: (Elmer Bernstein) In the
mid-1980's, the Walt Disney animated film division was suffering through
arguably the worst times in its history. All but dead since 1977's
to
pull itself back into the forefront of the animated film genre, and as
part of that plan, the film was to be vastly different from the studio's
previous ventures. It would feature no songs, incorporate computer
enhancement to hand-drawn images, receive a PG-rating for darker and
scarier images, and be presented in 70mm. Despite all of these new
aspects, or perhaps because of them,
was a
monumental and expensive failure. It would take
four years later to resurrect the lost animated division at
Disney, and another dozen years passed before audiences had the
opportunity to view the film again on video. Technically based upon
Lloyd Alexander's "The Chronicles of Prydain,"
chronicled "The Book of Three" and "The Black Cauldron," two of five
books in the series. The resulting story retains basic characters,
including the travelling team of protagonists consisting of an aspiring
young hero, his pig (which holds the key to locating the titular
cauldron), an old wizard, a princess, and the usual bumbling, cowardly
sidekick. The evil Horned King seeks the cauldron with which to unleash
an army of nasty undead soldiers on the land, and the good-guys are
tasked with finding the cauldron before that can happen. Many of the
intricacies of the books were lost in the screen adaptation, however,
disappointing fans of the concept. Also deviating from the normal realm
of Disney animated features was a score by legendary composer Elmer
Bernstein, who had just received an Oscar nomination for one of his
multitudes of comedy works and was mired in parody writing for much of
the early 1980's. At the tail end of this period came
The score for
The Black Cauldron was for Bernstein
what
Mulan was for Jerry Goldsmith in the next decade: a
fascinating journey into a fresh realm that required its music to play a
more significant role in the film. In so doing, Bernstein wrote a
massively rendered score highly respected by his collectors, but one
that suffered much of the same fate as the film itself. Cut and
partially unused due to last-minute, post-production changes to the
movie (there's nothing like a little studio panic at the end of any
project), the score was largely ignored commercially, despite being
re-recorded in its minority for an album release, and it became a normal
target on the out-of-print and bootleg collector's market. While the
work has a significant number of impressive merits, it isn't the kind of
earth-shattering music that merits some of the hysteria generated by its
status as a rare album for so long, though it definitely is a
functional, likeable, and interesting symphonic score from start to
finish. Treating
The Black Cauldron as a dramatic film in most of
its passages, Bernstein shakes the shackles of comedy while retaining
just enough innocence to root the project in the proper genre without
becoming trite. The 1980's were also known by film music collectors as
the time during which the composer solidified the sound of the ondes
martenot into listeners' memories. The pinnacles of use for the
instrument in his fantasy works were
The Black Cauldron and
Ghostbusters, and its eerie tones would continue to be heard from
the composer into the 1990's. Invented in France in 1928, the ondes
martenot shares some of the same characteristics as the pitch-defying
theremin, but with the ability to actually perform individual notes on a
keyboard. Various controls of convenience on the ondes martenot made it
the earliest form of electronic instrument and its distinctive sound is
still heard occasionally in orchestral performances a century later. Its
role in
The Black Cauldron is central, for Bernstein was nowhere
close to being as advanced as Jerry Goldsmith in 1985 when it came to
using synthesizers to enhance the fantasy element.
As the identity of
The Black Cauldron, the ondes
martenot creates an undeniably unique environment for the world of
Prydain and its romantic elements (including the princess), and its
performances highlight the score. Oddly, however, despite the often
resounding symphonic depth and thematic integrity of the music, the
ondes martenot is really the only standalone highlight. The choral
element is held to a surprising minimum, a handful of male choral
accents always welcome in the soundscape. Throughout the work, Bernstein
offers solid suspense music, with animated-genre comedy rhythms and
occasional full-blown brass action integrated into several cues. But
it's the often gloomy organ-powered, piano thumping, and timpani rolling
suspense that defines
The Black Cauldron, including the
deliberately pounding theme of two descending, three note phrases for
the evil Horned King that is almost religious in its dark power. The
piano intelligently plays an integral role in maintaining a constant
flurry of activity in action sequences. The remaining themes aren't as
memorable as that of the villain, which Bernstein truly does integrate
into nearly every corner of the score as a constant reminder. That said,
the composer is always exploring one of his half a dozen themes in this
work, even if most of them are relatively anonymous. The "End Titles"
nicely summarizes these identities, including the spritely comedy theme
for the funny sidekick and the romantically swaying alternative for the
princess. Folksy source-like material is reminiscent of Georges Delerue
of that era. The main hero's theme is oddly underutilized in the score,
though, afforded a few massive statements of almost science fiction,
space-opera glee (as in "The Deal") but not provided enough enunciation
to make it memorable. The downfall of
The Black Cauldron for some
listeners may be the lack of transparency in Bernstein's themes and
development, something that really needs to be made unquestionably clear
in a children's film. There is no musical material in
The Black
Cauldron that your 10-year-old will remember after the film is over
(and outside of the villain's theme, which eventually doubles for the
cauldron, it might even be hard for 30-year-olds to recall, too, unless
you pay very close attention).
Somewhere in the process of creating the ambitious
musical environment for
The Black Cauldron, Bernstein lost the
narrative romanticism that exists as part of the animated formula,
despite his impressive attention to subtle motific manipulation
throughout. Perhaps the lack of this formula approach is a refreshing
take on an otherwise tired idea at the time, but it may also have
contributed to the demise of the picture. On album,
The Black
Cauldron was long forgotten by the mainstream but a target of
significant interest for Bernstein collectors. It was a rare instance in
which Varèse Sarabande released both an identical LP and CD, with
the 32-minute presentation of a Bernstein-led re-recording with the Utah
Symphony Orchestra at the time of the film's release serving as one
their earliest digital products in 1985. Already out of print by the
early 1990's, the CD eventually sold for more than $100. In 1996, a
bootleg with an astounding 70+ minutes of the film version of the score
was leaked and distributed through legitimate soundtrack specialty
outlets. Though this pressed "Taran" bootleg featured decent sound
quality, its contents contained no track names. Of particular note about
these early releases of the score is the fact that the sound quality on
either of the albums will vary from track to track (there's no obvious
reason for this other than deviation in the recording/mixing process),
and some of the ghostly aspects of the ondes martenot may sound flat and
distant at times. Certain tones cause distortion on the bootleg because
of high gain levels, especially in the finale cue (track #25, out of
chronological order). While the presentation of the expanded bootleg was
impressive when it debuted, it was rendered completely obsolete by a
2012 Disney and Intrada Records CD containing all of the score in
official, remastered form. The sound quality on this properly arranged
presentation by Disney is magnificent, the ondes martenot and woodwinds
especially vibrant. This original film recording, however, does not
emphasize the piano as much as the re-recording made for the 1985 album,
which itself was re-released by Varèse in 2017 as a limited Club
title. Still, the 2012 treatment of
The Black Cauldron was long
overdue, and while many casual listeners may still be served best by a
30-minute compilation of highlights from the score, there is no way that
a Bernstein enthusiast will want to miss this outstanding product. The
score remains something of an anomaly for the composer during this era,
but it's a source of fascination nonetheless.
@Amazon.com: CD or
Download
- Music as Written for the Film: ****
- Music as Heard on the 1985, 1996, and 2017 Albums: ***
- Music as Heard on the 2012 Album: ****
- Overall: ****
| Bias Check: |
For Elmer Bernstein reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.25
(in 18 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.18
(in 11,094 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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