Long ranked by many soundtrack collectors as part of their
top ten "most wanted on CD" lists,
Raise the Titanic represented
one of the first widely known epic scores in Barry's career since his
move to America. The original master tapes on which the recording
sessions from 1980 reside have seemingly been lost forever, which
explains the sad lack of any album. Due to demand from both fans and
John Barry himself, Silva Screen Records commissioned the recording of
the entire 50-minute score with the City of Prague Philharmonic in 1999.
Conductor Nic Raine, who worked directly with John Barry over the years
on feature assignments, spectacularly reconstructed, orchestrated, and
conducted the score, very well capturing the awe-inspiring power and
spirit of Barry's original recording. As for the quality of the music
itself, many film score collectors will favor
Raise the Titanic
over James Horner's infamous, Oscar-winning 1997 score for
Titanic, though both scores are extremely representative of their
respective composers' styles. While Barry has taken his due criticism
for embellishing the same romantic, string-dominated style in too many
of his scores over the last twenty years of his career,
Raise the
Titanic is distinctive because it was among the first of this type
of score. When the film came out in the theatres, the score was a
remarkably fresh and unique experience, and out of the novelty of that
style of music arose the popularity of techniques that would inform
Barry's Oscar-winning efforts for
Out of Africa and
Dances
With Wolves. The intriguing thing about
Raise the Titanic is
that many people forget that the film is, first and foremost, a tale of
espionage with massive scientific accomplishments weighing heavily in a
nuclear world. As such, Barry balances his sweeping string theme for the
ship itself with numerous subthemes involving militaristic percussion
and brass.
The majority of the score, and almost the entire first
half, contains significant lengths of suspenseful music very similar to
the "sneaking" moments in the composer's James Bond scores. The "Dog
Attack" sequence in the third track on this album features a brass motif
that recalls the power and resilience of
The Lion in Winter. The
only splashy cue on album is the jaunty "To Cornwall," which includes a
very brief (but also sought after) secondary theme as well. Other
singular motifs litter the score, but they are largely forgotten
compared to the Titanic's theme and the often utilized "searching
theme." This latter, dramatic motif is foreshadowed in "Main Title" but
establishes itself for the middle portions of the film in "Deep Quest."
This very slow and melodramatic search theme occupies sole possession of
several following cues. The falling strings offer a great "sinking
feeling" while the mini-submersibles are crawling along the depths of
the ocean, and Barry collectors will notice significant similarities to
The Black Hole in these cues. When all is said and done, though,
the main Titanic theme is the one that interests most Barry fans. And
given its majestic scope, that love is no surprise. A glorious
performance of the theme opens the film as we see pictures of the ship
as it first prepares to sail in "Prelude." Then, appropriately, the
theme is not heard again until the Titanic is discovered at the bottom
of the sea (and even then, it's a muddled, stifled performance). But in
the last 20 minutes of the film (or the last 4 tracks on the album), the
theme's performances are nothing less than magnificent. Bursting onto
the screen with barely any sound effects and no dialogue for an extended
sequence in the film, the expansive theme's rendering rivals the
splendor of the special effects during the actual "Raise the Titanic"
scene.
The Titanic theme re-surfaces as the ship heroically
sails into New York's harbor; in the film, the sounds of all the
accompanying ships' horns blowing in perfect harmony with Barry's music
makes the cue the highlight of the score, if not arguably the single
highlight of Barry's entire career. Even without the harmonious sound
effects, the cue is the kind that can still send shivers up your spine,
even thirty years after debut. The end credits provide one last,
concert-like performance of this theme. In between these final scenes is
the "Memories of the Titanic" cue, which treats the haunted main
ballroom with a solitary and melancholy subtheme performed beautifully
by piano, saxophone, and trumpet. It's a spooky, but remarkably
effective and elegant cue. Less appealing are the militaristic rhythms
for snare and brass heard in "Russian Threat" and a few times before;
Barry's little march is too trite to address the gravity of the
situation. Considered in the whole, however, the film contains a wealth
of great thematic material that generally works wonders in the vast
majority of scenes. The complete score release on CD by Silva Screen is
among the most satisfying albums in the Filmtracks library. The
accomplishments achieved here by Nic Raine and the City of Prague
Philharmonic are superb. Because of Raine's careful work, the recording
is very true to the original, yet it features, of course, the stunning
surround sound we have come to expect from the Silva recordings. The
packaging includes a very thorough track-by-track analysis. As producer
James Fitzpatrick mentions in the insert notes, the recording sessions
went very smoothly, and this definitely can be heard in the relaxed and
confident performances by the City of Prague Philharmonic. Collectors
weary of Barry's habit of endlessly repeating the same harmonic
structures in all of his dramatic 80's and 90's scores should give this
one a shot. Every trademark sound has a beginning, as well as a high
point. In this case,
Raise the Titanic happens to be both.
***** @Amazon.com: CD or
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