ENTERPRISE Fans in Search of a Real Theme

By: Randall D. Larson
Date: Thursday, October 11, 2001

This Week's Recommendation

Adopting the image of its title, Christopher Young's score for THE GLASS HOUSE (Varese Sarabande 302 066-282-2) is fragile and quiet. The story tells of an orphaned teenager taken in by a Malibu couple who turn out not to be the caring friends they seemed to be at first. Young's quiet, introspective score plays on the delicate paranoia inherent within the storyline. The main theme is a lovely melody for rapidly-fingered piano over slowly undulating violins, poignant yet melancholy. Subsequent cues such as "Sunken Bells" achieve in their slow and somber tonalities a sense of foreboding, even in the midst of ordinarily pretty melodies. But Young maintains an undercurrent of menace throughout, with dark violin figures, furtive piano fingering, unresolved chordal patterns, and moody, solemn musical atmospheres.

The dark spookiness of "Even If I Had an Ax"

is a standout cue, as low end string chords play off echoed synth and percussion effects, creating a scary, claustrophobic atmosphere that contrasts against a pretty solo violin melody that is introduced and embellished by a flourish of piano and woodwinds near the end of the cue. "Sotto Voce" is another suspenseful pattern of violins and piano, delicately pretty, yet laced with ominous danger. "Glasseration" opens with quietly shrill violin chords, soon embellished by that echoed percussion effect and low-end tremolo strings, a variety of orchestrations and sounds that builds a superbly discomforting mood.

In "Diabetic Dancer," Young introduces a plaintive French horn melody which is in striking contrast to the percussive, effectsy and rather stationary musical direction employed previously, but it builds a wonderful tonal mood that is refreshing after more than half a dozen suspenseful cues. But even its melodic line is eventually overcome by the downward-spiraling, apprehensive atmospheres. The horn melody recurs in "Soubrette," taking on a powerfully folk quality through the increasing strength of brass and strings that take the melody line. "This Too Shall Pass" concludes the CD with a rhythmic variation on the main theme, taken alternately by piano and by flute, the oppression of its original guises now transformed into a more hopeful melody.

SOUNDTRAX NEWS

HEARTS IN ATLANTIS received

its due on CD from Decca this week (440 015 035-2) except that its due was short shrifted by an uneven mix of '50s pop tunes scattered around four score cues composed by Mychael Danna.  Only about half of Danna's 35-off minutes of original scoring made it to this CD, soft and understated and quite satisfying in its atmospheric quietude.

Paramount's new concept in Star Trek theme music, as evidenced by the premiere of ENTERPRISE on September 26th, was so poorly received by Trek fans that some of them have gotten together to develop a petition to demand that ENTERPRISE producers Rick Berman and Brannon Braga remove the offensive Diane Warren song and replace it with a real score theme, as has been the TREK tradition since 1966. While the chances of a petition like this actually changing the mind of rich Hollywood execs may be about the same as giant weasels taking over the world, it is a laudable example of proactive fans getting involved to right a correctly perceived wrong. The song, not even an original composition for the show, but Warren's "Faith of the Heart," dolefully intoned over photos of vintage exploration on earth inter-cut with scenes of outer space, is so entirely counterproductive to setting any kind of appropriate mood that it's almost painful to listen to. Check the petition at www.petitiononline.com/entintro/petition.html

Speaking of ENTERPRISE, I felt that Mark Altman's review of the premiere posted on this site last week, in which he described McCarthy's score as "phoned in," was out of line. I know Dennis, and he's one of the most hard-working and genuinely creative and dependable guys in Hollywood film music. Mark may not have cared for it, but Dennis' efforts on behalf of ENTERPRISE's opening episode were far from "phoned in." His work is subdued, to say the least, but subtly effective and dramatically moving.

Film Score Monthly's latest "Silver Age Classics" limited release is the first-ever legitimate CD recording of Jerry Goldsmith's masterful score for Warner Brother's 1969 THE ILLUSTRATED MAN. This premiere release features the complete score in stereo and in correct sequence, including the electronic cues and, most importantly, the female vocals for the main and end titles. Check it out at www.filmscoremonthly.com

John Williams' eagerly anticipated HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCEROR'S STONE soundtrack CD

hits the stores on October 30th. The CD will include 19 tracks, all instrumental, with no vocals. Williams' main theme, for Hedwig the Owl, was used in the film's trailer and has already drawn acclaim as one of the composer's best efforts. "The music," wrote Richard Dyer in the Boston Globe, "is destined to be one of Williams' greatest hits, an affectionately allusive tribute to great fantasy music of the past - but in his own unmistakable voice; this parallels the way Rowling's book stands on the shoulders of its predecessors like a nimble circus acrobat about to grab a trapeze and fly away. The theme, an agreeably lopsided and slippery waltz, appears first on Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker celesta, while the strings flutter around it like owlish wings. The brass offer contrasting ideas, and the whole thing develops in the tradition of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries and Humperdinck's homage to it in the witch's ride in Hansel and Gretel. In Williams' masterly orchestration, the whole thing glistens, surprises, and exhilarates."

Mario Beltrami's latest score is for John Dahl's unnerving Lynch-esque thriller JOY RIDE, which has just been released on CD from Varese Sarabande (302 066 290 2).

Varese will also release "deluxe" remastered editions next week of Jerry Goldsmith's classic scores for THE OMEN (his only Oscar winner to date) and its sequel's sequel, THE FINAL CONFLICT. Both editions feature new original soundtrack material not hitherto available.

England's Harkit Records has

released the original soundtrack to BEDAZZLED - the original 1967 Stanley Donen fantasy with Dudley Moore as a cook who sells his soul to the devil, abetted in the process by Raquel Welch. Moore himself provided the film's score, which has been described as "a sublime mix of groovy 1960s pop, weird effects and vocals, lounge jazz numbers and groovy uptempo cues."

DVD SOUNDTRAX NEWS

FINAL FANTASY comes to DVD on October 23rd (Columbia TriStar) with a double-disc set full of behind-the-scenes features, including an isolated score with commentary by composer Elliot Goldenthal.

STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE arrives on DVD on November 6th, containing an expanded director's re-cut with 5 minutes of additional material, including re-tuned special effects, and a second disc full of various special features. Among the crewmembers contributing to the commentary track on disc one is composer Jerry Goldsmith.

Soundtrax is our bi-weekly movie soundtrack column.