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Seven Years In Tibet (John Williams)


Naïve Old Fart

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Yes, it's an excellent album. One of his better OST presentations.

 

Would love to hear the film score as intended though. It's a gorgeous score!

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1 hour ago, Incanus said:

I found this info in some of my old docs regarding the break-down of the tracks on the OST (done by someone else):

OST track number + Cue number + cue name

1. 15m3 End Credit

2. 1m5 Young Dali Lama (Cue B) + the percussion and chanting at the end

3. 1m3 (insert) Leaving Ingrid (old Cue A)

4. 1m3A The Rescue of Peter

    5m5A Escaping the Bandits: bars 1-41

    13m2 The Tibetan Defeat

5. 3m1 Transported to Prison

    5m6 Horsemeat and Rescue

    3m7 The Second Escape

6. 13m1 Preparing the Defense

    3m11 Stealing Food

    11m9A The Generals Enter

    13m3 The Chinese Takeover

7. 1m5 Young Dali Lama

    11m4 Prophetic Dream

8. No Cue # The Child of Tibet

9. 7m1AX The Capitol City

   1m7 Meeting the Sherpa: bars 1-23

   1m3 Leaving Ingrid: bars 10-41

   5m2 Sixty-Eight Kilometers: bars 9-end

10. 7m3 Western Clothes: bars 1-20

     9m3 Meeting the Dali

11. 13m11 The Dali Lama Investiture

     5m5 Heinrich's Slow Growth (bars 1-14m bars 9-112)

12. 11m10 Praying Through Telescope

     3m4 The Barbed Wire Scene

     9m1 Thinking by the Water

13. 15m2 Regaining a Son (New)

14. 15m3 End Credit

 

I actually edited the OST into this chronological configuration (more or less by ear making guesses where one cue ends and another begins if it is not clear) and it is in typical film music fashion full of many short cues. I think as with e.g. Angela's Ashes Williams opted to combine shorter cues to create a better listening experience with lengthier pieces edited together with their own dramatic arcs. 

 

But then again as a John Williams fanatic I would not say no to a complete chronological score release of this gem. ;)

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58 minutes ago, Incanus said:

 

Btw the Leaving Ingrid film version is on the OST, edited into the middle section of track 9.

 

I found this info in some of my old docs regarding the break-down of the tracks on the OST (done by someone else):

OST track number + Cue number + cue name

1. 15m3 End Credit

2. 1m5 Young Dali Lama (Cue B) + the percussion and chanting at the end

3. 1m3 (insert) Leaving Ingrid (old Cue A)

4. 1m3A The Rescue of Peter

    5m5A Escaping the Bandits: bars 1-41

    13m2 The Tibetan Defeat

5. 3m1 Transported to Prison

    5m6 Horsemeat and Rescue

    3m7 The Second Escape

6. 13m1 Preparing the Defense

    3m11 Stealing Food

    11m9A The Generals Enter

    13m3 The Chinese Takeover

7. 1m5 Young Dali Lama

    11m4 Prophetic Dream

8. No Cue # The Child of Tibet

9. 7m1AX The Capitol City

   1m7 Meeting the Sherpa: bars 1-23

   1m3 Leaving Ingrid: bars 10-41

   5m2 Sixty-Eight Kilometers: bars 9-end

10. 7m3 Western Clothes: bars 1-20

     9m3 Meeting the Dali

11. 13m11 The Dali Lama Investiture

     5m5 Heinrich's Slow Growth (bars 1-14m bars 9-112)

12. 11m10 Praying Through Telescope

     3m4 The Barbed Wire Scene

     9m1 Thinking by the Water

13. 15m2 Regaining a Son (New)

14. 15m3 End Credit

 

What an absolute mess!

 

 

 

 

And it works so well!

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Does anyone know if most of the source music was recorded by Williams for the film, or if they just licenced existing recordings instead? 

 

Holko identified quite a healthy list of credited music in the end titles. 

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Didn't need much identification, I just watched the movie and made screenshots of the credits! :lol:

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1 hour ago, crumbs said:

@BrotherSound's new strategy for finding cues in film order could certainly come in handy here.


Alas, the repertoire databases don’t have any information about the film cues for Seven Years in Tibet.

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38 minutes ago, crumbs said:

Does anyone know if most of the source music was recorded by Williams for the film, or if they just licenced existing recordings instead? 

 

Holko identified quite a healthy list of credited music in the end titles. 

I would hazard a guess that Williams didn't record much of the source music but rather integrated it or wrote around it, e.g. all the deep brass mimicking the Tibetan horn drones heard in the film. If I recall correctly, it has been some time since I have seen the film, some of Williams' film cues were replaced by the Tibetan source music in the final film.

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When I heard Memoirs of a Geisha for the first time the main theme sounded already very familiar to me. I didn't know why.

 

When I recently listened again to Seven Years in Tibet I realized why. Partly the more ethnic music in the score is very very close to Sayuri's Theme. When you leave out the "Love Story" variation the scores are very similar musically in many ways.

 

 

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Wouldn't the film's IMDB page show all the same source music information that the end credits do?  Why are screenshots needed?

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  • 4 months later...

So based on the complete cue list here, does that mean all the music in the opening sequence of the film is not actually Williams? Quite disappointing if so, because it's very atmospheric and sets the mood nicely.

 

 

The cue list indicates 1m3 is the first cue of the score, for a scene that follows the one above. 

 

Quote

1m3 Leaving Ingrid (Cue A)

1m3 (Insert) Leaving Ingrid (old Cue A)
1m3A The Rescue of Peter
1m4
1m5 Young Dali Lama (Cue B)
1m7 Meeting the Sherpa
3m1 Transported to Prison
3m2 Alone In Prison
3m4 The Barbed Wire Scene (Cue C)
3m6A The Escape
3m7-Long The Second Escape
3m11 Stealing Food
5m2 Sixty-Eight Kilometers
5m5 Heinrich’s Slow Growth (Cue E)
5m5A Escaping the Bandits
5m6 Horsemeat and Rescue
7m1AX The Capitol City
7m3 Western Clothes
7m5 Peter and Pema
9m1 Thinking by the Water
9m3 Meeting the Dali
11m4 Prophetic Dream
11m9A The Generals Enter
11m10 Praying Through A Telescope
13m1 Prepraring the Defense
13m2 The Tibetan Defeat
13m3 The Chinese Takeover
13m11 The Dali Lama’s Investiture
15m2 Regaining A Son (new)
15m3 End Credits

 

 

Begs the question why Williams didn't compose an original piece for the very opening of the film. 

 

Has anyone ever worked out how much music is actually missing from the OST? I suspected a lot after watching the film, but if most of the Tibetan music is non-JW then there might not be much missing after all.

 

Based on how short the cue list is, it seems the OST is more comprehensive than I thought. 

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11 hours ago, crumbs said:

So based on the complete cue list here, does that mean all the music in the opening sequence of the film is not actually Williams?


I believe that list only contains cues used for the OST and isn’t actually complete. And unfortunately, the repertoire databases don’t seem to have any cue information for this score.

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14 minutes ago, BrotherSound said:


I believe that list only contains cues used for the OST and isn’t actually complete. And unfortunately, the repertoire databases don’t seem to have any cue information for this score.

 

That's a shame. So we have no real idea of what exists in the vaults for this score? Maybe it'll be an Eiger Sanction scenario, where an expansion reveals a treasure-trove of unreleased, unused goodies.

 

After watching the film, the score jumped quite high on my list of most-wanted expansions.

 

Hopefully Sony isn't a roadblock to licensing this one. And the film's 25th Anniversary is next year, seems a good excuse for one of the labels to revisit it!

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Thanks for the reminder that I hadn’t listened to this score for far too long, so I’m doing so now.

 

Incidentally, the HMV price tag is still on my CD from 1997. According to an inflation calculator, in 2021 money, I paid the equivalent of £30 for it! It puts into context our complaints about the prices of expansions from the specialist labels…

 

Mark

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On 11/10/21 at 11:45 PM, crumbs said:

That's a shame. So we have no real idea of what exists in the vaults for this score? Maybe it'll be an Eiger Sanction scenario, where an expansion reveals a treasure-trove of unreleased, unused goodies.

 

Found an entry for something called “Gongs” by David Arthur Fanshawe, which is listed as used in the film in the SABAM database. Maybe this is that main title music?

 

https://eservices.sabam.be/pls/apex/f?p=1050:2::::RP,2:P2_WRK_ID,P2_WRK_ID_AV:4095769,NULL&cs=3dZ3X2Gp51Tb6iBngTlA8htPatrvdy2U071UG-aN_5J0APUQ7-2-EWuhRnUaoA6jt_MdkfnTUei7zAD6sQTSglA

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