: (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 Jim Henson has achieved a cult status greater
than that of
, 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
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 today, 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 Trevor Jones
is a classic in the genre of animated features. Long before becoming
famous for his brassy fanfares in such modern favorites as
, Jones was a regular composer
for the Jim Henson productions of the 1980's. His initial reaction to
the concept of
was to write music that was as
instrumentally and harmonically challenging to the senses as the visuals
(and for film score collectors, shades of Alex North's somewhat
controversial score for
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
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. Jones would become well
versed in writing music for fantasy films over the years, but his effort
for
The Dark Crystal 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. Along the way, Jones
established several themes and motifs that would resurface in other
composers' fantasy works over the next decade. As fans of Trevor Jones'
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
Last of the Mohicans. You can't help but marvel at the
sheer quantity of 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 Dark Crystal
(including the pleasant love theme for the two Gelflings), and Jones
intentionally leaves the performances of the two primary themes separate
until the crystal 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 a harmony in counterpoint that clearly showed Jones'
talents at this early stage of his career. It's possible that the
composer's handling of these themes 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 as melodramatic in its elongated structure, bold brass,
and timpani foundation as any of Basil Poledouris' most romantic
ideas.
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 London Symphony Orchestra 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. 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 electronics, which is
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
at its highest registers is a reminder of the innocent side of the
story's characters and their inherent beauty. If the score has any
weaknesses, then they are limited to the few moments when Henson
required ethnically solitary music ("Jen Plays His Pipes") or requested
more silly source material for particular characters (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 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 harmonic progressions
that, when merged, forms 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 on album. Nevertheless, the
long-standing demand for the
The Dark Crystal score on 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 another
collaboration between Jones and Henson,
Labyrinth). 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 an ultimate, 2-CD set of music from
The Dark
Crystal in a limited pressing. The 5,000 hand-numbered copies
contain one CD with a remastering of the LP suite presentation and one
with the entire 71 minutes of music as heard in the film. The first CD
features phenomenal, lively sound quality for a 1982 recording and is
worth the price of the album alone. The second CD offers perhaps too
much music, with a handful of suspect recording artifacts and some
awkward edits. The complete score also suffers from significantly muted
sound quality compared to the original, LP album's presentation. The
2003 set does, however, offer a 12-page booklet with extensive
information and quotes regarding the score, and will certainly leave no
fan of
The Dark Crystal unhappy. 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 (and its sound quality) are identical to the 2003 set's first
CD, and will suffice for the mass majority of listeners. An isolated
score track on the 1999 DVD release is another alternative for desperate
fans. In the end, anyone who appreciates the massive orchestrally 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 25,064 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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