{"id":2622,"date":"2011-04-04T01:33:33","date_gmt":"2011-04-04T05:33:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=2622"},"modified":"2011-04-04T01:33:33","modified_gmt":"2011-04-04T05:33:33","slug":"cd-sunset-boulevard-classic-film-music-of-franz-waxman-1974","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=2622","title":{"rendered":"CD: Sunset Boulevard – Classic Film Music of Franz Waxman (1974)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>S<\/a><\/p>\n

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

Label: RCA Red Seal\/ Released: March 1, 2011<\/p>\n

Tracks & Album Length: 8 tracks \/ (53:00)<\/p>\n

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Special Notes: n\/a.<\/p>\n

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Composer: Franz Waxman<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

Franz Waxman will always be a giant among Golden Age film composers, largely because even a brief sampling of his writing, regardless of what film score, elicits awe. Romantic, lush, and emotionally unbridled at times, sure, but the musical power he created with an orchestra made him versatile in any genre \u2013 and that\u2019s perhaps the strongest impression from this 1974 album in Charles Gerhardt\u2019s Classic Film series.<\/p>\n

Prince Valiant <\/strong>(1954), for example, is great giddy Wagnerian fun, with rich tongue-in-cheek zest that guarantees the audiences understands they\u2019re watching an early comic book movie adaptation (with Robert Wagner sporting the worst wig of his career).<\/p>\n

The Bride of Frankenstein<\/strong> (1935) \u2013 the score that largely put Waxman on the map as an A-list composer \u2013 is filled with eerie mystery. Every cue seems to build towards the grand finale where Dr. Frankenstein creates a bride for his poor monster, and just as the creature anticipates life with a partner crafted similarly from spare parts, so does the audience. Eddying strings and flaring brass create little musical whirlpools of tension, while powerful bass notes, chimes, and the eerie woo-woo sound of the Ondes Martenot<\/a> maintain a weird ambiance before a final, grand theme recap that brings the mad world of Dr. Victor Frankenstein to a fitting close.<\/p>\n

Old Acquaintance<\/strong> (1943) is represented by the exquisite \u201cElegy for Strings\u201d and shows off a romanticism that\u2019s vintage Hollywood \u2013 in terms of its crushing sentimentality \u2013 plus Waxman\u2019s roots in classical concert music, deftly balancing the extreme vibrato sounds of high register notes and deep Wagnerian tones on strings.<\/p>\n

1940\u2019s The Philadelphia Story<\/strong> (complete with MGM\u2019s Leo the Lion roar) dips into Gershwin lyricism (rhapsodic brass, swelling strings, and cascading piano with little jazzy side figures), and the short extract focuses on the wry theme for the kind of romance the characters must verbally and physically fight for within sedate surroundings. Gerhardt\u2019s arrangement includes a sax solo, which he also uses as a sonic link with the album\u2019s more meaty and contemporary suites \u2013 Rebecca <\/strong>(1940), A Place in the Sun<\/strong> (1951), and Sunset Boulevard <\/strong>(1950).<\/p>\n

The Gothic gloom and doom of Rebecca<\/strong> is perhaps the best example of Waxman\u2019s knack for robust orchestrations. The film\u2019s main theme \u2013 beautifully strained, and evocative of the film\u2019s desperate personalities \u2013 sort of ebbs above a constant current of deep notes which Waxman frequently uses to create a score that comes in like a tide, leaving small melodic trinkets, or receding to let the evening\u2019s stillness dominate before a big orchestral surge of emotion. Passion is strained and overwrought, jealousy is propelled by rumbling bombast, and the suite concludes in a baroque, mordant fandango with massive percussion and an eerie theme lament.<\/p>\n

A Place in the Sun<\/strong> is similarly dominated by gloomy tones and bursts of romance, but Waxman\u2019s love theme is among the most lush compositions of the fifties \u2013 if not the definitive statement on pure, unbridled passion between two mismatched, doomed lovers.<\/p>\n

The alto sax teases and lures the film\u2019s poor anti-hero towards his rich object of desire, and Waxman indulges in one of the best uses of string schmaltz: extremely high waves of notes sustained to ridiculous heights on strings. Place in the Sun<\/strong> is filled with contrasts, as low strings evoke the furtive nature of fate, slowly closing in on the hero as he makes a series of increasingly bad, obsessive moves. By introducing such extreme sounds for the lovers and later focusing mostly on low tones and percussive cues, Waxman reminds listeners of the illusive nature of George Eastman\u2019s love affair with Angela Vickers, and their theme is largely held back until the finale, where it\u2019s given a thoroughly tragic rendition with full orchestra.<\/p>\n

For Sunset Boulevard<\/strong>, Waxman created another score with watery motions \u2013 waves, ebbing and flowing orchestral densities \u2013 that tie in to the whirlwind energy of Hollywood, as well as the hero being a drowned man narrating the film before he wafts away into the ether of eternity.<\/p>\n

For ex-actress Nora Desmond, Waxman\u2019s theme is heard in wry muted brass incarnations; exotic variations that match her bigger than life persona; and the crashing dance that underscores her final walk towards the camera, since she\u2019s lost her sense of reality by the end of the film. Muted trumpet somewhat infers the little-seen seediness and craziness that few in the fifties saw in Hollywood, and underscore Joe Gillis\u2019 position as an outsider slowly drawn into the delusional world of the has-been stars shuttered behind elegant but high-maintenance palaces.<\/p>\n

With all the doom and gloom present in the album\u2019s meatier suites, the mini-concert closes with a gusto version of Waxman\u2019s Taras Bulba<\/strong> (1962) theme. Akin to Russian folk music processed through the Hollywood filter, it\u2019s an imaginative approach that colours the film like a circus show, filled with acrobatic action and extreme emotional displays of machismo \u2013 all encapsulated by swirling strings, heavy brass, and rambunctious percussion.<\/p>\n

With the exception of Old Acquaintance<\/strong> and The Philadelphia Story<\/strong>, the represented scores have appeared in original score or re-recorded score LPs and CDs, but Gerhardt and co-producer George Korngold\u2019s album ensures each suite and theme flows with slight musical or instrumental links to the next piece, and with an extraordinary sonic range, this particular album ranks as one of the best in the Classic Film Score series. It\u2019s the most organic, and the most concert-like, delivering every range of emotion within Waxman\u2019s extensive and high rewarding film music canon.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2011 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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Related external links (MAIN SITE):<\/p>\n

DVD \/ Film: \u00a0Prince Valiant<\/a> <\/strong>(1954) \u00a0— Rebecca<\/a> <\/strong>(1940)<\/p>\n

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External References:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a>\u2014 RCA Classic Film Score Series Links:\u00a01<\/a> \/\u00a02<\/a> \/\u00a03<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0S<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to:\u00a0Home \/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews \/ S . Rating: Excellent Label: RCA Red Seal\/ Released: March 1, 2011 Tracks & Album Length: 8 tracks \/ (53:00) . Special Notes: n\/a. . Composer: Franz Waxman . . Review: Franz Waxman will always be a giant among Golden Age film composers, largely because even a brief sampling of […]<\/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":[370,373,377,371,372],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-Gi","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622"}],"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=2622"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2625,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622\/revisions\/2625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}