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Review of Howards End (Richard Robbins)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... only if you specifically seek the traditional piano pieces heard prominently in the film, a stark contrast from Richard Robbins' tepid score for this tale of Edwardian entanglements.

Avoid it... if you have no wish to doze off unwillingly, an inevitable consequence of Robbins' extremely restrained orchestral score that meanders aimlessly without any warmth, personality, or sense of cohesion.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Howards End: (Richard Robbins) One constant of cinema from the 1960's to the 2000's was Merchant Ivory Productions, the partnership of director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant (and typically screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala) that brought a long series of period piece movies to the screen, most famously concentrating on Edwardian England in the early 20th Century. The artistic and critical height of their activity came in a period from the middle of the 1980's to the early 1990's, during which time they received the bulk of their mainstream awards consideration from the likes of BAFTA and AMPAS. Their trilogy of adaptations of E. M. Forster novels began with A Room with a View in 1985 and ended with Howards End in 1992, the latter garnering an immensely positive critical response and turning a fair profit after its substantial showing at the year's awards. Similar socio-economic examinations are expressed through character drama in these stories, and Howards End in particular was a poignant representation of battling classes and segments of society that must resolve themselves for the betterment of England in the end. You have wealthy industrialists, liberal and reformed bourgeoisie, and impoverished lower classes all intermingling with each other when members of their families engage in the usual rounds of fornication, marriage proposals, and betrayals in Howards End, all of these characters tied together in the storyline by a common interest in one beautiful countryside estate that shares the name of the film. The cast of English actors in their prime was anchored by Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, whose awkward chemistry was successful enough to catapult the latter to fame and cause them to reunite the following year for the next Merchant Ivory movie, The Remains of the Day. Unless you have an established taste for these period English social commentaries that rely upon an endless series of talking heads for their appeal, a movie like Howards End could bore you out of your wits. The same could be said of the music for these pictures, most of which was provided for Merchant Ivory Productions by either Richard Robbins or Richard Bennett. While most of the notable entries in the series of films have been scored by Robbins, his own career's notoriety resulting from his awards recognition for these efforts during the early 1990's, his music is arguably inferior in many regards when considered as a larger sum of work for these Edwardian topics.

The tone of Robbins' contributions to these Merchant Ivory films is often restrained and understated, approached as though the music was meant for a mono television presentation rather than a full-blooded feature. There are assets to the soundtrack for Howards End, but they are not of Robbins' own doing. The reason the score was erroneously nominated for an Oscar (but no other awards) was because of the adaptation of two Percy Grainger 1910's piano works, "Bridal Lullaby" and "Mock Morris," into obvious places in the film, the credits sequences most importantly. These elegant piano performances by English concert pianist Martin Jones only occupy less than ten minutes of time on the soundtrack, but their solo tone is easily the most memorable aspect of the whole. By comparison, Robbins' orchestral soundtrack lacks passion and sincerity, sleepwalking its way inoffensively through the film and never lending true emotion to the narrative. His music for these films always tended to be extremely introverted, but Howards End is so badly underdeveloped in its thematic core and instrumental warmth that it is a practically useless score. Robbins does create several recurring little motifs to generally distinguish the three classes, and listeners familiar with this music may recognize some of this usage as being reprised from his previous scores for Merchant Ivory's adaptations of Forster. The grim tones of the piano in "The Basts," for instance, is a common tool to juxtapose against the slight classical opulence of "Music and Meaning" and "Leonard's Death." Fluttering woodwind figures introduced in "Helen and Paul Call It Off" are also a common thread, Robbins' tepid addressing of fleeting romance in the story. More procedural are the woodwinds of "An Unexpected Proposal," an arduous cue of nearly comatose personality for the older characters in the story. A handful of singular moments recall source-like applications, including "Tango at Simpson's-in-the-Strand" and the score's liveliest moment, "At a Castle in Shropshire." Robbins' music of suspense and action is truly awful, the stingers late in "On the River" and "Leonard's Death" little more than obnoxious cymbal hits. In none of these cues is there a sense of intimacy or warmth, the pivotal "Return to Howards End" concluding the score with as stale an atmosphere of clinical period ambience as the score's barely audible portions before. This characteristic kills most Robbins scores on album, and thankfully he would liven up the environment for The Remains of the Day the following year. You may as well be asleep when you listen to Howards End, because it'll do its best to put in that state with its total absence of personality and depth.  **

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 52:29

• 1. Main Title: Howards End* (3:48) • 2. Helen and Paul Call It Off (2:54) • 3. Music and Meaning (3:04) • 4. The Basts/Spring Landscape (7:54) • 5. Tango at Simpsons-in-the-Strand (3:16) • 6. An Unexpected Proposal (4:10) • 7. Margaret's Arrival at Howards End* (2:37) • 8. At a Castle in Shropshire (4:40) • 9. Moving In (2:05) • 10. On the River (3:14) • 11. The Sisters' Reconciliation (2:08) • 12. Leonard's Death (5:30) • 13. Return to Howards End (4:23) • 14. End Credits** (3:17)

NOTES & QUOTES:

The insert includes a short note from the composer about the score, though it is very difficult to read given the packaging's color scheme.

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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 Howards End are Copyright © 1992, Nimbus Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 2/21/12 (and not updated significantly since).