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Willow: (James Horner) As the writer and producer
for
Willow, George Lucas promised more than he delivered with
this fantasy adventure spectacle, though it's hard to blame rising
director Ron Howard for the failure. Being as campy as it is, perhaps
Willow was destined to be a guilty pleasure at best, despite
strong production values, a decent concept, and Lucas' ability to
inspire the most menacing villain's masks in the history of cinema. An
unseasoned Val Kilmer is the stud and lovable Warwick Davis is the
underdog, an unlikely pair on the run from and eventually seeking to
conquer an evil queen in a land from long ago. Special effects from
Industrial Light and Magic were heavily advertised at the time, and
because of their efforts,
Willow is visually passable even two
decades later. In terms of its auditory experience, few have ever
questioned the effectiveness of James Horner's score in the film.
Marking the second collaboration between Horner and Ron Howard,
Willow exceeded all expectations in its music. While Horner had
already been recognized by the Oscars and produced the music for several
blockbuster films, he had never tackled a score of this magnitude
before. It would be the sister score to
The Land Before Time,
with both works featuring the exact same crew, performers, and general
quality of sound. These two superior scores together in 1988, along with
Glory the following year, would yield the kind of undeniable
five-star results that had eluded Horner for much of his early career.
In relation to the film score collecting community,
Willow would
maintain a broad and loyal following, and it set the foundation for many
of Horner's more popular scores to come. The lingering controversy over
the composer's habit of borrowing material from himself can usually be
linked directly or indirectly back to
Willow, a score which
Horner admits was a creative breakthrough. The cynical sorts who write
off much of Horner's early career because of his unashamed tendency of
pulling inspiration from modern classical music (or, in the case of
the Elora Danan theme here, the Bulgarian harvest song "Mari Stanke Le")
can make their own reference points in
Willow, though Horner's re-packaging
of these ideas is so well executed that few mainstream listeners will care
or even notice.
There are several reasons for the success of
Willow's score, and one of them relates to the ingredients that
Horner assembled. The performances by the London Symphony Orchestra have
always been strong, but rarely have they excelled to even these levels
of precision. The King's College Choir of Wimbledon provides women's and
boys' ensemble voices, and while Horner has used light choral
accompaniment throughout his career, rarely has it sounded as engrossing
as it does in
Willow and
The Land Before Time. A
collection of exotic, rarely known instruments would be discovered by
Horner here and used in scores throughout his career, including the
controversial shakuhachi flute. This would also mark the early days of
collaborations between Horner and specialty soloists like Ian Underwood
and Tony Hennigan. Finally, Horner's standard synthesizers for the era
would accentuate the percussion in providing some ambient sound effects
for scenes involving either dread or magic. One of the other reasons for
the success of
Willow is the abundance of harmonic statements.
Horner writes several themes for the film and utilizes them often during
the score; even at its most chaotic moments, the score references one of
these ideas. It happened that
Willow would be by far the longest
score of Horner's career at the time (by half an hour) and, like
The
Land Before Time, this endeavor would feature wall-to-wall music
that required that almost every cue be at least five minutes in length.
Some cues would range to nearly 20 minutes, which presented a problem
during the recording sessions if one of the soloists performing an
exotic instrument was to misfire. The constant thematic reminders cause
many of the lengthy cues to become miniature symphonies in and of
themselves, much in the same style as "The Great Migration" from
The
Land Before Time. Horner made comments at the time about the
numerous syncronization points per cue, causing the need to hit bold
statements of each of the score's themes in the same cue. As such,
Willow is a score that irritates some listeners in its lack of
rearrangement for album, though anyone with decent editing software on
his or her computer could do this at home. In that endeavor, all eight
tracks on the album offer highlights and would require some
cutting.
There exist five major themes in
Willow, with three
of them dominating the proceedings. First is "Willow's Theme" itself,
introduced in "Escape from the Tavern" and anchoring the concert suite
and end title arrangements. Its heroic brass fanfare is the most catchy
of Horner's ideas for the film, and it produces a significant amount of
raucous fun in the score. Detractors, however, mock Horner's claim that
this theme was meant to be Eastern European in style, citing
similarities between it and Robert Schumann's 3rd Symphony. Regardless of its
origins, Horner's intent was to satisfy the request of Lucas and Howard
that he provide a swashbuckling theme for the film's action pieces, and
he succeeds. The specialty instruments were Horner's self-proclaimed
attempt to avoid mirroring Erich Wolfgang Korngold's establish
swashbucking sounds too closely. The only fallacy of this theme in its
application to the film is that it doesn't really represent Davis'
Willow character as well as it does the action of Kilmer's Madmartigan,
though by the time it's heard in the film, the two are a typically
together. The second theme in
Willow is its easy highlight,
representing Elora Danan (the baby destined to destroy the queen) and
featured by Horner over the opening title and a gorgeous traveling scene
in "Willow's Journey Begins." It's the domain of the Japanese shakuhachi
flute, existing in perhaps the most eloquent and beautiful form until
Horner's strangely functional use of the instrument in
The Mask of
Zorro and its even better sequel. Whereas Horner would often use the
shakuhachi, as well as the pan pipes, in a supporting role as rhythm
setters of accent pieces (akin to the percussion instruments, really),
they are the given the primary role of conveying the magical spirit of
the softer themes in
Willow. A third related theme comes in the
latter half of "Elora Danan" and is a better match for the kindness of
Willow's family as well as the provincial simplicity of their village.
The downright gorgeous statements of this theme would be confined to
this one cue early in the film and the outset of the resolution in
"Willow the Sorcerer," but its rotation between woodwind instruments (in
between ensemble string and choral interludes) is an undeniable
highlight.
The remaining two primary themes represent the film's two
dominant villains. A menacing series of brass and choral progressions
for Queen Bavmorda increase 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. The most memorable theme from
Willow is ironically the
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 exclusively by harsh brass
tones, this motif is pervasive in the score, ranging from a single
trumpet 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 and harmonic orchestral crashes ever to
announce a defeat on screen. On album, none of these themes 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 never becomes dull. 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" are
Horner's action sensibilities at their finest, using the powerful
percussion section (from the standard chimes to an array of drums) and
specialty instruments to their fullest. Moments of silence in
Willow are rare, 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 his action with elegant fantasy elements. The exotic
instruments, including not only the shakuhachi and pan pipes, but
bagpipes, harps, and flutes 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 boys' and women's choir
opens and closes the film with a 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 the score. This
motif is an intriguing major-key variant of the four-note motif of evil
with simply the first note expunged. During the aforementioned use of
this motif to bookend the film, Horner would employ the sound effect of
blowing wind; it's difficult to determine whether this was accomplished
using metallic percussion or a synthesizer. A non-vocalized song at the
end of the film is a Lucas carryover of the obnoxious Ewok celebration
music in
Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. Horner handles the simple
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. Reducing the irritation that this cue may cause,
though, is Horner's mirroring of John Williams in that re-introduces the
orchestra back into the song-like dance cue in the measures before the
score returns to the full concert arrangement for the end titles. It's a
subtle, but neat touch. 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 lengthy closing decrease in volume that Horner
also used
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 useful thematic statements, or at
least the kind of rousing conclusion that sends off
The Rocketeer
and a half dozen other Horner action scores 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 have
proven elusive for Horner in the following decades. Taunting fans over
that period of time has been the album for
Willow, which suffered
from a limited American pressing by Virgin Records America at the time
of 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 and the prices dropped with the
new availability. Die-hard collectors have been unsatisfied with the 73
minutes of music available on that CD, however, and there has been much
speculation that Horner's fans would support a 2-CD release containing
the remaining 40 minutes of material existing from the score. This talk
has continued in light of the interesting fact that no bootleg of this
material has ever been 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 likely is a solid market for an expanded treatment
of
Willow. With the rights tied up and no feasible financial
prospect of the full score's release in the near future, significant
cues from the score, including the snow-sledding sequence, will remain
unreleased. In the years that followed
Willow's release, the
legacy of the score would grow, partly due to Horner's increasing
popularity and the use of the score in trailers. The extremely blatant
incorporation of several parts of the score in the elaborate trailers
for 1991's
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves produced a specific
flurry of demand for Horner's score. Twenty years later,
Willow
remains one of the most effective and enjoyable fantasy/adventure scores
of the digital era. Many composers have since attempted to imitate the
exotic ambience of this score, including, of course, Horner himself, but
none have come close to matching its majestic power. This score is,
regardless of what Horner's detractors tell you, a modern classic.
***** Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download
| Bias Check: | For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.13 (in 98 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.25
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