LORD OF THE RINGS: That Other Magical Series

By: Randall D. Larson
Date: Sunday, December 02, 2001

Giving HARRY POTTER his due from Middle Earth, Howard Shore's massive score for THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING comes to CD well in advance of the film's release. Add to it some neat oddities and sets from Philip Glass, Akira Kurosawa and Dudley Moore, and you have an interesting couple of weeks in genre soundtracks.

This Week's Recommendation

Howard Shore's music for the first episode of Peter Jackson's lavish THE LORD OF THE RINGS series, THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, came out last week from Reprise (9 48110-2). The score, as with the film trilogy itself, is a massive undertaking, an immense canvass that lays its groundwork in this first film. Howard may have seemed an unlikely composer for this ambitious and poetic vision of Middle Earth, being best known as a composer of cerebral thriller scores like THE CELL, CRASH and SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, with a proclivity toward avant-garde, ambient and modernistic musical approaches. But the score as exemplified on CD proves that Jackson made the right choice. Shore's musical canvas is a broad symphonic one enhanced by numerous choirs, and musical approaches that are alternately charming (the jaunty woodwind, violin, and harpsichord figures of "Concerning Hobbits," for example), somber (the dark string patterns of "The Shadow Of The Past"), intricate (the airy women's choir of "Flight to the Ford") and energetic (the ominous choral intonations that erupt into an energetic and sustained orchestral/choral crescendo in "The Treason of Isengard"). Shore's main theme (introduced by "The Prophecy" and reprised often, perhaps most poignantly in "Many Meetings," is one of his most lyrical and compelling compositions.

Shore composed almost three hours of music for THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, which has been performed in part by The London Philharmonic Orchestra and The New Zealand Symphony Orchestras, both 100-piece orchestras, enhanced by three separate chords (a 60-voiced mixed choir, a 30-piece boys choir for the elfish music and the Maori Samoan Choir, representing the dwarfish music. Shore approached the film with an operatic style, lots of voices - Tolkien's book, after all, included plenty of unique language and songs of Middle Earth in its literary texture. Shore has simply embraced the technique and embodies Tolkien's approach in musical terms (read more about Shore's approach in the January issue of Cinescape magazine). The CD includes two songs composed and performed, in Tolkien-esque languages, by Enya, which flow nicely out of and back into Shore's orchestral and choral material. Reprise has released the CD in two versions, a regular release and a "special edition" - but the musical content is identical. All you're paying for in the "special edition" is a pseudo-leather-bound CD container.

SOUNDTRAX NEWS

Composer John Van Tongeren won his second Gemini Award from the Canadian Television Academy for Best Score in a Dramatic Series for his OUTER LIMITS episode, "Simon Says." Van Tongeren won the same category last year for another OUTER LIMITS episode (its 100th), called "Tribunal." The composer hopes to issue a promo CD with both scores.

GNP Crescendo Records

will be releasing the soundtrack to GENE RODDENBERRY'S ANDROMEDA, scheduled for release in January. Just last week GNP released James Venable's score for the new U.S. release of the martial arts fantasy IRON MONKEY (GNPD 8076). This Wo-ping Yuen film was originally released in Hong Kong in 1993 and had a score by Richard Yuen. When Miramax "restored" and enhanced the film (working with director Yuen) to take advantage of current Hong Kong and Jet Li interest in the USA, a new score was commissioned from Venable (SAMURAI JACK, JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK). The new score is a pleasing mix of synth rhythms and Asian tonalities; kind of a HIDDEN DRAGON meets THE ROCK sound. Quite nice. More info on the composer can be had at www.venablemusic.com.

Philip Glass'

understated string quartet re-score for Universal's original DRACULA is one of five discs on a new small boxed set, Philip on Film, just released by Nonesuch (79660-2). The attractive set repackages four complete CDs previously released (the mesmerizing KOYAANISQATSI, POWAQQATSI, DRACULA and the operatic retake on Cocteau's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST) plus a fifth disc containing excerpts from eight scores, some previously unreleased. Add this to the recent release of Glass' CANDYMAN score (see Soundtrax, 10/27/01) and we have a very nice collection of Glass' film scores on CD (now if only somebody would release his music from HAMBURGER HILL...).

Dudley Moore (remember ARTHUR? I'm sorry!) not only acted in films like ARTHUR and 10, but during the 1960s in England he was both an actor and a composer. Among his film score compositions was the 1968 comedy BEDAZZLED, starring Raquel Welch and Moore, who sells his soul to the devil for a chance with Raquel (how many of us would have done that in 1968?!). The score has just been reissued on CD in England by Harkit Records (HRKCD 8001). The music is a blend of late '60s era pop/jazz/lounge music, performed mainly by a trio headlined by Moore on piano, with an added rhythm section on several cues. Harkit also just released Moore's nightclub piano-pop score for 30 IS A DANGEROUS AGE, CYNTHIA (HRKCD 8011), a British romantic comedy. Check out www.harkitrecords.com for more.

From Japan comes

an intriguing 6-CD boxed set, Film Music of Akira Kurosawa: The Complete Edition: Volume 1 (Toho AK0001-0005). Four of the CDs contain complete adventure scores by Masaru Satoh - THE HIDDEN FORTRESS (the heroic adventure epic that, in part, inspired STAR WARS), THE BAD SLEEP WELL and THRONE OF BLOOD and Fumio Hayasaka (the excellent score to SEVEN SAMURAI). A fifth disc contains scores to three powerful dramas, IKIRU, RECORD OF A LIVING BEING (both Hayasaka) and THE LOWER DEPTHS (Satoh), while the sixth is a reissue of a Japanese LP (Toho AX-8007) containing dialog highlights from SEVEN SAMURAI with score underneath. THRONE OF BLOOD was Kurosawa's most overtly fantasy film, his take on Shakespeare's Macbeth, replete with forest witches and the like. Filmed very much in the Noh theater style, Satoh's music followed suit, and is very percussive and bleak. An extended suite of Satoh's THRONE score appeared, along with suites from all his Kurosawa film scores, on Volume 13 of The Film Music by Masaru Satoh (SLC-7114~15, 1993), but this is the first time the complete score to this and the other films were made available. You can get this for about $150 from www.intrada.com - it's an uneven mixture of terrific Western-styled music mixed with often times very bleak ethnic material; I thought it was worth it just to have these complete scores on CD. But it's the more accessible SEVEN SAMURAI that will occupy the most time on my CD player.

Russell Watson's new album, coming out in February, will have a new version of "Faith Of The Heart" (the lame theme to ENTERPRISE) on it. Don't let the trekkies run you over on the way to the record store for this one, folks. (End of editorial assimilation.)

In early 2002 there will be a first ever CD release of John Harrison's score to the 1985 film DAY OF THE DEAD, previously available only on a private label LP. The new company slated to do this release has not yet given itself a name, but standby for details.

Danny Elfman will score RED DRAGON, Brett Ratner's adaptation of Thomas Harris' first Hannibal Lecter novel (previously filmed by Michael Mann as MANHUNTER, with a score by Michael Rubini with music from German synthesist Klaus Schulz).

ROLLERBALL (John McTiernan's remake) has been scored by Eric Serra (THE FIFTH ELEMENT).

Randy Edelman's music for BLACK KNIGHT came out on Varese Sarabande this week.

Graeme Revell (TOMB RAIDER, PITCH BLACK, RED PLANET) will be scoring David Twohy's BELOW, an underwater sci-fi horror film taking place on a sunken Nazi U-Boat. The film is due out in February.

Mark Isham (COOL WORLD, BLADE) is scoring the Miramax SF film IMPOSTER. The Gary Fleder film is based on a Philip K. Dick story. Jeff Beal (POLLOCK) has reportedly composed additional music for this score. Isham's scores for DON'T SAY A WORD and LIFE AS A HOUSE were both just issued by Varese Sarabande this week (302 066 297 2).

Marco Beltrami (not George S. Clinton as previously announced) will be scoring RESIDENT EVIL with shock rocker Marilyn Mason. Marco will also score BLADE 2.

But George S. Clinton will score the third AUSTIN POWERS movie (GOLDMEMBER) as well as the third MORTAL KOMBAT movie (DOMINATION), due for release in 2002 and 2003, respectively. Clinton scored each series' first two films.

Soundtrax is our bi-weekly movie soundtrack column.