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| Menken |
Beauty and the Beast: (Alan Menken/Howard Ashman) A
fair number of critics have speculated that Disney's 1991 Christmas
release of
Beauty and the Beast is the best animated film of all
time. How the film measures up to the studio's classics of the Golden
Age remains under debate, though few would argue that it doesn't shine
above the rest of Disney's often impressive output during the
renaissance of its musicals in the 1990's. The trilogy of
The Little
Mermaid, this film, and
Aladdin is unquestionable in its
cumulative quality, and while these films may not have blown away box
office records, they have remained critical and favorites through the
years, especially compared to the substandard musical entries to follow.
Composer Alan Menken, aided early in his journey by lyricist Howard
Ashman, won multiple Academy Awards for all three entries, dominating
the Oscars in music awards for several years. But it is
Beauty and
the Beast that endures as his and the studio's crowning achievement.
Its high sense of class and style make it one of the easiest of the
Disney soundtracks to enjoy repeatedly, and its knack for capturing the
enchantment of the film is devoid of the silliness that usually plagued
other entries of the era. Most importantly, it proved that
The Little
Mermaid wasn't a fluke and opened the financial doors for a new era
of animated films and their music. There are countless highlights to the
music for
Beauty and the Beast; among them are an outstanding
array of songs weeded out from a larger collection that would eventually
form the Broadway production of the concept in 1994, crisp and
emotionally powerful performances by the orchestra for most of their
non-song contributions, and an intelligent selection of vocal talent led
by the resounding voice of Paige O'Hara in the role of Belle. Even in
its darkest moments, the score and songs of
Beauty and the Beast
retain a convincing atmosphere of fairy tale magic (mostly owing to
tingling percussion and an uncanny resemblance in writing to Rachel
Portman's 1990's style) that was slowly lost in Menken's later scores,
conveying its ever-positive tone from start to finish. It also helps
that the spoken voices also perform their own singing, an aspect
partially lacking in later Menken musicals.
The 1990's and 2000's witnessed several musicals receive
three Academy Award nominations for a single film's songs, and
Beauty
and the Beast largely started this trend. (AMPAS would eventually
create a rule abolishing such domination of the category by one film.)
In this case, "Belle," "Be Our Guest," and "Beauty and the Beast" were
all recognized, the last of which, obviously, winning the award, and
Menken earned another, better-earned Oscar for "Best Score." The
snare-tapping song of introduction, "Belle," is among the most
satisfying and clever cast pieces in history, with a secondary phrase at
2:30 (the fountain sequence) that alone might have earned the song's
Oscar nomination. The reprise of this song allows O'Hara to perform the
primary phrase of the song at a slower tempo and with full orchestral
backing, assisting the scene in mirroring the scope of
The Sound of
Music. The French setting of the story really takes hold in the
villain's song, "Gaston," a surprisingly romantic waltz-like piece that
relies on its vocal inflection and humorous lyrics to produce its
comedy. The reprise of this song is more of a narrative bridge than a
strong extension of the song, but it serves its purpose. The next
musical number is the ever popular "Be Our Guest," choreographed like a
scene right out of a Busby Berkeley film and flourishing due to a
spirited lead performance by Jerry Orbach. Comparatively a lightweight,
"Something There" is a fluffy entry that shares many instrumental
devices with "Belle" (as well as a reprise of the secondary phrase from
that song) and is equally affable. Images of
Frankenstein inspire
the scenery of "The Mob Song," a call to arms piece with plenty of
raucous high brass accompaniment. (It's hard not to recall the
incompetent American president George W. Bush when Gaston pronounces
"You're either with us or against us.") The final song is the popular
title ballad, performed surprisingly well by Angela Lansbury and
translating into the pop song heard over the end credits. Lansbury
remarkably continued to perform this song in concert more than two
decades after the film's release. For the 2001 "Special Edition" release
of the film, almost all the original cast was reassembled to perform the
French-styled "Human Again," a song for the castle servants originally
struck from the film but popular in the Broadway adaptation; it contains
the lovely "Romeo and Juliet" scene as an interlude.
On the whole, the songs are all remarkably upbeat, and
none of them uses intentionally stupid comedic performances to appeal to
children, unlike those that would come later in Menken's career. This
seriousness, without compromising the children's aspect of the film,
enhanced the soundtrack's appeal to adults as well. The
conservatively-rendered pop song was a glimpse at a forthcoming
mega-movie song presence for Celine Dion, whose performance of "Beauty
and the Beast" made many fans wish that she had been provided it as a
solo. The instrumental score is a vast improvement over
The Little
Mermaid in the quality of writing, performance, and recording. It's
not as robust as Menken's own adaptation for the 2017 live-action
version of the same score, but many of the symphonic seeds of greatness
in that later, fuller work are evident in the 1991 original. Most of the
melodies of the songs are used throughout the score tracks, but some are
singular to just the score. Others were either inspired by songs
ultimately cut from the film or adapted into phrases of the Broadway
production's numbers. Rising above several minor motifs, the two major
themes restricted to just the score are the "curse theme" and "Beast
theme," and both are heard prominently in the famous "Prologue" cue.
Easily the best cue in the entire score, the mystique of "Prologue" is
aided by David Ogden Stiers, whose serves as narrator as well as with
accent in the role of Cogsworth. While the vocal mix is extremely bass
heavy and assists the score in its resounding power during the film's
opening sequence, a score-only version of this cue has long been
neglected on the commercial soundtracks for the film. (The only way to
obtain it is through a relatively rare "The Music Behind the Magic" set
from 1994.) The curse theme is prevalent throughout the cue, though the
descending Beast theme makes a pronounced appearance at 1:35. Menken
appropriately hints at the title theme at the end of the cue. Also a
highlight is "West Wing," which features some of the most dynamic
performances of the orchestra in the entire film. It opens with
fragments of the "Be Our Guest" melody before turning dark at 1:45 with
the Beast theme and following with a brass action motif that smartly
works in hints of the title theme. The cue "The Beast Lets Belle Go"
also features a brief burst of this action motif, but this portion of
the cue is part of 1:30 in length that is cut off the end of the album
presentation. A hint of even Gaston's theme is heard upon Belle's saving
of her father and return home.
Of the other score cues heard on the original two album
releases for
Beauty and the Beast, "To the Fair" is the
flightiest, a pleasant extension of the themes from "Belle." The "Battle
on the Tower" cue offers several dueling themes, but the mixing of this
cue is unfortunately far less dynamic than every other in the score, a
curiosity that extends across both earlier commercial albums. Pieces of
the themes for Gaston, Belle, and "Be Our Guest" lead to the whimsical
finale performance of the Belle theme with a final last burst of the
Beast's motif. In "Transformation," the curse theme resolves at 2:35 and
the Beast theme follows suit at 3:00, turning from the minor key into
the major with predictably heroic results. The curse theme becomes a
noble fanfare at 3:45 and, following Disney tradition, Menken once again
offers a choral reprise of the title theme to close out the film. An
alternate version of the first part of this cue was recorded and
included on both the 1994 "The Music Behind the Magic" set (as
"Transformation #1") and the 2001 "Special Edition" album (as "Death of
the Beast"). A lovely cello rendition of the title theme and major key
hints of the Beast's theme are presented in the tone of Rachel Portman's
later melancholy orchestral techniques. Several significant cues were
missing from these early album releases, including "Belle's New Home,"
an almost two-minute piece with tragic versions of the Belle and curse
themes culminating in an important crescendo as the camera pulls back
from Belle crying in her new room and the scene concludes with a shot of
the castle during a snowstorm. More disappointing an omission is
"Gaston's Plan" at about 1:45 in length, the scene directly before the
"Mob Song" when Belle's father is being taken away to the asylum. This
cue is a very robust instrumental reprise of Gaston's theme and offers a
frantic interpretation of Belle's melody as well. Other miscellaneous
notes about the score include Menken's nebulous employment of a
secondary love theme that, along with the curse theme, eventually became
an interlude in the fantastic song "Home" on Broadway; parts of this
idea also inform "Something There." One of the score's persistent
detriments is Menken's liberal use of consecutive cymbal hits to create
a sense of wonder, a technique that becomes a tad obnoxious in "West
Wing" particularly, especially as the Beast's theme is conveyed. The
orchestrations are generally lighter than in Menken's 2017 adaptation,
of course, but the 2018 album for the original film contains a better
balancing of treble and bass elements than prior offerings, negating
some perceptions of sparse orchestrations that linger about the 1991
recording.
The original 1991 album fell out of print for a number of
years in the mid-1990's, and the lack of a DVD release for the film
compounded many fans' frustrations about acquiring the best
representation of its music. Even though that original album came back
into print later in the decade, the most highly acclaimed animated song
and score combination of recent times remained incomplete on CD. Disney
wasn't best known for pressing exemplary albums for its films in the
1990's, a habit that the studio and its label have largely shaken in the
subsequent generation of musicals. The lack of chronological
presentation mingling the songs and score remained a point of contention
on these Disney musical albums for many years. There remained enough
solid music from
Beauty and the Beast missing on album to cause
the many die-hard fans of the movie to scrounge around on Disney box
compilations and the likes for extra material. Many even took solace in
the Broadway recording, and an interesting debate about the merits of
each Belle (Paige O'Hara or the more adult voice of Susan Egan) ensued.
It was common knowledge that a few score cues and at least a few songs
were rejected from the final cut of the film, and none of that material
was previously available on CD, either. In 1994, the Disney assembled a
4-CD set of material from
The Little Mermaid,
Beauty and the
Beast, and
Aladdin to illuminate the creation process behind
the three soundtracks. Accompanied by an oversized book in a thick,
LP-sized box with the CDs and pushed at the Disney theme parks, "The
Music Behind the Magic" contains one CD dedicated to
Beauty and the
Beast. The presentation is a recreation of the narrative of the film
but with a mixture of work tape, demo, and final versions of songs and
score cues in mostly the story's chronological order. Fans were treated
to a few unreleased final recordings sprinkled amongst these CDs, and in
the case of
Beauty and the Beast, this material consisted of a
handful of highly pertinent tracks. Menken himself selected these
inclusions for the 1994 set, opting on this product only to provide the
"Prologue" cue without David Ogden Stiers' narration; on no other album
for this soundtrack does the "Prologue" instrumental stand revealed. It
remains one of the most substantial and powerful cues in the score, the
curse theme a vital musical identity in the work and its statements
well-orchestrated. The 1994 set also provided the first opportunity to
hear the rejected music for the Beast's death, the arguably more
compelling, somber cello solo variant in "Transformation #1" eventually
re-released on the 2001 Special Edition product.
Aside from the "Prologue" cue without narration, the 1994
"The Music Behind the Magic" set also contains two other notable tracks
that were never released on any other album, including the "Legacy
Collection" expansion of 2018. The first is the rejected "Wolf Attack"
score cue, the first half of its three minutes deemed too light-hearted
for inclusion in the film despite allusions to the "Mob Song" melody.
This scene is fascinating to study intellectually for Menken
enthusiasts, because the evolution of this cue from this original
rejected version to the magnificent resonance and scope of maturity in
the 2017 equivalent is striking. While most of the work tape and demo
recordings heard on the 1994 product were added to the 2018 set, one
notable omission is Howard Ashman's demo performance of "Belle,
Reprise," complete with Menken playing the role of a clucking chicken in
the background. Otherwise, the 1994 set has been rendered largely
redundant outside of the opening "Belle" rendition that starts with the
Menken's demo and fades into the final recording. The composer
considered but opted not to place the film version of "Gaston" (with
shortened ending) on the product, sadly. It should be noted that the
sound quality of the mix on the 1994 product is an improvement over the
1991 original, a slightly wetter ambience seemingly provided to the
vocals. In January, 2002, near the tenth anniversary of the film, Disney
released the film once again in stunning IMAX format and at other
enormously sized screens across America, with several minutes of extra
footage added. The "Special Edition" album release, to coincide with
that theatrical re-release, was an expanded product to accompany the
film's re-emergence and the subsequent DVD debut. The December, 2001
album adds a total of 15 minutes of music for fans to enjoy, though only
a few of those minutes belong to scenes that even exist in the film.
First, the aforementioned song "Human Again" became a staple of the
Broadway show and was reconstituted with the film cast for the
re-release. The other additional song tracks are demo versions of "Be
Our Guest" and "Beauty and the Beast," which, unfortunately, aren't all
that interesting for most listeners outside of the always intriguing
voice of Ashman, who performs the latter with a slight accent. The album
is dedicated to Ashman, of course, who passed away before completing
work on
Aladdin the next year. The additional score cue on the
2001 album is the rejected "Death of the Beast" track that had been
released prior on the 1994 set. Another minute of extra music was added
to the "West Wing" score track as well, material not previously heard on
album.
Other than these brief, underwhelming nuggets, there
really wasn't any significant additional material on the 2001 Special
Edition of
Beauty and the Beast to get excited about. Every other
track was the same on the early albums, although some clangs and
mistakes on the mastering of the original album had been corrected or
deleted for the 1994 and 2001 offerings, including the obnoxious sound
of a ringing phone at 2:14 into "Gaston" on the original. Acoustically,
the songs sound largely the same, but the score tracks are offered with
a fuller range even if it doesn't play like a fully reworked
remastering. The tracks were still out of order, and having the demo
tracks before the pop song is very awkward. In short, the "Special
Edition" was a tremendously missed opportunity. Disney thankfully
included
Beauty and the Beast as a 2018 entry in its "Legacy
Collection" series of beautifully expanded products, and this
presentation finally solves most of the ills of the prior albums. This
definitive 2-CD set offers the songs and score in the proper order,
followed by a slew of additional demo recordings at the end. The
remastered sound quality is outstanding, and a number of the shorter,
unreleased cues from the score have been combined into satisfying suites
to complete the album's narrative. The amount of additional new score
material available on the 2018 product is not insignificant, reflecting
a better foreshadowing on album of Menken's adaptation of the same
material for the 2017 live-action film. That later exploration of the
same material is better illuminated in its origins due to the 2018
presentation of the original 1991 score, many of the action sequences
that highlight the 2017 film more clearly connected now to the 1991
predecessor in retrospect. The various wolf and other chasing cues are
surprisingly impressive when spotlighted on the expanded album, Menken's
development of the structures, including his mystery motif, robust in
stature. The extensive interpolations of Belle's theme throughout the
first half of the score are really quite fantastic, culminating in the
aforementioned transition cue that closes out "Belle Enters the Beast's
World." The cues better weave in and out of the songs, too, "Be Our
Guest" more comfortably residing before the "Playoff" cue and the last
minute of "Coming Together" beautifully introducing "Something There"
with redemptive reminders of Belle's theme. The reprise of the
"Something There" melody in "Tonight's the Night" is an endearing and
necessary inclusion. In "Beast Lets Go," the noteworthy cue in which
Gaston plans the attack on the castle is provided, revealing the sonic
battle between his and Belle's theme before segueing into "The Mob
Song."
Overall, the 2018 album is an absolute necessity for
any enthusiast of
Beauty and the Beast, negating the appeal of
the prior albums. The sound quality is superb, and the arrangement of
the short score cues into longer pieces connecting the songs is
outstanding. There remain some alternate recordings that still did not
make the cut on this product, especially in the final battle and
transformation scenes of the narrative. The "Prologue" without narration
continues to reside only on the 1994 set. For collectors, these
unreleased passages, which in some cases include material actually heard
in the film, remain maddeningly omitted. Some of that frustration might
be pointed at the many demo recordings included on the second CD of the
set instead, but those duets between Menken and Ashman remain amusingly
attractive in their own way. It's interesting to note that the demo
versions of these songs were really fine-tuned by the time the composers
shared their ideas with an ecstatic Disney; don't expect to hear much
deviation structurally between these demos and the final recordings.
Because of some of the suspect vocals in the 2017 live-action version of
the story, some listeners may choose to mingle the vocal performances
from this album with the score cues from Menken's 2017 film recordings,
and the 2018 product allows fans to create a full CD-worth of top
score-only music from the concept in one combination experience. For
those ultimate fans, the Broadway production's original cast recording
features some noteworthy performances of the same popular songs, too,
with some very strong additional numbers as well. In instrumental depth,
however, the Broadway version fails considerably compared to the
original film recording, from the ominous rumbling of the opening of
"Prologue" to the cymbal-rolling majesty of "Transformation." In
general, if you are unfamiliar with the Menken phenomenon of the 1990's
or you are just starting a collection of modern musicals, then
Beauty
and the Beast on its 2018 album is the place to begin. Menken, after
the moderately successful
Pocahontas,
The Hunchback of Notre
Dame, and the terrible flop
Hercules, did not return for
another Disney musical until 2004's underrated
Home on the Range,
as Disney opted instead for a wider variety of major composers,
including Jerry Goldsmith, Mark Mancina, Hans Zimmer, and ultimately
James Newton Howard to lean on for a heavier (and eventually sole) role
for their animation scores. The historically important
Beauty and the
Beast, however, will always remain as the highest standard by which
all animation scores will be judged for generations to come.
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- Music as Written for the Film: *****
- Music as Heard on the 1991 Album: ****
- Music as Heard on the 1994 "The Music Behind the Magic" Set: ****
- Music as Heard on the 2001 Album: ***
- Music as Heard on the 2018 Album: *****
- Overall: *****
| Bias Check: |
For Alan Menken reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.71
(in 17 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.47
(in 59,664 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
