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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 Editorial Review:
Also working against him is the fact that his musical styles vary extremely from one score to the next, forcing a concert prospect into a very diverse sampling of many different musical genres. The last complication of a Zimmer concert is the simple fact that Hans Zimmer himself is not a public performer. Whereas you might catch Williams, Horner, or Patrick Doyle stopping at a public piano to grace the surrounding masses with a few minutes of a thematic idea, Zimmer is a studio hermit who manipulates his basic keyboarding into the scores we hear, with weeks of hacking about in between. Instead of performing anything more than the electronic keyboards for his own scores, Zimmer prefers to surround himself with immense talent (although some detractors of his Media Ventures empire would argue that point) and use guitar, trombone, trumpet, clarinet, vocal, or some other solo performance to accent his keyboarding and orchestral accompaniment. Add to this sticky concert situation the additional fact that Zimmer does not conduct the orchestras which perform his works, and, in sum, you have to wonder why Zimmer would agree to a concert such as the one presented here. By his own admission, he agreed to do the concert in a moment of spontaneous thought, and in the end, it turned out relatively well. Zimmer handled his stage fright by acting more of a coordinator rather than a performer. His contributions via solo instrument are only twice, and they are short. Any yet, since he is a coordinator as a composer, it only serves logic that he would convene all the same contributing talent to the concert stage and put on a sort of Media Ventures spectacle. A concert can often be considered a success if a popular album follows it. In this case, the concert took place at the Flanders International Film Festival at Ghent in October, 2000, and the subsequent album of the recordings from that concert are being made available by Decca/Universal (Zimmer's current label of choice since the Gladiator phenomenon) in June, 2001. As concert recordings go, this one is pretty average in sound quality. The audience, whose applause begins and ends each track, managed to keep control of themselves during the performances (with the exception of Power of One), and the album's engineers have managed to edit out all of the sounds of knocking instruments, screaming children, coughing idiots, etc, etc (unlike some pop concert albums that go largely unedited, with the echos of vomiting noises coming from the rear of the crowd...). On the other hand, since the performance was realized in a confined space, the album doesn't feature the "warehouse" effect of sound ambience that some people enjoy on concert albums. In other words, it has almost a cluby feel to it. The performances themselves are an interesting case to figure. Because Zimmer's professional work is realized after much tinkering in his electronic sound stage caves, some of the performances here sound like raw versions of those compositions, relying heavily on the solo performances of Zimmer's associates and friends to carry them. The orchestrations will sound different, because they are being performed by the adequate, but unimpressive VRO Flemish Radio Orchestra, but if you listen to the originals again, you will notice that notes actually have not been change significantly (beyond the occasional screw-up that happens in any live event). As for the individual performances, there are only twelve selections offered on this album, so I'll summarize them for you. The album begins with the highlight of concert: Lisa Gerrard's performance of the "Now We Are Free" hit track from Gladiator. Interestingly, since her voice was dubbed over and over again for the original performance, and since she only had one backup voice for the concert, we get a much clearer idea of her talents. The electronics have been pulled back, the full chorus is cleaner, and Gerrard's voice is allowed more of the center stage. Personally, I found her voice to be magnificent in this clarity, and wish that the injection track from Mission: Impossible 2 had been chosen instead of the guitar suite at the end --simply to get Gerrard more involved in the concert-- but others have argued that the integrity of the original "Now We Are Free" was compromised beyond an enjoyable level by Gerrard's more singular performance of that 'non-language.' The second Gladiator track was underplayed and unnecessary; Zimmer would have been better off making a concert suite out of the last three combined tracks of the original Gladiator album, highlighting the title theme with the chorus at his disposal. The Driving Miss Daisy driving sequence is a playful opportunity to let the clarinet take stage, and offers Zimmer one of two chances to perform on the piano himself. Like the Nine Months suite, it offered a more orchestral selection to break of the electronic keyboarding of The Thin Red Line and Rain Man, which (especially the former) were too extended and bordering on boring compared to the exuberance of the rest of the album. True Romance and Thelma and Louise offer an interesting look at Zimmer's zanier side, and the guitar piece from the end of Mission: Impossible 2 is well performed as a highlight of the show. The African-related tracks, with Lebo M at the center of them, are for me the weakest part of the show. Power of One and The Lion King (which actually consists of two selections from the sequel album, "Rhythm of the Pride Lands") would have been enjoyable to hear in person, but add little of interest to the album. The problem with both the album and concert was Zimmer's selection of cues to present. It was obvious that he was trying to take cross sections from every corner of his career and meld them into a diverse concert that was meant more to be fun rather than professional, the latter of which, in a classical sense, is what Williams and Goldsmith would prefer. But because the concert was to be hip, there was understandably no place for the Crimson Tides and Peacemakers of his career. However, four scores which should have been considered further for this concert would have been Toys, which has some great choral sequences not contained on the original album, Backdraft, which has recently become the hot title music for a popular international cooking show, The Preacher's Wife, which would likely have inspired the audience to sing along like none other, and The Prince of Egpyt, which remains a very popular effort in the composer's career. To accomodate those selections, I would have removed the performances of The Thin Red Line and Nine Months, as well as shortened the remaining cues. As Goldsmith does, many similar scores can be combined into suites for concerts, bleeding into each other after a minute or so after each entry. I suspect that Zimmer, being the master mixer, would enjoy such a task. Perhaps, with the success of this concert, Zimmer will consider producing such a collection of special suites of his works for album or concert. I have no doubt that if he offered a similar set of performances in the United States, he could pack the house in several cities. This album of his first concert is a very interesting listen (especially for fans of his works), but Zimmer still has to work out a few kinks before he produces blockbuster concerts like those of Williams and Goldsmith. ***
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