THE RUNNER – Cody Westheimer

Original Review by Alan Rogers

The Pacific Crest Trail is a 2,650-mile national scenic trail on the west coast of the United States that runs the length of the country from Mexico to Canada. Along its length it passes through six of the seven North America’s “ecozones” including high and low desert, forest and arctic-alpine climes. In June 2005 ultra marathon runner David Horton set out to become the first man to run this trail and 66 days later he completed his goal, averaging over 40 miles per day in the process. J.B. Benna’s documentary The Runner: Extreme UltraRunner David Horton follows Horton on his adventure and composer Cody Westheimer composes a wonderful score to accompany the runner’s mammoth journey.

Westheimer bases the score around a strong theme and he sets it out memorably in “The Runner: Main Title”, acting somewhat as a call to arms, an encouragement for the journey ahead. Heard in the strings, the theme is backed by a strong complement of driving percussion (including Taiko drums) – which is a recurring aspect of the score. The various drum rhythms act as the musical equivalent of the driving determination of Horton’s running. Tracks such as “Meeting David”, “Running Far” and the climactic “The Arrival” all propel the listener with this powerful percussion using a variety of percussion instruments (though the use of the percussion is not overwhelming to the listener). Along with this rhythm, we hear the main theme being played in a variety of orchestrations, but always seemingly soaring overhead above the drums. To me, Westheimer, using a relatively small ensemble of instruments (percussion, strings, oboe, flute, guitar and piano), skilfully encapsulates Horton’s determination in terms of the physical aspects of the run (the percussion) and the mental determination (the soaring theme) needed for such a Herculean task. Of these driving cues, “The High Sierra” is a highlight. It brings together all these various aspects of the score into one inspirational piece of music. 

Ten Tracks Today – 30th August 2011

01 – “The Black Stallion / Fire & The Legend” – The Black Stallion – Carmine Coppola

I just love the opening fanfare for this track. It’s almost of a stature that it could be used as an Olympic Flame fanfare. The latter half of the cue features cimbalom, one of my favourite instruments.

02 – “Main Theme” – Reconciled Through The Christ – Nathaniel Scott

Very synthy sounding score to an independent film, but it’s the thematic material of the theme that is the attraction and the actual sound of the synths becomes secondary.

03 – “The Same Old Story” – Wichita Town – Hans J. Salter

Up to hearing this I had associated Salter with his horror score. This score here for the late ’50s TV show is about as western in style as western music can get. And it’s a great listen. A great re-recording from around the same time as the music was composed for the show. Light and airy music.

HIDALGO: LA HISTORIA JAMÁS CONTADA – Alejandro Giacomán

Original Review by Alan Rogers

In Hidalgo: La Historia Jamás Contada, we see Miguel Hidalgo remembering moments of his life from his jail cell. A Mexican priest, Hidalgo is best remembered as a leader in the Mexican War of Independence against the Spanish colonial authorities. This film focuses mainly on his tenure as a parish priest in a small town, having been sent there at the order of the church authorities because of his progressive ideas. He translates and produces Molière’s stage play “Tartuffe” (a play that echoes Hidalgo’s own problems with the church) as the parish priest. Filmed by Mexican director Antonio Serrano, he calls upon fellow Mexican Alejandro Giacomán to score this personal story.

To be honest, if the music is any indicator of the pace of the film then it’s quite a slow film. The orchestral score (played by the San Luis Potosi Symphony Orchestra), particularly in the first two-thirds, is cue after cue of ominous and suspenseful music that is dominated by low strings. The music’s role here appears to be more to set the scene of the film rather than provide themes. Only occasionally is the feel of the music lifted with the inclusion of solo instruments. Tracks such as “Casa Grande y Abandonada” and “Transgresión” feature solo flute that brighten the tension and “Nerviosismo Antes de Molière” has an interesting interchange between different sections of brass and woodwinds. Track 10, “Despedida del Rector”, is the first real heartfelt highlight of the score and we hear solo brass and woodwinds providing an emotional quality that builds to a powerful and almost optimistic climax to the cue. It is not until the final third of the orchestral score that we hear music that is particularly cinematic. The music opens out, including more and more sections of the orchestra to instil both drama and emotion, putting aside the long string lines and ostinatos and becoming more thematic and uplifting.

My Favourite Scores – 1932

• Golden Mountains (Zlatye Gory)
• Dmitri Shostakovich
• Capriccio / 1995 / 23:36

Released in the US in 1932, Golden Mountains was Shostakovich’s third composition for the cinema and the film follows country peasant Pyotr as poverty drives him to the city to work in a factory to earn a living. The 6-movement suite, played in the recording I have by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Michail Jurowski, was assembled by the composer shortly after it was composed in 1931.

What particularly attracts me to this suite from the score is that it immediately grabs the listener with the shrill brass fanfares and then the shrill brass re-appears at various points throughout the suite (and particularly in the final movement). These loud statements are set against the more sombre 4th and 5th movements. I remember being particularly surprised to hear the guitar solo that is heard at the beginning of the Waltz and the use of a grand organ to open the next movement (Fugue). It all emphasises to me what variety someone of Shostakovich’s calibre was doing in film music at the time (though I believe that the organ music featured in the Fugue does not appear in any current prints of the film.)

IRON CHEF AMERICA / THE NEXT IRON CHEF – Craig Marks

Original Review by Alan Rogers

Iron Chef America and The Next Iron Chef are US-based game shows produced by the Food Network and are based on a Japanese cooking show. In Iron Chef America, a challenging chef competes against one of the resident “Iron Chefs” in a specially constructed cooking arena called “Kitchen Stadium”. Fronted by over-the-top martial arts actor Mark Dacascos and being introduced with dramatic clips of chopping, frying, flames and with furious clip editing (with animated steel knife slashes), this is “cooking in your face”. And composer Craig Marks has composed for the show appropriately “in your face” music. He has also composed music in the same vein for the subsequent spin-off The Next Iron Chef (a competition to chose new Iron Chefs to take part in Iron Chef America).

Describing Marks’ music for the show in the press as “sabre-rattling gladiator music”, Marks’ moonlighting at Media Ventures whilst studying Music Composition at UCLA can be heard frequently in the scores. Using predominantly synths, the music is full of bold, brash fanfares, powerful synth strings and percussion, and each cue could easily be taken from any Media Venture-scored Hollywood blockbuster. The themes for both Iron Chef America and The Next Iron Chef are full-on heroic themes (think something like any Jerry Bruckheimer-produced effort and you wouldn’t be far off the mark in terms of style), with tracks such as “Shiitake Showdown”, “Nine Chefs Enter”, “White House Garden / A National Challenge” and “Flamenco Flambé” continuing to pour on the drama and testosterone. A cookery show can’t be this exciting can it? 

Ten Tracks Today – 27th August 2011

01 – “Cory In Jeopardy” – Earthquake – John Williams

I was surprised by how much I didn’t enjoy the release of this score when I first heard it. I had been used to hearing the more familiar love theme in all the compilations that featured music from Earthquake, but this cue is a good suspense track.

02 – “The Thing Which I Left” – Umizura 3: The Last Message – Naoki Sato

Sato can usually be relied upon to supply music that is both emotionally interesting and action-packed. You may have realised by now that I love music that’s full of percussion and ostinato and this cue delivers in spades. String ostinatos and large drum percussion – the latter beating out a relentless rhythm – permeate the entire track.

03 – “Mysterioso” – Timeline – Brian Tyler

One of Tyler’s best efforts this as I find the thematic material that he has composed (as well as the various, shorter motifs) very appealing. The cue starts of quietly (mysteriously?) before beginning to hear the various devices he uses in this score.

THE ESCAPIST – Benjamin Wallfisch

Original Review by Alan Rogers (First uploaded at maintitles.net)

The Escapist is a 2008 British drama starring Brian Cox as convicted murderer and prison lifer Frank Perry. With no chance of parole, he has no choice but to plan a prison break when he decides to make peace with his estranged daughter before she dies after falling ill. In order to carry out his ingenious plan of escape he must call upon the skills of group of fellow inmates. What follows is a claustrophobic tale switching between prison breakout build-up and the actual escape through a warren of underground tunnels. Co-writer and director Rupert Wyatt’s (also director of the upcoming Rise of The Planet of The Apes) decision to use a minimum amount of dialogue together with the murky, gloomy feel to the movie presented a challenge to composer Benjamin Wallfisch.

Wallfisch came to the attention of the film music world with his acclaimed score to his feature film debut, Dear Wendy (released by MovieScore Media), earning him many accolades including a nomination for “Discovery of The Year” at the 2005 World Soundtrack Awards (WSA). As well as composing his own film scores he has orchestrated many of Dario Marianelli’s scores, including Atonement, Pride and Prejudice, V For Vendetta and Jane Eyre. Wallfisch’s score for The Escapist (which led to a second “Discovery of The Year” nomination at the WSA in 2008) is bookended by a memorable title theme that’s based on a raw and gutsy propulsive ostinato in the strings (particularly the low register strings) that’s reminiscent of Hans Zimmer’s use of low strings in The Ring. The motif is embellished with piano, winds as well as cimbalom. The mix of the clear sound of the hammered dulcimer alongside the meaty but muddy sound of the strings of the propulsive motif is an interesting one and is heard particularly well in the second track of the score, “Diamond”.

THE YOGSCAST: SHADOW OF ISRAPHEL – Daniel Yount

Original Review by Alan Rogers

I was concerned about writing this review when I know nothing of the composer or about the media in which this album seems to be related to. The composer, Daniel Yount, appears to be a teenager but has written several albums as well as individual tracks for various internet-based projects (LittleBIGPodcast anyone?) As founder and chief composer at AudioGrave, his main efforts seem to directed in production music, competing with the likes of Immediate Music and Two Steps From Hell in the world of movie trailer music. And from listening to the music featured on The YogsCast: Shadow of Israphel, he will certainly give the better-known outfits a run for their money.

The YogsCast: Shadow of Israphel appears to be a YouTube-based series that (and this is where I may be embarrassingly wrong) features footage of World of Warcraft-styled games. Whether Yount composes specifically for this footage or his music is tracked into the footage I have no idea, but what I do know is that the music is very listenable and the composer has a knack of composing pieces that are immediately attractive. This 30-minute album plays like a musical resumé, featuring a series of tracks that highlight his ability for composing the grand and epic through to the intimate and emotional. “Winds of Adventure” is pure cinematic trailer music with its pounding percussion and low and higher-register synth strings. But it’s a bit more restrained than the likes of Immediate Music. With this sounding like trailer music it is not long before there is the appearance of massed choir and it’s heard in the second track, “Dark Pharaoh’s Tomb”, which features huge nods to Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana before it heads off at a tangent with the choir and low string ostinatos. The key change towards the end of the cue emphasises even more the trailer music influences. The use of string ostinato, rhythmic percussion and choir appears time and time again throughout the album (e.g., “The Journey”, “Rise of Israphel”).

Ten Tracks Today – A 1970s Special – 25th August 2011

01 – “Main Title (Album Version)” – The Cassandra Crossing – Jerry Goldsmith

Other than the memorable “stinger” for the actual crossing (something I remember from watching the film as a child), it’s this lovely melody that is used here in the main title that’s an advert of how Goldsmith can produce something from nothing. With so many big Hollywood stars in one film it was bound to be a bad film – save for the music!

02 – “Arabesque For Flatworms” – Life On Earth – Edward Williams

Landmark natural history programming and a great theme that (again) I remember form childhood. This score left me feeling a bit divided: great to have the title and end themes but the underscore for the programmes themselves are a bit of an acquired taste. This track is only one of a handful I can listen to.

03 – “Promenade (Tourists On The Menu)” – Jaws – John Williams

This track gets a funny look when I tell the family that it’s from Jaws! As heard on the MCA re-recording, this track is the one I was brought up with and is the more preferable version compared with the original version (and that’s saying something coming from me!)

180° – Diego Baldenweg

Original Review by Alan Rogers

180°, a Swiss-German co-production from 2010, tells the tale of a handful of people whose lives are brought together as a result of fate and a split-second’s lapse in attention. The film follows them as they are bound together in a spiral of events that involves more and more people. These human stories are framed by the unfolding story of a civil servant who has just killed several co-workers. Because of the film’s structure and rather depressing tone, 180° has been compared with Paul Haggis’ Crash. Whereas Mark Isham composed a synth-based score for the latter movie, Swiss-born director Cihan Inan, has turned to Australian-Swiss composer Diego Baldenweg to compose haunting and unyielding, award-winning score (played by the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich under the direction of David Zinman). This score marks Baldenweg’s first all-live scoring assignment for film.

A relative newcomer to film scoring (his IMDb profile lists a mere 8 titles since 2005), Baldenweg shows a great deal of maturity of character to produce a score that focuses particularly on piano and the string section of the orchestra and delivers music that supports the emotional narrative of the film but does not swamp it. The score opens with “Prologue”, establishing the tone of the score with a staccato piano passage that then moves to a bittersweet theme that’s supported by low strings. This mood continues into the second track, “A Moment of Reflection”, but this time the roles are reversed and a solo cello plays the theme and the piano provides support. The whole mood of the score is summed up by the style of music used to underscore the “Crash”: the score does not opt for an action sequence but rather plays the drama out as if it were more like a ballet. And so the score unfolds pretty much in the same vein.