EARTHSEA

JEFF RONA

Rating:

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton: Jeff Rona has had an interesting, somewhat unique career to date. The 48-year old American was one of the first composers-in-residence of the Media Ventures organisation when it first started up in the early 1990s, and scored the biggest hit of his career replacing Maurice Jarre on Ridley Scott’s White Squall in 1996, before sort of disappearing. He has contributed “additional ambiences” to occasional Zimmer outings, and written for TV productions such as the recent “Traffic” spin-off, but for some reason has never truly built on the potential he showed in the early 1990s, or capitalised on his association with Hans Zimmer the way other early-MV composers such as Mark Mancina, Trevor Rabin, Harry Gregson-Williams or John Powell have.

Possibly part of the reason why Rona has never become “big” is that his music tends to be quite electronic in nature: he is given to long periods of synthesised droning, and seems to be more interested in the creation of musical effects and sound design than he is writing big, memorable themes. This is not to say he has not done good work – on the contrary, the world music palette he brought to Zimmer’s Black Hawk Down was very well received – but in general terms he tends to be the forgotten member of the former Media Ventures fraternity. This is why it comes as something of a surprise to learn that his score for Earthsea is both very good, and predominantly orchestral.

A large-scope mini-series made by Hallmark for the SciFi Channel and based on the popular novel by Ursula LeGuin, Earthsea stars Shawn Ashmore, Kristin Kreuk, Isabella Rossellini and Danny Glover in an epic tale of fantasy, magic and destiny, which follows the fortunes of a reckless young boy who, upon discovering that he could potentially be the greatest sorcerer in the history of Earthsea, sets out on a treacherous journey of self-discovery – a rite of passage – where the dangers he faces will give him the strength of mind and will to bring an end to the wars that have been devastating the civilisation and restore peace.

In many ways, Earthsea is a close musical cousin of Brian Tyler’s Children of Dune, with a little bit of Klaus Badelt’s The Time Machine and Graeme Revell’s Chronicles of Riddick thrown in for good measure. It cleverly mixes large orchestral forces with a vast array of vocalists and ethnic instruments, especially percussion, to create a musical depiction of an alien culture which is both very different from, yet very similar to ours. Irish Uilleann pipes and harps vie with an Iranian ney flute for our attention, while the wistful vocals of Azam Ali floats over the whole affair, giving a flavour of dreamy exoticism. As per the nature of the film, the score flits from one cultural timeframe to another, encompassing Celtic, middle-eastern, ancient medieval and modern western musical styles into a single whole, and although the middle section of Varèse’s lengthy album does drag just a tiny bit, the overall score is still rather impressive. It’s not that Earthsea is particularly unique in any way – on the contrary, it is actually very typical of the kind of modern “epic-ethnic” score being written today. It’s just that, unlike some of its contemporaries, Earthsea somehow has a touch of class, and a certain verve to it, which makes it just that little bit special.

The “Main Title” is a driving vocal piece with embellished string and percussion, and is not too dissimilar to the music being produced by the popular German world music band Enigma, and English composer Karl Jenkins. Variations in cues such as “Follow Your Path” and the large-scale finale “Light Over Earthsea” give the score a sense of completeness, and the album a thematic core on which to build. Cues such as “Time to Go” and “My True Name” are especially notable for their gorgeous Uileann pipe performances (courtesy of regular James Horner collaborator Eric Rigler), while “Sailing” and “Sparrowhawk” both recapitulate the main theme with a sense of flight and freedom that only comes when accompanying scenes of visual grandeur. In addition, “Halls of Wisdom” and “Wonderful Friend” has a pseudo-lighthearted sound created through the use of various glass instruments and upbeat jig-like rhythms.

At the other end of the scale, cues such as “Ged and His Teacher”, “When We Meet” and especially “A Lesson Learned” and “Into the Catacombs” present a hitherto undiscovered side to Jeff Rona’s talent: the ability to craft simple, attractive moments of emotional intensity and atmospheric drama using little more than a gentle orchestra, soft woodwinds and voices. Occasionally, action enters the fray: during “The King’s Plans”, “The Kargide Attack”, the frenetic “The Book of Spells” and “At Dawn” the percussion becomes heavier, the tone darker, and the brasses more powerful. In many ways, these cues actually remind me of the work James Newton Howard did for films such as The Postman and Waterworld – perhaps not surprisingly, given the nature of the plot of those films and the similarities to that of Earthsea.

Without wanting to sound unkind to Mr Rona, I can’t help but wonder why he has been hiding talent like this behind the endless hours of monotonous droning he seems to frequently churn out – this is by far the most impressive score I have heard from him to date. As I mentioned earlier in the review, Earthsea is not an earth-shattering score. It does not present any new sounds or styles, or offer any new, groundbreaking schools of thought. Instead, it takes a number of identifiable ethnic sounds and a familiar orchestral palette, and fashions them into a solid, enjoyable hour-long score which fans of the genre will surely enjoy.

Track Listing: Running Time: 67 minutes 16 seconds

Varèse Sarabande VSD-6625 (2004)

Music composed by Jeff Rona. Performed by The Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. Conducted by Allan Wilson and Jeff Rona. Featured musical soloists Loga Rameen Torkian, Erin Kamler, Eric Rigler, Jen Kuhn, Martin Tillman, Houman Pourmehdi, Marni Houffum, Craig Hara and Jeff Rona. Special vocal performances by Azam Ali, Katy Stephens, Julie Graffagna, Marissa Steengold and Selena Arivanovic. Recorded and mixed by Peter Fuchs, Gregg Lehrman and Malcolm Luker . Edited by Richard Henderson. Mastered by Rob Beaton. Album produced by Jeff Rona and Gregg Lehrman.

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