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Pirate music suggestions


blondheim

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Building a compilation of pirate music for some close friends. Specific tracks or cues would be helpful, even if the whole score is relevant. I am curious what everyone's suggestions would be, even with the obvious scores that will certainly be trod out.

 

I am going to anchor this mixtape with The Ultimate War and the Prometheus version of the finale of Cutthroat Island. They make nice almost twenty-minute pirate battle brother suites. I did another compilation years ago for friends unfamiliar with film music and anchored it with two Williams alien encounters: Adventures on Earth and the Special Edition of the Close Encounters. So this is sort of a throwback to that.

 

I am looking for stuff to fill those two bookends with. Sincere thanks in advance

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19 minutes ago, Jay said:

I always thought of this as JW's take on yo ho ho piratey stuff 

 

 

 

Other than the rest of the Ultimate War, this was my most wanted cue from Hook for a very long time. I was amazed it wasn't on the OST. It has such an impact in the film. It made this version of Neverland seem exciting, almost dangerous.

 

Thanks for all the suggestions, guys! The more the merrier. I am making a playlist of everything I haven't heard now. I will get back to you when I have been able to hear it all.

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11 hours ago, Muad'Dib said:

This always sounded extremely pirate-y to my ears

 

Nautical, rather (though a favourite of mine), which I deliberately avoided in my above list. But in this case I'd also add:

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Muad'Dib said:

Also, this. Always pictured pirates to this particular part with the horns

 

 

Also, I can totally picture a swordfight to this:

 

 

 Scherzi are rather swashbuckling, aren't they

 

The one in Bruckner's 5th has some pirate energy too

 

Also, Szell is top-notch. Great choice of Beethoven conductor

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I've seen some decent recommendations in this thread. Horner, God yes. Williams? Sure. Yet, the only Pirates of the Caribbean references I've seen are Zimmer? Fuck that. Let's go back to Disneyland in the late 1960s.

 

 

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6 hours ago, blondheim said:

Also, Szell is top-notch. Great choice of Beethoven conductor

 

Yeah! He's got the best studio 9th, and the best live 5th (on Orfeo).

 

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned this one:

 

 

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6 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

Yeah! He's got the best studio 9th, and the best live 5th (on Orfeo).

 

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned this one:

 

 

 

 

The final movement of the 9th has never sounded as good as it does on that Cleveland.

 

Theodore Shapiro doesn't get the credit he deserves. Plus, my friend loves his stuff. I was unaware of this, so thanks!

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3 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

Oh, and he also has the best mono studio 5th!

 

May I have more information about the two 5ths you've mentioned? Live Orfeo and...? I only have his studio Cleveland atm

 

(I love a comparative listen)

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Szell/Cleveland mono studio (Sony):

 

 

It may sound better here:

https://open.spotify.com/album/2RBtET6evfJHQHZJPL6D9G?si=iT5YO-j6Shee7AY6AJ2GdQ

 

Szell/BPO live stereo (Orfeo):

 

 

Of course, there's also a fine 5th with the Concertgebouw (Philips):

 

 

And, for the sake of completeness, here's his stereo studio recording with the Clevelanders:

 

 

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Szell's is probably my favourite recording of Beethoven's 9th.

 

18 hours ago, blondheim said:

The one in Bruckner's 5th has some pirate energy too

 

I've never heard anything that reminded me of pirates in any of Bruckner's music. Not even anything really nautical (no wonder, I suppose the main body of water throughout most of Bruckner's life was the Danbue), though the Scherzo of the 8th has a wonderfully "wavy" touch in Karajan's last recording of it. His *intentionally* most sea-inspired work must be Helgoland:

 

 

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All right since we’re going classical, I’ve always thought the opening of this work by Bizet sounded particularly pirate-y:

 

(music starts 25 sec in)

 

This is music for a theatrical play (so very much a predecessor of the film score) but alas not music actually about pirates. :) 

 

Yavar

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1 hour ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Szell's is probably my favourite recording of Beethoven's 9th.

 

 

I've never heard anything that reminded me of pirates in any of Bruckner's music. Not even anything really nautical (no wonder, I suppose the main body of water throughout most of Bruckner's life was the Danbue), though the Scherzo of the 8th has a wonderfully "wavy" touch in Karajan's last recording of it. His *intentionally* most sea-inspired work must be Helgoland:

 

 

 

Likewise with Szell's 9th.

 

I am curious what nautical sounds like to you. I can't think of any particular chord or structure that is officially nautical. I used the adjective swashbuckling because if I close my eyes while listening to those two Bruckner scherzi (5 and 6) I can almost see pirates swinging on rigging or hopping from one boat to another.

 

The first movement of the 6th could also easily be a ship appearing out of the mist a la the Moby Dick sequence of The Pagemaster. At least to me, I like to associate music with my own personal images, colors, feelings. Some recordings even imply narratives to me, in their own way. That is just how I experience music. It doesn't have to officially be anything in order for me to associate it that way.

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Not at all CutThroat Island level, but here are a couple other good 90s pirate scores to represent:

 

https://youtu.be/v-pz17PBs_s

 

And this for my money is far superior pirate music from Zimmer than most of his Pirates of the Caribbean work (Up Is Down maybe being an exception but I heard one of his assistant composers wrote that):

 

 

Yavar

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John Addison's score for Swashbuckler is a good one.  As well as the main theme here, there is a fine suite on a Chandos compilation of the composer's music which includes the love theme.  Although Jock Addison had a very distinctive, slightly whimsical orchestral style, this score sounds quite Goldsmithian in places.

 

 

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55 minutes ago, Yavar Moradi said:

Not at all CutThroat Island level, but here are a couple other good 90s pirate scores to represent:

 

https://youtu.be/v-pz17PBs_s

 

And this for my money is far superior pirate music from Zimmer than most of his Pirates of the Caribbean work (Up Is Down maybe being an exception but I heard one of his assistant composers wrote that):

 

 

Yavar

 

This score is near and dear to me

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6 hours ago, blondheim said:

I am curious what nautical sounds like to you. I can't think of any particular chord or structure that is officially nautical. I used the adjective swashbuckling because if I close my eyes while listening to those two Bruckner scherzi (5 and 6) I can almost see pirates swinging on rigging or hopping from one boat to another.

 

(Sidenode: "Nautical" wasn't the right term for Helgoland, but it certainly deliberately depicts a stormy sea)

 

"Nautical" (not necessarily but) often has a very British connotation in my mind (something that Setting Sail from Cutthroat Island mimics well). "Swashbuckling" is very much defined by the Korngold sound. Richard Strauss has done things in that vein on occasion. Bruckner feels too structured, planned through to me for anything that I would consider an "action scene". Some of his music fits astronomy well (I once saw a trailer for some BBC astronomy programme that used the coda from the 8th to great effect). Astronomy can have a nautical connotation (just watch the opening of Carl Sagan's Cosmos), but not with Bruckner I think. I generally rarely see images with music unless possibly when I'm aware that the music is meant to depict something specific. I also don't see colours (I suppose I'm entirely un-synesthetic). I do sometimes "see" moods, or a specific atmosphere, and Bruckner above all is for me very clear in that regard. Or perhaps his music is so "architectural" that the musical construction itself conjures up something tangible in my mind. For the opening of the 6th (one of my favourites) however, I mostly "see" rhythm and counterpoint (and for the finale, an organ). It's perhaps one of his most mathematical works. I've long considered Bruckner the origin of Philip Glass style minimalism.

 

Going back to nautical/sea music, both Moby Dicks are relevant as well:

 

 

 


That last one might just pass as pirate music, too.

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  • 1 year later...
On 28/09/2020 at 5:24 PM, Yavar Moradi said:

(Up Is Down maybe being an exception but I heard one of his assistant composers wrote that)

Really? Is it true that Zimmer didn't write Up is Down, which is one of the very best cues in the At World's End OST? 

 

You have no idea how disappointing this is to me :( 

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