Film Music - Original Soundtracks

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Originally posted by shazbut:
_Danny Elfman_

Also excellent are his two Batman soundtracks,although you probably need only one as they are quite similar - atmospherically dark and gloomy.

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Elfman is very good, but every time I hear the main Batman theme, I feel strongly that the estate of Irving Berlin should receive a royalty for having "lent" his classic song Let's Face the Music and Dance.

Oh well, steal from the rich I always say.

So you did [mention Michael Nyman]. Apologies - especially as I actually read your post with particular interest and agreed with the comment about Gladiator. My short term memory is shot to buggery these days, and I expect I'll soon be in a Home.

As well as Holst, Gladiator reminds me a lot of Conan the Barbarian, which is a fave. Have you heard Conan the Destroyer? Quite similar to Conan the Barbarian, as you'd expect, and almost [but not quite] as good. Basil Poledouris did Robocop as well, which when I first saw it seemed to have an amazing similarity to C the B, especially the main theme - just a couple of notes switched.

What you say about Michael Nyman composing before the movie makes sense - it probably explains the differences between the classic[al] older stuff and more recent things like Gattaca, which have a much more traditional 'soundtrack' feel and if you didn't know it, would not realise was Nyman at all.

Doubtless you know the lovely 1492 by Vangelis, but what are his other soundtracks like? I see from Amazon that he's done quite a lot, and apart from Chariots of Fire [overkilled for me, & could never personally face it again, effective though it is] Any recommendations?

I know that at the time Vangelis blocked the release of the proper Blade Runner soundtrack, thinking for some odd reason that it wasn't worthy of release [first widespread use of sampling technology incidentally .... can't think of the gadget - Fairlight, maybe?] and so Warners, justifiably peeved, rustled up an orchestral, and rather manky version. A vaguely similar sort of thing happened with 2001, when CBS, to cash in on the prevailing mania popped out a version of the 'soundtrack' culled from their classical catalogue, in the hope of fleecing a few punters who hadn't noticed the official MGM version. The 2001 selections took up the first side of the disc, but then on the second side, some genius in A&R put an astonishing thing called A******* - A Space Opera. Blew the '2001 soundtrack' away - a mixture of electronica, choirs & orchestra. But what was it called? And by some miracle, is it available in any form? Me and my pals spent many an evening in darkened bedrooms lit only by red bulbs being astounded by this [it was 1968, remember] I suppose it must have been a pioneering example of 60's musique concrete, but I would dearly love to hear it again......

Oh, and thanks for the info on Aniara. After much Googling, I've discovered more that anyone would ever properly want to know - It was a sci-fi opera by Karl-Birger Blomdahl, written in 1957 from the epic Swedish science fiction poem [??] by Nobel prize winner Harry Martinson, and had the first use of electronic music in an opera. [incidentally, did you know that 'Iris' by Mascagni is the first opera to feature a bicycle onstage? - just thought you'd like to know] Several recordings made over the years, but alas none still available, unless you count an extract on a John Mauceri / Hollywood Bowl Orch disc, 'Music of the Stars' which is otherwise unfortunately infested with John Williams.

In an interestingly cyclic way, my researches also found out that the CBS 2001 thing featured four preludes by Morton Subotnik.

[This message was edited by throbnorth on WEDNESDAY 13 February 2002 at 11:33.]

Yes, 'Throb' is fine ....

What a shame about Vangelis - that explains why I've only heard 1492 & Blade Runner - I had wistfully hoped that there were a whole raft of goodies for me to explore.