The energy and vitality of Goldsmith’s score to THE MUMMY, and the romantic beauty of its love theme, help make up for any stylistic and thematic similarities with Goldsmith’s somewhat disappointing scores from the period 93-98. This score brought Goldsmith much more closely in-tune with the rest of contemporary cinema and film music – and, when Goldsmith is good (when he tries), he is often one of the best. When Goldsmith can marry his obvious compositional skill, his experience, his uncanny ability to understand the agenda of the movie, and most importantly, attempt to apply contemporary musical sensibilities – he is formidable.

With THE MUMMY we have many of those important elements that have been sadly lacking in Goldsmith’s output from the period 93-98. Great thematic material (though a very close cousin of THE 13TH WARRIOR), energy, solo instrumental passages, local flavour, an uncommonly lush smoothness, and action material that, usually, GOES SOMEWHERE (it develops and isn’t repetitious). This score actually has a purpose, to entertain and enhance the movie, and, unlike most of Goldsmith’s 93-98 works, it succeeds in that purpose.

From the bold opening statement of the main theme, complete with choir and soloists, followed by a lush statement of the ‘love theme’, again with those twangy soloists, one sensed that Goldsmith had done his homework here. The deep, yearning ‘Egyptian’ theme rounds off the opening track, as it began, great stuff. Any lingering doubts about Goldsmith’s achievement here were quickly dispelled on listening to ‘Tauger Attack’, a brilliantly scored action piece, complete with slick percussion work. All elements of the orchestra work together as one, and the thematic material developed towards it’s roistering conclusion. And then, ‘Giza Port’, the ethnic elements of the score are at their best in this track with a satisfyingly lengthy opportunity for the soloists to do their bit. ‘Night Boarders’ starts smoothly and subtly, with a gorgeous, almost plaintive rendition of the love theme – what a difference a bit of local colour can make – before charging headlong into a furious whirlpool of sound, with xylophone refreshingly prominent. And once again, gone is the pure ostinato, here we have some tremendous thematic development from Goldsmith, a rare thing from this composer these days – an action sequence with wit and subtlety, as well as incredible energy. ‘The Caravan’ maintains the local colour and mood of the score, with strings, choir and soloists playing against a backdrop of fluttering French horns.

Who can resist ‘Camel Race’? From it’s quietly mysterious opening, followed by a bold brass statement, the music leads into one of my favourite tracks from Goldsmith. This is Goldsmith not bludgeoning us into submission with clunky drums and a cartload of molasses. Here we have the composer inspiring the listener, building and developing his music from small beginnings to wave after wave of compelling highlights. The track ends with a beautiful oboe-led statement of the love theme.
The next few tracks are ‘musically’ less interesting, but most importantly serve their purpose more than adequately in the movie.

‘Rebirth’ returns us to the most ‘musically’ interesting elements of the score. The opening is mixture of ethereal, mysterious, and weird orchestral effects that builds into a lofty choral/brass statement before drums herald a return to the action material. Here, the music reverberates with urgency, twangy ethnic colourings, a few electronics, a deceptively stoic repeated brass statement, and drums – before the main theme kicks in once again – any lack of coherency away from the movie is more than made up for by the colourful and energetic nature of this track. As ‘Rebirth’ continues the music becomes satisfyingly more triumphal before ending with a flourish.

As if that wasn’t enough, there then comes the bone-rattlingly effervescent ‘The Mummy’. Goldsmith pulls out ALL of the stops on this one. Echoing brass, frantic strings, xylophone, a neat bit of counterpoint, and that off-kilter orchestral rhythm that Goldsmith has made all his own combine to create six minutes of pure entertainment. Midway through we get that seemingly stoic repeated statement once again, made interesting by all manner of inventive orchestral accompaniment. Then the climax - choir, lofty brass and sweeping strings lead to a cooling down.

Surely one of the most satisfying final tracks on any soundtrack album, ‘The Sand Volcano’ provides just what the listener wants to hear. A summary of all that has gone before, and then some.
A furious rhythmic opening gives way to the warm and sweet love theme, complete with prominent soloists once more – very satisfying. A return to the explosive roistering theme (way over the top, but so was the whole movie), then leads to the biggest, most surprising and satisfying part of the album. Halting strings herald the most beautiful rendition of the love theme – is this really Jerry Goldsmith? The music rises to a crescendo, without becoming gooey, before a lone trumpet (once again surprisingly) raises further the emotional impact of this passage, before the choir and orchestra complete the track, not before Goldsmith cleverly ends the album with a quiet and subtle Mahlerian device – he just left things open and unresolved, with that last sliding string figure.

Proving that THE MUMMY was no fluke, Goldsmith gave THE HAUNTING everything it needed musically. A fine piece of scoring, and a fascinating composition in it’s own right. One of my major criticisms of Goldsmith’s music from 93-98 was that the composer seemed to recycle the worst elements of his music - his most redundant musical ideas - over and over again. Considering the wealth of material from his own repertoire (57-92), it has astonished me that he has generally overlooked it in favour of the uninventive and uninspired material he has developed since 1992. And yet, at the same time, composers all around him, Horner, Williams, Elfman and on and on, seemed to be using ‘Goldsmith ideas’ from the past to far greater effect than Goldsmith himself. Witness Newton Howard’s main theme to DANTE’S PEAK for example, music that instantly recalled “Star Trek : The Motion Picture” (Ilia’s theme especially), and very nice it was too. But, Goldsmith himself, seemed to be trapped in a vortex of rapidly diminishing thematic material – each score (93-98) seemed to induce a further erosion of Goldsmith’s abilities.

However, THE HAUNTING is as much a celebration of all that WAS great about Goldsmith, as a new film music composition of rare depth. Beginning with seemingly bland and redundant calliope music, much like Mahler’s famous use of banal military music in his symphonies and songs, the music is then twisted and distorted and the ridiculous BECOMES the sublime. And now, with THE HAUNTING, at last, evidence that Goldsmith was drawing on the BEST elements of his repertoire, not the worst. The main ‘house’ theme instantly recalls “Star Trek : The Motion Picture” and “Basic Instinct” – two of his best scores. And yet he adds something else to these existing ideas, to create a lush, compelling, mysterious, dramatic and tragic theme – beautiful. And there’s more evidence of contemporary musical sensibilities. The inventive, though musically uninteresting, owing to it’s disjointed nature, “Terror in Bed”, goes even further to dispel any doubts that may linger over Goldsmith’s reinvigorated attitude to scoring. This track is brimming with contemporary musical sensibilities. Here also, it has become clear that, at last, Goldsmith (or his technicians) were getting the balance of sound right. Brass and acoustic drums were not overwhelming all other elements of the score anymore. Yes, brass and timpani were there, but not so prominent. Electronics and solo passages were allowed to breathe – the balance was right. Brilliant use of electronics, massive orchestral sound and wonderful thematic material are combined brilliantly in ‘Terror in Bed’, and the music works perfectly in the movie too.

‘A Place for Everything’, one in the past would have expected a sickly-sweet track drowned in marmalade. Here though, delicate flute, harp, woodwinds and strings and then brass provides a gorgeous introduction to the return of Goldsmith’s Herrmann/Cloud/Mahler styled ‘house’ theme, again the reverberating electronics merge seamlessly with the tight, slick orchestration. Certainly one of the best themes I have heard composed for film. ‘The Curtains’ starts smoothly, before strange acoustic and electronic effects take over, interspersed with the warm (but witty) tender music heard in the previous track. The Celesta makes a welcome return as the track ends quietly.

‘Curly Hair’ provides yet more elements that I believe have been fatally lacking in Goldsmith’s output (93-98) – these being a rumbling ambience and unresolved musical ideas, before a brisk reprise of the ‘house’ theme. ‘The Picture’ is a colourful montage of musical ideas, with wispy strings and electronics creating the perfect tone in the movie, and away from the film. The ‘house’ theme soon returns at it’s most striking – one of the highlights of the album – brilliant. ‘Return to the Carousel’ provides a satisfying ‘action’ interlude before the calliope music returns, ever more distorted – wonderful track.

The main highlight of the album comes with the astonishing ‘Finally Home’. A generally quiet (but interesting) opening, gives way to one of Goldsmith’s most magnificent creations. Towering orchestra, electronics, and thankfully perfect acoustics combine with mesmerizing thematic material. And the music moves too, developing, sometimes tortuously, before reaching a climax almost (but not quite) as shattering as one found in a Mahler symphony.

‘Home Safe’ provides a satisfactorily calming ending to the album. Clever, witty orchestration (a million miles away from ‘Rudy’) is on display in the warm opening, and then the cool, fresh recap of the ‘house’ theme.

And then came THE 13TH WARRIOR.

‘Old Baghdad’ opens much like it’s close cousin THE MUMMY with ethnic instrumentation, before diving into the brilliant choral/brass led main theme. This theme, noble, bold, urgent, and exciting, certainly puts me in mind of Goldsmith at his most inventive and accomplished. ‘Exiled’ magically fuels ones imagination with witty and delicate orchestration leading to a smashing action sequence with some spectacular brass work and no little development.

‘Semantics’ is energetic, rich and colourful and ‘The Great Hall’ is brimming with invention. ‘The Sword Maker’, after a noble rendition of the main theme, is delicate, playful and witty, words one does not normally associate with Goldsmith’s compositional style. Soloists toy with orchestra, to create a wonderful sense of fun – again, at this point one can easily forget one is listening to film music, such is the depth to Goldsmith’s music.

‘The Horns of Hell’ provides a stunning display of manly chanting, a lull, and then Goldsmith surprises YET again, with passages of rare fluidity (for him) – exhilarating. ‘The Fire Dragon’, though somewhat less compelling as a purely musical experience, is a great display of orchestral discipline that even Beethoven may have been proud of. Rather than the music transporting you to another place, one here can marvel at the brilliant playing of the orchestra, and the technical merits of this track – quite Beethovenian, and superb. ‘Honey’ is good, though less interesting, but does give us a taste of the thematic material that was to make ‘Valhalla/Viking Victory’ so outstanding. ‘Swing Across’ is like an energised “The Edge”, putting one in mind of the earlier score, but soon proving it’s superiority. A superb staccato string passage maintains the interest here.

‘Mother Wendol’s Cave’ is a masterpiece. Beginning with all manner of “Mummy”-like ideas, an incredible array of slurred effects from all quarters overlap one another, before after quite some time, in bursts a brief quotation of Goldsmith’s ghastly action motif that was done to death in “Chain Reaction”, “US Marshals”, “Air Force One”, and even in the otherwise ‘not bad’ “Star Trek : Insurrection”. This phrase appears to have been placed here almost as a musical joke by the composer, and it certainly joltingly reminded me that I was listening to music composed by the same man who created the disappointing “The Ghost and the Darkness” – extraordinary. Any memories of these previous disappointing scores is dispelled by a thunderous ‘march’ followed by a gorgeous Mahlerian passage on the strings, and then capped by one of Goldsmith’s best and most recognisable musical devices - the tracks ends with the sort of urgent, ‘searching’ music that Goldsmith has made his own.

‘Underwater Escape’ is another example of Goldsmith employing excellent ideas and ‘material’ from his whole repertoire, not just the limited and simplistic ideas he had employed during the period 93-98. A crashing urgency to the opening of this track soon gives way to more Herrmann/Cloud reminiscences. But that doesn’t matter, as long as Goldsmith recycles the best elements of his style, as he is doing here, he is succeeding. The ethereal ‘cloud’ style that Goldsmith uses in this track is given a fresh veneer, a sparkling re-orchestration, as only he can.

And then the ‘piece de resistance’. ‘Valhalla/Viking Victory’ contains sublime moments. The music, after an assured beginning, assumes a wonderful quality of nobility. Rasping brass finally beckons a reprise of the main theme accompanied by plucked harp and drums, then full orchestra, before a full-blooded rendition takes over leading to a cymbal crashing climax. The music then is raised to the heights as lonely oboe and gentle drums, then hushed choir and trumpet, begin a passage that is both serene and lofty. Again, spare strings return, heralding a mighty brass statement that briefly puts one in mind of the inferior “First Knight”. Fluttering French Horns and smooth strings (more like Williams than anything), lead to a quiet and sure close. ‘A Useful Servant’ provides a brief, though satisfying close to a wonderful album.

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Originally posted by DANIEL2:
What I like about Goldsmith's recent output

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Ah, it's good to read a positive post for a change!

I just listened to The Mummy a little while ago. I have to agree that it is some of his best output from the '90s.

NP: Breakheart Pass