DeCoding Zimmer

By: Randall D. Larson
Date: Thursday, May 04, 2006

THIS WEEK'S RECOMMENDATIONS

Hans Zimmer's score to Ron Howard's THE DA VINCI CODE is a somber, affecting, and sobering composition. Set for release by Decca on May 9th, the music is beautifully arcane and tragically sumptuous. It's an attractive and very varied score, reverent in its tonality but darkly cynical at the same time. It's far more in the vogue of HANNIBAL and BATMAN BEGINS than much of Zimmer's hybrid action oriented material.

Dominated with strings, playing in massive surges and thick, deliberately slow timings, the score is a severely expressive one, brooding with solemnity and then suddenly rising with a tonal ferocity of massed, high-end violins in some barely restrained passion.

This is not a thematic score but a beautifully textural one, with both an orchestral and choral veneer. Some motifs seem to recur, the severely passionate and stylized violin figure of "Paschal Spiral" shows up again in "Malleus Maleficarum" and so on, but it's a very subtle recurrence. The semblance in many tracks is much more that of a concert chorale piece with accompanying orchestra.

"L'Esprit Des Gabriel" could have been from a horror movie, a spooky wash of shimmering, spectral strings and eerie choir that raises in volume and force, accented by a growing throbbing of percussion, only to wash out as it hits shore into a quiet deliberation violins and musing winds.

Zimmer uses choir effectively here and in cues like "Salvete Virgines," where it is paired contrapuntally against a harmony of female soloists. "The Paschal Spiral" contains a rushing aggression of assembled strings, abruptly compelled into life out of their hushed expressiveness like an onrushing tide of nocturnal winged creatures sent into frenzied flight when their slumber has been disturbed. "Daniel's 9th Cipher" and "The Poisoned Chalice" both contain hollow echoes of female voice, almost but not quite suggesting a clerical hymn; the latter accentuates the soloist with accompanying choir, in terms emphasizing both female and male tonalities in its voicing. Much of the score, in fact, takes on a shadowy resemblance to sacred music, but only in suggestion, never in obviousness. Zimmer alludes to the story's religious implications through musical style and texture, but never coming out and directly acknowledging them.

"Fructus Gravis" opens into a bountiful lyric that is almost Herrmannesque in its languid romance; a female voice takes the melody, which then emerges into an aggression of violin strokes.

The score ends magnificently with "Chevaliers de Sangreal," where newly-emerging French horns intone a somber and striking crescendo (Richard Harvey's chorale piece, "Kyrie for the Magdalene," concludes the soundtrack, an effective piece that both acknowledges and resolves Zimmer's earlier use of choir [Harvey also conducted the orchestra for all of Zimmer's score]).

www.iclassics.com  

From its 16-second Main Title (a brief atmospheric upsurge of synth echoey credited to series executive producer J. J. Abrams) to the 6+ minute concluding track, "Oceanic 815," (referring to the flight number of the aircraft that crashed on the mysterious island on which the case members are marooned; ) the music score for the hit TV series LOST (composed, except for track 1, by Michael [ALIAS, THE INCREDIBLES] Giacchino) is a persuasive and captivating experience, nicely preserved on CD by Varese Sarabande. The music to LOST takes on a fairly subservient role in the show, infrequently noticeable, yet characterizing many of the show's many mysterious motifs and personality nuances, accompanying the backstories as they are slowly revealed, and accentuating the sudden launches into diverse sensibilities that have distinguished the show since its debut as a pilot in 2004.

The music tends to range between subtle melodic interludes built for character

interactions and backstories to more dissonant clusters of action-oriented material. "World's Worst Beach Party" is a percussive rhythm that gets slightly more provocative as its drumming riff becomes more pronounced and therefore more psychotic. "Proper Navigation" and "Monsters Are Such Interesting People" are both pulse-pounding action cue that resolves in the midst of its frenetic crescendo. (Giacchino has described how much of the percussion effects are actually accomplished using pieces of the Oceanic 815 airplane used in the show's pilot; thus integrating the actual perpetrayer of the show's concept into its very musical centerpiece.)

"Run Like, Um... Hell!" and its counterpart, "Run Away! Run Away!" are pure and simple monster music tracks, propulsive and panic-accentuating moments of unnerving fright involving the mysterious monster creature inhabiting the island; the former track ends in a brooding rush of synth tonality, as if Giacchino were creating a brief tone poem for the panic-stricken corpuscles of crimson that race through the veins of his protagonist. "Crocodile Locke" is an atmospheric mood piece for synth, winds, and tapping percussion that signifies much of the mystery inherent in the survivalist character of Locke.

There are a couple motifs that recur in the midst of what's otherwise a fairly textural score. A primary theme is introduced in "Credit Where Credit is Due," a plaintive violin soliloquy beneath soft arpeggios of guitar or harp; the motif comes back in "Just Die Already" and "Departing Sun," where it takes on a vaguely Korean accent for solo violin.

A sometimes recurring stinger, a dissonant downward glissando of aggressive horn, is heard at the end of "Shannonigans," and reappears in the show from time to time. "Win One For The Reaper" grows beautifully from soft chord-driven pianissimo into a poignant and compelling motif into a sorrowful reflection on the bitter randomness of life, death, survival, and loss; even more strongly portrayed in "Booneral," where the motif is restated with a quietly affecting grace. The same motif recurs finally in "Oceanic 815," a soliloquy on the flight whose rendezvous with the soil of this mysterious island has brought them, fate-like, together in the place; and in "Life and Death," where the death of Boone is contrasted with the birth of Claire's baby; and in the second half of "Charlie Hangs Around," after a bit of ravaging monster-chase music; it's a gorgeously moving melody, extremely rich in emotion and yet subtle in its tonality and effect. A variation on the theme accompanies the score's finest track, the Season One finale, heard in "Parting Words," as the remaining survivors gather together after sending off three of their members on a raft to seek help and rescue; it's a gorgeously profound and poignant moment, rich in human interaction and emotion, summarizing all that has gone before in the series and its music; the track slowly swells into a full-on crescendo that signifies the spirit of each survivor and brilliantly concludes the score; followed by the brief electronic pulsing that, like the horn glissando heard in "Shannonigans," reminds us that, despite their spirit, they're still stuck on the island, with its confounding mysteries and rampant dangers.

The overall feeling of the LOST score is that it captures wonderfully the show's nuance-full characteristics like the show, the music also is an eclectic gathering of unique characterizations, seemingly inexplicable mysteries, alternating orchestral loyalties, survival and loss. In its moments of profound feeling and its moments of severe driving dissonance, LOST is an affecting and effective score.

John Powell's visit to ICE AGE 2: MELTDOWN, is a musical riot, a manic assortment of cartoonlike musical images that, rather than developing the themes and motifs created by David Newman in the first film, create an entirely new musical setting for the story, albeit along somewhat similar lines to Newman's original ICE AGE. The soundtrack release comes courtesy of Varese Sarabande, who provide a generous 60

minutes of music. The score evokes mischief ("The Watertpark"), pathos ("Sad Manny and the Possums," first half), epic adventure ("The Boat and the Geysers" and the brilliant effervescent expressiveness of "Ellen Gets Trapped" and "Rescues All Around" with their dramatic choir and percussive-driven forward motion), and so on. The score follows the storyline's manic action and comedic moments quite well; as cartoonmusic it's overly busy and rages stylistically from moment to moment, but its also hugely enjoyable to see where Powell takes his orchestra; the music also has a great deal of heart to go with its antic behavior; witness the brilliant brass crescendo that emeges midway through "The Water Recedes" for an excellent example of the expressiveness that Powell has brought to these animated antics.

www.varesesarabande.com  

FILM MUSIC NEWS

For the past couple weeks, composer John Ottman has been busy recording his score to the upcoming Warner Brothers feature, SUPERMAN RETURNS. SoundtrackNet has just posted a first-look at the scoring sessions to this highly anticipated feature on their web site. "There has been plenty of rumor and speculation about whether Ottman would be using John Williams' classic theme from the original 1978 film," writes SoundtrackNet's Dan Goldwasser. "In past interviews, it was made clear that he would certainly be using the main "Superman March." Now that the sessions have taken place, it's clear that Ottman also references the "Leaving Home Theme," the "Krypton Theme," and the "Lois Lane Theme" (aka "Can You Read My Mind"). In addition to that, Ottman wrote his own new themes, including one for Lex Luthor, and an emotional one for Superman." read the full story and check out the session photos at: www.soundtrack.net/features/article/?id=192

Film Music Radio also reports that Ottman will score a new fantasy film starring Ben Stiller and Robin Williams, called NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM, directed by Shawn Levy (THE PINK PANTHER). In the film, a security guard accidentally lets loose an old curse that wakes up all the animals on display at the Museum of Natural History. Scheduled to be released on December 22, the film also stars Carla Gugino, Kim Raver, Dick Van Dyke and Mickey Rooney.

From Italy, GDM's CD CLUB has released an expanded version of Ennio Morricone's score for the classic 1965 horror film directed by Mario Caiano, AMANTI D'OLTRETOMBA (aka NIGHTMARE CASTLE in the USA; aka NIGHT OF THE DOOMED, LOVERS FROM BEYOND THE TOMB, THE FACELESS MONSTER, and ORGASMO. While about 26 minutes in 9 tracks from the score appeared for the first

time on a 1992 RCA soundtrack released, paired with 8 tracks from Morricone's L'UMANOID which dominated the cover graphic, GDM's new release contains 39 minutes of music over 7 mostly longish tracks. "For NIGHTMARE CASTLE, Ennio Morricone has composed an orchestral score based on a romantic theme for piano and orchestra that breaks the evil mood of the plot (the ghosts of two lovers haunt a villa's inhabitants) backgrounded with motives for organ and macabre themes for choir," writes GDM. "For this ultimate CD edition we used the original stereo/mono master tapes and this has given us the chance to release the complete version in close cooperation with Ennio Morricone who has authorized the inclusion of previously unreleased music." The score has been digitally restored and remastered with stereo/mono sound; the release included a deluxe booklet with rare archive stills from the movie. See: www.gdmmusic.com  

Walt Disney Records will release Hans Zimmer's original music for PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 2: DEAD MAN'S CHEST on July 4. It will be a score album featuring the orchestral music Hans Zimmer begins to record at the Sony Scoring Stage in Los Angeles this week. The music for the first film, released in 2003, was composed by Klaus Badelt and a group of other composers and produced by Hans Zimmer. Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley all return in the sequel, and they also star in the third film, which is also being scored by Hans Zimmer. DEAD MAN'S CHEST will open theatrically on July 7. via filmmusicradio.com

Newcomer Caine Davidson has scored the new ghost story, AN AMERICAN HAUNTING, which opens this Friday. Imdb posters describe the score as "first rate."

This is apparently Davidson's first foray into film music. No word yet on a soundtrack release.

Silva Screen has released the first two in a new series of "Film Music Masterworks," repackaged but effective single-disc compilations of notable composers. The first two released are devoted to Ennio Morricone and John Barry. As usual, they are re-recorded by the Prague Philharmonic and are culled from a variety of specialty sessions over recent years.

Christophe Beck has replaced Rupert Gregson-Williams as the composer on ZOOM, the action comedy starring Tim Allen as Captain Zoom. Beck reunites with director Peter Hewitt, with whom he worked on GARFIELD two years ago. According to Film Music Radio, Rupert Gregson-Williams left scoring duties on ZOOM due to a scheduling conflict related to the animated Dreamworks picture OVER THE HEDGE. Based on the comic book by Jason Lethcoe, ZOOM (previously known as THE RETURN OF ZOOM) is a live-action comedy about a former superhero who is called back into duty to transform a group of kids into superheroes. - via filmmusicradio.com

Former editor/publisher of CinemaScore magazine, Randall Larson was for many years senior editor for Soundtrack Magazine and a film music columnist for Cinefantastique magazine. He is the author of Musique Fantastique: A Survey of Film Music in the Fantastic Cinema (Scarecrow, 1984) and Music from the House of Hammer (Scarecrow, 1995). In addition to Soundtrax and Music News for Cinescape.com, Randall reviews soundtracks Music from the Movies, writes for Film Music Magazine, and in many other fields.

Recommended Soundtrack sources:
www.buysoundtrax.com  
www.intrada.com  
www.screenarchives.com  
www.footlight.com  
www.arksquare.com/index_main.html (Japan)
www.intermezzomedia.com/ (Italy)
www.moviegrooves.com  
www.moviemusic.com  

For questions or comments, contact the author at Soundtrax@cinescap.com