UNFORGIVEN

LENNIE NIEHAUS

Rating:

Original Review: According to the liner notes of Unforgiven, Lennie Niehaus and Clint Eastwood first met during their time serving in the Army back in the 1950s. Their paths crossed again years later when Niehaus was undertaking orchestration duties for Jerry Fielding on scores for classic Eastwood flicks such as The Outlaw Josey Wales and The Enforcer, and continued to develop after Niehaus was hired to write the music for the cult 1985 western Pale Rider. Eastwood hasn't worked a different composer since. Of all their collaborations to date, Unforgiven may very well be the best of the lot from a musical point of view. The film was certainly great - it swept the board at the 1993 Oscars, winning the top honour of Best Film and bestowing Clint with a coveted Best Director award.

The film's success was down to the way in which it took all the old Wild West clichés about ageing gunslingers riding into frontier towns and cleaning up the place, and then turned them on their head with heavy doses of realism, philosophy and genuine sentiment. In the main roles, Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris, and especially Gene Hackman as the local law enforcement Little Bill Daggett, were exemplary, and Niehaus's music provided the ideal backdrop for this engrossing tale of revenge and redemption to play out on.

As always, the backbone of the score is a melody composed by Eastwood himself - 'Claudia's Theme'. It may come as a surprise to many, but Eastwood has a great ear for deceptively simple tunes, and has contributed the main melodic material to many of his movies' scores, including recent hits such as Absolute Power and The Bridges of Madison County. 'Claudia's Theme' is performed no less than eight times during the course of the score, but on each occasion Niehaus has had the sense to give it a unique, fresh twist through variations in orchestration.

The first performance, in the 'Main Title', introduces it as a crystal clear guitar solo, performed impeccably and with feeling by Laurindo Almeida. By its third and fourth performances, the solo guitar element has developed into two beautiful new renditions, firstly by strings, and then by a guitar duo with a bold timpani and a delicate brass accompaniment. By number seven, though, it has changed again, this time into a supremely haunting piece with the surprise addition of a cold, whispery-sounding synthesiser to beef up the sense of danger. However, by far the best rendition comes in the end credits, where after several subtle refrains of the lovely guitar, the full orchestra takes over properly for the first time, presenting a broad and lush theme which captures the true essence of the film - the nobility, honour, but occasional sadness of a group of honest people simply trying to get on with their lives in a vast, dangerous, uncharted new land.

Niehaus's original work is restricted mainly to atmosphere and action tracks, most of which are around the minute mark in length and fill the brief lapses in dialogue and accentuate difficult emotions. The harmonica-driven 'Will Looks Off', the sombre 'Pony For The Lady', the surprisingly effervescent 'Bucket of Water', the attractively tragic 'Headstone and Flowers' and the sweeping 'Will Rides In' being the best of the shorter cues. A great honky-tonk piano track comes in out of left field during 'Shave and Hair Cut', the score's one acknowledgement of the film's wry sense of humour. Where Niehaus does write extended pieces, the end results are excellent. 'Bill Clips Bob', for example, underscores the scene in which Gene Hackman mercilessly beats Richard Harris to a bloody pulp, and Niehaus's music combines dissonant, rasping strings with heavy percussion and a surprisingly appropriate synthesiser pedal point to raise the sense of tension and urgency. Similar cues include 'Give It To Him', 'Get Up', 'Reload This' and the conclusive 'Ned's Body/Shotgun Appears' and 'Burn His House Down'.

Normally, I get quite steamed up about scores which have lots of very short cues, but I actually find that it is of no real detriment to Unforgiven. Niehaus squeezes everything he can out of Eastwood's theme and, with his own embellishments and original elements, has managed to put together an album which is intelligently structured in terms of musical development, and therefore a great listening experience. Although the best parts have come from the pen of Eastwood, it is Niehaus's musical know-how which has allowed the beauty of Claudia's Theme to come so vibrantly to life.

Track Listing: Running Time: 34 minutes 51 seconds

Varése Sarabande VSD-5380 (1992)

Music composed and conducted by Lennie Niehaus. 'Claudia's Theme' written by Clint Eastwood. Orchestrations by Lennie Niehaus. Guitar solos performed by Laurindo Almeida. Recorded and mixed by Robert Fernandez. Edited by Donald Harris. Album produced by Lennie Niehaus.


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