not even in the top 7 billion.

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Hmm. I wonder who the "...person who is professionally associated with Jerry..." might be?

We'll never know, of course, nor should we.

When something like this happens, I prefer remain to be completely ignorant, and just continue to enjoy Jerry's music.

 

 

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Whoever it was/is, the three chapters uploaded didn't reveal anything that the standard actor etc. bio's don't. Why Goldsmith's wife should be offended by reading in print something she obviously knew firsthand about (the kid's didn't like her that much) is beyond me. 

 

Sounds like filter bubble bs to me.

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7 hours ago, pete said:

Wow... I remember hearing bits and pieces at the time.... Safe to assume Lukas isn't Carol's favorite person. Probably not even in the top 7 billion.

 

You mean Carrie? 

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22 minutes ago, Jay said:

 

You mean Carrie? 

 

I meant Carol, but I just noticed that while reading it, I got the two mixed up! 

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I'm with Kendall on this.

 

I don't really see the point, even more when you are a family member, to write a a book about a public person, just to reveal what he or she said in private about all and nothing, just to sell paper and to make sure old collaborators and old friends will be mad about this...

 

That's pretty pointless.

 

What Jerry Goldsmith told in private to his daughter or anybody else is private.

 

If you want to write a book and want absolutely to write "the truth" about someone, speak about his personality traits, about the way he reacted or not to this or this event... but keep the "shit talk" and the names private.... mercy.

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Him not destroying it has caused Carrie and Carol a lot of emotional stress. I think the calls to destroy it are based on simple empathy and compassion.

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I don't think we really know any of these people. There's being compassionate and then there's being too involved. From a legal perspective, it seems like he can keep it and from a historical perspective, it seems to me that he should. He says it is what it is as it is.

 

God knows I would love to read it, but if I don't ever, oh well.

 

But I am certainly not going to go online and post what he should do and why, or threaten to stop using the site, or act like it's the worst thing that has ever happened at FSM. I would... just stop using the site. I mean, this doesn't hold a candle to some of the stuff I've read in threads about Black Panther, or Captain Marvel. Or that day Lukas posted a wonderful thesis by a woman analyzing Star Trek themes and the FSM forum exploded.

 

I have been refreshing the page all day and I don't think I've turned on my TV even once.

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5 minutes ago, blondheim said:

I'm still not sure how trying not to giggle at Joel Goldsmith's rant was offensive.

 

I think writing the comment about it was very disrespectful towards a deceased person who had every right to be very upset at the time. I wrote as much to Lukas in that thread, even though I defended him elsewhere in it.

 

Yavar

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10 minutes ago, Yavar Moradi said:

 

I think writing the comment about it was very disrespectful towards a deceased person who had every right to be very upset at the time. I wrote as much to Lukas in that thread, even though I defended him elsewhere in it.

 

Yavar

 

While I agree that Joel had every right to rant (I would have and I am famously hot-tempered), Lukas has every right to react his own way. And if that was his actual reaction, I'm glad he's owning that and putting on a fufu PR act. I probably wouldn't have typed it myself but I definitely didn't find it offensive. I always find it odd that we rush to protect the feelings of the dead so much. Let's protect the feelings of the living. I feel like Sondheim's rule of only talking about people in a way they might find hurtful until after they are dead is a good rule. The Joel comment might have been a little insensitive, but the whole post was, in its way. I'm not sure how upset reading that specific line would have made any of the Goldsmiths who are still living. I am sure they were aware of Joel's temper and the event. It seemed like something to roll one's eyes at. I was surprised so many people were bolding this statement and using it as some kind of psychoanalytical indicator of Kendall's bad intentions.

 

Basically, I didn't feel it was a necessary detail to include but it didn't even occur to me to have a position on it until I could read aneurysms bursting through my screen.

 

 

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30 minutes ago, Yavar Moradi said:

I think only one person bolded it, and I didn’t call it offensive, but disrespectful.

 

Yavar

 

I didn't mean you. I definitely wasn't trying to put words in your mouth, I apologize.

 

I was referring to the general response to that line. I didn't personally find it disrespectful myself, nor would I if he were referring to one of my own loved ones but that's just me. I don't think an excessive reaction negates the validity of that reaction: I may be 100% right about something but not right about how I delivered the information.

 

I don't think any of us can say with certainty that Joel didn't eat a little piece of crow that day over the phone, no matter how valid his outrage. Lukas has every right to speak facts. It doesn't seem disrespectful for one to essentially say "I once almost laughed at this person who is now dead because I thought he was being ridiculous about something he had a right to be upset about."

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
2 hours ago, Bespin said:

It seems there is no "definitive" compilation of Jerry Goldmith's music...

Is there a definitive compilation of anyone’s music?! Even the most wide ranging collection will miss something out. But I’d say this comes close… 

 

https://open.spotify.com/album/24oOUbqrylz7XCI7ZxF7FA?si=Tfy7fRrVSi6PW_VtnZ3vjA&dl_branch=1

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53 minutes ago, Tom Guernsey said:

A few but they did his stuff pretty well. It’s certainly not a bad starting point. 

 

Nah. Goldsmith's idiosyncrasies don't come through, which is a serious problem on i. e. Under Fire or Gremlins 2. And the rhythmic imprecision of the often highly complicated meters kills the busier stuff. Which leaves undemanding cues as the Powder theme, which come off best, but which are not exactly the beacons of his filmography.

 

Bottom line: there's neither a Gerhardt or Salonen calibre re-recording, which leaves only a scant few pieces like the Blue Max suite and some Frontier cues as truly noteworthy.

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2 minutes ago, publicist said:

 

Nah. Goldsmith's idiosyncrasies don't come through, which is a serious problem on i. e. Under Fire or Gremlins 2. And the rhythmic imprecision of the often highly complicated meters kills the busier stuff. Which leaves undemanding cues as the Powder theme, which come off best, but which are not exactly the beacons of his filmography.

 

Bottom line: there's neither a Gerhardt or Salonen calibre re-recording, which leaves only a scant few pieces like the Blue Max suite and some Frontier cues as truly noteworthy.

I take your point but it includes all of that previously out of print Goldsmith Conducts Goldsmith recordings and while not perfect, enough of the Prague performances make it worth picking up as a starting point. The Omen suite is particularly great for my money. However I agree it’s not up to the terrific Tadlow “B side” compilation that was on their Blue Max album but that’s a wider mix of well known tracks and obscurities. Frontiers is fine but I enjoy it less than I did when it originally came out.

 

I agree the Gerhardt and Salonen albums are great but not really extensive enough to be called definitive even if the performances are terrific.

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