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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you are a devoted Goldsmith collector who does not have the music previously available from Magic on the SPFM Tribute album. Avoid it... if your film music funds are limited and you want better Goldsmith scores in the Varèse Sarabande Club series. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Goldsmith had finally won his Academy Award in 1976, and the already experienced composer was entering a ten-year period that many critics still consider to be the most richly textured of his career. Magic was a project for which Goldsmith could entertain a delicate love theme and weave it into a constant battle with the theme of the dummy, mirroring the schizophrenia of the ventriloquist as he falls victim to that dummy. His comfort with the horror and suspense genres was beginning to reign with consistency. The difference between Goldsmith at his prime and most of the other composers of the modern era was Goldsmith's ability to make the "less is more" idea work, and work well. Magic is a score of few grand notes, yet Goldsmith's ability to take a charming little love theme and twist it into an agonizing fight between fear, doubt, and love is grand all by itself. You need to purchase this score knowing that an appreciation of Goldsmith's talent is really the only reason to listen to Magic for any length of time. From the outset of the score, during which Goldsmith introduces the hauntingly stark harmonica theme for Fats (the dummy), the score quivers with uncertainty and frustration. A lazy, jazzy theme for the good natured side of the primary character's heart battles the unpleasant harmonica for the entire score, only to lose at the very brink of victory. Only a minute or two of actual horror/slashing music is to be heard in Magic, heightening the tension throughout the rest of the orchestral underscore. For ten years, a little more than 15 minutes of the Magic score was available on the highly collectible and cherished SPFM Tribute CD pressed in limited copies for the audience attending a 1993 dinner in honor of the composer. For those of you who have that album (or one of the countess bootlegs that came afterwards), you should note that the SPFM Tribute CD has all of the most pertinent and impressive Goldsmith cues from Magic (in roughly equal sound quality). True Goldsmith completists will indeed be interested in the whole score, but if you are going to choose one Goldsmith album from the several Varèse Sarabande Club titles available, then Magic isn't the best choice. The limited Varèse Sarabande album includes two nightclub cues required as source material from Goldsmith, and these add nothing to the album except for an even greater appreciation of the composer's versatility. Despite the remarkable skill it puts on display, though, the album for Magic isn't among the better half of Goldsmith's work. It is a disturbing listening experience, as to be expected, and even the heightened pronouncement of the love theme in "Appassionata" is presented with a suspenseful edge that will convince your gut that something is wrong. If you haven't seen the film, it would be a challenge to start listening to the score, read the insert notes detailing the gripping plot of the film, and feel comfortable stopping halfway through. Such is the life that Goldsmith's unsettling score brings to the horrific tale. ***
* released in single or combo cues on the 1993 SPFM Tribute CD
The limited edition Varèse Sarabande album has its usual standard of excellent, in-depth analysis of the score and film. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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