Familiar words from my reviews. I thought it would be the time to share some of the favorite film music cues which evoke above-mentioned visuals in, atleast my mind ( - Don Davis' THE BEAST resurfaced again in another thread, so I thought this could be of interest)...

So, FORGET THE FILMS and the visuals for which the music was originally created. Take the music as its own composition - listen to its own narration. For about fifteen years I've done just that and experienced many spine-chilling fantasies, and found new and better uses for good film music.

Here are some of my favorites:

DRACULA (1979, John Williams):
- "Main Title & Storm Sequence":
From its spellbinding intro to the full orchestra rendition of the main theme, this is what main title music is at its best. More importantly, within just a few seconds the listener is bound for the best musical interpretation of Bram Stoker's original novel. The "Storm Sequence" fits perfectly to the misty Carpathian Mountains where a carriage drives through a pack of wolves, then to the ruined castle courtyard, where the music even suggests the opening of a door and Dracula standing there greeting the nightly visitor. While the Count takes the visitor inside, the fierce storm continues outside the castle.
- "The Abduction of Lucy":
This is perfect music for Dracula's arrival in England. Picture it: A sunset in Whitby harbour. Then suddenly a storm breaks. Sky is dark with lightning bolts illuminating a schooner arriving near the harbour. Wind blows fiercely. The sea rages violently. Then the ship crashes against the shore and a giant, dark dog leaps from the ship and disappears within the tombstones nearby...
- No wonder Williams' DRACULA started it all for me.

THE BEAST (Don Davis):
- "The Squid Takes the Bait":
Picture this: A misty, dark bog near a ruined castle. A silvery moon lights the bog. A lonely figure of a man is standing there, petrified of fright - he sees human-like ghostly figures emerge from the bog. They don't notice him; the ghostly creatures just stand in their places like zombies. Then all the hell breaks loose. Something grabs the man and forces him under surface. Simultaneously, while Davis' magnificent rhytmic music unleashes its power, the creatures start a perverse danse macabre, a celebration of true evil (like in FANTASIA's "A Night on Bald Mountain"). Unfortunately, the man doesn't live to tell the tale...
- "Scuba Attack":
A perfect symphony for a spine-chilling scenario of graverobbers disturbing the WRONG grave. In this cue, there is symphonic power enough to suggest a lonely, spooky graveyard with the graverobbers toiling with their evil deed. But, as Shakespeare says, "By the prickling of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes" - when the coffin is opened, something MORE wicked indeed interrupts the toiling... and leads into a violent chase.

ERASER (Alan Silvestri):
Actually the symphonic portions of this score would fit perfectly into "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving; or "Der Freischütz" by Johann August Apel & Friedrich Laun which served as the basis for Tom Waits' "The Black Rider". In a nutshell, "Der Freischütz" is a terrific yet shocking folktale about a young man, Wilhelm, who decides to go through the foreboding "casting of the magic bullets" because of a possibility for a better future. But, as usual, it's not a playing matter to toil with the devil...
- "She's In":
This is a perfect piece for "the casting of the magic bullets"; in a dark crossroad, near a sinister belltower, in the middle of the night Wilhelm starts the process in a circle of skulls and bones. Moon hides behind the dark clouds. All kinds of birds surround the place; Wilhelm sees ghastly human-like figures among the birds. An old crone appears to taunt Wilhelm, to distract him, but in vain. Then a coach appears and fiercely drives towards the cycle, but turns out to be only a vision. Many kinds of horrific sights surround Wilhelm, but he keeps his head cold and completes his task. Then appears the dark rider with his black horse, who demands three bullets from Wilhelm, saying: "You know me. I am the one whose name you mention only reluctantly and your mind full of horror".
Silvestri's cue is the perfect soundtrack for all this. His rhytmic music suggest same kind of danse macabre as Davis' THE BEAST.
- "Cyrez Break In":
This is actually a more fierce version of another "casting of the magic bullets"; in the original story of "Der Freischütz" there is even a "prologue" where another man fails in his attempt to cast those bullets and he is found the next morning covered in his own blood. Well, what more do we need, when Silvestri's music TELLS IT ALL ?
- "Kruger Escapes":
This piece suggests all the frenzy of the pursuit by the Headless Horseman from "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" - MORE PERFECTLY than Danny Elfman could ever compose..!

Just one more...
FINAL ANALYSIS (George Fenton):
- "Front Titles":
This gorgeous piece brings into my mind a weather-beaten old manor house, in the middle of a dark forest. The music suggests a violent thunderstorm and a "quick visit" through the many dark rooms of the house (...little like in the TALES FROM THE CRYPT main title sequence). In my mind, I have associated this Fenton-soundtrack to Oscar Wilde's "The Canterville Ghost" - all of the cues would fit perfectly into the original story.

Lost Souls
Hellraiser 1,2 - Hider in The House from my hero, the great Chris Young
House on Haunted Hill
Blade
the organ parts in the finale of The Witches of Eastwick
Poltergeist 1,2
Dragonslayer
certain sections of Obsession-Herrmann
Eye of the Needle
The Fly
Holocaust 2000 aka The Chosen
Ghost Story

Those are just the ones that I can think of for the moment...

NP:Three Fugitives(McHugh)Talk about the opposite of this topic...this is strangely appealing, since it really sounds like 30mins. of bumpers for Full House, but the theme is somewhat catchy....hard to figure, this score,but I've always liked it.

Sean

Regards,
KEN

Sean, I hope I didn't hurt your feelings by "pontificating" - can anyone tell me all meanings to this word ?

If Davis's THE BEAST invoked such images for you, then you really need to get his HYPERSPACE / BEAUTY AND THE BEAST disc if you don't already have it. Every B&TB track is like this. Sometimes invoking scenes of spell casting and the resurrection of the dead ("God Bless the Child"), other times erupting into the gothic force of some great gargoyle at war with an ancient magician ("The Rest is Silence"). Sure, it's nothing like the show, but those are the images that come to my mind.

I'll contribute more later...

James
NP - Legend (Goldsmith) *****

Now, it's late and I'm too tired to further my thoughts on the above scores, but one other great Gothic Symphony did come to mind....

Havergal Brian's GOTHIC SYMPHONY! This is a major work by the British composer, and while not a film score, I thought it would fit in well here. I have a 2cd set of this on Marco Polo, recorded in Bratislava, and while the recording does a decent job of capturing the enormous forces involved(the notes say that Guiness named this 'Largest Symphony')I wish someone would have another go at it.

Can't recommend it enough, it contains massive quasi atonal,symphonic, choral, acapella, solo voice-instrumental passages and is just an amazing,epic piece of music.

Congrats on the most poetic thread in ages. If there ever was a thread that make me start shopping online for the score mentioned - it's this one (Dracula)

Before I begin, I have a message for you, Ken. Despite that this thread doesn't seem to be catching on as quickly as you might have hoped, I applaud you for trying to bring back the kind of really creative posts that used to be so popular here. The original (and the new) "? for PeterK" threads were like this for a while, but now they seem to have grown into utter silliness (not that there's anything wrong with that ).

Now, without further ado, on to the first gothic symphony!

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (Don Davis)
"The Rest is Silence":

In a dungeon, deep below a labyrinth of catacombs, a wizard cowers over a boiling cauldron. He reads some text in a long-dead language from an ancient book, his followers cringing behind him in the shadows, fearful of the battle to come. The worried ones urge their master to draw back, but he does not listen. He goes on, his breathing quickens, his low voice rasping the words as his throat begins to wither. Then all at once there comes from the cauldron the image of a bright, smaragdine hawk, a bringer of life and evil. The great bird rises, a long tail of liquid emerald flowing behind.

He glides beyond the wizard and encircles the demonic statue that stands before him, an icon of darkness that was only moments ago unseen in the gloom. The circle grows longer, the hawk’s flight faster, the entire hall illuminated with the brilliant greens of the wicked bird’s tail, around and around and around, until all at once the earth quakes, the hawk is gone, and the hideous gargoyle steps forward.

The demon does not attack, but glowers at the wizard before him, bellowing in some unintelligible language some unanswerable question.

The mage raises his staff and beckons the beast towards him, but in reply the demon swats him away and like a twig snaps the staff between its fingers. The beast spreads his wings and climbs into the air, preparing his next blow from above. But the wizard raises his arms and ascends toward the beast, calm, restrained, and unflinching. The demon roars and dashes to attack, but the wizard quickly escapes to the other side of the room. With merely the uttering of some word the demon is struck from nowhere, sent tumbling to the ground.

He runs across the floor beneath the mage and suddenly darts up to catch his opponent, but the wizard is too swift for him. With merely the raising of the wizard’s hand again the beast is struck, a world seems to explode within his head, thunder crashes, and the great demon falls pitifully to the floor. The struggle is over.

Slowly, menacingly, the wizard descends to the ground before the demon. Defeated, the monster gradually bows to the smiling mage, awaiting the first command from his new master.

Amazing stuff !!!
I can honestly say that you caught my interest on these soundtracks - I haven't got all of them (but I think I may be able to find atleast CARLITO'S WAY and the HELLRAISERs very soon).

James, is this Don Davis music written for the TV series BEAUTY AND THE BEAST - the one for which Lee Holdridge composed the title theme ? If it is, then it's a pleasant surprise that the scores ended up being this kind of "pure Gothic" because I've always thought that the scores (for that TV series) would be in the more intimate Holdridge-mode... Not that Holdridge is bad; he has done also some great stuff with TRANSYLVANIA 6-5000 (horrible film, though) and THE BEASTMASTER.

And James, warm thanks for the kind words - it's really nice to know that there are people outthere who notice that I'm atleast TRYING to contribute here... I myself don't mind about jokes and humor, but I really always like to know THE REASONS why somebody likes/dislikes or experiences something... I like to get to the heart of the matter, literally speaking - long, thorough answers are the ones that I'm "chasing after".

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken S:
James, is this Don Davis music written for the TV series BEAUTY AND THE BEAST - the one for which Lee Holdridge composed the title theme ? If it is, then it's a pleasant surprise that the scores ended up being this kind of "pure Gothic" because I've always thought that the scores (for that TV series) would be in the more intimate Holdridge-mode... Not that Holdridge is bad; he has done also some great stuff with TRANSYLVANIA 6-5000 (horrible film, though) and THE BEASTMASTER.

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THE DISAPPEARANCE OF GARCIA LORCA (Mark McKenzie)
"I Invented Some Wings for Flying":

In an old, small town in the country is an old, small church. There are three exits in the chancel, but there are no windows and the building is lit only very dimly by four torches, two on each of the long walls. The room is deserted save for one man, but the air is thick and crowded nonetheless. A low priest stands near the pulpit, slowly emptying the remaining sums of money from a collection basket and depositing them to his coat pocket.

Suddenly there comes a voracious knock at the main doors, and the entire church seems to quiver with the rapping. The priest is scared; for what, he cannot say, but as the knocking grows louder, the quaking more rapid he knows only fear.

Knocking becomes pounding, and sweat stings the priest's eyes as he looks about for his escape. He runs to the exit on his left, but at once the pounding is there, too. The torches explode into roaring fires, brimstone piercing the air. He runs to the opposite door, but there, too, the pounding. Scrambling this way and that, devoid of direction and in an explosion of power the doors burst open.

Then, silence, for the priest knows. The black angels of hell have come to claim his soul, and he knows. He stops running, falls to his knees, and weeps.

The shadows burst in, obsidian cloaks and long, vine-like fingers, they swarm in like vultures on all sides of the priest, tearing the flesh from his body and devouring it bit by bit.

Has anybody ever said to you that you could write novels - your writing is excellent (as well as your imagination) !!

Keep 'em coming !!

Thanks to your words in the "Snippets" thread, I have now been inspired to look over my CDs to get another story out. So look for it soon.

I'm also very pleased that you enjoyed Beauty and the Beast so much.

Danny Elfman (Delores Claiborne)
-End Titles - Never seen the movie, but this track is very powerful. One of my favs.
-Main Titles - See above.

quote:

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Originally posted by John Zimmer:
The Terminator theme. Listen to the RSNO re-recording of that theme, and tell me it isn't gothicish.

Jz

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What CD is this on?

Very recently I watched Alfred Hitchcock's FRENZY - and now I can't get Ron Goodwin's ominous and haunting (secondary) theme out of my head!! The specific music is really much more than just a background theme for the murderer; this music should belong to a Gothic horror story with horse-drawn carriages and misty moors (rather than to seventies London and a messy fruit market).

*****

One other thing --though this may sound a rather desperate explanation: After Francis Ford Coppola's BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA premiered, I found a "role playing game" with the movie's title (not a computer-game) that included a cassette filled with spooky music and effects to give the game a proper atmosphere. (And there was church bells or something that always indicated the end of a "round" in the game). The game credits didn't indicate any composers nor producers to this audio compilation. The first music to be heard was a bit like Orff's famous "Carmina Burana" (although, if I remember right, even the specific "Carmina Burana" extract was included on the cassette). This first music, beautifully furious and "epic" theme for strings and chorus, stood out from the rest of the music on the cassette. Only recently I heard the very same theme as trailer music for some movie which I unfortunately don't remember now...

If anyone knows the piece of music that I'm talking about, I'd like to know was this specific music composed exclusively for the DRACULA game's audio -- or did it come from some other source?

Halloween is obviously very near, as I start speaking of epic horror music.

quote:

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Originally posted by SBD:
Hel-lo!

CARLITO'S WAY (1993, Patrick Doyle)
"Grand Central":
It starts with the horns; a(n initially) pounding melody played in 3/4 (I'm new at this whole analyzation stuff, so cut me some slack). For the next 9 minutes, various sections of the orchestra play 'hot potato' with this theme, and it flip-flops with a wafting, though frantic melody, effectively underscoring the climactic chase through Grand Central station. In the last minute, the percussion section pulls out the stops and just plays a new, frantic melody with an excellent coda. Perhaps one of the 10 best cues of the 1990s.

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Pah! I'm outta here.....