The remaining two primary themes in
Willow
represent the film's two dominant villains. A menacing series of
ascending brass and choral progressions for Queen Bavmorda offer fright
in "Elora Danan" and achieve a gloating posture in "Bavmorda's Castle."
This idea increases in frequency as the film approaches her battle with
Willow at its climax. The majority of synthetic effects in
Willow
accompany Bavmorda's spells, and they contribute significant dissonance
to the last twenty minutes of the score's action pieces. Horner uses
this long-lined melody more often than you might think, its presence in
bass strings frequently existing below other melodies. Sometimes, this
usage ends up usurping the higher melody, as it prevails over the baby's
theme at roughly two minutes into "Canyon of Mazes." It shifts to
compelling violins at the outset of "Arrival at Snow Camp." The most
memorable theme from
Willow is ironically its most simplistic,
and that is the dreaded four-note motif of evil that Horner would use
frequently and to almost the point of comedy throughout the rest of his
career. Performed most prominently by harsh tones on pairs of trumpets
and horns, this danger motif is pervasive in the score, ranging from
subtle applications in the bass to the full collection of brass in
unison. It's a convenient motif because Horner can use it to easily
establish a new key, heightening its effect by serving as a transitional
tool. While the theme occasionally represents glimpses of the frightful
General Kael in the film (what sensible child wouldn't get nightmares
from looking at that mask?), the most victorious moment for Kael in the
film, as he rides by horse with the captured Elora Danan back to the
Queen, is absent the motif. (Instead, Horner lets rip at the end of "Tir
Asleen" with some of the most resounding orchestral crashes ever to
announce a defeat on screen.) Perhaps the most intriguing use of the
danger motif comes against Bavmorda's material in the latter half of
"Bavmorda's Castle" on bass strings. Outside of these themes, Horner
offers secondary ideas for a few concepts and places. His swelling love
theme for Madmartigan and the queen's daughter, Sorcha (and between
Willow and Elora), debuts in the chaos of "Escape From the Tavern" at
0:47 and teases again at 1:46 into "The Sled Ride" before consolidating
beautifully in the third and fourth minutes of "Canyon of Mazes." Other
themes are more singular, such as the one for the enchanted forest
location on whimsical high choir in the latter half of "The Enchanted
Forest" that also closes out the score in "Willow the Sorcerer."
Horner's soft, three-note choral motif bookending the work is an
extension of this material.
On album, none of these themes for
Willow holds the
court for very long, and their alternation keeps the score fresh.
Because the action of the film moves so quickly, abrupt changes in tone
and theme occur frequently. As such, the score rarely becomes dull
outside of the ethereal music accompanying the middle third. The rowdy
action sequences make sure of this, sometimes maintaining their energy
for as long as ten minutes within a cue. The opening two minutes of
"Escape from the Tavern" and the middle portions of "Tir Asleen" present
Horner's action sensibilities at their finest, using the powerful
percussion section and specialty instruments to their fullest. Moments
of silence in
Willow are rare and positioned strategically, and
as a listener you always have to be ready for the next jolt of action to
arrive quite suddenly. Horner takes
Willow past most other
adventure scores by balancing these action explosions with elegant
fantasy elements. The exotic instruments, including not only the
shakuhachi and pan pipes but bagpipes, harps, and woodwinds of all
kinds, are a key element in building
Willow's supernatural
presence. By employing these instruments in the rhythms of the action
pieces in addition to their carrying of the themes at times, he
effectively creates the illusion that this story is taking place in a
far away, mystical land. The choir opens and closes the film with the
aforementioned, simple, three-note motif that would become a Horner
trademark in his children's film scores of the early 1990's, also adding
sensitivity to the softer moments of this one. This motif is an
intriguing major-key variant of the four-note motif of evil with the
first note expunged. During the use of this motif to bookend the film,
Horner also employs the sound effect of blowing wind; it's difficult to
determine whether this was accomplished using metallic percussion or a
synthesizer. Horner wrote two source-like cues for the Nelwyn culture
from which Willow comes, summarized in the two "The Nelwyns" recordings
heard immediately after the opening cue, and these do really break up
the listening experience. This festive, non-vocalized material, largely
improvised, comes to the forefront at the end of the film, a Lucas
carryover of the obnoxious Ewok celebration music in
Star Wars:
Return of the Jedi. Horner handles the basic rhythm with bagpipes
and the exotic woodwinds, creating a grating sound that could remind
collectors of Horner's obscure score for
Where the River Runs
Black. He does, though, mirror John Williams in that he slowly
re-introduces the orchestra back into cue before the score returns to
the full concert arrangement for the end titles. It's a subtle but neat
touch.
For listeners seeking a summary of protagonist themes
from
Willow, the arrangement of the primary two themes for the
end credits is identical to that which appears in "Willow's Theme" on
album, except for the diverging reprise of the forest theme that
represents a lengthy decrease in volume to close the score in the same
manner as in
The Land Before Time. These slow conclusions, in
both these scores and
Glory, are rather annoying in that they
waste time that could otherwise be used for major thematic statements or
at least the kind of rousing conclusion that sends off
The
Rocketeer and a half dozen other Horner action works with bravado.
Overall,
Willow is a score that precedes those in Horner's career
that aggravated film music collectors tired of his repetitious sound.
This score was the inspiration for it all, and it's not surprisingly his
best. The elements that combined to make this score so well balanced in
theme, instrumental use, and sound quality proved elusive for Horner in
the following decades. Taunting fans over that period of time had been
the original 1988 album for
Willow, which suffered from a limited
American pressing by Virgin Records America to coincide with the film's
release. Despite the score's availability on European store shelves for
regular prices during the 1990's, the
Willow album sold in
America for prices as high as $100. In the mid-1990's, however, Virgin
began re-pressing the CD everywhere and the prices dropped with the new
availability. Die-hard collectors were long unsatisfied with the 73
minutes of music available on that CD, however, and there had been much
speculation that Horner's fans would support a 2-CD release containing
the remaining 30+ minutes of material existing from the score. Such talk
continued unabated in light of the interesting fact that no substantial
bootleg of this material was ever leaked to the public. With fans
opening their wallets and paying $40 for a 2-CD set of a score like
Horner's
Krull, there was always a solid market for an expanded
treatment of
Willow. That product finally arrived from Intrada
Records in 2022, and the demand for the 2-CD set was so robust that the
label had to release a statement responding to the extraordinarily
number of orders placed for the product. After buyers reportedly
hammered the label's staff with queries about these orders, Intrada
finally resorted to simply stating, "Please have mercy!" Certainly, few
film scores of the digital age can merit such overwhelming excitement,
and, just as the label had accomplished with
The Land Before Time
not long before, the expanded product for
Willow provides a clean
presentation of the film score with no alternate takes or other bonus
cues.
The 2022 Intrada set for
Willow provides the
cues of the original 1988 album intact but sprinkles in the unreleased
selections in chronological order, causing all of the newly revealed
material to exist on the first CD since that's where the prior product
chose to neglect. The two source tracks, "The Nelwyns" and "The Nelwyns"
and "The Nelwyns No. 2," are mostly redundant with the previously
released finale music and will be skipped by most. In "Death Dogs,"
Horner unleashes his pounding,
Brainstorm-style piano and
percussion rhythms of force with the danger motif and Bavmorda theme in
tow, largely an angrier extension of the same material in "Elora Danan."
The crashing opening to "Bavmorda's Castle" yields to a softly
threatening performance of Bavmorda's theme with the danger motif for
Kael joining for strings and bassoons. Showcasing the specialty
instruments is "Airk's Army," with a hint of snare for the marching men,
though a penny whistle breaks through with Willow's theme. That soloist
continues with the Elora Danan theme and a preview of the main adventure
theme in an otherwise somewhat dour cue. The first two minutes of "The
Enchanted Forest" are arguably the highlight of the expansion, with soft
expressions of Willow's theme, secondary material for his village, a
giddy rendition of the adventure theme, and more Elora Danan beauty on
flute. Comedy material disrupts the cue, but it eventually smooths out
to the forest's theme on choir for the remainder. (The fade out in this
cue is a disappointment.) The largely atmospheric "The Island" is this
score's nod to
Vibes, with Elora Danan's theme peeking through
otherwise bleak treble tones. The solid action returns in "Willow
Captured," Elora Danan's theme pitted against Bavmorda's and the danger
motif against the adventure theme. Melodrama for Bavmorda's theme, this
time in counterpoint to the adventure theme, occupies "Arrival at Snow
Camp," the danger and baby motifs not far behind. The final new cue is
"The Sled Ride," which starts slowly during the sneaking around but
eventually fleshes out the love theme against the adventure theme
nicely, culminating in chase material akin to "Escape From the Tavern."
The expanded set is a mammoth treat for enthusiasts of Horner and this
score, a clear necessity for any Horner collection. It may not be
necessary for casual listeners or as revelatory as the expanded
Legends of the Fall equivalent, but it's nearly as satisfying.
The sound quality is not significantly improved. Decades later,
Willow remains a modern classic, its majestic and exotic power
emulated by Horner and others but never truly replicated. It is an
indisputable triumph among the best fantasy and adventure scores of the
digital era.
***** @Amazon.com: CD or
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