{"id":1524,"date":"2010-11-18T02:02:55","date_gmt":"2010-11-18T07:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=1524"},"modified":"2010-12-20T21:46:57","modified_gmt":"2010-12-21T02:46:57","slug":"cd-greystoke-the-legend-of-tarzan-lord-of-the-apes-1984","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=1524","title":{"rendered":"CD: Greystoke – The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Rating: Excellent<\/p>\n

Label: La-La Land Records \/ Released: Sept. 21, 2010<\/p>\n

Tracks & Album Length: 17 tracks \/ (38:29)<\/p>\n

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Special Notes: 16-page colour booklet with liner notes by Jeff Bond \/ Limited to 3000 copies<\/p>\n

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Composer: \u00a0John Scott<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

After snagging an Oscar for\u00a0Chariots of Fire<\/strong> (1981), Hugh Hudson moved on to direct a film version of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic novel about the famous wild child who grew up with jungle animals, and had a rather awkward fling with snotty British folks and full-body fabrics.<\/p>\n

Visually,\u00a0Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes<\/strong> is stunning, and its regal scope is matched by John Scott\u2019s orchestral score in which the composer interweaves Elgar\u2019s Symphony No. 1 in Ab Major, op. 55, and his own elegant theme for the ape man.<\/p>\n

In 1984, Scott was moving into his peak feature film career, finally breaking away from (guilty pleasure) dreck like\u00a0Inseminoid<\/strong> (1981), and free to indulge his gift for lyrical, large-scale orchestral writing in big budget productions that were partially spurned by the success of companies like Britain\u2019s\u00a0Goldcrest Films<\/a>, makers of\u00a0Chariots<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

This production surge after a 10+ year downslide once again showed the high level of musical talent that lay untapped and underused in England, and Scott\u2019s score was rightly cited as one of the film\u2019s biggest assets.<\/p>\n

The original soundtrack album was typical for the era \u2013 a few hairs about 35 mins. \u2013 and it is unfortunate that La-La Land\u2019s producers weren\u2019t able to find traces from the original recording sessions. It\u2019s the same irony wall that befell the CD producers of Bill Conti\u2019s\u00a0The Right Stuff <\/strong>(1983), Carl Davis\u2019\u00a0King David<\/strong> (1985) and John Corigliano music for Hudson\u2019s next film,\u00a0Revolution<\/strong> (1985) \u2013 three films with similarly large budgets.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Scott\u2019s music in the original album form offered an expert balance of themes. Most cues tend to hover around 2 mins., and there\u2019s a sharp economy to the full thematic statement in the opening \u201cThe Family,\u201d and more abstract variations in tense cues such as \u201cTarzan, Lord of the Apes,\u201d where brass fanfares and a snare drum duke it out with the strings\u2019 own efforts to restate small thematic portions. The cue\u2019s expedient denouement is particularly moving for the giant sonic waves Scott creates as theme portions struggle amid circular patterns.<\/p>\n

The longer \u201cEdge of the World\u201d offers some stellar brass colorations and displays Scott\u2019s versatility in crafting beautifully rich melodies and modernistic, clamorous cues where every coarse subtlety gleams due the score\u2019s rich engineering. Within\u00a0Greystoke<\/strong>, the strings represent stability, love, and loneliness, whereas brass seem to cascade and pierce moments of lyrical beauty with precision assaults. Scott also plays with the rival factions as Tarzan attempts to integrate into an alien, less primeval world.<\/p>\n

Contrasting Scott\u2019s own main theme is the Elgar extract (\u201cGreystoke\u201d) which symbolizes the stately grandeur of old English money and subdued ostentatiousness, and there\u2019s a brief chanson (\u201cChanson de matin\u201d) and a traditional polka that balance the album\u2019s seismic orchestral conflicts.<\/p>\n

The album comes to a close with the exquisite \u201cDance of Death,\u201d where Scott\u2019s spiraling, high register strings are set to a waltz rhythm, and deep brass that blossom from furtive to assaultive 5-beat figures. The cue closes with agitated strings and malevolent low tones which blend with modernistic brass harmonies.<\/p>\n

The engineering of the original Warner Bros. LP made it an ideal record to test the stereo system (much in the way of Scott\u2019s other masterwork, 1988\u2019s\u00a0The Deceivers<\/strong>). La-La Land\u2019s mastering preserves the brilliance of the original alum, and the CD\u2019s length has been slightly augmented with a brief \u201cOverture\u201d (a shorter variation of \u201cThe Family\u201d cue) and \u201cEnd Credit\u201d music taken from the extended director\u2019s edition, released on DVD.<\/p>\n

Accompanying the CD are Jeff Bond\u2019s liner notes and cue breakdowns, and colour stills which illustrate the studio\u2019s substantive expenses on director Hudson\u2019s epic and Christopher Lambert\u2019s American film debut<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2010 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack Reviews<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to:\u00a0Home \/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews . Rating: Excellent Label: La-La Land Records \/ Released: Sept. 21, 2010 Tracks & Album Length: 17 tracks \/ (38:29) . Special Notes: 16-page colour booklet with liner notes by Jeff Bond \/ Limited to 3000 copies . Composer: \u00a0John Scott . . Review: After snagging an Oscar for\u00a0Chariots of Fire […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[145,144],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-oA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1524"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1917,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524\/revisions\/1917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}