To his credit, Schwartz achieved a level of consistency in
his songs that was rarely heard in musicals at the time, especially when
compared to Menken, who was often a "hit and miss" prospect. Other than
the brief performances by Fiennes and Pfeiffer, there are no singing
misadventures from Val Kilmer, Patrick Stewart, Jeff Goldblum, or the
remainder of the major cast. If you compare Schwartz's contributions to
The Prince of Egypt with the rival songs for
Mulan and
The Quest for Camelot, you'll note that Schwartz fares well next
to
Mulan, against which the scores for the two ventures split the
genre's Oscar votes and doomed one another's chances at gold. Unlike the
songs for
Mulan, which failed to be integrated well with the
style of Jerry Goldsmith's score, the songs for
The Prince of
Egypt are both strong in their melodies and performances, as well as
very effectively utilizing the arrangements by Zimmer's troop to promote
consistency with the score. Neither really stands up to the quality of
the songs in
The Quest for Camelot, which neglected to really
address Patrick Doyle's score (and vice versa) but topped the list with
at least two stunners in the songs alone. The song "The Prayer" from
The Quest for Camelot beats anything Schwartz has to offer, but
the failure of the film reduced that song (among the others for the
obscure project) to "hidden gem" status despite a Golden Globe win. As
expected, the end credits for
The Prince of Egypt are the host
for some of the pop songs that populate the end of the main album for
the film. The pop variant on "Through Heaven's Eyes" and "River Lullaby"
are from the pen of Schwartz, the latter song performed by Amy Grant
being an extension on the beautiful middle portion of "Deliver Us." The
other two songs are tacked on without any relation to the project and,
like the "K-Ci & Jo Jo" version of "Through Heaven's Eyes," will be
intolerable for most film score collectors. One of the significant
problems with the five pop songs on the album (including the opening
presentation of "When You Believe") is their mastering in relation to
the remaining material. Their gain levels are so blatantly and
obnoxiously loud that you simply cannot switch between the cast songs
(and score) and the pop songs without significant volume
adjustment.
For fans looking for the original score by Hans Zimmer for
The Prince of Egypt, a completely satisfying listening experience
is an elusive prospect. The score was the final entry in a string of
quality production by Zimmer dating back to
The Lion King. While
the major assignments continued to roll in after 1998, Zimmer's scores
would be more and more diluted by redundancy and a reliance on credited
secondary writers. Interestingly, though, this score represented
Zimmer's second Middle Eastern score in his previous three efforts at
the time, and even though it was composed for a completely different
genre of film,
The Prince of Egypt expands stylistically on
some of the ethnic traits heard in
The Peacemaker's Sarajevo
material. In some ways, Zimmer's fears about the appropriateness of his
music were realized, while in other regards, he succeeded very well. His
themes for the film are diverse, covering eight different characters and
plot elements. But his enunciation of these themes isn't as strong as
necessary to truly identify specific themes with those ideas. The only
themes that stand out among the eight are those for God, Ramses, and the
Egyptians. The Egyptian theme, heard most prominently in the last half
of "The Reprimand," will recall
The Peacemaker. Additionally,
Ofra Haza's vocals will, to many Western ears, sound similar to Mamak
Khadem's tones from the previous score. The theme for Ramses is a bold,
prototypical Zimmer expression of gloom, existing prominently in
"Goodbye Brother" and "Cry." The most impressive Zimmer theme, however,
is the one for God, explored with grandeur in "The Burning Bush" and
"Red Sea." The choral crescendos in these two tracks compensate for all
the ills that the remainder of the score tends to suffer, spectacularly
aiding in the film's quest for spritual identity and a sense of
historical importance. Singular moments of thematic complexity are
littered throughout
The Prince of Egypt, though Zimmer's heavy
instrumentation can obscure them. The overlapping of the God and
Egyptian themes in the fourth minute of "The Burning Bush" is a
highlight, though. The score's only moment of disjointed pounding is
late in "Red Sea," an unfortunate slip back into Zimmer's
action-oriented comfort zone.
A few specific aspects of the score's production should be
discussed to fairly evaluate Zimmer's work. First, whether you like it
or not, the composer's trademark style of a masculine rendering prevails
throughout the recording. Despite the contributions by solo and ensemble
voices, as well as an array of specialty Middle Eastern instruments, the
synthetic backing to the orchestral recordings, or perhaps the usual
mixing of that recording to replace the organic sound with a harsh
electronic edge, causes the score to lose some of its authenticity given
the topic. At some moments, Zimmer excels past this habit, but
The
Prince of Egypt is, on the whole, extremely consistent with his
occasionally overbearing 1990's style of simplistic bombast, and this
will bother some listeners who are not convinced of the match with this
subject matter. In terms of Middle Eastern flavor, the minor-key cliches
are there, but they aren't as obvious as Alan Menken's similar use in
Aladdin. Both the scores for
The Lion King and
The
Prince of Egypt rely on wholesale awe to float their major cues,
with scope and straight forward beauty the specialty of the moment,
though only the choral ensemble performances in the latter score can
compete with the magical woodwind solos in the former. Secondly, Zimmer
doesn't utilize the melodies from the songs often in his underscore,
creating somewhat of a disconnect between them. Another aspect of
Zimmer's involvement with
The Prince of Egypt that is worth
mentioning is the even flow between the cast songs and the score. Their
presentation on album is seamless, and this editing works because of
simple fact that Zimmer's team of Media Ventures assistants arranged the
accompaniment to the songs so that Zimmer's same drum pads, electric
bass, and other trademark instrumental sounds existed in the songs as
well. The problem that Zimmer fans ran into with the score is that only
half of its length was available on the main commercial album for the
film and, as was typical for Zimmer as well, the versions of the music
heard on the album did not match the mix that was used in the film. The
cues "Red Sea," "Goodbye Brother," "Death of the First Born" exist in
multiple mixes, as do the songs "Deliver Us" and "When You
Believe."
The album situation didn't help the confusion,
unfortunately forcing fans to search for various bootlegs to find
relief. Dreamworks initially released three major commercial albums for
The Prince of Egypt, with only the official soundtrack featuring
any of the music actually heard in the film. The "Inspirational" and
"Nashville" song compilations are useless to film score collectors and
should be shunned. Shortly after the theatrical release of the film,
Dreamworks issued "Collector's Edition" copies of
The Prince of
Egypt that include a short amount of music from the film in
combination with songs from all three song compilations. It was a teaser
product bundled initially with toys and available only at Walmart
stores, the soulless box store for the obese and destitute of America.
Two versions of the short 20 to 25-minute release exist, offering either
one or two tracks of score not available on the main commercial album.
All of them have the stunning "Chariot Race" track, which not only
features the romping survey of the score's themes in the first three
minutes actually devoted to that scene in the film, but also tacks on
the film's finale for another three minutes. This latter half of the cue
is the true highlight of the entire score, finally working the songs
into the score with glorious results. Featuring a massive choral
rendition of "Deliver Us" and weaving an intelligent interpolation of
the song "When You Believe" into the fabric of the score, the victorious
conclusion to this cue is not to be missed. Ironically, this recording
still isn't the actual music that you hear in the film, but it's a close
representation and stands as the single best score cue that Zimmer has
to offer here. Some of the "Collector's Editions" also include the "It is
Only Beginning..." cue, which accompanies the "Nile of Blood" scene and
serves up a dose of the "When You Believe" melody as well as all of
Zimmer's three most prominent themes. Although this track appears on the
version that is more difficult to find, it really isn't worth much fuss.
While the addendum CD was available in Walmart for incredibly cheap
prices, it temporarily fetched significant sums (over $50) worldwide, as
the score-collecting market snatched it up.
For the vast majority of mainstream listeners and
casual soundtrack enthusiasts, the commercial album alone will suffice.
For those who maintain a somewhat healthy collection of Zimmer's works,
the addition of the three Zimmer cues in two tracks on Dreamworks'
promotional "Collector's Edition" will be a reasonable addition for a
far more manageable price ten years later, with the best cue from either
album on that smaller release. For the die-hard Zimmer collectors,
however, the 30 minutes on the commercial album and 10 additional
minutes on the Walmart album will fail to address a few notable cues heard
in the film, including the hieroglyphics nightmare scene (among others).
There also exists, of course, the film versions of the aforementioned
cues and songs, amounting to another additional twenty minutes that you
could really rip from the film itself. Early versions of a bootleg did
just that, though these traded albums featured irritating sound effects
and often padded their running time on the second CD with music from
other Zimmer projects. In the mid-2000's, however, refined versions of
the unreleased score and the material actually used in the film was
leaked. The resulting 2-CD bootlegs of 80+ minutes of music are the
complete representations of all the music from the film, but the
additional material they offer is perhaps not as impressive as the
simple task of rearranging all of the film versions of the various score
and songs into a loyal listening experience. Some sound quality issues
remain, too. Overall,
The Prince of Egypt does have its
weaknesses, but it's an enjoyable and well conceived collection of songs
and score. The songs will easily appeal to fans of the genre, and
Zimmer's score will likewise appease fans of his distinct style of the
era. There are lingering questions about the effectiveness of that
electronically aided style, and Zimmer's handling of this multitude of
themes and the song melodies remains an easy target for criticism. The
album situation is somewhat souring as well, especially with the country
and religious albums muddying the waters. But even with only the regular
commercial album, you hear a score with the intensity of epic
proportions that fellow animated genre composers Alan Menken and Randy
Newman have difficulty obtaining consistently. It's an entertaining
listening experience with a handful of excellent highlights.
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