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| Rózsa |
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad: (Miklós
Rózsa) Although Hollywood had largely moved on from the epic
fantasies that had featured the wondrous creatures of Ray Harryhausen,
there still existed a dedicated audience for such mythical adventures
into the 1970's. The Sinbad franchise that had begun with
The 7th
Voyage of Sinbad in 1958 was resurrected in 1973 for
The Golden
Voyage of Sinbad and a few years later for yet another sequel, all
of which utilizing Harryhausen creations that continued to develop all
the way through 1981's
Clash of the Titans. In the 1973 entry,
Sinbad undertakes a journey from the Middle East towards India in an
effort to find a Fountain of Destiny that could benefit or harm the
world depending upon who finds it first using three amulets. He spends
the whole tale battling an evil sorcerer, Koura, for these amulets and
the two face off directly and indirectly through sword fighting and
magic that involves a wide array of bizarre beasts courtesy of
Harryhausen. There are the obligatory secondary characters that join the
journey, including a slave girl with monumentally large breasts that
tease audiences throughout their travels. It's an exciting tale that
brought surprisingly robust returns at a time when edgier, contemporary
movies were all the rage. The filmmakers were interested in hiring
Bernard Herrmann to write the score for
The Golden Voyage of
Sinbad, as his music for
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad was a
memorable success, but the film's producer declined, instead realizing
that Miklós Rózsa was available and intrigued by the
project despite the composer's lack of new film scores in the preceding
years. Rózsa hadn't written an all-new work for the screen since
the 1960's, and his music for this adventure helped rejuvenate his
career in anticipation of this half-dozen scores that concluded his
legacy later in the decade. The loss of Herrmann from the franchise was
an unfortunate aspect of this sequel despite the goodwill felt by all
towards Rózsa. None of Herrmann's themes recurs in
The Golden
Voyage of Sinbad, and there are aspects of raw enthusiasm in the
1958 score that Rózsa simply cannot resurrect.
Rózsa had tremendous respect for Herrmann and
believe him to be the better, albeit more eccentric composer, but the
strategy for
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad was to start fresh from
within Rózsa's own comfort zone. Casual listeners will recognize
the roots of this score in the composer's more famous
The Thief of
Bagdad, though the similarities are superficial. Rózsa starts
with a standard orchestra on the large side and accents it with
synthesizer for a few select cues involving early magic from the
villain. This eerie tone is distinct from his use of the theremin
throughout his career and is a very welcome addition. (Sadly, he would
not revisit its employment again in subsequent works, falling back on
the theremin instead.) There is extensive use of a harp for Sinbad's
visions and the concept of water, and a xylophone is applied to the
wooden adversary, a siren, starting in "Koura Guides Siren to Chart."
Unique instrumental applications aren't particularly notable from there,
though there are unusual two-note violin whines in "Medium Speaks" that
are a tad difficult to stomach. Most of the spirit in the recording
comes through Rózsa's source-like Middle Eastern material, at
which he was an expert by this time. Often led by percussive rhythmic
lines with slight exoticism on top, the composer allows these portions
to guide the locations in "Vizier Receives Sinbad Into Palace," "Vizier
- Sinbad Enter Lower Chamber," "Belly Dance," "Sinbad in Hakim's
Market," "Haroun's Lute," the "Lemuria" cues, "Koura to Green Men's
Temple," "Kali Walk Dance" (in which a sitar-like lute contributes), and
"Green Men Put Margiana in Pit." The score's demeanor is fairly serious
despite some swashbuckling interludes for the main theme, and the only
light comedy comes from woodwinds in "Sinbad Throws Hakim's Bodyguard."
Otherwise, the composer prefers to handle
The Golden Voyage of
Sinbad with a touch of suspense from start to finish, the mystery
element guiding his notion of fantasy. To achieve this end, he liberally
employs elements of tritones in his main melodies or supporting lines,
the discord caused by this employment defining the whole score's
personality by the end. This usage is especially prevalent in how it
influences Rózsa's main theme for the picture.
The primary melody for Sinbad himself is helmed by a
repeating phrase of six ascending notes using the tritone harmonics, its
secondary phrasing more romantic but still off-kilter. Receiving its
prelude treatment in full during "Main Title," the idea continues in
"Storm (Koura Calls)," where the synthetics are more subtle above the
frantic action for the theme. Heightened in pace at the outset of "Koura
Chases Sinbad to Vizier's City," the idea shortly succeeds the Koura
theme in the muted "Lower Chamber" and turns soft on strings in "Sinbad
Meets Margiana." It appreciates a more boastful, optimistic rendition in
"Vizier - Margiana Board Sinbad's Ship," a cue that strongly previews
Basil Poledouris'
Conan the Barbarian a few years later. The idea
continues its softer string exploration of light drama in "Koura -
Sinbad's Ship at Night," battles the xylophone lines in "Koura Guides
Siren to Chart," becomes frantic early in "Sinbad and Crew Fight Siren,"
and jags through "Escape From Temple of the Oracle." Overcoming
uncertainty for some string resilience in "Green Men Capture Koura," the
main theme tentatively responds to the Koura theme in "Koura Challenges
Sinbad to Fight Kali" and punches upwards against the centaur material
in "Centaur Attacks Sinbad." At the climax, it frantically strikes out
in "Sinbad Fights Invisible Koura" but reprises its initial romanticism
from the ensemble in "End Title." Rózsa affords the main theme
far more variance in tempo and performance inflection than that for
Koura, which has much the equal personality as the villain theme from
The Thief of Bagdad and maintains the same emotional stance in
most of its performances. Anchored by a long, ascending series of brash
phrasing starting with a triumphant five notes, this identity meanders
considerably in its secondary sequences and also represents the
homunculus creatures that Koura creates to harass his enemies. It's
introduced prominently on synthesizer at 0:30 into "Homunculus Drops
Tablet on Sinbad's Ship," and this high-range solo makes it extremely
easy to determine its very complicated contours; the theme dominates
much of the cue until a soothing Sinbad theme interjection at the end.
Confidently striding into the middle of "Sinbad's Dream" with droning
synth on top for suspense, this theme overtakes the Sinbad theme early
in "Koura Chases Sinbad to Vizier's City" and flutters before the source
material in "Koura's Castle."
The evil Koura theme does quiet battle with the Sinbad
melody in "2 Tablets & Map," tinges "Homunculus Explodes," and brashly
announces its presence on brass late in "Vizier - Margiana Board
Sinbad's Ship." After diminishing to menacing shades in "Koura -
Sinbad's Ship at Night," Koura's identity casts aside Sinbad's theme in
the pomposity late in "Koura Guides Siren to Chart." Sadly without its
synthetic accompaniment, this idea is subtle and disturbing up front in
"Making Homunculus." A bit devious on piano at the outset of "Koura
Challenges Sinbad to Fight Kali," it joins the centaur material in
"Centaur Appears" and shifts to counterpoint against a more positive
tone in "Koura Enters Cave." In its later incarnations, the theme
retains subtlety against flowing harp rhythms for the water in "Koura
Praying by Fountain" and is appropriately diminished in "Sinbad Fights
Invisible Koura." On the lighter side, the theme for Margiana the slave
girl is comparatively slight for oboe and is previewed briefly over
flowing harp lines at 1:52 into "Homunculus Drops Tablet on Sinbad's
Ship" and continues in "Sinbad's Dream." More formally, it earns stoic
support from the ensemble in "Sinbad Meets Margiana" and returns without
much variation in the warmer "Sinbad - Margiana in Cabin." Though not
really a love theme, it soothes briefly in "Fountain of Destiny" and is
adapted into a discovery theme of redemption in "Crown of Many Riches."
Among the lesser motifs is one for the centaur late in the story,
stewing throughout "Centaur Appears" against Koura phrasing and becoming
menacing in stature on brass during "Centaur Attacks Sinbad." A motif
for the location of Lemuria is an alluring identity in the two "Lemuria"
cues and "Sinbad - Koura Land on Lemuria" that continues in darker
shades in "Sinbad Arrives at Temple." Finally, a general fight motif for
hand-to-hand combat extends out of a very quick rendition of the main
theme and punctuates several cues, starting with subtle foreshadowing in
the first thirty seconds of "Homunculus Explodes." It cameos early in
"Sinbad and Crew Fight Siren" amongst the swirling secondary lines but
returns on flutes late in "Making Homunculus," laces "Kali Fight" in a
panic, and explodes at 0:33 into "Sinbad Fights Invisible Koura."
Despite all these themes, the middle sequence of the narrative from
Lemuria to the Oracle temple is melodically nondescript. While confident
at its task throughout, the score isn't particularly heroic in a fully
accessible way due to the tritones and other disturbing devices.
On album, the score is somewhat engaging but cannot
compete with Herrmann's preceding work. The 1973 score was originally
not to be released on LP record at all because of worries over rampant
bootlegging of the Herrmann score in the franchise, a major source of
frustration for Rózsa collectors because the composer hadn't
received an album release of a new film score in a decade. After the
license was granted for a run in Europe, a limited American pressing was
eventually approved as well. That generous presentation of over 50
minutes from the recording in Rome translated to two later Prometheus
Records CDs in 1998 and 2008 with the same base contents, the latter
appending extra music from the movie in the only available mono sound
from the film itself at the time and featuring some exceedingly long
tracks. In 2016, Intrada Records worked with newly discovered stereo
sources for most but not all of the film version of the score. "Koura
Lights Fuse and Temple Explodes" reverts to a mono sound reconstruction,
for instance, and that necessary switch is distracting in the context of
surrounding material. Some inconsistencies in sound quality, including
occasional studio noise, exist throughout the film version of the score,
but Intrada did its best to combine the best possible sources to make a
more complete presentation of the music as heard in the film. The
original stereo album arrangement is also included on that product,
along with a variety of additional stereo bonus tracks of certain source
and unedited film score tracks. The redundant source tracks have no
significant appeal, and some listeners may not hear enough difference in
the additional cues presented to make them worth the time. While the
Intrada set is as comprehensive as could be at the time, it still
contains a few moments of dissatisfaction, but one interesting result of
the label's toil on the project is that the film presentation sometimes
sounds noticeably better than the album version, especially in the mix
of the synthesizer early. Compared to the composer's late 1970's scores,
this one does generally suffer from archival sound in all its forms. On
the whole, though, Rózsa's music is as technically smart as to be
expected but doesn't elicit much emotional response from the Roman
musicians. Some of that distinction may be due to the tonalities
involved in the composition, though that can't explain all the issues of
demeanor. Without the same outright passion from the more memorable
Herrmann score continuing, the concept is robbed of some of the fantasy
element, leaving you with a procedurally successful work but not one
that always engages.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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The inserts of all three albums contain notes about the score
and film, with those of the 2016 Intrada album the most
significant.
