300 Jewel Cover
© N/A
The Mythic Eloquence of 300
By: Randall LarsonDate: Thursday, February 08, 2007
THIS WEEK’S RECOMMENDATIONS
Tyler Bates’ music for 300, Zach Snyder’s spectacular adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel about the epic Battle of Thermopylae that pitted 300 Greeks against the massive Persian Army in 480 BC, is a massive orchestral composition that ripples with energy and resonates with enormous layers of symphonic and sampled prowess. Both the film and soundtrack make their debut next month, but a preview of the score was made available by Warner Sunset and I’m pleased to provide this first listen of what is surely Tyler Bates’ most expressive and provocative score to date.
Bates scored Snyder’s impressive remake of Dawn of the Dead, investing Snyder’s über-horror with an ambient atmosphere of terrifying tonality; he also provided compelling scores for Slither and for Rod Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects, among several dozen other notable efforts since 1993. 300 is quite a departure for both Snyder and Bates, but both seem well up to the task. The picture looks terrific, and the score is absolutely impressive. Drawn from elements of heroic epic, World Music, and contemporary action and horror sensibilities, Bates has crafted an impressive amalgamation the sum of which is an eloquent and energetic composition that ultimately speaks with a voice all his own.
“My intent was to stay true to the inspiration of the film and that of the Spartans’ freedom and will,” Bates said of his approach to scoring the film. “The greatest challenge was to bead a musical thread throughout the film’s ever-changing landscape of visual art, while sustaining its epic and emotional qualities. I had to approach it in a style as inventive as the film itself.”
By the sound of it, Bates has accomplished that very effectively. The score to 300 bristles with deep, cavernous male choruses, and seethes with sinewy Middle-Eastern female vocalisms. It echoes with reverberated hues and cries of massed humanity, resounding in conflict and in resolution. The score breathes with a vibrant sonority and texture that keeps its many layers nicely spread across your stereo sound spectrum.
There are a couple of recurring motifs that arc across Bates’ sweeping musical landscape, but each track on the CD two dozen-plus sequence are immersed in effective and interesting instrumental textures. Action cues like “No Mercy” throb with thunderous percussion and howling chorus chants – music for terrible warfare with no room for pity. “No Sleep Tonight” is, as might be expected, a nightmarish mix of moaning chorus, severe gradients of piercing synth chords and echoing ghostly wails. “The Hot Gates” and “Fever Dream” even incorporate strums of heavy metal guitars, lending a unique flavor to Bates’ otherwise orchestral accompaniment. “A God King Bleeds” seeps with concrete-laden drops of bitter instrumentation, harsh blasts of horns and winds and percussion, from which a rhythmic figure emerges, merging into an angelic paean of awed choir; “Glory” follows with similar intent; not the heady, bombastic cheer of spectacular triumph but the furtive resolution of a soft victory, bitterly earned but finally won at great cost.
“Goodbye My Love” is a powerful and poignant soliloquy for sorrowful strings, layered in undulating, drifting patterns that draw into the throaty voice of Iranian singer Azam Ali, giving the low violins an intensified tonal coloration. “The Council Chamber” is a moving melancholic melody for resolute strings and echoing synth tonalities, reflective of difficult decisions and dangerous destinies. Out of this rising a lilting, ascending melody for strings and solo horn while, like Ali’s piercing vocal in “Goodbye My Love” lends a powerful contrasting texture to the sonority of the cue.
“Remember Us” concludes the score with a powerful and harmonic rising pattern of growing tone and force. Like “Glory,” it is introduced softly and slowly, from hushed strings and horns, ever so gradually growing into a magnificent crescendo, one single final note that quickly fades into its own indistinctive echoes; a final cry of triumph over accomplishment, and then faded, like ancient Sparta, from memory if not from meaning.
Bates’ use of Middle-Eastern styled voices throughout the score is not only texturally interesting, adding a compelling blush to the score’s resonance, but also sounding appropriate to the film’s environment and time period. Ali’s voice speaks for each people’s – both Spartan and Persian – desire for victory and triumph; her voice usually used to reflect sympathetically especially with the heroism and sacrifice of the Spartans while the more dominant male chorus tends to echo sentiments less benevolent, associated more often with the dominant threat of the fierce Persians.
Voice also reflects the environmental pageantry of the film, as with “Returns a King,” which is steeped in pomposity as a large chorus pays vocal tribute to the new ruler, and “Come and Get Them,” with its harsh chorale intonations and dominant percussive blasts of timpani and tom-tom.
Warner Bros will release the 300 soundtrack CD on March 6th, three days before the release of the picture itself. The soundtrack will be available in both a standard jewel case edition as well as a deluxe-version digipak, which will include a 16-page booklet as well as three 2-sided trading cards.
For a sneak peek at the artwork for the Special Edition version of the soundtrack, take a look at this You Tube web site for a cool clip:
www.youtube.com/watch?v
For more info on Tyler Bates and his 300 score, see our own interview with Bates, posted in my Nov. 2, 2006 column (www.mania.com/52650.html)
More information on the film can be had at www.300themovie.com and on the score at www.warnerbrosrecords.com
FILM MUSIC NEWS
The New York Times has posted their review of Ennio Morricone’s February 3rd concert at New York’s Radio City Music Hall (his first concert appearance in the USA) with a mixed view: “In sheer size, the forces arrayed onstage were impressive: the Roma Sinfonietta of about 100 was augmented by the Canticum Novum Singers, an ensemble of roughly the same size,” wrote Stephen Holden in the Feb 5th edition of the paper. “The solemnly presented event was the latest salvo in an international Morricone blitz whose climax will be an honorary Oscar later this month. (Over the years he has been nominated five times.) By most measures this was a strange event: frustratingly short, the music unaccompanied by film clips or any other images. Although a program listed the selections, there were no annotations and no introductions to the themes, which were grouped in blocks with titles like ‘The Modernity of Myth in Sergio Leone’s Cinema’ and ‘Social Cinema.’ The orchestrations were conspicuously billed as ‘the same as the original soundtracks.’
Read the full NYT review at:
A film music aficionado posted his own perspective on the film music email listserver, FILMUS-L: “I thoroughly enjoyed the concert myself, despite some performances issues and the fact that Radio City is a terrible orchestral venue. I thought it was great fun, and it was so nice to see Morricone so incredibly loved by the audience. I lost count but I think he received something 42 standing ovations. One can only hope that he felt that motivation to return in the future.”
This past week, composer John Frizzell recorded his score to the Dark Castle Entertainment production, The Reaping. Directed by Stephen Hopkins, the film stars Hilary Swank as a former Christian missionary who investigates and disproves religious phenomenon – until she investigates a small Louisiana town that appears to be suffering from the Biblical plagues, and science is unable to explain what is happening. Frizzell, who has worked with producer Joel Silver before on such films as Ghost Ship and Thir13en Ghosts, wrote a large orchestral score that takes advantage of an 80-piece orchestra, as well as a 60-voice choir. For an exclusive report on the scoring session, including photos and a sneak peak at the score, see: http://www.soundtrack.net/news
Now shipping from La-La Land Records is the first-ever release of Harold (Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop) Faltermeyer’s score for the 1989 Sylvester Stallone/Kurt Russell buddy-cop pic, Tango & Cash. Limited to 3,000 copies, Faltermeyer’s rollicking, full-throttle score is one of his best – full of infectious main themes and propulsive action cues. CD Booklet contains exclusive liner notes. Also released this week is
the original soundtrack to this winter’s TNT Original Movie Event The Librarian: Return To King Solomon’s Mines, starring Noah Wyle (TV’s “ER”) and Gabrielle Anwar (Scent Of A Woman). It’s the action-packed sequel to TNT’s hit film The Librarian: The Quest For The Spear. The robust orchestral scores from both films are from acclaimed composer Joseph Loduca (Evil Dead trilogy, Xena, Hercules, The Triangle) and both scores are presented here in La-La Land’s double-CD limited edition set. And, last but not least, the label has also just released the complete score to the beloved 1987 Mel Brooks sci-fi spoof Spaceballs, scored by acclaimed composer John Morris (who has scored all of Brooks’ classic comedies (including Blazing Saddles, The Producers, History Of The World Part 1, Silent Movie, High Anxiety and The Twelve Chairs; he’s also noted for his sensitive score for The Elephant Man). Morris expertly propels Spaceballs with a robust orchestral score that nimbly fuses epic science-fiction adventure, comedy and action. It is presented here in its entirety for the first time, with a slew of bonus tracks featuring alternate takes and tracks composed for, but not used in the film. www.lalalandrecords.com
Lee Tamahori’s upcoming science fiction thriller Next, starring Nicolas Cage and Julianne Moore, gets an orchestral score composed by Mark Isham. The film, scheduled to be released by Paramount on April 27, tells the story about a magician who can see a few minutes into the future – a talent that attracts the interest of the government when a terrorist group threatens to detonate a nuclear device in Los Angeles. Mark Isham, whose recent scores include Bobby, The Black Dahlia, and Freedom Writers, has only scored a handful of sci-fi films, most notably the Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle Timecop in 1994. Isham also has the score for Pride and Glory coming up, and he has also written music for Paul Haggis’ TV series The Black Donnellys. – Mikael Carlsson/via filmmusic weekly
Intrada presents the world premiere CD release of David Shire’s music from Robert Wise 1975 disaster-conspiracy thriller, The Hindenberg, starring George C. Scott and Anne Bancroft. Shire anchors the film “with luxurious floating soliloquy for trumpet with strings, woodwinds, French horn in tow” and lots of pulsating action. “Powerful highlight, ‘Fin Repair Sequence,’ begins with subtle figure for snare drum, bass drum, cymbals underneath clarinets. Idea builds, strings add tension, brass appears. Full orchestra flows with repair melody then entire piece suddenly becomes virtuoso display featuring dynamic, shrill ostinato for fortissimo flutes, piccolo over pounding chords in low brass. Cue reaches powerful climax, finally ends with bravura finish.” Intrada’s CD offers the complete 1975 MCA LP (almost all of Shire's original music was featured) digitally re-mastered at Universal using original stereo album masters. Colorful packaging includes original album artwork, stills, informative notes by Jeff Bond. This Special Collection release is limited to 3000 copies. www.intrada.com
L'Isola Degli Uomini Pesce © 
A treat for any fan of Alfred Hitchcock, DRG will release a CD featuring the two LPs Music to Be Murdered By and Circus of Horrors. The first was a concept album originally released in 1958, featuring music by Van Alexander and commentary by the legendary director. Circus of Horrors was a 1960 UK horror film with music by Muir Mathieson and Franz Reizenstein.
Dororo © 
From Italy’s Verita Note comes an expanded soundtrack release of Nino Rota’s celebrated score for Zeffirelli’s The Taming of the Shrew (La Bisbetica Domata), containing exclusive bonus tracks.
FILM MUSIC BOOKS
Close Encounters Of The Worst Kind is an unconventional and startlingly truthful autobiographical memoir by the distinguished American composer-conductor Phillip Lambro (Crypt of the Living Dead, Murph the Surf, the original/rejected score for Chinatown). The book includes little known highly personal and candid recollections and recounting of witty evocative situations and stories which Phillip Lambro has personally experienced during his interesting and varied life with an unbelievable diverse cast of famous personages ranging from Salvador Dali, Frank Sinatra, Jack Benny, Huntington Hartford, Howard Hughes, and Roman Polanski; to John F. Kennedy, Sylvia Plath, Harold Lloyd, Richard Nixon, Jack Nicholson, Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and many more.
http://www.lulu.com/content
Recommended Soundtrack sources:
www.arksquare.com/index_main
www.intermezzomedia.com/ (Italy)
www.moviemusic.com
