WARRIORS OF THE SILVER SCREEN

VARIOUS

Rating:

Original Review: Stand up and take a bow. Yet again, hot on the heels of Cinema Century and Space and Beyond, the guys at Silva Screen have come up with yet another phenomenal compilation CD: this time, of all the best music relating to warriors, historical heroes and legends throughout movie history. Normally ignored composers like John Scott, Mario Nascimbene and Manos Hadjidakis have their best moments captured here. The highlights of the first CD are, for me, Jerry Goldsmith's First Knight, which I've wanted for ages but could never find. 'Arthur's Fanfare' is a patriotic brass cue, and 'No Surrender' is an OK, decent action cue featuring a rather annoying choir engaging in some Latin chanting, but the third track of the Suite presented here - 'Arthur's Farewell' - is my favourite track on the album: a wonderful, emotional piece featuring a mournful, yet moving woodwind solo; and Patrick Doyle's renowned score for Henry V. It was his first major score, back in 1989, and the track 'St. Crispen's Day' is a wonderful, rousing woodwind piece which, when finished, almost makes you want to join Kenneth Branagh on the fields of Agincourt. Franz Waxman's 1962 score for Taras Bulba suffers from an acute case of the Bolsheviks, but in this case this is not quite as bad as it sounds, because its obvious Cossack influence to the music gives it a perfect ethnic flavour: there are lots of spinning, surging violins in the opening 'Overture', while 'The Birth of Andrei' is a soft, delicate theme with a soothing oboe underscore, and the incredible 'The Ride to Dubno' has a marvellous, vibrant percussion beat and conjures up images of men flying across the grassy steppes in search of battle. John Scott's suite from Anthony and Cleopatra for some reason, reminds me of the love theme from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, but it also has a gorgeous, exotic-sounding element as well with muted trumpet fanfares punctuating a lovely trumpet melody. Greek composer Manos Hadjidakis' score for 300 Spartans is an exciting brass-based march that has, about a minute and a half in, wonderful a 30-second section with an absolutely magnificent love theme, with a haunting violin track; and, finally, on Disc One, Miklós Rózsa's epic score for El Cid, the love theme for which contains a melancholy string section. Disc Two opens to the strains of Franz Waxman again, this time with his score for Prince Valiant - an energetic, lively, but little too over-long score with a great brass element; I must admit I found Alex North's Spartacus a little disappointing - his main theme sounds like one of countless other historical epic main themes, while the 'Love Theme', although an attractive piece in itself, sounds as though it would be more at home in an upmarket romantic comedy than an action-packed Roman Empire epic. I love Rózsa's suite from The Thief of Baghdad, containing another of his trademark main themes with a strong string section; a beautiful romantic theme in 'The Love of the Princess'; a playful little ditty entitled 'Flying Horse Gallop', which makes inventive use of a xylophone and, finally, a heady cocktail of exotic rhythms and modern orchestrations combine in 'The Market at Basra', which is the kind of cue which always crops up in a film of this kind and invokes images of turbaned salesmen haggling in crowded, spice-laden, dusty streets. Basil Poledouris' Conan the Barbarian is interesting, as this arrangement includes the oft-forgotten 'Prologue', which is a soft and gentle theme - about as opposite as you could get from the pounding, kinetic 'Anvil of Crom'. Bernard Herrmann's prelude from Jason and the Argonauts is good, but I just wish there had been more than two minutes of the grand, bombstic theme. And, of course, Braveheart and Ben Hur are already familiar to me, although I must mention that Paul Brennan, who played the Uillean Pipes on the Braveheart track, completely mangled the timing of his notes and totally spoiled what was otherwise an excellent arrangement. Disc Two's best, and in my opinion the best on the entire compilation, is saved for last and Mario Nascimbene's glorious Suite from The Vikings. 'Rape & Pillage' is a bold and stylish cue; 'Ragnar Returns' has a great flowing theme played in turn by horns, flutes and violins; 'Dancing on the Oars' is a rich and resonant trumpet solo, backed by percussion and flute flourishes; 'Love Scene' is a classic romantic piece with lavish violins rising up and down, with one of the most tender themes I have heard for a while; 'Voyage and Landing in Britain' is a slightly more lustrous variation on the main theme; 'Attack on the Castle' is a big, dramatic action cue featuring the main theme played with ever-hightening tension over rattling drums and deep brass fanfares. The Suite finishes on the highest possible note with 'Funeral & Finale', where a chorus sings wordlessly over the main theme as the music, with its heavy drum undercurrent, rises to reach a great crescendo of voices, brasses and strings.

Track Listing:

DISK ONE DISK TWO Running Time: 73 minutes 56 seconds

Silva Screen FILMXCD-187 (1997)

Conducted by Paul Bateman, Nic Raine and Kenneth Alwyn. Performed by The City of Prague Philharmonic and The Crouch End Festival Chorus. Orchestrations by Leonid Raab, Charles Gerhardt, John Scott, Philip Lane, Arthur Morton, Sonny Kompaneck, Mike Townend, Miklós Rózsa, Lawrence Ashmore, Edward B. Powel, Maurice DePackt, Nic Raine, James Horner, Greig McRitchie and Bernard Herrmann. Chorusmaster David Temple. Featured instrumental soloist Paul Brennan. Recorded and mixed by John L. Timperley and Mike Ross-Trevor. Edited by Matthew Dilley and Mark Ayres. Mastered by Ian Shepherd and Matthew Dilley. Album produced by James Fitzpatrick.


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These web pages were designed and maintained by Jonathan Broxton copyright 1997. All opinions and views expressed on these pages are my own and are in no way intended to reflect those of my employer, the Trent Institute for Health Services Research, or those of the University of Sheffield.