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| • | Newest Major Reviews: | . | • | This Week's Most Popular Reviews: | • | Best-Selling Albums: | ||
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1. Nim's Island 2. The Life Before Her Eyes 3. Horton Hears a Who! 4. Leatherheads 5. The Spiderwick Chronicles | . | . |
1. Moulin Rouge 2. Gladiator 3. POTC: Curse of the Black Pearl 4. Star Wars: A New Hope 5. Edward Scissorhands |
6. Pearl Harbor 7. Schindler's List 8. Titanic 9. Braveheart 10. Home Alone | . | . |
1. Varèse Sarabande 25th 2. The Last of the Mohicans 3. Legends of the Fall 4. Schindler's List 5. LOTR: Return of the King (Set) |
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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... (the limited album) if you want to shake your room with the power of Williams' horror skills at their best. Avoid it... (the limited album) if you have the old CD from the 1980's and are more than content with it. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Both men realized that the score would exist in the shadow of Bernard Herrmann's ghostly presence. Williams responded by composing a masterful score with elements from his own thematic tendencies and subthemes and motifs that are direct tributes to, if not extensions of, Herrmann's body of work. Some film music historians argue that the period of 1977 - 1982 represent the best years of Williams' career, when the composer was at his highest motivation and talents. The Fury indeed reinforces that point of view, proving to be very effective and riveting both in the film and decades later on album. Nothing was spared in the scope of the score for The Fury. Williams' music is inspired by a horrifying title theme, heavy on brass and very heavy on brutal repetition during the supernatural acts in the film. The underscore for more tender moments between main characters never entirely escapes the tense brass undertones. For fans of those moments when Williams unleashes ungodly noise and ruckus, The Fury offers over twenty minutes of combined horror cues that will shake your room and cause your neighbors to call the cops. Unlike Herrmann's often dissonant horror cues (when sustained), Williams refuses to yield to the same lack of harmony. His emphasis on strong drama of character heart and personal struggle cause even the most horrifying cues in The Fury to have a bittersweet beauty to them. In these regards, his tribute to Herrmann's cascading woodwinds --and even a theremin in the explosive climax-- becomes almost an improvement on Herrmann's touch. So influential a score had Williams created that bits of ideas in The Fury would turn up over the next twenty years in other supernatural or sci-fi thrillers. The title theme, in its octave-scaling and steady eloquence, is a clear predecessor for his own wondrous Hogwarts castle theme for the Harry Potter scores. The quick, consecutive brass blasts in the bass range, meant to emphasize the beginning of a measure of music with the most powerful note possible, would show up again extensively in James Horner's Brainstorm. And wavering octaves of tense brass, slowly alternating between two octaves of quivering notes, would serve as a foundation for Don Davis' elusive theme for The Matrix. Williams' insertion of carnival music, synthesizers for added mystery, the theremin, and the abnormal use of woodwinds are all elements that would be used in similar ways by other composers for years to come. On album, the music has existed in several forms. Williams re-recorded the score with the London Symphony Orchestra for the LP album (eventually copied onto a very early CD), and this recording remains superior in sound depth to the actualy, original score. The original score (as heard in film) was released in 2002 as part of the limited Varèse Sarabande Club, with only 3,000 copies available. That limited album, however, also includes a superb-sounding remastering of the LSO recording as well, making for the ultimate Fury listening experience. The remastering included with the limited Varèse set indeed sounds spectacular, and has all the vibrant life of a current recording. The original score includes some more precise performances in certain parts, and is an equally interesting listen. Overall, no Williams fan should be without this excellent score, and in this case, the price of the limited collector's album is definitely worth a purchase.
Score as heard on the 2003 2-CD Varèse Set: ***** Overall: ****
* Original recording not featured on the Arista LP album ** Not featured in the film
* Not featured in the film
Several versions of the cue "Death on the Carousel" exist, with most of them presented in the 2002 2-CD set. The 1990 Varèse Sarabande album insert includes a detailed note about the film and score. The expanded limited edition Varèse Sarabande set also has its usual standard of excellent, in-depth analysis of the score and film. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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