Best Soundtracks of 2001 Part One

By: Randall D. Larson
Date: Thursday, January 24, 2002

There was much to please the indiscriminating film music-phile during the 2001 release year: impressive and memorable new scores from Williams, Goldsmith, Silvestri, and Goldenthal more than enough to make up for the dozens of lackluster works that erupted beside and beyond them. And for those with an ear more inclined toward the golden and silver age of fantastic film music, the continued proclivity toward restored, reissued, and resurrected film scores resulted in much to please the collector and listener alike.

New Scores

Perhaps the most eagerly awaited score of the year was John Williams' musical interpretation of HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE (Warner Sunset 83491-2) certainly the equal of the film itself in terms of audience anticipation. While some were disappointed in the score, the best portions of which seemed to have already been heard in the film's trailer released during Christmas 2000, Williams' score is nonetheless an effective and wonderful composition, full of magic and adventure and innocence, enhanced by choir and plenty of rousing, heroic moments. While not a spectacular work, Williams creates an appropriate embellishment to Chris Columbus' impression of the first HARRY POTTER story. The main theme, associated with Harry's owl Hedwig, is a wondrous composition, and recurs throughout to emphasize Harry's wizardry. But with equal parts E.T., HOOK, and PHANTOM MENACE recognizable throughout, the score seemed to be a little too much what we'd expect from Williams. That said, however, what we'd expect from Williams is always among the year's best film music. And in this respect, HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE succeeds very nicely. Taken on its own, it remains a very enjoyable and excellent work.

Where Williams

really shined in 2002 was with his gorgeous score for Steven Spielberg's A.I. (Warner Sunset 9 48096-2). This was everything we expected from Williams and much, much more. A sensitive score rich with emotive poignancy and innocence, A.I. is one of the composer's most lyrically eloquent scores of recent years. Williams approaches the story from three very distinct angles one uses the mixture of and persistent cadences that emphasize the mechanistic aspects of David, the robot boy; cues like "The Mecha World," "Abandoned in the Woods," and "Rouge City." The second aspect consists of the gentle rhythmic patterns that characterize Monica and her family both human and mechanized. These cues "Hide and Seek," "Cybertronics" are warm but remain somewhat restrained. Unresolved. Not so the final category the cues that deal with the fulfillment of David's journey of discovery and the revelations of humanity. With cues like "Where Dreams Are Born," "The Reunion," and Lara Fabian's solo vocal of the main theme, "For Ever," Williams opens up his orchestral and melodic palettes and creates some musical moments that really are to be treasured.

Lee Holdridge provided a broad and thickly orchestrated fantasy score for the Arthurian TNT miniseries THE MISTS OF AVALON, rich in texture and full of expressive melodies and adroit instrumentation. Bracketed between two songs (one of which he wrote) on the Varese Sarabande CD (302 066 266 2), Holdridge's music is vibrant and earthy, mythological and paganistic, mingling Gaelic and Arabic musical forms and instruments with the lyrical Western melodies he is known for. A choir adds a sense of import to some of the larger themes and moments, and Canadian vocalist Loreena McKennitt creates with her voice an appealing and melancholy tonality to the music, adding an abundantly present air of lamentation to much of the score, which is otherwise alternately adventurous ("Running Up The Hill"), profoundly tender ("The Children Leave," "Night Courtyard"), powerfully imposing ("Vivienne's Death"), or strangely otherworldly ("The Cave Ceremony"). The canvas presented by the film really gave Holdridge a chance to expand his musical territory and concoct a score that is large in breadth and scope, and widely varied in content.

Elliot Goldenthal's

FINAL FANTASY (Sony Classical SK 89697) is a broadly atmospheric score well suited to the cautionary post-apocalyptic CGI science fiction tale. Anchored by a very strong, ascending main theme for strings, the music frequently swells with power and emotion. Tender moments such as "The Kiss" grow breathlessly to a very satisfying and dynamic climax, developing the score's main theme from solo piano through to full orchestration. Goldenthal's conclusion, "Adagio and Transfiguration," takes his main theme from a tender flute and violins variant through a massive, almost Richard Straussian climactic recapitulation and summation before morphing it into something entirely new, as Capt. Edwards' spirit is transformed into a new life form. Lara Fabian once again demonstrates her vocal niceties by singing the End Title song, based on Goldenthal's Main Theme. The CD concludes with a dispensable pop vocal by the Japanese group, L'Arc-en-Ciel.

Howard Shore (THE FLY, SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, THE CELL, SE7EN) reveals a hitherto unexplored aspect of his musical capabilities with LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (Reprise 9 48110-2) through an amazingly realized and painstakingly organized and developed score. His musical canvas is an immensely broad and symphonic one, enhanced by several different types of choirs and musical approaches different for each set of characters (elves, dwarfs, hobbits, humans, demons) and each locale within Middle earth. These diverse elements are held together by a strong, very pleasing fantasy-adventure theme (fully developed at the end of "The Council of Elrond" and reprised frequently in many variations throughout the score). The CD, issued by Reprise in a regular release with a variety of different covers (as if they were trying to compete with TV Guide's commercialistic idea of multiple "collector's item covers" for a single issue), also appeared as a "collector's edition" with a leather-bound cover. CD content was the same for all incarnations.

SHREK (Varese Sarabande 302 066 308 2) finally

came home with a score CD just before Christmas (a song-only CD accompanied the film's April release. Composers Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell (ANTZ, CHICKEN RUN) have created a completely delightful musical accompaniment to this wonderful CGI animated fantasy/comedy. Half cartoon music, with tongue-in-cheek quotations and statements from a variety of musical sources, and half graceful and sweeping adventure music, the score paints a compelling and quite lovely portrait of Shrek's slimy home, Dulac's self-indulgent majesty, the dragon's fiery castle, and fantastic lands far and wide. The score takes on so many forms, from soaring melodies (the Main Theme, most fully developed in "Transformation"), comic variants ("Singing Princess," replete with exploding birds), ferocious battles ("Dragon!"), stately marches ("Tournament Speech," which blissfully ranges out of tune as it ends), to rock and roll rhythms ("Escape from the Dragon") and pretty, breezy melodies (the rhythmic acoustic guitar intro to "What Kind of Quest") and poignant soliloquies ("Starry Night."), that the music, as with the film, is a sure winner and better late than never on CD.

On a quieter note, Christopher Young's haunting score for THE GLASS HOUSE (Varese Sarabande 302 066 282 2) is also among the year's top contenders. Young's quiet, introspective score plays on the delicate paranoia inherent within the storyline with a main theme for rapidly fingered piano over slowly undulating violins. Young maintains an undercurrent of danger throughout the score, using low, apprehensive violin figures, furtive piano notation, and unresolved chordal patterns. It's a gently swaying score, lovely in melody but continually menacing in its low tonality and oscillating cadence, greatly enhancing the plight and peril of the young characters who come to realize the threat inherent within their new foster parents.

Other new

scores of note released during the year include John Powell's EVOLUTION (Varese Sarabande 302 066 256 2), a cool tongue-in-cheek fantasy score with a rock solid heroic main theme; Graeme Revell's DUNE (GNP Crescendo GNPD 8071), a wide-ranging epic score built around a huge, spacious heroic theme and plenty of diverse textures and thematic elements, Randy Newman's pleasingly riotous MONSTERS, INC (Walt Disney 60712-7), which is both clever and cute and delightfully charismatic, Trevor Jones' atmospheric FROM HELL (Varese Sarabande 302 066 296 2), a darkly brooding composition for orchestra and choir, Carter Burwell's understated but persuasive A KNIGHT'S TALE (Columbia CK 85947), unifying as it does medieval derivations with modern rhythmic styles, and Dan Jones' haunting SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE (Pacific Time PTE-8531-2), a compelling violin-driven score full of atmosphere and menacing passion.

Be sure to check back soon for part two of our "Best Soundtracks of 2001" feature, as we examine the "Sequels and Successors" of the year in music.