New Hammer Horror Music, a DUNE soundtrack coming, MONONOKE on CD

By: Randall D. Larson
Date: Saturday, December 30, 2000

Three new original Hammer film soundtracks have been released by England's GDI label, bringing the total number of complete Hammer horror scores available on CD to eight, plus four collections. All this is great news for Hammer music aficionados, since Hammer virtually reinvented horror music in the 1950s and set the pattern for the mix of thunderous dynamics and romantic melodies that would embody much of the best monster music for decades to follow.

Of these, James Bernard's SCARS OF DRACULA (GDICD014) is arguable the most welcome. The last of his five scores in Hammer's original Gothic Dracula cycle, SCARS is a fitting denouement to Bernard's efforts in the genre. The music, like that of Bernard's similarly styled TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA (released earlier this year on GDICD010), contrasted the dynamic terror music of the Dracula films with a lyrical and rhapsodic love theme. This contrast between the film's 'good' and 'evil' musical embodiments made for some terrific thematic interplay and resulted in two of Bernard's best Hammer scores. Their appearance in compete form on CD for the first time is an exceedingly welcome and important occasion.

Gerard Schurmann's music for Hammer's poorly balanced THE LOST CONTINENT (GDICD 015), is a release of equal import, albeit for other reasons. In the film's final release, Schurmann's carefully crafted and developed musical approach was virtually annihilated by producer tampering during the dubbing, with themes cut-and-pasted in places where they weren't intended, an improper and repetitious emphasis upon a pop vocal motif (written before filming at the suggestion of producer Michael Carreras), and an overuse of Hammond organ material (performed, incidentally, by Howard Blake, who would go on to become a notable film composer on his own, scoring, among others, FLASH GORDON and AMTYVILLE 3D).

As Schurmann told me, 'Our carefully laid musical schemes and preparations were in the end totally undone by the most ruinous final dub it has ever been my misfortune to encounter.' Two cues of Schurmann's original score were included on Cloud Nine's Gerard Schurmann: Music for Films, compilation in 1993; but GDI's new CD is the first to present the original score as it was intended, including extended and unused tracks. And a fine composition it is, attaining a clarity never achieved in the film due to the post-production tampering. Schurmann develops a terrific sense of terror and apprehension for the film's poorly realized Sargasso Sea monsters, and his contrast between the requisite theme song and organ material and their various permutations throughout the film is effectively and appropriately delineated. You'd never know what a splendid score this is simply by watching the film, and it's to GDI's credit that they give both the score and its composer their due in this fine CD. Digitally restored from the original recordings, the music sustains a very full dynamic, especially potent in Schurmann's exciting action cues ('Abandon Ship!' 'Shark!' and the like), which prove to be every bit the equal of James Bernard's terrific and archetypal Hammer horror music.


Four extra cues (revised versions of two cueswhich give them a new and enhanced tonality through use of Hammond organand alternate versions of the main theme) are also included. There's a bit of distortion in some of the cues (as if the tape was caught on something), but it's not totally distracting; the sound is otherwise fluid and lively. The CD benefits from a final track with the composer describing his score and its fate in the filma nice touch. The 20-page booklet includes a new remembrance of the film from actress Suzanna Leigh and an excellent and very thorough cue-by-cue analysis of the music by David Wishart.

Carlo Martelli's splendid score for THE CURSE OF THE MUMMY'S TOMB (GDICD016) completes the trio of current releases. Martelli concocts a sensational dissonant score for Hammer's second incarnation of the bandaged zombie. One of only two scores he wrote for Hammer (SLAVE GIRLS, aka PREHISTORIC WOMEN, was the other), Martelli's music was performed with an unusually large orchestra of 72 players, which gives it an especially rich sound, based on the interplay of two themes. One, often introduced by vaguely Egyptian sounding brass motif, is elsewhere arranged for vibrant trumpets over tremolo strings and rumbling timpani; it becomes a clarion call for the Mummy, while Martelli's second theme represents the Mummy itself, a strident, stalking brass motif punctuated by timpani, violins, and trilling woodwinds. A gentle love theme counterbalances Martelli's extraordinary dissonances. The film incorporated a superb recycled cue for brass, percussion, and choir from Franz Reizenstein's score for its predecessor, THE MUMMY (itself already released by GDI in fine form) during a flashback scene, which merges with Martelli's own heraldic motif. The CD booklet includes a short commentary by the composer, a report on the making of the film by Marcus Hearn, and a valuable if brief recap of its music by John Mansell.

PRINCESS MONONOKE

Last week's DVD release of Hayao Miyazaki's splendid anime fantasy, PRINCESS MONONOKE, provides an opportunity to recall the excellent 1999 CD release of Joe Hisaishi's score (Milan 35864). The composer has scored most of Miyazaki's splendid features, NAUSICAA (released. in the US as WARRIORS OF THE WIND but not half as good as the original), LAPUTA, MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO, and KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE. His MONONOKE score is an engrossing composition that evokes the heroes and demon-gods of Japan's past. With a broad orchestral canvas that embellishes strong character themes and an absolutely gorgeous, lilting main melody, this is one of Hisaishi's best and most accessible scores. (His earlier, seminal Miyazaki efforts are also available, perhaps most notably in a 6-CD set, Winds and Seeds: The World of Joe Hisaishi issued in 1987 as a boxed set from Animage, which includes both original soundtrack and symphonic suite versions of his NAUSICA'A, ARION, and LAPUTA scores). Anime film music tends to run the gamut from pure symphonics (rarely) to a mixture of pop, rock, disco, and other elements, with varied degrees of success. Hisaishi, as Hiroshi Miyagawa did for the SPACE CRUISER YAMATO films, provides a large-scale symphonic sensibility in his scores. After you enjoy MONONOKE on DVD (in splendid widescreen with the original Japanese language tracks), have a listen to Hisaishi's terrific score on CD.

News Updates

*Good news from GNP Crescendo Records: they have just signed an agreement to release Graeme Revell's score for this month's DUNE miniseries. The full score CD is expected to be released the first week of February. (Incidentally, for those eager to own the whole series, DUNE is due out on VHS in late January, with a DVD following from Artisan on March 23rd.) A reissue of a promo release of Toto's 1984 DUNE score, remastered for improved sound, is due soon from Supertracks.

*Supertracks will also issue a limited composer's promotional release of HEAVY METAL 2000, composed by Frederic Talgorn (FORTRESS, ROBOT JOX), as well as a commercial release of David Kitay's scary music for SCARY MOVIE. Kitay, who seems to have fallen into trendy comedies (he also scored SURF NINJAS, CLUELESS, and the exceedingly lowbrow DUDE WHERE'S MY CAR) gave a pleasing turn on traditional spook-music with his SCARY MOVIE score.

*French composer Philippe Sarde's music for Roman Polanski's moody horror offering, THE TENANT, has been matched with his score for Polanski's TESS on a single CD, issued by Universal in France (159898). Sarde is an excellent composer in the romantic fashion, and these are two of his best scores. Well worth haunting the import bins or the online retailers for this release.

*Joel Goldsmith (son of renowned composer Jerry Goldsmith, and himself an erstwhile composer of such fare as KULL THE CONQUEROR and TV's STARGATE SG1) will score the forthcoming WITCHBLADE TV series, due to premiere next spring. Joel composed the music for the TNT tv-movie that was aired this fall.