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If you're inclined to rank fake French accents in Beauty and the Beast, then Jerry Orbach will prevail over Ewan McGregor as Lumiere any day, but hearing McGregor describe his humorous struggles to adapt to the role (he apparently sounded "Mexican" in early tests) does acquit him to a degree. There is some majesty lost (but Eastern culture gained) in the new "Be Our Guest" arrangement, but it persists as an amusing diversion. In the new songs penned by Menken, the castle's inhabitants' replacement for "Human Again" is "Days in the Sun," a melodically superior upgrade of aspirations for the staff that allows most of the secondary characters to shine for a moment. Enthusiasts of Moulin Rouge will hear McGregor oddly lose his French accent for a few lines here, and The Lord of the Rings fans will hear Ian McKellen offered a few solo singing lines as Cogsworth. The added characters for this film are highlights in "Days in the Sun," opera singer Audra McDonald as Madame de Garderobe placed well in counterpoint against Watson, an unfair duet. The role of Belle in this song is extremely smart by Menken; her involvement initially takes the shape of her own song of familial lament, "How Does a Moment Last Forever," and eventually transitions her performances into the lines of "Days in the Sun." Introduced early in the film "How Does a Moment Last Forever" represents Belle's lost mother, the song performed slightly but authentically by Kevin Kline (who has no problems singing) before its primary rendition by Watson in "How Does a Moment Last Forever (Montmartre)." While the song is brief in structure, its three performances establish Belle's background well enough to suffice in its primary phrases. While auto-tuning of Watson's voice remains an obvious problem, in the "How Does a Moment Last Forever (Montmartre)" recording, Menken subtly prefaces the song with nice hints of the "Home" melody at the start. Conversely, while "Aria" is a well-performed preview of "Days in the Sun" and technically doesn't qualify as its own "new" song in the soundtrack, its appearance is really distracting in the film and serves little purpose given that audiences can readily figure the faults of the prince and his entourage at the start of the story.

The most fantastic new success of 2017's remake of Beauty and the Beast is Menken's reworking of the multiple Broadway songs for the Beast into a completely new identity in "Evermore." The connecting tissue between "Evermore" and its predecessors is the "curse theme" introduced in the "Prologue," the score's most potent identity. The new melodic lines offer the more dramatic tones of The Hunchback of Notre Dame while keenly supplying fragments of the "Belle" (1:06) and "Beauty and the Beast" (2:13) songs as counterpoint as Belle flees the castle grounds during the Beast's performance. The closing bars are among Menken's best career conclusive, major-key statements of instrumental majesty. The orchestration of this song in particular matches the resonance of Dan Stevens' voice perfectly, low strings and very deep piano chords matching Stevens' booming presence. While Stevens' bass tones were likely artificially enhanced in the editing process, his elegantly expansive tone in "Evermore" and "Something There" is definitely preferable to all other prior recordings of the character. Solid orchestration and choral accompaniment returns, naturally, for the "Beauty and the Beast" reprise at the end of the picture, Emma Thompson once again reliably affable and Audra McDonald lending the previously absent operatic tones to the conclusion. Of course, there have to be pop renditions of the major songs, and while Ariana Grande and John Legend offer a performance of "Beauty and the Beast" faithful to the early 1990's sensibilities of the classic song (despite percussion too close to the forefront of the mix), the highlights are the other two pop songs. Celine Dion performed Grande's vocal part for the title song in 1991 and was hesitant to return for "How Does a Moment Last Forever" given that she had just lost her husband at the time of the offer. But her usual crystal-clear performance here accompanies a fuller structure of the Parisian-modeled song that features a lovely middle sequence from Menken that allows Dion an opportunity to briefly revisit the "Beauty and the Beast" melody. Meanwhile, it's difficult not imagining Josh Groban performing "Evermore" at the Oscars to seal a sentimental best-song win for Menken. Groban is as fantastic as always, but not significantly better than Stevens, though it should be noted that the orchestration of the Groban song includes more curse and Belle theme counterpoint than the Stevens instrumental backing.

While most casual interest in Beauty and the Beast for the masses will remain with the songs, it's the instrumental accompaniment and straight underscore sequences in the 2017 soundtrack that impress the most. Menken was already an accomplished songwriter when he originally helmed the Disney renaissance, but he was no expert at film scoring, and the quality of the song melodies really carried much of the underdeveloped scores. Instrumental applications were always smart, but the recordings were sparsely orchestrated and never carried the weight necessary for films like Beauty and the Beast and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. This issue with Menken's scores persisted until 2006's The Shaggy Dog, for which he unleashed fantasy music of a depth and complexity more technically impressive than anything prior in his career. The 2017 version of Beauty and the Beast proves that The Shaggy Dog and a few glimpses of his fantasy mode since were no fluke; indeed, Menken can now write orchestral and choral bombast to compete with James Newton Howard. Not only does he adapt his old and new themes with supremely expert precision into his score this time around, the weight of the entire product is immense. This is not your parents' dainty Menken animation score. The resonance of the orchestra, aided by well-applied reverb, gives it a magnificent presence, and Menken's constantly interwoven tapestry of themes and forcing of old melodies into new, different emotional realms is remarkable. Nowhere in Beauty and the Beast is the score, in either the 1991 or 2017 versions, more impressive than in the "Main Title: Prologue" cue. This, along with the pivotal "Transformations" cue at the end of the film, are the two most recognizable holdovers from the 1991 score, all of the major phrases and orchestration of those moments returning in between embellishments to account for expanded scene lengths. The prologue sequence is unfortunately split on either side of "Aria," but on the expanded album option, the two parts are neatly edited together and the combined cue is astounding. The curse theme for the castle is explored with choral and orchestral depth not expected on any level despite many of the portions of the cues remaining familiar in structure. The adjoining lighter motif for the fantasy element (or, alternately, the rose) is particularly well developed at the beginning and end of the combined cue.

The lushness of the score's dramatic portions is a career triumph for Menken. Even a rather straightforward presentation of a softer theme, such as Belle's identity early in "The Laverie," can be gorgeously warm and filled with unnecessary but impressive counterpoint at every turn. The composer is clearly comfortable working with these themes, and the affection for them shows. Interestingly, Belle's theme is the most pervasive in the score, adapted extensively in intelligent fragments throughout; occasionally, as in the melodramatic minor-mode presentation for a landscape shot at 2:44 into "Wolves Attack Belle," the melody takes on an entirely new emotional duty, often times trading its perkiness for sadness. Usage of "Be Our Guest" and "Gaston" in the score cues is more sporadic, the former hinted ominously at the end of "Entering the Castle" on harpsichord, with playfulness in "Meet the Staff," softly in "The West Wing," and in comedic battle mode late in "Castle Under Attack." The "Gaston" melody is more obtuse, its rising phrases potentially easy to miss at the end of "Turret Pursuit" and start of "You Came Back." Neither "Something There" nor "The Mob Song" is really represented in the actual score, the latter sadly missing from a ripe opportunity for development in "Maurice Accuses Gaston." The "Home" song melody from the stage production is heard extensively in "Home" and "The Dress," and its placement in the film as a function of literally dressing Belle accompanies special effects shots in such a way that one wonders why the filmmakers didn't simply allow for even an abbreviated version of the song to be performed vocally in Belle's mind, perhaps without the character literally singing, as was the case in 1991 with "Something There." The "How Does a Moment Last Forever" melody is spread like that of "Belle" throughout the score, though its most tender consolidation occurs in "A Bracing Cup of Tea." Intertwined with this idea frequently is the melody of "Days in the Sun," also morbidly inhabiting "A Bracing Cup of Tea," "Madame de Garderobe," and "The West Wing" while turning to comedic strains late in "Beast Takes a Bath" and in the middle of "Castle Under Attack." Expect many of these performances of the "Be Our Guest" and "Days in the Sun" themes to include a harpsichord (due to one of the characters having transformed into one) or accordion (due to the obvious French locale). The spread of the softer performances between each woodwind is also of note.

A solid addition to the Beauty and the Beast score is the bevy of performances of the new "Evermore" melody, heard first on agonized cellos and solo violin over pulsing basses near the conclusion of "The Beast." The idea begins to take an optimistic turn in "Colonnade Chat" before yielding to a smiling demeanor in "Beast Takes a Bath." The theme interestingly occupies much of "You Came Back" in tandem with the title song identity, displacing an opportunity to close out the Agathe/Enchantress storyline. The Enchantress' conspiracy to bring the leads together, an intriguing addition to this film's narrative, is offered a somewhat nebulous theme, introduced in "Main Title: Prologue" but flying solo in the first minute of "Wolf Chase" and reprised in "A Petal Drops." Hints of the same underlying chords of mystery also exist in "The Beast" and "Maurice Accuses Gaston," but the identity unfortunately doesn't return at the end as the Enchantress literally stands present to reverse the transformations. Aside from endless thematic references throughout the score, Menken also shows the ability to let rip with magnificent action and fantasy music at times, led by the Debbie Wiseman-like brass brutality and Danny Elfman-like choral ambience of "Wolf Chase," which hands Belle's theme to brass with forcefulness you could never imagine. The other chase cue, "Wolves Attack Belle," offers stabbing violin figures and gothic expansiveness over crashing symbols. The intimidation and fear in "The White Rose" is palpable, and the trio of resolving action cues starting with "Belle Stops the Wagon" is outstanding, "Turret Pursuit" swirling through harps and strings to expertly denote the great heights involved. And then, of course, there is "Main Title: Prologue," which provides the overwhelming fantasy element. There will continue to be debate about whether the Enchantress serves as a good narrator herself for Beauty and the Beast, because David Ogden Stiers' 1991 performance in that role (beyond being Cogsworth) was so commanding. Stiers was still performing voice roles as of the production of the 2017 release, and it would have been extremely satisfying to hear him return in the narrative role. Comparatively, Hattie Morahan's voice fails to stir a sense of fantasy in her tone or dialect, and its sudden forward mixing begs for some other-worldly reverb or other effect. A chillingly wise voice akin to Katharine Hepburn's would have been a solid selection.

In the end, does the remake of Beauty and the Beast live up to the unequivocal five-star standard of the 1991 classic? No, but nothing will. There are several valid quibbles to be had with the 2017 version, and some will bother individual listeners more than others. Watson's auto-tuned singing is unforgivable on album and barely passable on screen with all the distracting visuals. The "Aria" song and tone of the narrator in the prologue sequence were poor choices. The "Home" melody should have been vocalized, and a few other themes from the Broadway musical could have made crowd-pleasing cameos. The significant rearrangement of "Gaston" and loss of its reprise will disappoint some. McGregor's Lumiere is barely passable. Small but sentimentally important changes in orchestration, such as the loss of the tambourine at the start of "Something There," will nag. But stop for a moment to think about everything else that could have gone wrong with this remake, starting with the idea of jettisoning Menken's work entirely. So many remakes are truly wretched, and their failures result from a lack of studio and filmmaker care in handling the original movies' strengths. Disney, director Bill Condon, and Menken didn't attempt to reinvent the musical, embracing enough of its original magic while supplementing it solidly in many ways. Think about Menken's new "Overture" recording and its rotation between several of the new and original themes before ending with the immense "Evermore" finale. The pop song performances are all tastefully respectful, the Dion and Groban entries sticking to orchestral accompaniment. And think about Menken's score, which is such an improvement over the original in development and recording that you can't fathom the same composer arranged both. It's familiar but breathtakingly new, the kind of treatment you wish upon every score you ever encountered with enduring melodies but rather lacking performance characteristics. Fortunately, Disney accompanied its usual song highlights album with a 2-CD Deluxe Edition containing those songs, several of Menken's demos, and, most importantly, upwards of 70 minutes of the fantastic score for all to appreciate. It has been suggested that, in a perfect world, the remastered vocal performances of the 1991 cast (in addition to Stevens and Kline from the remake) could be wedded to the orchestral recordings of the 2017 remake to produce the ultimate Beauty and the Beast experience. Because of the rearrangements and new material in the remake, that could never happen in a practical sense, but the dream could last evermore.   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

• Music as Adapted for Score and Songs:  *****
• Music as Vocally Performed by Cast:  ****
• 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 60,172 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.