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Review of Excalibur (Trevor Jones)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... on any of the various bootlegs if you seek a competent,
though not complete presentation of the decent but rather sparse Trevor
Jones score and borrowed Carl Orff and Richard Wagner classics.
Avoid it... if you expect the Jones material to live up to the hype generated in the mainstream by the Wagner and Orff music, because everything that he accomplished in a limited role in Excalibur would be better explored and executed in The Dark Crystal not long after.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Excalibur: (Trevor Jones) The early 1980's were the
official "Age of Swords and Sorcery" in Hollywood, a slew of mainstream
films tackling variants on the same fantasy realm within just a few
years. Among the first of these entries was John Boorman's 1981 venture
into Arthurian legend, Excalibur. After being rebuffed on his
attempt to acquire the rights to "The Lord of the Rings," Boorman
instead contributed to the Arthurian adaptation of significant length
with his usual touch of the primordial. The eventual product for Orion
Pictures was cut in length and stripped of some of its most graphic
violence and nudity, returning a decent $35 million in grosses. In
retrospect, Excalibur seems like little more than a bloated
costume drama with beautiful cinematography (which earned the film its
only Academy Award nomination), but it, like Dragonslayer and
Conan the Barbarian, still sufficed to generate renewed interest
in the genre at the time. Complicated from the start was the soundtrack
for Excalibur, for Boorman had determined early in the process to
use prominent placements of Richard Wagner and Carl Orff music in key
sequences of the film. As such, the role of an original score was
immediately destined to only fill the gaps in between these recordings.
Boorman recognized that he would need original music, especially to
address the source-like scenes of festival and tradition, and upon
hearing the music of young composer Trevor Jones in a television series,
he received precisely what he required. Jones had just finished his
collegian degree in film music composition and was experienced in
student projects and lesser television productions at the time, and
between his 55 minutes of filler material for Excalibur and his
far more memorable solo work for The Dark Crystal not long after,
he was soon launched onto a mainstream career. Many of the ideas heard
in the partial score for Excalibur would be expanded upon in both
The Dark Crystal and the 1998 television series Merlin,
these two later scores infinitely more rewarding for film score
collectors when considering the Orff and Wagner usage that dominates the
major scenes in Excalibur. On the whole, Jones' contribution to
the Boorman film is often overrated, perhaps out of ignorance about the
difference between his original work and the existing pieces. While
functional, the overall soundtrack to Excalibur is tiresome,
underdeveloped, and, of course, cliched.
While the Orff and Wagner placements in Excalibur may have been greeted with enthusiasm at the time, subsequent usage of the same pieces in later films only seems to annoy, and it's not uncommon for this easily recognizable music to be applied in parody situations. For learned collectors, the Orff and Wagner music has always been obnoxious, especially since Jones' alternative material would have been just as capable in yielding the same response to the picture. Orff's "O Fortuna" from "Carmina Burana" may be the most famous of the lot, though it represents the composer's only contribution to Excalibur. Its employment in major battle scenes likely influenced the direction of the climactic cue in Jerry Goldsmith's First Knight more than a decade later. Wagner's music is even more pervasive in Excalibur, though, with several of his works forced into scenes where it doesn't always mesh well. Opening and closing the film is a sequence from "Siegfried's Funeral March" from "Gotterdammerung," making that piece the primary identity of Excalibur. The love theme for Lancelot and Guinevere is pulled from the prelude to Wagner's opera "Tristan und Isolde," and the theme for Percival and the Holy Grail is represented by, not surprisingly, the prelude to Wagner's "Parsifal." These pieces have inspired so many film scores through the years that they stick out badly in a soundtrack presentation of all the music from Excalibur. While each is accomplished, there is a disconnect between the passion on screen and that of the performances in the Wagner tracks. The famous Orff piece is so overexposed in popular culture that it's difficult to appreciate looking back as well. That leaves the listener with Jones' original material. You can definitely hear that Excalibur was a practice run for The Dark Crystal, because many of the instrumental choices and the general tonality of the first score carried directly over to the more mature music for the Henson production. His title theme is not heard frequently enough to be effective (because of the Orff and Wagner material), though given its rather stark and simplistic sense of nobility, perhaps that's a good thing. It takes quite some time for this theme to develop throughout the work, beginning to prevail in "Mordred's Lair" and finally fully realized in "The Land and the Kind." The sparse trumpet fanfare performances of this theme, growing out of the straight call to attention in "Knights of the Round Table," are often lacking in depth, bloated to statements perhaps meant to compete favorably with the classics. The many bootlegged album releases of the score for Excalibur include at least two alternative tracks at the end of their presentations, both of which extensively conveying the primary fanfare intended by Jones to bring some cohesion to the film. The latter of these two standard, unused cues, "Alternate End Titles," is the better developed, though this recording is highlighted by an absolutely gorgeous woodwind interlude performing a 30-second theme that is far superior to anything else in the score. Other secondary ideas in the work include a striking fantasy/mystery theme performed in eerie tones by a female vocalist in "Merlin's Spell" and "The Lady of the Lake" and several rhythmic dance-like songs or processional chants throughout the remainder of the score. The light drums, harpsichord, harp, guitar, chimes, and flutes (among other more exotic items, including what sounds like a kazoo) of the many source cues in Excalibur extend to repetitious performances of period detail in the two dance cues ("Igrayne's Dance" and "A Dance at the Court of King Arthur") and the duo of "Camelot" and "A Challenge to Honour." These spirited, but still rather unsubstantial source-like cues dominate the tone of Jones' score for much of the soundtrack's length. The cues of suspense and nobility are surprisingly drab upon an overdue revisit to the score, with only a few hints of life in "The Land and the King" to save the listening experience. On album, "The Wedding" seems less impressive than it sounded in the film. Ironically, the longer Wagner selections on the album are the easiest to digest, sending any collector of Jones' music in search of The Dark Crystal to purge this failed combination effort from the system. That said, Excalibur has always remained both respected and admired for its music, including lingering fondness from Jones' enthusiasts. The score has thus been bootlegged extensively since the one commercial release of the soundtrack (on LP) contained only Orff and Wagner material, some of which not even in the film. In between the original Old World Music release of 1994 and a slightly longer 2001 "Excalibur Enterprises" bootleg, a supposedly commercial remastering in the form of a 1998 "Dandalf the Dragon" album from Amsterdam is most likely a bootleg as well. No truly official release of Excalibur has ever existed, however, meaning that any one of these decent-sounding bootlegs will have to carry the load for the time being. Be sure to limit your expectations if you're approaching this score based solely on hype; it's better tailored to the generation of fantasy enthusiasts that enjoyed the music upon the film's debut. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
Most Bootlegs:
Total Time: 65:45
* composed by Richard Wagner ** composed by Carl Orff (Other bootleg variations exist; the Excalibur Enterprises bootleg of 2001 includes three bonus tracks totaling 12 minutes)
NOTES & QUOTES:
No packaging sanctioned by the studio has ever existed for any of these bootlegs.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Excalibur are Copyright © 1994, 1998, 2001, Old World Music (Bootleg), Dandalf the Dragon (Bootleg), Excalibur Enterprises (Bootleg) and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 1/11/10 (and not updated significantly since). |
