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| Jones |
The Dark Crystal: (Trevor Jones) Famous for his
puppet and animatronic appeal to children, Jim Henson decided in 1980 to
produce a feature length film aimed solely at adults. None of the
offerings to come from Henson has achieved a cult status greater than
that of
The Dark Crystal, a tale of innocent Gelfling creatures
who, with the assistance of benevolent Mystics, must battle evil Skeksis
rulers and their henchmen to restore the famed crystal that binds their
destinies together. While the story may not seem wildly original by
today's standards, there were several aspects of
The Dark Crystal
that made it stand out as a superior effort when compared to similar
projects at the time. First, the puppet effects, while obviously lacking
compared to computerized wizardry of a generation later, were
surprisingly convincing. Second, the film had a distinctly dark and
frightening style about even its brighter and more heroic parts that
solidified it as solid entertainment for older viewers. Third, its score
by a young, upstart Trevor Jones is a classic in the genre of animated
features. Long before becoming famous for his brassy fanfares in such
modern favorites as
Last of the Mohicans and
Cliffhanger,
Jones was a regular composer for the Jim Henson productions of the
1980's. His initial reaction to the concept of
The Dark Crystal
was to write music that was as instrumentally and harmonically
challenging to the senses as the visuals. (For film score collectors,
shades of Alex North's somewhat controversial score for
Dragonslayer come to mind.) When Jones sat down with film
producer Gary Kurtz long before photography commenced, though, he
recognized that the animated film genre had reached the point where the
stories and imagery on the screen were so foreign to the eye that the
music needed to be rooted in an orchestral tradition that audiences
could relate to. Interestingly, Don Bluth and Jerry Goldsmith would be
making same realization at exactly the same time for
The Secret of
N.I.M.H. Thus, a successful style of lush orchestral romanticism was
adopted industry-wide as the acceptable standard for modern animation
music, an important beginning to a trend that continued many decades
later.
Jones, who had just finished a rigorous series of
collegian degrees in film music composition and whose career was rich in
student film scores, still approached
The Dark Crystal with a
keen sense for unconventional instrumentation when called for by the
numerous scenes involving source material. The composer would become
well versed in writing music for fantasy films over the years, but his
effort for the unique movie resulted in a score that remains as much of
a cult favorite as the film itself, not to mention arguably the
strongest entry in the composer's career. Its monumental London Symphony
Orchestra performances (recorded across two studios) are often cited for
this success, but the presence of Synclavier tones for the fantasy and
source elements make the work a true hybrid. A vast array of specialty
woodwind and percussion instruments lace the soundscape for an
otherworldly feel. With these ingredients, Jones established several
themes and motifs that would resurface in other composers' fantasy works
over the next decade. As fans of the composer's compositions of the
1990's recognize, he is a master of creating sweeping themes. The ironic
aspect of
The Dark Crystal is that his multitude of themes for
this film is far more diverse and complex than his grand style of
simplistic brass fanfares as heard in the more popular mainstream hits.
You can't help but marvel at the sheer quantity of intertwined themes
and motifs for the wide-ranging characters in
The Dark Crystal,
and the quality is often not far behind. Each set of characters has a
strong theme in the narrative, including a pleasant love theme for the
two Gelflings that emerges as a major force when allowed to flourish,
and Jones intentionally leaves the performances of the two primary
themes separate (though sometimes as conflicting counterpoint to each
other) until the central crystal of the story is unified to fulfill the
prophecy at the end of the film. These ideas do share common
progressions, as Jones will proudly detail, including a rising and
descending series of three notes that is, in the score's most valiant
performances, its most famous calling card. The congruence of the themes
in the last few minutes of the film is spectacular, with an emerging
harmony in counterpoint that clearly showed Jones' talents at this early
stage of his career.
It's possible that the composer's handling of his themes
in
The Dark Crystal will be opaque enough that a casual listener
may not discern easily between them, but that prospect doesn't really
detract from an appreciation of the score. The aforementioned love theme
is just as melodramatic in its elongated structure, bold brass, and
timpani foundation as any of Basil Poledouris' most romantic ideas of
grandeur. Its rendition as a full arrangement in "Jen & Kira Love Theme"
stands as one of the most evocative moments in Jones' career even if the
sound quality of its original recording has always been muffled by age.
The score is hyperactive in its consistently accelerated and layered
levels of activity, with so much happening at almost every turn that the
listener is entertained by the constantly rolling sounds of the ensemble
even when a dominant theme is not present. It is no wonder that Jones
has established an equally rich career as a professor of film music
composition at the college level; the construction of
The Dark
Crystal is mind-bogglingly complex and well managed in its
maturation throughout the narrative. The robust depth of the action
material in the final third of the score conveys the seeds of a
resounding presence that prevailed in the composer's 1990's music.
Luckily, the strength of the performers in the famed London ensemble
helped translate this score accurately into reality, as it could have
been crucified by a less qualified group. Complimenting the strong
orchestral presence is Jones' array of Synclavier-led electronics, which
are used to add such fine points as droplet sounds to "Jen and Kira in
the Sewer," as well as religiously inclined highlights, including the
powerful electric organ in the funeral cues and the deep, choral chants
in the film's finale. The composer's frequent employment of a
recorder-like flute of old English heritage at its highest registers is
a reminder of the innocent side of the story's characters and their
inherent beauty. The composer happened to discover the instrument in an
antique shop shortly after meeting Henson for the first time. Fatefully,
the veteran performer who learned to play it specifically for this score
died the day after his sessions completed, making pick-up sessions
requested by Henson with the instrument impossible. Jones would task
another performer to play the same historical flute in
Labyrinth.
If the score for
The Dark Crystal has any
weaknesses, then they are limited to the few moments when Henson
required ethnically solitary music ("Jen Plays His Pipes") or requested
sillier source material for particular characters, such as the "Skeksis
Feast" cues. Jones also takes some inspiration from Bernard Herrmann's
knifing string motif from
Psycho in parts and inserts a rather
humorous borrowing of the opening rhythm to John Williams'
Superman theme at the start of "The Landstrider Journey."
Ironically, "The Pod Dance" source composition isn't necessarily among
the weaknesses of the score, acting as a superior and listenable
precursor for James Horner's nearly identical writing for the dwarf
peoples in
Willow. Overall, there a sense of gravity to Jones'
music for
The Dark Crystal that was not always present in other
scores of the resurrected fantasy genre in the early 1980's. There is
superb dramatic weight to this score, straddling the line between the
complexity of staggered counterpoint and easy tonal progressions that,
when merged, form a work that is accessible without being derivative in
any of its major parts. Part of the mystique involving the music for
The Dark Crystal involved its long journey to its first CD
pressing. Up until 2003, the only commercially available album released
since 1982 had been the original LP record, which featured forty minutes
of rearranged music for album purposes. Like many other magnificent
fantasy scores,
The Dark Crystal is one that plays very well in
its suite form, mostly because that format leaves out many of the filler
cues, inconsequential source material, and other underscore that weakens
the flow of the listening experience outside of the film. Nevertheless,
the long-standing demand for the
The Dark Crystal score on a CD
at any length was enormous. Remaining very high on film music
collectors' request lists,
The Dark Crystal largely disappeared
from the market on LP, and, in the 1990's, bootlegged CD versions of
that 40-minute LP began surfacing, sometimes with music from
Labyrinth, the next collaboration between Jones and Henson.
Prolific in its spread, the bootlegs remained the only CDs of
The
Dark Crystal for what seemed like an eternity for fans of the cult
film. Finally, in 2003, the Jim Henson camp authorized the "Numenorean
Music" label to release a significant, 2-CD set of music from
The
Dark Crystal in a limited pressing.
The 5,000 hand-numbered copies of the 2003 Numenorean
set contain one CD with a remastering of the LP suite presentation and
one with the entire 71 minutes of music that was heard in the film. The
first CD features phenomenal, lively sound quality for a 1982 recording
and was worth the price of the album alone. The second CD offered
perhaps too much music, with a handful of suspect recording artifacts
and some awkward edits. Henson had made numerous last-minute edits to
the picture that had rearranged Jones' music from its intended ordering,
frustrating the composer for years. Those alterations were reflected in
the tracks that were essentially fed from the movie's DVD to the
Numenorean set's second CD. That version of the score also suffers from
significantly muted sound quality compared to the original LP album's
presentation. The 2003 set did, however, offer a 12-page booklet with
extensive information and quotes regarding the score, and for many years
satisfied fans of the movie. When that set disappeared from the market,
the La-La Land Records label reissued the single-CD suite format album
in 2007 as a "25th Anniversary Edition." The contents of this album, as
well as its sound quality, are identical to the 2003 set's first CD, and
would suffice for the mass majority of listeners. For those who never
acquired the eventually collectible Numenorean set, the isolated score
track on the 1999 DVD release that informed it was another alternative
for desperate fans. In 2025, La-La Land returned with another, even more
comprehensive presentation of the music for
The Dark Crystal,
this time expanding the experience to include the music Jones had
written for the film in its proper sequencing and prior to filmmaker
interference. The composer himself assembled this recreation from
digitization of the original tapes, carefully reconstructing a 96-minute
selection of cues that would have represented the score if not for the
post-production edits of the movie. This significant toil was clearly a
labor of love for the retired composer, who continues to have great
affinity for the music and for working with Henson. The score as it was
meant to be heard occupies two CDs while a reprise of the label's 2007
LP album arrangements provides a third CD in the product. This set makes
for an excellent companion to the Numenorean one, each unique in how
they provide the same music and both thus beckoning to collectors for
their own reasons. The sound quality on Jones' reconstructive efforts on
the 2025 set isn't particularly improved, revealing the limitations of
the source. In the end, though, anyone who appreciates the massive
orchestral beauty of the fantasy genre's best dramatic music will be
well served by any of the album releases.
***** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Trevor Jones reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.78
(in 18 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.44
(in 26,130 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The inserts for all three albums include extensive information about the film,
score, and composer, as well as a list of performers.
