Quote:
Then Huston listened "Nirvana Symphony" of Mayuzumi and asked him to do the music. The initial contract was Mayuzumi to compose from the beginning to "Tower of Babel", and Petrassi to finish the movie with "Abraham".


This is it. Now we can see the Huston rationale. A score like this can't avoid the religious analysis. Mayuzumi's work (the 'Nirvana' and 'Mandala' Symphonies for example) is from a deliberately Buddhist tradition. That's EXACTLY the angle Huston would've needed for the FIRST HALF, where the music needs to 'meditate' its way out of chaos and into order. That's like Buddhist meditation, and in terms of 'creation' it's in reverse... going from the primal 'centre' towards the '1,001 things' of the created world. THEN when the world is created, and the chaos of the Flood sorted, use a DIFFERENT composer who is more LINEAR for the Jewish story of 'God moving in history' what the Germans call 'heilsgeschichte' or 'Salvation History'. It makes prefect sense!

Now Rozsa was ALWAYS ... in every note he wrote, an ordered 'linear' composer, even when dealing with 'spiritual' subjects. Look at the melodic line in 'To Everything There is a Season'... it dips and climbs and is descriptive of the opposites in the text. He was in THAT sense as 'Hebrew' as it's possible to be, Mickey-Mousing through events and emotions. So Huston would no doubt have liked him for part 2 but to use him on part 1 would be an unknown quantity. Huston is indeed usually unerring. We also see how Mayuzumi had the sheer brass to use a WALTZ as the main theme. This is a Hindu idea (and Buddhism developed from Hindu principles) that 'God' DANCED his way through the Creation.

The other thing is, I disagree though that Mayuzumi's music is not 'numinous' or awe-filled. If it's not pretentious to say it, I think a lot of authentic 'other world' experience has just that unsettling feel that you get in that film's music. Buddhists don't go for enlisting passion, since passion is seen as a distraction, an imbalance. Rozsa DEPENDS on passion and appeals to passionate people, but in 'religious' terms that can only be an emotion-rouser. But there IS passion in Mayuzumi's score, and he can describe evil and chaos in ways where Rozsa would struggle.