Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you seek the beauty of an Irish-flavored orchestral score outside of the stereotypical norms you hear in mainstream feature films. Avoid it... if uilleann pipes, pan pipes, and penny whistles, no matter the allure of their thematic environment, make your skin crawl even worse than accordions do. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Durango: (Mark McKenzie) Between 1997 and 1999, Hallmark Entertainment produced films for which few corners were cut in the musical score budget, and several of the industry's finest from the younger generation of composers took advantage of the opportunities to write and record some of the best music ever to be heard on the small screen. Mark McKenzie, whose career was largely littered with B-rate film scores and a wild variety of orchestration work for major blockbuster scores, entered the list of talented composers contributing to the Hallmark Hall of Fame series with 1999's Durango. A cast with a few familiar faces stars in a story of love and maturation set against 1940's Ireland, with the lush scenery stealing the show with its alluring greens. McKenzie's score responds with an equal tone of beauty, sparing no chance to underscore the landscape with a lyrical melody. Its Irish influences are never in doubt, and that flavor was particularly popular at a time when James Horner was ramming it into every score he possibly could. Even listeners who were worn by the constant Irish sound infused into film scores at the time made comments about McKenzie's knack for maintaining a fresh outlook on that ethnicity. While bodhran drums, uilleann pipes, penny whistles, pan pipes, and recorder are prominently featured in thematic statements and the melodies are rich with progressions familiar to traditional Irish musical verse, McKenzie does not allow them to fall into the predictable ruts that plagued Horner and other composers attempting the same Irish influence in the late 1990's. McKenzie's own personable and accessible style, evident in many of his character-based scores, lends Durango a unique feel that separates it from the pack. Among such McKenzie scores, including many similarly small-budget productions to follow, Durango is among his finest accomplishments. McKenzie employs a satisfying 70 members of The City of Prague Philharmonic, a group that was becoming quite accomplished in its film music recordings at the time. Unlike most scores that rely on the specialty instrument performers to carry the rest of the ensemble, the strength of Durango exists in its balance between those solo elements, the ensemble's tasteful and well mixed performance, and the beauty of McKenzie's several themes. While the score deceives you into thinking that it is parochial and simplistic upon first listen, the suite at the very start demonstrates that the score consists of great thematic wealth and complexity. No less than five themes grace Durango, each with significant performances by both the full ensemble and by the soloists. These themes are provided in snapshot succession in the score's two best cues, "Durango Suite" and "The Journey Begins." Each maintains the same elegant spirit, with McKenzie's usual lush and soft touch gracing their performances in the opening suite. The latter cue adds rhythmically satisfying drums to the equation. One of the more remarkable aspects of these suites, and the other thematic performances that almost always are in play, is McKenzie's ability to switch off between themes so seamlessly that it becomes difficult to distinguish them at times. When you apply this technique to the rare action material in Durango, you get a restrained but effective elevation in bombast without that resists the realm of simple loudness. Two solos by trumpet and several simply gorgeous solos by the recorder are the ultimate selling points of the score, raising memories of some of the most enchanting moments of John Williams' popular but seldom heralded music for Far and Away. On album, dissonance is almost completely absent, allowing for 45 minutes of the most relaxing Irish-flavored underscore available today, though with its release pressed by Intrada Records (McKenzie's most active supporter through the years), don't expect to find wide availability of the product. **** Track Listings:
Total Time: 43:56
All artwork and sound clips from Durango are Copyright © 1999, Intrada Records. The reviews and notes contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Filmtracks Publications. Audio clips can be heard using RealPlayer but cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 5/16/99, updated 8/25/07. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 1999-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
