The Prophecy II
© N/A
Gabriel’s Trumpet
By: Randall LarsonDate: Thursday, March 01, 2007
THIS WEEK’S RECOMMENDATIONS
Perseverance Records have released a very pleasing pair of soundtracks comprising David Williams’ scores for The Prophecy (1995) and its sequel, The Prophecy II (1995). Like the similar Warlock series, these biblical fantasies featured terrific casting and far more elegant and proficient production design and that the quasi-Revelation based genre of Christian end-times fantasies, Left Behind, Apocalypse, The Omega Code, etc. Without the constant need or desire to proselytize. The Prophecy and its first sequel maintains varying degrees of human drama, science fantasy, epic spectacle (thanks to CGI), and even horror, immersed in a fairly coherent and interesting storyline that takes its roots from biblical history or literature without attempting to persuade or evangelize. With Christopher Walken as the Angel Gabriel and Viggo Mortensen as Lucifer, supported by the likes of Virginia Madsen, Eric Stolz, Amanda Plummer, Adam Goldberg, and others in The Prophecy, and with Jennifer Beals, Brittany Murphy, and Eric Roberts supporting The Prophecy II (with Russell Wong assuming Mortenson’s role as prime antagonist), the films had major star power and quite interesting performances.
Every bit their equal is composer David Williams, whose scores for both films are superior compositions in mid 1990s fantasy cinema. Using choir to terrific effect and providing layered measures of both atmosphere and epic drama, these scores are compelling and powerful works. Williams has been a noted composer in the low-budget horror genre, with excellent compositions for Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering, Dean Koontz’s Phantoms, Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies, and more recently scoring made-for-TV terror tales like Manticore and Fallen. He is a very adept composer for this type of genre, and his scores for Prophecy I and II exhibit terrific atmosphere and a very likable musical contrast supporting the films’ notion of cosmic battles between good and evil waged on our own earthly soil.
For a story about warring angels, Williams makes appropriate use of sampled chorus, but not in your traditional “heavenly chorus” way. The score is influenced as much by notions of biblical music as it is Indian mysticism, the latter influence felt predominantly through the score’s use of percussion and sustained, droning tonalities. But there are plenty of surging, epic crescendos and dramatic arpeggios to maintain a bombastic flavor when needed. Both scores are electronically conceived, but they don’t sound like your typical synth scores of yesteryear – Williams’ sampled orchestras and choirs have might, have space, and have power. Like Jerry Goldsmith’s Omen scores, Williams’ two Prophecy scores provide a compelling continuum of musical development. While the first film was conceived as a stand-alone project, Williams enjoyed the opportunity to revisit and develop its music when the sequel came into being.
The score for the first film opens with choir and synth and percussion resonating in a chilled-out, new-age-ish riff, “All About Faith.” That sets the tonality – if not the dynamic – of the first score, a cool fusion of sampled choir and orchestra that establishes a powerful undercurrent of mood while also greatly supporting the film’s emotional and action-based energy. “Out the Window,” for example, is an incredible cue – an airy rush of orchestration that lifts the listener out of his seat (and out that same window), a very vibrant and powerful moment. Throughout the score, voice and strings predominate, both in up-front chorale singing as well as in more hushed, distant atmospherics. “Angels Beckon” contains some very persuasive (and far from angelic) choral intonations from the women’s choir… they recur in “Burning Uziel.” In addition to his epic battle music and his surging motifs that are associated with the supernatural, angelic entities, Williams has personified the angels with an aura of loneliness (i.e.,: great power equals great aloneness), and much of these sweeping crescendos maintain, not the triumphant trumpet associated with the historical angels of biblical revelation, but a sensibility of melancholy in their more fully-drawn characters.
Prophecy II is a larger and more dynamic and interactive score – Williams has described it as being “a bit more scary and creepy than the first.” It incorporates and further develops thematic ideas from the first score while creating new material, including some wonderfully entrancing sonic textures and instrumental effects (the twanging tonality in “Fall from Sky” particularly struck me). One of the score’s finest moments is in “Gabriel’s Return” with its rushing, heraldic overture for orchestra and choir, followed by a rampant horde of squiggly insectile figures that overcome the overture like a seething tide. “Fighting Angels” contains some stirring and beautifully textured action writing. “Tattoo” is beautifully atmospheric and eerie, ending in a gorgeously Herrmannesque chord, drawn out to full measure. Prophecy II closes with an epic resolution for orchestra and choir, “Ashtown,” that nicely sums up its components and concludes with a final, persevering cry from female voice.
There were more films in this series (all direct-to-video), but with other composers. Steve Boeddecker Scored the Prophecy III: Ascent (2000), while none other than the musical maestro of Evil Dead/Xena/Hercules, Joseph LoDuca, composed The Prophecy: Uprising (2005) and The Prophecy: Forsaken (2005). Williams says he didn’t want to score any more of them after II because he had said all he had to about the series in the first two scores.
Perseverance’s releases both contain liner notes consisting of interviews with Williams and the filmmakers by Paul Tonks and other resource material, such as an article on use of the biblical Nephalim in modern culture in Prophecy II, and a report on the pantheon of angels in the first movie.
COMMENTS ON THE MUSIC OSCAR
As we reported in Monday’s Music News, Gustavo Santaolalla won the Oscar for Best Score for his music for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s multi-layered cultural drama, Babel, repeating his similar win two weeks ago at the British Academy of Film & Television Award. Santaolalla said of his score for Babel, released on CD by Concord Records, that one of his main intentions in scoring the film, which tells four ultimately related stories in several different countries, was “not to sound like the music for a National Geographic documentary.” Santaolalla is the first composer since Alan Menken who has won two Academy Awards for Best Original Score two years in a row (Menken won for Beauty and the Beast in 1991 and Aladdin in 1992).
Italian cinema maestro Ennio Morricone, whose more than 500 film scores since the early 1960s garnered the composer five previous Oscar nominations but no wins, was awarded a special award for his many contributions to world film music. A short film celebrated the diversity and majesty of Morricone’s film scores – with clips from The Mission, Bugsy, Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, The Untouchables, The Good The Bad and The Ugly, Malena, and others. Clint Eastwood was the appropriate presenter, since his career shot into stardom accompanied by Morricone’s music, although his presentation was marred by awkwardness and apparently lack of preparation (he wasn’t told he needed to translate Morricone’s acceptance speech: "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much." (Morricone continues his speech in Italian, interpreted via the teleprompter by Eastwood). "Ennio wants to thank the Academy and all the people who really truly wanted him to have this great honor. His deep gratitude goes to all the directors who had faith in him. Without them he says he wouldn't be here today. He says this Oscar is not a point of arrival but a starting point to continue writing with the same passion and dedication he's had since the very beginning on the screen. He dedicates this Oscar to his wife Maria who has always been there with him all these years with enormous commitment and love, which he feels the same for her." As far as I know, Alex North (Dragonslayer, Spartacus) is the only other composer to have received a lifetime achievement award from the Academy.
(Eastwood misspoke during his introduction of Morricone, when he claimed A Fistful of Dollars (1964) was Morricone’s first film score – while it did launch him to international notice, Morricone in fact had been scoring since 1961’s I Federale; Fistful was his 22nd film and second Western.)
Santaolalla’s win, which beat out such notable nominees as Thomas Newman for The Good German, Phillip Glass for Notes on a Scandal, Javier Navarrete for Pan’s Labyrinth, and Alexandre Desplat for The Queen, perplexed many in the film music world, since Babel was, like Santaolalla’s score for Brokeback Mountain, which won the Best Music Oscar last year, a minimalist compilation of unrelated tunes, many of which Santaolalla reportedly wrote years ago for other project, most of which gave way to a heap of varied source cues from popular and world music. Compared to the splendid and intricately-worked out dramatic compositions that ate its dust, Babel’s piddling “score” is meaningless fluff. It may have been the score’s pop-culture mix and its inclusion of recognizable tunes (which included songs by Earth Wind and Fire, Fatboy Slim, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and all manner of Spanish bands) that swayed the Academy, which traditionally hasn’t recognized an effective dramatic musical score in ages, but almost always goes for the recognizable tune.
Fans and collectors of film scores were incensed, and vocal in their disapproval on the FILMUS-L listserver in the hours following the announcement: “Once again the Academy voters have picked the name they probably most recognize. I think the score for Babel is the weakest of this year's five,” opined one veteran soundtrack critic. “What I want to know is, how could the score be eligible with all the source material – including tracks that Santaolalla wrote years ago? The track that probably helped him win the Oscar [was] the track that Ryuichi Sakamoto wrote a few years back...
“I can't help but think that this just further points up what is so wrong with the Academy Awards,” posted another reviewer. “Obviously, this was the weakest score nominated, but who was voting for it? The majority were actors, directors, and executives. This is why the awards are meaningless. These people vote with their ears not with their heads. If they like the sound of a score then they think... ‘ah yes...this is the best one score because I like it.’
Another posted: “This confusion of Oscar music categories goes way back. Just consider 1937... when Alfred Newman's The Hurricane and Dimitri Tiomkin's great score for Lost Horizon lost to 100 Men And A Girl with classical music and no composer credited. At that time the [studio’s] music department head got the Oscar. The music score category wasn't considered that important even then. That's shameful. So what goes around, comes around....
“Santaolalla has won more Oscars for specific scores than Jerry Goldsmith and Alex North combined,” commented another veteran soundtrack collector. “He has as many as Bernstein and Herrmann, combined. Heck, Giorgio Moroder has more Oscars than Alex North. Nothin' against Gustavo, myself, but then I don't take the Oscars seriously. They seldom get the scoring category right, and even when they do, it doesn't mean anything. Is The Robe less enjoyable because it didn't win? Or Taras Bulba? Or anything by Alex North? Would something such as Rozsa's A Double Life even get nominated today, much less win? The music stands alone, as it should, regardless of honors or acclaim, and 50 years from now, they'll still be playing Ben-Hur when Midnight Express has been long forgotten. In fact, it already has.
Years ago there was another music category known as: "Best Original Song Score and/or Adaptation," which was designed for Babel’s type of score. Leonard Rosenman got a well deserved Oscar in this category for his arranging classical themes for Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon (1975). Some have suggested this category ought to be brought back. As for me, Morricone’s well-deserved and well-received appreciation made up for an otherwise musically tasteless ceremony.
FILM MUSIC NEWS
Saw 3 CD © Lionsgate
The soundtrack album for the first Saw movie, released by Koch in 2005, included a fair amount of Charlie Clouser’s underscore in addition to a few of the raucous rock and roll numbers included in the film. The soundtracks for Saw II (cd from Image Entertainment) and Saw III (cd from Artists Addiction Records), however, excluded Clouser’s score to all but a single track on each soundtrack, much to the dismay of those enamored by the film’s brooding and textural underscore. Metropolis is now offering a mailorder exclusive – a 2-CD set containing both the songs and the unreleased score to Saw III. Disc one includes new and exclusive studio-tracks by Samsas Traum, Emilie Autumn, Dope Stars Inc., and Brendan Small (of Adult Swim's Metalocalypse), while dropping the tracks by Opiate for the Masses, The Smash Up, and Ghost Machine that were on the Artists Addiction CD. The second disc contains 27 tracks from the score for Saw III by Charlie Clouser, including the theme that was on the Artists Addiction release. According to Metropolis Mail Order, this version of the soundtrack is not available elsewhere.
www.industrial-music.com
Speaking of Charlie Clouser, on March 12th Lakeshore Records will release his score for Dead Silence on CD. The soundtrack will contain Clouser’s score as well as the song, “We Sleep Forever,” by Aiden.
Intrada announced East of Eden (1981 TV mini-series, scored by Lee Holdridge) as its next special collection release. The mini-series version of East Of Eden remains the most ambitious production of the venerable John Steinbeck story, which is also remembered for the 1955 James Dean version, but that adaptation only dealt with part of the story. Running over three nights, producers Barry Rosenweig and Mace Neufeld had enough room to tell the whole biblical-themed story from the beginning of the Civil War in 1860 through the end of World War 1 in 1918. Love triangles, familial favoritism, and a manipulative, seductive woman are all here in a story with parallels to the story of Cain and Abel. Composer Lee Holdridge fashioned a rich, thematic, and sometimes disturbing score, eloquently getting into the characters' thoughts, motivations, and passions. From the striking, sweeping theme for Eden, to the innocent theme for Abra, to the secretive, dark, but outwardly romantic theme for Cathy, Holdridge delivered a score that is the musical spirit of Steinbeck's multi-generational tale. During its exhaustive research, Intrada discovered that not only had the original multi-track stereo elements been discarded, but the original stereo LP masters were discarded as well. The original stereo LP program is presented from a disc transfer made for the composer's reference in stunning sound quality. In addition, the complete elements were located in mono, and we present a complementary program of music, presenting approximately 26 minutes of music never before released. The composer also provided his stereo recording of the main title by Charles Gerhardt to open the album, as its omission from the original LP has always been something of an enigma. Intrada’s release is limited to 1000 copies.
For cover art, track listing, and sound samples, please visit http://shopping.netsuite.com/s
Akira Ifukube Collection © 
The Los Angeles Opera and the Théâtre du Châtelet of Paris will co-produce The Fly, a new opera based on director David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake horror film about the scientist who mutates into a human-fly hybrid (“be afraid, be very afraid!”). The opera, to be directed by Cronenberg with music by Academy Award-winning film composer Howard Shore and a libretto by playwright and Los Angeles native David Henry Hwang, is scheduled to have its world premiere in Paris on July 1, 2008, then arrive in the U.S. on Sept. 7 as the opening offering of L.A. Opera’s 2008-09 season. – via L.A. Times
GAMES MUSIC NEWS
Composer and music producer Tom Salta, whose previous credits include the MTV VMA nominated original score for Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter™, has written and recorded the dark and epic original score for Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter ® 2, the next installment in the smash-hit squad-based action franchise. The game is being developed by the award-winning teams that created the original in Ubisoft’s Paris and Red Storm Studios. The game is scheduled for release on several game platforms this June. For the new gamescore, Salta has written a more aggressive and expressive original score to enhance the game’s intensive action and memorable, dramatic scenes, with only a few select motif references taken from the anthemic musical score of the first outing. To ensure the best performance of these tense and emotionally complex compositions for Tom Clancy’s GRAW2, Salta recorded with the Hollywood Studio Symphony and the Page LA Studio Chorus on the Eastwood Scoring Stage at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, a premier orchestra recording venue for Hollywood’s major motion pictures. To hear preview samples of Tom Salta’s music for the game, visit the official website at www.ghostrecon.com.
Salta’s other recent projects include Ubisoft’s exclusive first-person action title for the Nintendo Wii console, Red Steel, drawing from traditional and contemporary Japan for the game’s original soundtrack, which received IGN’s Wii Award for Best Original Score. His music is also featured in the Warner Bros. movie trailer for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. For more information visit www.tomsalta.com.
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter ® 2 builds off of the events in the first game and places gamers in control of the U.S. military’s elite fighting unit, the Ghosts. In the year 2014, the rising conflict between Mexican loyalists and insurgent rebel forces has thrown Mexico into a full-scale civil war. Under the command of Captain Scott Mitchell, the Ghosts are called upon to face an imminent threat to the United States. The fate of two countries now lies in the hands of the Ghosts as they fend off an attack on U.S. soil. Equipped with the most cutting-edge weaponry and technology, the Ghosts must battle on both sides of the border to neutralize the escalating rebel threat.
Recommended Soundtrack sources:
www.arksquare.com/index_main
www.intermezzomedia.com/ (Italy)
www.moviemusic.com
