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Troy: (Gabriel Yared/James Horner) Rejected scores are
a surprisingly frequent occurrence in Hollywood. Despite the high talent
that often writes regularly for the big screen, sometimes even the best
composers have functional (if not exceptional) music rejected from a film
for curious one reason or another. The modern composers plagued the most by
this phenomenon happen to be the better known: Jerry Goldsmith and John
Barry. In 2004, much banter has been exchanged in the industry about the
circumstances of the rejected music by Gabriel Yared for the Warner Brothers
film
Troy. Director Wolfgang Petersen approached Yared more than a
year before the film's scheduled release, hiring the classically-inclined
composer despite the obvious fact that Yared had never written an epic
battle score of this magnitude in his life. Petersen put a significant
amount of faith in Yared based on the quality of music that the director had
heard in Yared's existing works. In April of 2003, Yared began work on the
score for
Troy, researching source music necessary in the shooting of
some scenes in the film. Recording the score later in the year, Yared
assembled a 100-piece orchestra in London, added layovers by a 25-member
brass section, hired a Bulgarian chorus to produce authentic
Eastern-European vocals and, most importantly, sought the help of Macedonian
singer Tanja Tzarovska for a specific flavor of vocals. The undertaking was
immense, with considerable diversity in recording sessions all dubbed into a
nearly-finished product that was previewed in test screenings of the film in
March of 2004. Enthusiasm among all of those involved with the project was
great (especially with the musicians and recording crew), including the
strong approval of the music by the director, Petersen. One foul test
screening, in which the music was criticized as being "too brassy and bold,"
however, was used as a reason to summarily terminate Yared and expuge his
score from the film.
Yared contends that he was offered no chance to remix or
rerecord any of his music, with Warner Brothers executives summarily
dismissing the entire work as being too incompatible with their notions of
what the score should sound like. It is also suggested that Warner was
already negotiating with other composers before Yared was even notified of
his firing; he still had orchestral sessions scheduled to put the finishing
touches on the score. Needless to say, the situation put Petersen in a
difficult position, though he too has taken some of the criticism for not
handling the firing as well as he could have. Warner turned to a familiar
name to ease their strange woes: James Horner. Without a doubt, Horner must
have known what he was stepping into. Yared made sure that both fans and
members of the industry were completely informed on the circumstances of his
Troy firing; his choice to write a lengthy open letter about the
event was most unorthodox and, some would say, a professional faux pas. But
if you read about the passion with which Yared describes the full year that
he invested in the film and score, then you can understand his frustration.
Without giving Yared a second chance, Warner threw Horner into the fire and
told him to provide a "better" score in less than a month. Even for a
veteran such as Horner, this task was a daunting one, with the composer
assembling his crew and favored musicians with great haste and keeping
Yared's primary vocalist, Tzarovska, for his score as well. Horner also
managed to arrange a song performance by rising star Josh Groban for the end
credits, an ability that may have put Horner in favor with Warner when they
went in search of music more accessible to American ears. Whether resale of
the music on album was an expressed concern for Warner or not, they
certainly ended up with an equation that they must think looks better on
album. Owning the rights to Yared's score as well, Warner could forever
block its release, perhaps doing so as an attempt to never reveal the truth
that Horner's score may not have been as good.
Even if you are the biggest fan of Yared in the world, you
have to admit that Horner is a capable professional in his field, and his
score for
Troy reinforces that statement. For any composer to write
such an intense score in less than a month is astounding, and Horner,
despite his inherent flaws, pulls off a functional and interesting score.
Those inherent flaws, however, seem to blossom into major problems when
Horner is pressed to perform in a short amount of time. Any film music fan
knows, of course, that Horner's flaw is his own endless self-repetition of
style throughout his scores. What was once brilliant in
Willow in
1988 is now simple regurgitation in
Troy. What we have here is Horner
in a state of panic and autopilot all at once. Everything you hear in his
score is saturated with stylistic similarities to his previous works, but
with a sense of urgency built directly into the recording. It's almost as
though the fast-paced composition of the score was translated directly into
the music's haphazard and frantic restatements of bits and pieces of Horner
cues that we have been hearing (and for some, enjoying) for 20 years. For
both battle and love, the score is sufficient, although it is very
Americanized for the subject matter. A rambunctious level of frenetic
activity in brass and percussion is sometimes accompanied by Horner's heavy
strings, sweeping in fewer parts than maybe expected. Keeping Tzarovska on
the project was Horner's sole effort in producing a score that was at all
relevant to the age and locale of the film, and her performances are not
integrated particularly well into the mass of orchestral material. For
instance, whereas Gabriel Yared inserts Tzarovska's voice among a huge
percussion array for a battle between Achilles and Hector, Horner instead
presents Tzarovska's performances as more of the token "opening and closing
bookends" to the score (similar in construction to vocals in
Beyond
Borders from last year). A lackluster love theme also hinders Horner's
effort. This is, after all, a historical love story, and Horner misses that
mark altogether.
There are highlights to Horner's efforts that need mentioning.
The second and third cues on the Horner album ("Troy" and "Achilles Leads
the Myrmidons") are strongly, if not forcefully, presented with magnificent
bombast. The "Troy" and "The Temple of Poseidon" cues are welcome fanfares
for any Horner collection. The opening of "The Trojans Attack" is an
intriguing militaristic melding of choir and fanfare. For skeptical Horner
critics, though, an over-reliance on tolling bells and a slurred form of the
four-note motif of evil --both Horner staples-- could render the music
irritating. This abundance of use starts in "Achilles Leads the Myrmidons"
continues in "The Greek Army and Its Defeat" and throughout the score. The
mention of
Willow earlier was no accident; there are countless
similarities between
Willow and
Troy, but
Troy exists
without the personality of the former. Thus,
Troy marches forward
without much character of its own, even through the end credits song. It has
been mentioned that the end credit song was the kind of marketing ploy that
Warner was seeking when replacing Yared, and it's a sad and completely
unrelated sound for the era and locale. The "Remember Me" song is not
particularly one to remember, with Horner reaching into the successful,
foaming cauldron of his own pop sounds and pulling out another piece of
grocery store and elevator cabin wizardry. He did attempt to provide this
song with an identity, though, by using Tzarovska's voice as counterpoint to
Josh Groban's. The combination of Groban's soft Western voice and
Tzarovska's harsh Macedonian one are a foul pairing that will send you in
search of the stop button, if, that is, the standard pop rhythm that hails
from all of Horner's other overly-pleasant pop songs doesn't repulse you
first. The very existence of the Groban song, topped off by the little
Groban insert card that spills out of the CD when you open its packaging,
causes a veteran or otherwise devoted film score fan to ponder Yared's score
instead. Horner's score suffers from a lack of development despite the
amount of noisy bombast coming from the speakers during his score. Yared's,
on the other hand, plays like a work of art that was considered and
reconsidered, tested and retested, recorded and rerecorded over a great
number of late nights and coffee breaks.
If Horner's
Troy score is your average vanilla ice
cream cone, then Yared's
Troy score is the awesome exotic flavor that
you'd never expected to find when you walked into the ice cream store. When you
listen to Yared's work and immediately appreciate the depth of its character
and performance, then you know exactly why Yared broke professional protocol
and issued his open letter. In short, Yared's work for
Troy is
outstanding. It is a score that holds little resemblance to his soft,
piano-driven scores (except perhaps in its most contemplative moments) and
instead unleashes a side of Yared that few film music fans can honestly
state that they knew he had.
Troy is the pinnacle of Yared's career,
utilizing the kind of research and painstakingly complex writing that
obviously takes a year to assemble. In its entire length, Yared's score is
constructed to sound Eastern-European, with the style of far away, historic
adventure that may remind you of Howard Shore's
The Lord of the Rings
scores and Jerry Goldsmith's
The 13th Warrior in portions. Yared
introduces and develops several outstanding themes, balancing well between
modern lyricism and classical structure, with his 25-member brass ensemble
exploding with singular force in the primary theme during "Approach of the
Greeks." Likewise, the resonating, deep brass theme presented there is
expanded upon in "The Flurry," "1000 Ships," and "A Prince's Welcome." That
last cue mentioned is especially impressive, bursting with a level of
activity that comes from the wand of John Williams for his modern
Star
Wars scores. The amount of layering and counterpoint offered in these
cues establishes an appropriate majesty for these fabled characters while
also progressing at a size worthy of legends. The brass players definitely
earn their extra pay, performing in unison in "Sacking of Troy" with such
power as to rattle the walls (Elliot Goldenthal fans would probably take a
liking to that kind of force). To think that these cues were the ones
responsible for the sacking of Yared himself is outrageous, however
understandable if you have a test audience that doesn't appreciate such an
unusually large presentation of orchestral power.
The beauty of Yared's score, though, is that his work is
truly three-dimensional. Aside from the expected brass fanfares, Yared
utilizes no fewer than four other distinct stylistic approaches with
Troy that round out its overall effect. First, the personalized
conflict scenes, such as "Hector and Achilles Fight," are scored with only a
diverse array of percussion. The drums and metallic objects struck in this
cue offer a textured authenticity of combat that Horner is simply incapable
of producing when he doesn't think outside of his usual box. An unorthodox
sound of mourning Macedonian female vocals comes from Tzarovska and other
vocalists in "Hector's Funeral;" this cue may be the only detraction from
Yared's score for some listeners who are not accustomed to the sounds of
such wailing. A deep male chorus both chants and sings in free-flowing
fashion throughout the score, including the ominous cues "Priam's Fugue" and
"Greek Funeral Pyres" (another highlight cue), and Yared states that the
lyrics for these sequences are invented for effect. A love theme appears in
"Paris & Helen" and flourishes in the end credits song. In the former cue,
the theme is performed by ethnic flute, and this combined with a similarity
of the first bar of the theme ironically places it closely once again to...
Horner's
Willow. This fateful similarity fades in the end credits
performances, though, when the very lyrical performance of the theme by
Tzarovska (this time in Macedonian language) builds from a solo into a fully
orchestral combination. The beauty and authenticity with which Yared
incorporates the voices --both in ensemble and in vocals-- is refreshing
compared to the typical stock female vocals that you hear in dozens of
scores these days. Yared's classical sensibilities have been bloated to the
maximum that his style will allow lyrically, and the resulting evolution of
this music makes it a pleasure to hear. Most importantly, whereas Horner's
music can bore you after several cues, Yared's always continues to impress
throughout its length.
So where do we go from here? A full 75 minutes of the
Horner score is available commercially from Warner (although the two copies
of the album received at Filmtracks have both had difficulty playing
correctly... adding insult to injury, perhaps). The Yared score, of course,
is owned by Warner and may never see the light of day. He does maintain,
though, that he will do anything he can to assist in the effort of releasing
his
Troy score commercially. In the meantime, Yared's official
website offers a considerable number of cues for your enjoyment, though be
prepared to experience difficulties accessing his site if you haven't
updated your Flash plugins in the last few months (a major irritation-- the
site wouldn't open for two Windows and one Mac computer here, despite all of
our browsers and plugins being updated at the start of the year). Also
available at that site is Yared's official letter to the public about his
heartbreak over his termination. Given the superb quality of his music, and
the fact that it is really a triumph in his career despite the studio's
ineptitude, it wouldn't be surprising to see his score work its way onto the
secondary market... either in promotional form or as a bootleg. Once people
hear portions of it, the demand will be there, and once the demand is
calling, it will be difficult to keep a lid on the music. So in the end,
there is not much doubt that Yared's
Troy will end up in the
collections of many score fans. In the meantime, fans are greeted by yet
another Horner score that would be considered very strong if it were not
based so heavily upon recycled ideas. For his die-hard collectors,
Troy is easily a four-star score. Horner can't be faulted for
disappointing others, really, because he had so little time to execute the
score, but let us hope that Horner had nothing to do with Yared's removal
during negotiations with Warner. It can surely be said that there are
executives at Warner who not only made a mistake, but should be reprimanded
severely for that mistake. To hastily remove a score of this magnitude based
solely on a few poor test screening comments, and to do so without giving
the composer a chance to rectify his effort, proves that Warner is suffering
from unacceptable incompetence that needs to be recognized here, and at all
film music venues.
Final Score by James Horner: ***
Rejected Score by Gabriel Yared: *****
| Bias Check: | For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.12 (in 89 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.33
(in 158,746 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The Reprise Records insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
