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Review of Sherlock Holmes (Hans Zimmer/Lorne Balfe)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if, despite some late action material that resurrects
The Peacemaker, you seek Hans Zimmer at his most humorous and
instrumentally creative, inspiring a much fuller expansion of the quirky
character in his 2000 score for An Everlasting Piece.
Avoid it... if somewhere between an Irish pub, a gypsy folk band, and a Romanian orchestra exists your worst nightmare, because the off-kilter movement of Zimmer's themes and unconventional solo performances may reside outside of the comfort zone for many of his collectors.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Sherlock Holmes: (Hans Zimmer/Lorne Balfe) After
hundreds of screen adaptations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famed stories
about the detective Sherlock Holmes, one was bound to eventually depict
the battles that the title character would always refer to in one of his
quips about escaping death. That incarnation was eventually pushed by
Warner Brothers, which saw Guy Richie's Sherlock Holmes as a
potential sister franchise to the rebooted Batman series. The
2009 film thrust leads Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law into a
confrontation with the forces of the occult, taking liberties with the
less explored action and fantasy aspect of the original concept. Like
Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, the look and feel of
Sherlock Holmes is a mixture of darkness and opulence, making for
both a dirty and enticing visual environment. Thanks to Warner's
aggressive marketing of the film, Sherlock Holmes competed quite
well against James Cameron's Avatar, earning a decent critical
response and grossing more than triple its budget within its first
month. The director had, not surprisingly, temp tracked this film with
the score for The Dark Knight, though when he was fortunate
enough to receive the services of Hans Zimmer for Sherlock
Holmes, both Richie and the composer were certain to take the music
in a different direction. Irish folk music performed by The Dubliners
was sought for three prominent places in the film, including the end
credits. Zimmer, now several major scores removed from his announcement
of intended retirement from film scoring in 2008, clearly approached the
assignment (along with frequent collaborator Lorne Balfe) with a wry
sense of humor, producing a soundtrack full of unconventional
multi-cultural references in open defiance of all expectations. He has
described his ideas for Sherlock Holmes in many creative and
funny ways, most in part referencing Irish punk bands, Romanian
orchestras, and wild period soloists. A touch of Jack Sparrow swing is
also integral. He wanted the score to directly match the eccentric
mannerisms of Downey Jr.'s portrayal of Holmes, stating, "Our Sherlock
Holmes is different, and it was more about playing the chaos, the
multitude of ideas, the synapses firing, and strange virtuosity going on
in his brain." The reliance on violin performances in the score
(spanning the realms of the quirky to somber melodrama) are a direct
reflection of the character's fondness for that instrument.
Outside of the obvious violin emphasis in the score, the remainder of Zimmer's ensemble for Sherlock Holmes is its distinct selling point. While there is a symphony of various sizes involved depending on the type of action in a given cue (restrained mostly to lower strings and brass, especially horns and tuba), the composer heavily emphasizes the performances of a number of soloists to provide Sherlock Holmes with an overwhelmingly unique sense of character. Foremost is a battered piano, not just a detuned honky tonk variety, but literally a damaged instrument that better defies pitch. This was Zimmer's best representation of an Irish pub piano that had seen far better days. The somewhat creepy cimbalom is diverse in its application in the score as well, either performing the title theme with as much zeal as the instrument can muster or ominously plucking sparse rhythms along with the piano. Traditional percussion is replaced with slapped garbage can lids and the other performers abusing their instruments. The piano is badly out of tune in its lowest octaves that it may as well replace the sound of a small drum. Upbeat portions are addressed by banjo and accordion, and even a bagpipe makes a quick contribution, affording these moment inevitable comparisons to the spirit of Zimmer's last truly zany score, An Everlasting Piece, in 2000. Upon requesting the violins be transformed via performance emphasis into gypsy fiddles, the soloists adopt an Eastern European folk sound that may not always be, especially in conjunction with the Irish tilt, really appropriate in a historical sense to this period in London. But, at the very least, the unexpected gypsy sound that results is a fairly good match for the personality of Holmes in this film. The orchestra comes into play mostly in the latter half of the score, addressing the resurrected villain. Zimmer avoids applying the multitude of deep strings in the tiresome ostinatos seemingly rampant in recent action scores from the composer and his associates, thought the morbid dwelling of practically every substantive cue in the bass region will be an equalizer for listeners who may be put off by the less conventional soloists. For all the talk about how different the music for Sherlock Holmes is from the rest of Zimmer's career, there are actually several connections to The Peacemaker to be heard. Along with the broad bass region strokes (aided by synthesizers and electronic manipulation at times) and the cimbalom, other similarities to the 1997 score include the rhythmic pacing of the title theme when in action mode, by which time it sounds awfully similar to the bomb and train material from that score. Although Zimmer does start to explore some secondary ideas in earnest in the latter half of Sherlock Holmes, the score is dominated by its memorable title theme. It's not memorable in terms of progression (in fact, it could drive a person nuts to the same degree as some of Danny Elfman's 1980's inventions), but rather very off-kilter in both its plucky, staggered progressions and dismissal of easy harmonic lines. Its division into a series of paired notes related to key makes it easy to adapt into several different situations as fragments of the whole. The theme is given its formal introduction in "Discombobulate" and eventually develops into a more conventional action theme by the climactic battle sequence. That major cue near the end of the film (a whopping 18 minutes long on album) is easily the highlight of the score, in part because of the composer's brutal adaptation of the Westminster Chimes melody (which anyone with a traditional grandfather clock will recognize, but of which Londoners are especially privy) to reinforce the location of the fight. Turned into a monumental bass-region procession in the minor key at about four and eight minutes into "Psychological Recovery... 6 Months," this melody and its overbearing tone are comedy in and of themselves. Only if Zimmer had been able to retain its major-key origins could the cue have been any more tongue-in-cheek. The other secondary themes in the score are short-changed on album, a lovely romantic idea on uncharacteristically high strings in "Ah, Putrefaction" too brief to really appreciate. Overall, despite the originality in instrumentation and tone in Sherlock Holmes, it's still easily identifiable as a Zimmer work. "What happens if you write a Weimar Republic score for Sherlock Holmes?" the composer asked at the outset. Ultimately, the bass region is still the emphasis, the quirkiness has been hinted at by Zimmer before, and you'll find yourself reminded of other Zimmer works more often than you might think. Between the bizarre title theme and obnoxiously comedic cues like "I Never Woke Up in Handcuffs Before," Sherlock Holmes is far from the smoothest of listening experiences, begging for at least some rearrangement to seek the more robust ensemble performances of the title theme (as in "My Mind Rebels at Stagnation" and "Panic, Shear Bloody Panic"). The commercial CD release, which excludes the Dubliners' Irish music, offered the perk of a 5.1 surround sound version of the score available via download, a format that only serves to enhance the bass region even further. It's odd to imagine that Zimmer could take all of these delightful constructs and solo elements and mould them into a score with so little dynamic range, and this dwelling in the depths continues to be the composer's calling card and Achilles heel.
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 52:27
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes extensive credits, but no extra information about
the score or film. Interestingly, the cover art includes the name of Zimmer's
secondary composer as well, a relative diversion from the norm.
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