Christopher Young's THE PIPER (2023) - NEW! 2024 Intrada Premiere release

[Jay 37,369]

Roger says:

 

Coming to CD and digitally 4/16.

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/95015405220/posts/10168854230530221/

 

Christopher Young says:

 

Dear friends,

 

I'm elated to finally share with you the news that my score from The Piper is coming on 4/16 (CD & digital) from my life long friends at Intrada Records. This release has been a long time coming. So many of you have reached out asking, when can we hear this, well your wait is coming to an end next month. Thank you to my dear friend and the director of The Piper Erlingur Óttar Thoroddsen. Doug & Roger from Intrada, my reps Alexander Vangelos (First Artists Management) & Peter Hackman (Different Direction Mgmt).

 

Your friend,

Chris

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/C44Sq6gxmaR/

[Edmilson 7,466]

The tracklist for the Intrada album hasn't been revealed, right? I wonder if they'll use the same from the promo album that IFMCA had access:

1. Suite from The Piper (21:02)
2. The Piper – Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, Movement 1 (11:16)
3. The Piper – Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, Movement 2 (7:35)
4. The Piper – Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, Movement 3 (11:22)

[Marian Schedenig 8,200]

Ah, another one of those concert work style structured Young albums? He did it for Bless the Child (using the Requiem mass structure), so I imagine he'd like this album to stick to his format, too. It worked well for Bless the Child in any case.

[Edmilson 7,466]

According to Jon Broxton:

 

Quote

The most interesting thing about all this is that, essentially, Young scored it twice. Firstly, before shooting even began, Young wrote a 30-minute three-movement Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, to represent the piece of ‘cursed’ classical music that appears in the film, and which summons the ‘piper’ demon when the young composer Mel performs it. Then, during the actual scoring process, Young took elements from the concerto and used them as the basis of the score itself. The resulting score is just brilliant, approaching masterpiece levels of excellence.

 

So if the Intrada album follows through, we'll get the 30 minute concert in tracks 2-4 and a suite made out of cues from the actual score on track 1.

[Marian Schedenig 8,200]

Interesting. It would of course be nice to get the full original concerto plus the actual film tracks as well.

[ddddeeee 257]

 

[crocodile 8,017]

Oh wow, this sounds terrific. 😍

 

Karol

[GerateWohl 4,370]

On 06/04/2024 at 1:15 PM, ddddeeee said:

Interesting that this kind of film music hasn't evolved that much since Goldsmith's The Omen.

Still Orff seems to be the template. 

But it sounds really good.

[Richard Penna 3,694]

Between this and Nosferatu, based on samples the latter probably struck me a bit more, but it's nice that this will be on streaming so we can evaluate it properly.

[serchbcn 1]

It's been a long time since I've been so hyped about the release of a soundtrack.

[JNHFan2000 2,966]

 

[GerateWohl 4,370]

Great Interview. Made me immediately switch on Hellraiser.

[thestat 348]

Chris Young is a god amongst men. I can't wait to hear The Piper and Nosferatu in full, having pledged £70 on Nosferatu. 

 

The Piper seems wild - but that is good. Very recent: 

 

 

[JNHFan2000 2,966]

Available where it's Tuesday.

Tracklist is the 3 movement concerto and a 21 minute score suite

 

https://www.qobuz.com/nz-en/album/the-piper-original-score-the-bulgarian-symphony-orchestra-sif-309/jwedpb1muzbnb

[filmmusic 1,829]

14 minutes ago, JNHFan2000 said:

Available where it's Tuesday.

Tracklist is the 3 movement concerto and a 21 minute score suite

 

https://www.qobuz.com/nz-en/album/the-piper-original-score-the-bulgarian-symphony-orchestra-sif-309/jwedpb1muzbnb

4 tracks?

Wow! I dislike long tracks...

[JNHFan2000 2,966]

This was the tracklist of the promo release.

 

I also would've preffered if the score suite was smaller cues, but I mostly want this for the concerto anyway.

[Jay 37,369]

Samples on Apple Music

 

https://music.apple.com/nz/album/the-piper-original-score/1740550150

[Thor 7,508]

3 hours ago, JNHFan2000 said:

This was the tracklist of the promo release.

 

I also would've preffered if the score suite was smaller cues, but I mostly want this for the concerto anyway.

 

That IS the takeaway here. The film score suite is okay, but nothing on that level.

[GerateWohl 4,370]

In fact, I am looking forward to getting a suite instead of a number of one and a half minute snippets.

[Faleel 5,353]

1 hour ago, GerateWohl said:

In fact, I am looking forward to getting a suite instead of a number of one and a half minute snippets.

Lol that's still what your getting, it's just packaged differently to fool you into thinking you are getting something different

 

 

 

 

 

[Frank Vincent 234]

 

 

Intrada announces the premiere release of Christopher Young's stunning score for The Piper. Writer/Director Erlingur Thoroddsen sought out the veteran composer not only for the task of scoring The Piper, but to compose the three-movement Concerto for Children, which is rehearsed and performed in several pivotal scenes in the movie and whose motifs haunt the soundtrack of the movie and its characters. The filmmaker tasked Young with creating a work that was sophisticated enough to convince as a concert hall composition, maddening enough to compel characters to stab their ears as it unfolds, dynamic and dramatic enough to work as underscore during some of the film’s most frightening and powerful moments, and so compelling in its unearthly beauty that it seems capable of holding characters—from unscrupulous conductors to innocent children—in its spectral grip.

 

“It turned out to be a 30-minute, three movement concerto that I had to write in advance,” Young says. “Erlingur basically told me that he needed one movement that was going to be crazy, because it was going to be played toward the end of the movie when the whole theater is going to pot. But beyond that, it was pretty open ended." The concerto employs standard flutes with the performer providing more exotic timbres through his playing. “I used piccolos through the lower C flute, alto flute, into the bass flute range, for these lower chords. For the Piper himself, when we see him play, it’s a normal flute that has been completely altered through electronic modification.” As Young notes, all these factors add up to one problem: “My flute concerto can never be performed as written. I’d have to make changes because the performer is required to move from the alto flute to the C flute to piccolo all within a handful of bars. It was easy to punch in and record them, but I’m going to have to make some revisions if I ever want to have this performed live.”

 

The result is a powerful and sophisticated work that would stand up well in the concert hall ... if only it could be performed as written!

 

Thoroddsen’s supernatural horror film follows Melanie Walker (Charlotte Hope), an ambitious young flautist, composer and single mom working under the auspices of imperious conductor Gustafson (Julian Sands), who leads the orchestra at the fabled but financially troubled Virgil Hall. Struggling to maintain her first-chair position in the orchestra, Melanie hopes to impress Gustafson with a flute concerto she’s composed, but she’s being undercut by the equally ambitious flautist and composer Franklin (Philipp Christopher), who has his own concerto in front of the demanding conductor. Gustafson also has a connection to another troubled composer—the late Katherine Fleischer, whose Concerto for Children No. 1 was given but a single, disastrous performance in 1975. That uncompleted rendition resulted in the Virgil Hall Tragedy, a fire that killed over 100 children. Katherine had been Melanie’s mentor before the elder composer took her own life by burning herself to death—after Gustafson tried to browbeat her into another performance of the concerto. Struggling to maintain her position with the conductor, Melanie Walker insists that she can find Katherine Fleischer’s written music so that Gustafson can conduct it at a crucial upcoming fundraiser for the hall and orchestra.

 

FLUTE CONCERTO: A Concerto for Flute, Children's Choir and Orchestra
01. Movement 1 (11:12)
02. Movement 2 (07:33)
03. Movement 3 (11:24)
Concerto Time : 30:11

 

THE SCORE
04. Suite (21:11)
CD Total Time: 51:13

 

THE PIPER (intrada.com)

[Thor 7,508]

13 hours ago, GerateWohl said:

In fact, I am looking forward to getting a suite instead of a number of one and a half minute snippets.

 

Indeed!

[Jay 37,369]

Ordered!

[Thor 7,508]

Did you just get a big pay check or something?

[Jay 37,369]

Nope.

[crumbs 14,317]

Has anyone else noticed the track times don't add up? The concerto + suite combined is 51:22, yet the CD runtime is listed as 51:11.

 

Also, there's a typo on the back cover. Millennium Media is spelled wrong in the copyright text.

 

But it's correct in the film credits:

[Jay 37,369]

Got my shipping notice about 3 hours ago!

[thestat 348]

Wow. Is this great or what? Young is blasting out career-best work left and right.

 

Movement 1 is brilliant, truly capturing Young's melodic skills and detail in orchestration and, especially, his ability to play with horror tropes - but then the last 4 minutes from 8:00 are a brilliantly dark fable with children's choir and all the best Young orchestral tropes at full display. I love the fact that he ends the movements with that crazy blast of mayhem!

 

Movement 2 is another encapsulation of a magnificent career that keeps escalating into stratospheres - the detour at 4:10 is touching and epic. Makes me wonder what Young would have done with The Lord of the Rings.

 

Movement 3 is very impressive, very much Young exploring horror tropes and going very Goldenthal at times.

 

It is now wonder he has had such a fan resurgence recently. We all know what he does so well. It is fantastic to see producers funding him to do this. I mean, The Empty Man is a great film but it was a massive flop. The Young score, again, is fantastic.

 

So happy I supported the Nosferatu incentive!

 

 

 

[Demondm810 399]

Wow, this is A+ stuff. 

[serchbcn 1]

Brilliant from start to finish.

[Jay 37,369]

It has arrived!

[crocodile 8,017]

Listened to this three times in the past few days. It is terrific, definitely one of the best recent film score albums out there. It is really listenable all the way through, even during the more ambient sections of the score suite. Liner notes by Jeff Bond are also fascinating to read. Good stuff.

 

Karol