yes I know I'm skating on very thin ice here but....another Lawrence of Arabia! Exodus yes! Spartacus yes!! The Ten Commandments puleeeeeze! how much longer must we wait for Elmer Bernstein's magnum opus to be as gloriously and sumptously re-recorded as maetros Rozsa's El Cid.
0 Kudo
WHY! (Ten Commandments)
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 filmmusicbuff |
WHY! (Ten Commandments) |
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Posts: 78 (10/24/08 12:37:02) |
Last Edited By: John Fitzpatrick 10/25/08 14:37:10.
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William D McCrum |
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Posts: 1790 (10/24/08 13:32:24) |
It's not a bad idea, filmusicbuff, but you need to remember it's market-driven. In the case of Tadlow, they re-record AT GREAT EXPENSE scores they feel
passionate about, and I'm stunned that James Fitz did this one at all, and did it so well. In the case of 'Ten C.' that means over two hours of
very thick orchestral score.
Also, Elmer was a composer who evolved .... well, perhaps it's better to say that in the case of 'Ten C.' and 'The Buccaneer' he was 'under an influence' i.e. that of the DeMille ethos. Many early scores he wrote were much more sophisticated in terms of modernity. He was never a fully committed 19th Century Romantic composer, though he knew the ropes and could score such with great accomplishment. So he wrote a score that was a little passe by his own standards. He did a few re-recordings, but I don't think the late Elmer would have wanted to push this as a showpiece. In fact, he went on record as saying he didn't want a full representation of this work, and his most recent Ten C. album was rubbished by many fans (though I personally liked it). Also, because it's market-driven and the 'market' are obsessives who just want the music in any form, the reality is that there are bootlegs out there of the whole score, even if in less-than-perfect OST sound. Remember that even more worthy scores like 'Ben-Hur' have never had full end-to-end DDD representations, even though they'd be a safe bet commercially. The Rhino seems to have satisfied the obsessives. In the case of 'El Cid' there was no hope that the OST would ever come to light, the tapes having been junked obscenely. With 'Provate Life of Sherlock Holmes', there was only a bootleg. When Intrada released all their Rozsa albums, they did so at atime when it didn't seem that probable that the OSTs would ever be legitimately freed. So the long-term answer surely has to be that the music has to somehow create a market for itself. The market at present consists of collectors and those with OST-fetishes against re-recordings. Once the music is accepted AS music and not just as a minority collectors' thing, or an extension of the films themselves, then orchestras and producers might commit. But be in no doubt about it: THIS MUSIC IS EXPENSIVE TO RECORD AND THE PEOPLE WHO TAKE THE RISK HARDLY EVER MAKE REAL PROFITS. So we're in their debt. I believe that in terms of Rozsa for example, it's the 'Ben-Hur' pinnacles that need REGULAR new recordings, because they will SELL in the bigger market. And that can fund the lesser known releases, and draw attention to them too. But the selfish 'collector' only wants the thing he hasn't got. This is a suicidal strategy for success. Three 'certs' will fund one 'obscure'. Three 'obscures' however will lose money. Just watch Tadlow's 'Lawrence' fly like hotcakes. |
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Breda Von Krolock |
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Posts: 284 (10/24/08 14:39:21) |
William D McCrum wrote: Elmer, when wrote Ten C. was under influence of a certain Wild North, however not the Alex one. I refer to the Bronislau Kaper composition. Samples here: Wild North |
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A Lee Hern |
THE NEWEST HIGHLAND GAME: TOSSING THE KAPER | ||
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Posts: 4726 (10/24/08 18:53:45) |
When I saw the title of this thread, I thought for a moment that Tonya Harding's hefty henchman had clubbed Nancy Kerrigan in the knee again.
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA is a great film largely in spite of Jarre's score; certainly not, in part, because of it. And as for Kaper's THE WILD NORTH, it just sounds like a scaled-down version of his MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (big surprise), yet you don't suggest that that and Bernstein's TEN COMMANDMENTS share a kinship. |
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pp312 |
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Posts: 124 (10/24/08 22:14:12) |
filmmusicbuff wrote: I tend to agree with this, but "Lawrence" appears to be a favourite of James's and he's putting up the money, so there. Also he seems to have some regrets about the previous version and wants a second go. Let's indulge him, eh? 
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A Lee Hern |
THE BEY INSISTED THEY DO IT ON THE OTTOMAN | ||
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Posts: 4727 (10/24/08 22:53:09) |
The Turkish Bey indulged himself, and look at where it got him (not to mention Lawrence).
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William D McCrum |
Blame Canada | ||
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Posts: 1791 (10/25/08 06:01:33) |
A Lee Hern wrote: Well, there was a lot of indignation about this when someone pointed it out on the FSM board, but it sounds incontrovertible. Of course these things could be coincidence. 'Wild North' does show that 'Mutiny on the Bounty' was Kaper's, though some wanted to claim it for a Rozsa ghost-write, but the whole main theme from 'Wild North' seems clearly a basis for that theme in Ten C. that is used to invoke Moses and the Israelites throughout. It may also beg the question as to whether Elmer was secretly doubtful about his role in the task. Maybe it was subliminal. The FSM-ers, especially those who'd met Elmer, thought it sacrilege. We can see well enough that Elmer was a talented, versatile, tasteful composer with great skill. That is never in question. But did the Paramount mountain get mixed up with the snowcaps in the NW? You miss two points though, Ave. Should 'Lawrence' be the worst score ever, it would sell, and that is a very important economic consideration. These things are CENTRAL in developing a strategy. As I say, three certs fund an obscure, and three obscures fund the liquidation lawyers (not in Tadlow's case!). But I like the 'Lawrence' score: it has many good moments. Of the entire score, the only bit I question is the 'Auda's Camp' music that sounds like a French can-can. The rest works very well. I once heard someone attack Jarre's own harmonic technique in the scene where Lawrence strides along the train-carriage roof, with the sun at his back, the exalted 'saviour', just before his slap-down with the bullet. They said Schurmann's harmonic technique elsewhere was superior. This was totally wrong of course. The scene was orchestrated and harmonised just as Rozsa would have done, because this was a 'mystical' moment with Lawrence, at least in his own mind, undergoing apotheosis of sorts, even if temporary, and the parallel string chords followed by the dissonant brass were the perfect accompaniment to the 'god with feet of clay' images, very primal. Herrmann would have done that too. It's one of my favourite cues, and never before released.
Last Edited By: William D McCrum
10/25/08 09:13:49.
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A Lee Hern |
RHINE-MAIDENS TO THE RESCUE! | ||
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Posts: 4728 (10/25/08 08:32:36) |
Well, there was a lot of indignation about this when someone pointed it out on the FSM board, but it sounds incontrovertible. Of course these things could be coincidence. 'Wild North' does show that 'Mutiny on the Bounty' was Kaper's, though some wanted to claim it for a Rozsa ghost-write, but the whole main theme from 'Wild North' is based on that theme in Ten C. that is used to invoke Moses and the Israelites throughout. It may also beg the question as to whether Elmer was secretly doubtful about his role in the task. Maybe it was subliminal. The FSM-ers, especially those who'd met Elmer, thought it sacrilege. We can see well enough that Elmer was a talented, versatile, tasteful composer with great skill. That is never in question. But did the Paramount mountain get mixed up with the snowcaps in the NW? If one goes back to the original sleeve-liner notes on the Dot LP of Elmer's TEN COMMANDMENTS (reproduced on the MCA CD), one will find DeMille's comments about the score in which he begins "When I was a boy, my older brother introduced me to the operas of Richard Wagner, and the great Wagnerian themes have stayed with me all my life. Ever since music came into motion pictures, I have sought for composers who could, in their own original way, embody Wagner's concept that action, setting, language, and music should all blend into one perfect pattern. In 'The Ten Commandments,' Elmer Bernstein's achieves that ideal." Bolstering this is a document I uncovered about ten years ago while doing research in the DeMille archives at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, sent to DeMille in 1955 by then-Paramount music director Roy Fjastad (I paraphrase, as the photocopy I made of the memorandum isn't handy): "I am convinced that Elmer Bernstein has the requisite spirituality to write in the style of Richard Wagner. This does not mean, of course, that I think Bernstein posseses the talent of Richard Wagner..." (I gave a copy of the memo to Elmer years ago; he'd known the basic story of how DeMille's came to select him for the project, but hadn't read this particular piece of correspondence. He was highly amused when he read Fjastad's latter comment above). The point is that young Elmer, who was on the verge of leaping from scoring the likes of ROBOT MONSTER, to writing the music for what was to be the biggest, most expensive movie ever made by Hollywood, and who knew that his own deliverance from the shadows of political gray-listing was at hand via intervention by one of Hollywood's most prominent conservatives, was not about to deny DeMille the exact sort of music he almost surely suggested, or demanded, for the film in their conversations prior to Elmer's hiring for the full-time position of writing THE TEN COMMANDMENTS' dramatic score (Elmer having already been engaged, on a week-to-week basis to compose music for the film's dances; it was only after it became apparent that DeMille's longtime composer, Victor Young, would not be available due to illness that Elmer was engaged for the major task. Quite a leap on faith on DeMille's part when one considers Elmer's limited résumé and politically-shaky reputation at the time). Elmer gave DeMille exactly the pseudo-Wagner the director at least subliminally sought, with his main TEN COMMANDMENTS theme little more than a generalized transposition of the notes in Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries from Die Walküre (to pretty much the same extent as, say, Bill Conti's main theme to THE RIGHT STUFF -- a mere transposition of the main theme from Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto). Bernstein was certainly guilty of theft, but Kaper was an equal partner in crime, with Wagner as their ultimate victim.
Last Edited By: A Lee Hern
10/25/08 08:41:39.
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William D McCrum |
Pharaoh and his stormtroopers? | ||
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Posts: 1792 (10/25/08 08:59:13) |
A Lee Hern wrote: 'Great anecdote re Elmer, Avie. Though, well, I can see the use of Wagnerian harmonic technique, orchestration, and even intervals, but to be honest, I don't get the likeness to 'Valkyries' thematically at all. I can't hear it, sorry. I'm trying. But the 'Wild North' piece is clearly originative of the Moses/Hebrew theme and the Rameses theme (which were always closely linked). How many big leitmotives has Ten C.? There's the big bass 'Law/Judgement' theme that is certainly Wagnerian, and a Romantic variation of that usually on strings that is the main 'God and Covenant' motif (from the Prelude and the Burning Bush), the 'Moses/Hebrew People' theme, which is a sort of heroic fanfare that develops as a march or as the thrilling Intermezzo, and Rameses' menacing tyrannical march theme. There are many other themes, Nefertari, Zipporah, Joshua, Jethro, a nice Negro-Spiritual-sounding oriental/African theme for the priests of Egypt (see the 'water to blood' scene) etc. etc.. The closest I see to the 'Valkyries' is Joshua's theme, or maybe the 'Red Sea' theme. I'm willing to be persuaded, but I don't get it, whereas the 'Wild North' thing seems obvious. One theme that always DOES make me think of the Wagner tune is the 'Arrius' motif in the naval sequences of 'Ben-Hur' by Rozsa, heard in cues like 'Battle Preparations' or the end of 'Rest'. This theme never develops in that score, but if it did it'd have to turn out something very like 'Valkyries' or 'Flying Dutchman'. P.S. If you'd said that the theme for Sephora (Miss DeCarlo) influenced the Gold 'Exodus' theme I'd have mused more.
Last Edited By: William D McCrum
10/25/08 09:10:32.
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A Lee Hern |
STEALING FROM BRONISLAU, OR THE KAPER CAPER | ||
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Posts: 4729 (10/25/08 11:36:34) |
The "Law/Judgment" motiv is precisely the one I referred to as being pure Ride of the Valkyries. I'm very surprised that you don't
hear it.
With all that Elmer had riding on his assignment to score THE TEN COMMANDMENTS -- personal, professional, financial and otherwise -- one would think that the last thing he'd want to do is consciously plagiarize another film composer's work, as it would likely come around to bite him hard (and, were I a composer, and was moved to steal from a colleague, Kaper certainly wouldn't be at the top of my list, though his lack of a really distinctive style might make such an act of theft a little easier to conceal than snatches of, say, Korngold, Waxman, Steiner or, most of all, Rózsa, whose music's Hungarian underpinnings are not apt to be found in anyone who as a boy didn't collect Palóc folk tunes on the shores of lake Balatón). |
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William D McCrum |
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Posts: 1793 (10/25/08 17:00:38) |
Well, I've had a quick listen to my 'Ten Commandments' and 'Buccaneer' CDs and I certainly get the connection with 'Wild North',
but I can't string the notes of the theme you mention to Wagner's precise theme, even on a keyboard. Now the MOST Wagnerian passage of all is the
'Pillar of Fire' segment, where the strings emulate the 'Valkyrie' string figures and the horns bang out something very like the 'Fliegende
Hollander' motif. But elsewhere? Where've you gone, Breda von Krolock ... you started this! I think people just don't WANT to hear that Elmer
might've nicked something.
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Breda Von Krolock |
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Posts: 285 (10/25/08 20:33:25) |
William D McCrum wrote: Or, maybe, Elmer didn't accepted credit for a certain western composition, four years before Ten Commandments... Should I call it a process of beaubrummellization? |
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A Lee Hern |
DON'T MESS WITH THE KAPER CRUSADER AND HIS BOY, ROBBIN' | ||
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Posts: 4730 (10/25/08 23:45:06) |
No, THE WILD NORTH is clearly the work of Bronislau Kaper.
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pp312 |
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Posts: 125 (10/26/08 15:33:18) |
"THE BEY INSISTED THEY DO IT ON THE OTTOMAN"
"DON'T MESS WITH THE KAPER CRUSADER AND HIS BOY, ROBBIN'" I think it's getting worse. |
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TomD |
Kaper Caper | ||
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Posts: 252 (10/28/08 07:22:16) |
Clearly Kaper is at fault... for using an Egyptian-sounding theme in a western.
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William D McCrum |
Something Smoother Happens with Goshen Dry. | ||
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Posts: 1794 (10/28/08 08:33:50) |
No, THE WILD NORTH is clearly the work of Bronislau Kaper. The harmonic structure, the chords and the orchestration are clearly Bronislau Kaper ... those are the elements that betray any composer's technique and style. But melody is quite different. Rozsa's historical borrowings have his own unique stamp, but they aren't his melodically. There are those who say that, film-music being the pilloried outcast that it was, the main film composers would often informally, whilst chatting etc., lend out ideas to one another, even across studios. We just don't know. They thought they were churning out conveyor-belt recyclables. The interesting thing about the 'Wild North' theme is that it sort of straddles a half-way point between two themes from Ten C, namely Moses and Rameses, two themes always derived from the same kernels. Whatever its faults and merits, the Ten C. score is one of the most internally inter-related and consistent scores ever written: all themes are related, share elements etc.. It could all be cryptamnesia. There's a snippet of Rozsa's 'Hail Nero' march theme in the second half of the WN theme too. But because the harmonisation etc. is so different, we rend not to be drawn to that. |
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TJGuitar |
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Posts: 68 (10/29/08 13:20:06) |
seems I'm note the only one who wants Ten Commandments. I don't understand the OP's hostility though, Exodus and Lawrence will be great additions
to the Tadlow catalogue.
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pp312 |
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Posts: 126 (10/29/08 15:54:56) |
"seems I'm note the only one"
Yes, we've noted that. "I don't understand the OP's hostility though, Exodus and Lawrence will be great additions to the Tadlow catalogue. " I think the OPs hostility is mainly toward LAWRENCE, a somewhat crude score (I remember being shocked by it at the time, after the sophistication of EL CID and BEN-HUR) whose fame seems to rests mostly on a couple of attractive themes. (OK, I could be misjudging it, and I'm willing to be converted, but it may be an uphill job). I think it's a perfectly reasonable viewpoint but doesn't take into account the fact that this is a personal choice by the man putting up the money. We've already diverted him from this project once, to our great profit. The chances of doing so again seem pretty slim to me.
Last Edited By: pp312
10/29/08 15:58:25.
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A Lee Hern |
THE SEVEN PILLARS OF WHIZ-DOM | ||
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Posts: 4733 (10/29/08 18:20:45) |
The reputation of the film as a whole has carried along the score in its wake, as sometimes happens.
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Tadlow |
Exodus | ||
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Posts: 128 (10/30/08 04:35:20) |
Sorry to disappoint people but much as I would like to do QUO VADIS, TEN COMMANDMENTS, SPARTACUS, THIEF OF BAGDAD etc.... next, I can confirm that it will be
EXODUS.
Yes, I know the film is long, a bit boring, totally miscast, and a rather limp adaptation of the Uris' original novel....but it is a really fine score that deserves to be heard in all its glory! Obviously the main theme is one of the most famous in film music history but I feel many people do not realise how good (and concentrated) a score it is: they have probably been put off by the awful sound of both the original soundtrack recording and the equally awful sound of Gold's album record from the same period? So, if all goes well, the sessions will take plaace in Prague next March. I might even consider taking up the baton on this one! |
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Breda Von Krolock |
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Posts: 286 (10/30/08 05:35:51) |
Indeed a powerful theme.
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