is long belated and failed to catch fire with audiences to the same
degree. A prequel to the prior movies, the 2023 release tells of the
youth of Coriolanus Snow, destined to achieve power by the later setting
but haunted by the events of this story. He becomes inappropriately
close to the young woman he mentors from his assigned district in the
games, ultimately betraying friends and foes in the process of cheating
his way to success. The origins of the Hunger Games are better
explained, though don't expect such answers to yield much satisfaction,
the dystopian nature here as glum and nonsensically violent as ever. The
blend of avarice, suffering, and death offers little pleasant escapism,
and audiences may have tired of the concept by the 2020's. The returning
filmmakers attempted to retain the basic, successful formula of the
franchise soundtracks by infusing a combination of folk songs with the
original music of veteran composer James Newton Howard, for whom the
concept had become one of familiarity and fulfillment. As always, the
original score is placed in a secondary role compared to the songs, both
in the movie and associated promotional hype. The composer worked under
a mandate to keep the prior scores' tone and themes but with a specific
exception for those work's electronic elements. Since the setting of
this film is earlier than the others, Howard was instructed to replace
the obvious synthetic accents with a more classical tone for
. He responded by employing a solo piano
for frequent placement in the work instead. Howard also intended to
utilize more of the common themes of the prior four scores but
ultimately found reason to replace them as new characters and situations
of this narrative demanded. The resulting score is comfortable in the
franchise but somewhat distinct in its instrumental personality.
Don't expect the score for
The Ballad of Songbirds &
Snakes to leave a lasting impression on you for much of its length.
Its first half is highly understated, content to quietly or agonizingly
rumble and meander through its core ideas and other generally anonymous
constructs before arriving at Howard's more trademark fantasy and action
of robust size. Before reaching the force of "Happy Hunger Games," the
composer establishes the grim tone of the story largely through his
instrumentation. On the upside, a solo female voice serves as the lead
romantic contributor, sometimes elegant ("Assigning the Mentors") and
siren-like ("Lucy?") while other times unsettled ("Change of Plan"). A
solo cello is assigned for tragedy, largely for the Sejanus character.
The piano, as performed by Chinese phenom Yuja Wang, supports a dozen or
so cues throughout, and it's paired really nicely with the choir in
"Planting the Cloth." Those voices are typical to Howard's fantasy mode
in their applications, though they do not achieve lengthy tonal
magnificence during the work. Woodwinds aren't featured beyond their
typical employment, but they do mark a nice rhythmic moment in "Seize
the Opportunity." The alienating string treatments in the score, with
the likely return of the viola da gamba and fiddle from early
Hunger
Games scores, are joined by what sounds like a subtle accordion to
achieve results similar to the Credence material in
Fantastic Beasts
and Where to Find Them. (In fact, much of this score's
orchestration, including percussion and brass handling, will remind of
the less accessible portions that superior entry.) Without any truly
outstanding or unique instrumental coloration to
The Ballad of
Songbirds & Snakes, however, its appeal to the Howard collector will
likely hinge upon the composer's choice of thematic development. There's
a somewhat uneasy blend of old and new in this regard, the most
memorable parts of the work relying upon the existing themes from
earlier scores while the new identities are left without any truly
satisfying narrative arcs. Like most Howard scores of this magnitude,
there is a wealth of thematic activity happening throughout, but he
never quite bring it together in
The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
to establish much meaning or memorability for the newly established
themes.
The best new theme in
The Ballad of Songbirds &
Snakes belongs to the lead tribute, Lucy Gray, who receives three
note phrases of romantic sway from Howard in the most accessibly
attractive passages. Heard clearly at the start of "Meet the Mentor" and
perhaps deconstructed in "Strategy," a highlight of the score follows
with this theme at 0:19 into "Saving Snow," where a bit more optimism is
joined by choir for a solid Howard moment. Its inverted form is
tormented in "Get Her Out" while the melody faintly haunts "The Sound of
Snow" and struggles amongst the horror of "Lucy?" Meanwhile, the Sejanus
theme uses descending, solemn, cyclical formations highlighted by solo
cello in "Sejanus." This idea takes a deeper, worrisome tone in "Mercy"
on broader instrumentation and choir. Fragments stumble through "Cut the
Feed" with a slightly urgent bed of piano rhythms. Later, the Sejanus
theme returns to lonely cello late in "Powerful" and closes out in "Snow
Lands on Top" with slightly fuller whimsy, clearly in a reflective and
ironic mode. The handling of Snow in this score is a disappointment,
though Howard does eventually preview his prior President Snow theme in
various foreshadowing guises throughout "Passed the Tests." Before then,
however, the character seems to receive a meandering motif teased in
"Planting the Cloth" for the conspiracy element; this material begins to
achieve cohesion in the score's second half, especially during "Your
Life Has Just Begun" and "The Woods." Other ideas include the sickly
noble "Anthem: Gem of Panem" near the start, a sinister motif during
"Gamemaker," and two-note choral phrases leading to a lovely but lonely
solo vocal passage in the first half of "Ideas Firing." The previous
scores' themes overshadow even when not directly connected, a moment
like the one early in "The Arena" adjoining the many Mockingjay theme
references to root this score in the timeline. That Mockingjay identity
provides the work's most memorable single moments, beginning prominently
in "Coryo in the Capital" and offering a phrase at the end of "Mercy."
It is resilient and full with choir in "Under the Flag" for an extended
performance, rises out of the tumult in "Get Her Out," figures vaguely
in the atmosphere of "Trust is Everything," emerges from the tense
woodwind suspense of "I Can't Stay Here," and extends triumphantly at
the end of "Snow Lands on Top" for the full ensemble.
Aside from the regular references to existing themes,
the score for
The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, will provide
Howard collectors with extremely familiar musical approaches that lend
it well as a supplement to a
Hunger Games-related compilation,
not to mention its proximity to the grittier parts of the
Fantastic
Beasts scores. For those seeking full-throated and unrelenting
Howard action, "Happy Hunger Games" reminds heavily of comparable
Fantastic Beasts moments, including its thumping percussion
layers. In the area of large fantasy for the full performing group, "Get
Her Out" combines many of the score's elements well. Still, a
frightening amount of this score passes without any such interest
whatsoever. As mentioned before, the first third will be a slog for many
listeners. The voluminous but anonymous action and horror moments in
"Open the Gate," "Afraid of Water," "Drone Attack," and "Rainbow of
Destruction" are tiresome, as is the bulk of the suspense that fails to
really serve any larger narrative purpose in cues like "Hunger is a
Weapon," "Department of War," and "Inside the Duct." On the whole,
Howard's music for
The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes never really
lives up to its potential, a step back from the
Mockingjay
entries in overall quality despite a few compelling new ideas, notably
the underutilized one for Lucy Gray. The score was released apart from
the songs on a rather laborious album, including a 2-CD option
internationally. The product features three solo piano tracks with Yuja
Wang performing themes from the earlier
Hunger Games scores at
the end. While somewhat interesting, these brief recordings exude none
of the remarkable passion conveyed by Jean-Yves Thibaudet in Howard's
2023 "Night After Night" compilation of arrangements from the composer's
music for M. Night Shyamalan films, a product which remains among the
best film music recordings of recent times. The lack of this score's new
themes performed in these tracks is an oddity as well, almost like an
admission from the composer that they cannot attract the same appeal of
the franchise's prior identities. At the very least, Lucy's theme should
have been included here, along with the Mockingjay one prominently heard
several times in the score. Casual Howard enthusiasts will likely want
The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes to be more than it is, a
competent but ultimately unengaging echo of better times.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For James Newton Howard reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.4
(in 70 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.36
(in 86,486 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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