I thought I'd bring the discussion here as well.

I've just been listening to this score again, and I must say, it's a case of "Mr North does it again." I understand people not liking a score such as this, but with that, I think there also resides with the listener a certain responsibility. The responsibility to know and appreciate what goes into music composition. Appreciation does not necessarily lend itself to enjoyment, I understand. But also, that does not mean that someone like Alex North is a hack simply because one does not like a certain person's work.

for me one of the things that's exciting about going to a symphony concert is trying to pick out the thematic subjects of a symphony or concerto, and it is just the same in film music for me (though it is admittedly, usually a bit more obvious in film). it's what some call active listening. getting into the music from an analytical standpoint, trying to figure out WHY the music works as it does, from overall structure to orchestral textures.

I am listening to Dragonslayer again, and I find it just chock full of themes, from the opening note of the main title to end titles.

I find the score to be anything but random.
meticulously crafted with a well-defined character.

pardon me if that wanders a bit. Unlike Mr North, I cannot meticulously craft anything, let alone a message board post...

please expand on this. This is the kind of thread where someone like myself can learn from.

I have no other way to put it... politically correct or not... that it is a work so mature and thoughtful that it just goes over most people's heads. 15 years ago I probably would have hated it too but as it is I think of it is head and shoulders above it's more popularly accepted counterparts. Not that I myself "get it" in the sense of comprehending Mr' North's full intent but I certainly am receptive to it to the point that I consider it one of the great works of film scoring.

Granted it is, by all means, a very challenging listen but intellectually and subsequently, even emotionally, it is rewarding but it will require more of you than say, Krull or Ladyhawk. But that is the way of Alex North who's music has always been positioned smartly against the grain.

[Message edited by HAL 2000 on 12-19-2000]

The more I listen to it, more I discover something new, just like PLANET OF THE APES.

As for people attacking it... well, what can I say? Remember that some believe THE ROCK is the best score ever composed and Trevro Rabin the best movie music composer...

Of course I was a big fan of 2001. How could anybody, least of all a big North fan such as myself, not be fascinated by this score written with his trademark compositional genius.

As everybody by now knows, North recycled quite a bit of his material from 2001 into Dragonslayer, and there are striking similarities between some cues. However, thirteen years or so separate their composition, and North's approach is very different in Dragonslayer than it was in 2001. Some of these differences are subtle, some are very different. As a result, despite some overlap in thematic material and certain textural elements, Dragonslayer is has a wildly different feel than 2001, and one that, again, no true North fan can ignore the power of.

One will notice, however, that I say that a North fan can't ignore the power of Dragonslayer. That's because I believe that his music requires, as Davidh points out, a certain familiarity with his style to listen to on its own. It is certainly effective on the surface level in the films that it graces, but his music goes so much deeper than that, not only from a cinemusical standpoint, but from a purely musical standpoint as well.

North's film music is always uncompromisingly dense and thick with ideas. In many ways he has been the single largest influence in dragging motion picture scoring screaming and kicking into the twentieth century. Even quieter pieces, such as the classical guitar over baroque idiom that is Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and The Dead, in which he eschews his usual intensity for a simple, yet spacey and highly emotional Irish mode. A Streetcar Named Desire is world-famous for being a jazz score before its time. Most of his scores, however, occupy a space in twentieth century writing that film composers generally have stayed away from in favor of nineteenth century romantic pastiche. This makes his music not as accessible to the casual listener than most film music. North's themes are not neccesarily hummable. In fact, often enough they are based more on texture than on melody; the "Freedom" and "Slavery" themes in Spartacus are melodically the same, but they are given such different orchestration that they seem like different entities.

Mr. North had a flair for making dramatic sense while creating music that was rewarding on its own. The high regard that he had among the film composer community is a testament to this fact.