DOCTOR ZHIVAGO: THE ESSENTIAL MAURICE JARRE FILM MUSIC COLLECTION

MAURICE JARRE

Rating:

Original Review: Over the last decade, Maurice Jarre has gone from being one the top practitioners of his craft, with dozens of hit movies and awards from all and sundry, to being the forgotten man of film music. Jarre has not composed a major score for over five years - the last being his Golden Globe winning A Walk In The Clouds in 1995 - and he is greatly in danger of being overlooked by a whole generation of film music fans the extent of whose knowledge is limited mainly to music of the 1990s. Such an omission would be unforgivable as Jarre is, of course, responsible for some of the greatest themes the cinema has ever known, and boasts amongst his filmography such unforgettable epics as Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and Ryan's Daughter. In that sense the world was probably due for a reminder of Jarre's vast talent, and this new double CD from Silva Screen certainly does the job.

As is often the case with Silva, the majority of this album is made up of existing material culled from their vast re-recording archives, and which has been already released in some form or another on one of their many and varied compilations over the years. But, as always with the Camden crew, it is the sheer volume of music and the quality of the finished product that more than makes up for the jaded familiarity of most of it. In truth, I doubt very much whether Doctor Zhivago: The Essential Maurice Jarre Film Music Collection will be of much use to hard core collectors such as myself who, with a few exceptions, will probably already own most of the music included. Instead, this is a composer retrospective for the mass market.

Taken on those terms, the package is on the whole a marvellous one, although the presentation is a step below that which we are used to - James Fitzpatrick's notes are more than adequate, but what's with the streaky silver cover art? The City of Prague Philharmonic are as dependable and workmanlike as they always are, and with Paul Bateman wielding the baton the conducting is a notch above what we are used to. And, of course, the music is uniformly excellent, with several tracks meriting special acknowledgement. At some point in the future, it will surely read "Here lies Maurice Jarre, composer of Doctor Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia" on the composer's headstone. It is for these two scores that Jarre is most well known and, appropriately, the album devotes a large proportion of its running time to both of them - 17 minutes for Lawrence, 12 for Zhivago. The thunderous percussion opening and broad, sweeping, sun-kissed theme of the former is the stuff of film music legend, while the latter's striking cimbalom-led melody went on to become both a critical and commercial hit, as well as bagging an Oscar for its composer.

The vast majority of Jarre's other famous works are included. The rapturous 'Barn Raising' cue from the Amish murder-mystery Witness is heard twice, both in its original electronic form and re-orchestrated for a full symphony, and there are celebratory performances of the old fashioned foxtrot 'Adela's Theme' from A Passage To India, the superb accompaniment he wrote for the epic TV mini-series Jesus of Nazareth, the heartbreaking closing motif from the 1990 hit Ghost, the dangerously attractive woodwind melody from Fatal Attraction, and a lengthy suite of the subtly Irish-flavoured melancholy he wrote for David Lean's classic Ryan's Daughter. Equally impressive are the knockabout main themes from the westerns Villa Rides and Red Sun, and the soaring finale from Wolfgang Peterson's underrated science fiction parable Enemy Mine, which gradually grows to feature a extraordinary gurgling choir and a lush string orchestra, augmented by appropriately atmospheric synthesised textures.

In addition to these, and despite the fact that most of the album is culled from existing material, there were still a few scores that were new to me. I was especially impressed with the stark, solitary music for the 1968 movie The Fixer, which was written mainly for percussion and solo violin, and boasts a desolate, almost inhuman quality that reminds one a little of Schindler's List. At the other end of the scale, Jarre's thunderous action music for the 1985 Mel Gibson vehicle Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is all out orchestral warfare, fuelled by a huge brass section, a mass of percussion, a lovely choir, and a dense yet heroic central theme.

Having said that, and although they mark important points in Jarre's career, I personally would have preferred it if Silva had left off the bland synth lines of The Mosquito Coast, The Year of Living Dangerously and No Way Out, and instead included a couple of themes from his less well-known orchestral works - Mohammed Messenger of God, Grand Prix, the lovely Prancer, or some of his early French works perhaps? It has always been a sore point with me the way in which Jarre seems to have embraced synthesised music for convenience rather than for any particular musical reason, especially in scores such as Dead Poets Society, which would have benefited enormously from increased orchestral content. But that is a discussion for another time, as it really has no bearing on the overall quality of the CD, and has nothing to do with Silva or Mark Ayres either.

For Jarre novices, or for anyone with limited funds who would appreciate a decent overview of his career to date, Doctor Zhivago: The Essential Maurice Jarre Film Music Collection is a worthwhile purchase. All the important landmarks of his career are covered, the styles are wide and varied, and the performances are good enough to be comparable with the originals. At the time of writing, Jarre has just been signed to score a new film in 2000 - Sunshine - which will also have a soundtrack album to accompany it. With that score, and this collection, it could be that Maurice is finally being welcomed back into the fold where he belongs.

Track Listing:

DISC ONE DISC TWO Running Time: 143 minutes 01 seconds

Silva Screen FILMXCD-324 (2000)

Music composed by Maurice Jarre. Conducted by Paul Bateman, Nic Raine and Tony Bremner. Performed by The City of Prague Philharmonic, The Philharmonia Orchestra and The Crouch End Festival Chorus. Orchestrations by Gerard Schurmann, Christopher Palmer, Patrick Russ, Nic Raine, Paul Bateman and Mike Townend. Electronic music arranged and performed by Mark Ayres. Choir conducted by David Temple. Recorded and mixed by John L. Timperley. Edited and mastered by Gareth Williams and Ian Shepherd. Album produced by James Fitzpatrick.

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