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| Horner |
The Land Before Time: (James Horner) In the decade
before Walt Disney reclaimed its domination over the animated film
genre, Steven Spielberg and Don Bluth provided several noteworthy hits
for Universal that were so financially successful that most of them
would spawn several sequels, both on the big screen and straight to
video. While
The Secret of N.I.M.H. and
An American Tail
both merit more critical recognition than
The Land Before Time,
the 1988 tale about persevering dinosaurs would by itself inspire a
franchise of no less than thirteen sequels aimed directly at the video
market, a television series, and more than a dozen video games. One
would think that there's only a finite number of adversarial situations
that a group of misfit dinosaurs could encounter, but natural disasters,
species prejudices, and nasty carnivores exist in abundance in this
realm, so onward the main characters go. The migrating dinosaur story
has always been insufferable in its cuteness at times, the original
cinematic entry of
The Land Before Time accentuated by James
Horner's effervescent music and all of the sequels scored by Michael
Tavera, who more often than not finds a place for Horner's themes to
live on. Horner had been widely recognized for his score and song work
for
An American Tail and by 1988 had established himself as an
Oscar contender of mainstream status. That year in particular would
prove to be among the best in the composer's career, with
The Land
Before Time and
Willow serving as sister scores sharing many
of the characteristics that have garnered them similar acclaim through
the years. While
Willow is superior in its more melodramatic
statements of melody, undeniable intensity, and rowdy action sequences,
The Land Before Time is the softer, more consistently lyrical
companion piece. Detractors of Horner's tendency to plunder classical
inspiration have always enjoyed a field day with this work, for the
composer clearly pulls pieces of Sergei Prokofiev's music in somewhat
distracting ways, though the result no less effective.
One of the more interesting overarching aspects of
The
Land Before Time is Horner's consistency of tone throughout;
animated film scores, especially those with romping characters in the
animal kingdom, typically maneuver at such high speeds that it's
difficult for a composer to provide significant lengths of flowing
development. This despite a rough schedule that gave the composer only
five weeks to complete his work. Horner not only minimizes his
interruptions for comedy or action, he composes extremely long cues for
The Land Before Time that in many regards emulate the style of
concert suites. This was a very intentional choice, the composer
preferring to tackle the general mood of scenes and record countless
takes of his long passages and assemble the best pieces of each take
into the final cue. Despite slight changes in mood throughout the
score's 70 minutes of total recorded length, there really are only a
handful of full action pieces and questionable comedy romps. Otherwise,
The Land Before Time is both a delightfully consistent listening
experience and, for those who have sought music akin to
Willow
for years, an extremely relevant addition to the collection. The
performances by the London Symphony Orchestra and the Choir of King's
College offer vintage Horner melodrama at its finest, the soundscape
always impressively robust. Three primary themes exist in
The Land
Before Time, with several surrounding character motifs shared
between them. A few singular moments of melodic exploration not reprised
anywhere else in the score are also treats along the way. While Horner
does supply motific ideas for several members of the troop of lovable
characters, he tends to apply them to represent broader situations.
Among the major identities, Horner opens with a rousing and noble theme
for the dinosaurs as a whole. Secondly, a bright and spirited set of
character ideas dance to softer rhythmic tones. Finally, the primary
theme of the film is introduced last, and serves as the inspiration for
the plight of the migrating dinosaurs; it's the "feel good" romantic
melody that doubles as the construct of the typical Diana Ross song for
the film.
Sadly, the most interesting theme in
The Land Before
Time is the one best promised by Horner but least utilized
thereafter. After a respectful choral prelude, Horner unleashes the
dinosaurs' general theme with remarkable majesty at 1:56 into "The Great
Migration." A choral crescendo in the style of
Willow leads to a
rolling string and piano rhythm of resounding power, accompanying the
powerful theme as it is passed around the brass and woodwind sections.
Several aspects of this portion of "The Great Migration" are noteworthy.
The theme itself is an intelligent combination of both prowess of
strength and the clumsiness of size; the first three-quarters of its
progression are particularly bold, and yet Horner tacks on four rather
lazy notes after a natural conclusion that, along with some rolling
timpani, perfectly embody the lumbering movement of a large animal. The
transitions between the instruments carrying the melody is also creative
in that the French horns, trumpets, trombones, and what sounds like a
flugelhorn could very well each represent a different kind of dinosaur
in the migration. A careful mix of the score allows the woodwinds, all
in unison, to carry a portion of this theme. Although it's almost lost
under the action, the piano sets its own elegant rhythm in this portion
of the cue, playing a role that Horner would expand upon in
The New
World. The cue transitions to a light mid-range drum rhythm over
which various woodwinds offer the cute comedy idea for the Ducky
character that would be fleshed out further in later cues. A beautiful,
rising string and choral interlude to this theme later emerges an
identity for Tree Star. A lilting melody for the Lightfoot character
follows, its progressions and entire interlude later informing the
score's main journeying theme still to come. The Lightfoot materials
seems to include an intentional statement of a theme from Horner's
obscure score for
The Journey of Natty Gann on an exuberant
flute. These ideas recur regularly throughout the rest of the score,
their choral sequences serving to foreshadow the delicate touch of
Casper, and it is out of these passages that Horner finally
explores the main theme of the film at the outset of "Sharptooth and the
Earthquake."
Compared to Horner's other lyrical children's themes, the
main identity for
The Land Before Time is a bit anonymous, but
the orchestration of the theme's statements, as well as the very good
mix of the choir, elevate this one beyond most of his others. Its
performance at 0:31 into "Sharptooth and the Earthquake" is fairly
standard in the score, the twinkling bed of percussion underneath a nice
effect. The second half of "Sharptooth and the Earthquake" is one of the
score's primary action pieces, often using a motif for the Cera
character from the 3:00 mark onward. Meandering between major and minor
key, this idea's performances at 3:50 by flute and choir are quite
intoxicating. Sharing most of its timpani-rumbling, snare-ripping, and
cymbal-crashing qualities with
Willow's numerous similar cues,
the later parts of this cue have pieces of chime-banging, rhythmic
bombast from
Brainstorm as well as a foreshadowing of tension
heard later in
Apollo 13. Despite its adequacy, the brief action
music in
The Land Before Time is its weakest element. The
restrained beauty of "Whispering Winds" offers the score's most
prominent use of the journeying theme shared with the song. Aside from
occasional, light romps, this 9-minute cue is a seamless performance of
the theme in the most innocent sonic capabilities of the woodwinds and
choir. One fascinating aspect of this cue is a descending bass string
rhythm under piano and meandering choir in three sequences that could
trick some casual listeners into thinking they were listening to Danny
Elfman's
Edward Scissorhands. Horner uses metallic percussion to
simulate the sound of wind in much the same fashion as in
Willow,
but not as prominently. An ensemble choral performance of the theme at
the end of the cue is not to be missed. One of the few reprises of the
noble dinosaurs' theme from the opening cue is provided at the outset of
"Foraging for Food," a cue that thereafter gives the playful character
motifs some quality, light-hearted airtime. A pan flute rhythm provides
a unique variant on this material. If you're adverse to tingling
triangles or despise Horner's sometimes wild percussive rhythms that
build to an ambitious crescendo as in
Bicentennial Man, then
avoid this cue.
The Cera material receives a somewhat intrusive
counterpoint brass motif at the outset of "Journey of the Dinosaurs" in
The Land Before Time, the descending brass idea humorous but
distracting, but the idea offers some pretty moments later in the cue
before it closes out with some
Cocoon-inspired exploration of the
main journeying theme. The counterpoint overlay of the main theme and
Ducky's motif early in "Separate Paths," joined by celeste, is
outstanding. Further bursts of the Lightfoot and Tree Star material
follows, though the journeying theme remains dominant. A triumphant
brass and layered string performance of the journeying theme opens "The
Rescue/Discovery of the Great Valley," leading to a brief action
sequence that soars with harmonic spirit most similar to
The
Rocketeer. Both the Cera and Tree Star motifs figure into these
passages. As the dinosaurs reach the Great Valley, their overarching
noble theme from the start of the score returns with a softer, more
elegant rendition at 6:08. As anticipation of the arrival builds, snare
rhythms once again reminiscent of
The Rocketeer eventually yield
to a final, cymbal crashing ensemble performance of the journey theme.
The idea's choral interlude provides a joyous conclusion that develops
into an enthusiastic end credits cue that summarizes only parts of the
score. A flourishing string rhythm propelling the start of the cue
recalls
An American Tail, underlining the score's most ambitious
parade of character motifs in all their upbeat glee. After about two
minutes, the journeying theme plays to the end with performances very
similar to those that came immediately before in the finale of the film.
A portion of the Lightfoot motif is indeed sequenced as a formal
interlude to the journeying theme by this point, paving the way for
similar placement in the song, which, not surprisingly, largely replaced
the "End Credits" cue by Horner in the film. This piece remains somewhat
dissatisfying anyway, as the lack of a statement of the dinosaurs' noble
theme from the start is a huge disappointment. Instead, Horner extends
the journeying theme to unnecessarily dull lengths at the end of this
suite, time during which he could easily have wrapped up the score's
other themes in their entirety.
Aside from the arguably lackluster conclusion to the
score,
The Land Before Time is an otherwise outstanding
children's genre work that is always a joy to hear on album. The Dianna
Ross song is not offensive, though it's somewhat predictable given
Horner's usual song adaptation habits, and Will Jennings' lyrics are
embarrassingly atrocious. The instrumental backing for this song
consists of light rock elements only, with a distracting woodblock
effect; for this film, a solid string section was merited at the least,
if not a full orchestral ensemble. The massive symphonic ambience of the
soundtrack as a whole is perhaps its best attribute for the casual
listener. Horner's long cues and countless takes of each one allowed the
musicians to really emote in their performances; the London Symphony
Orchestra proves its credentials in these regards as not a single major
flub is to be heard. Even aside from the clear and potentially obnoxious
Prokofiev emulations that will raise memories of "Peter and the Wolf"
without fail,
The Land Before Time is among Horner's most
"classical" scores, not just in the length of his cues but in the smooth
development of each idea for great lengths. The work does have a few
well-placed synchronization points, blasts from brass that unsettle the
listening experience, but they are not frequent. As one might expect,
the editors rearranged Horner's score in the film to better hit points
as needed. The original 1988 MCA album, despite being readily available
in the 1990's, became quite scarce in the 2000's. It surveyed all of the
score's highlights but was missing two long cues for the middle third of
the film. The duo of "Journey of the Dinosaurs" and "Separate Paths" are
the highlight of Intrada Records' 2020 expansion of the score to include
its entirety, and while neither cue has the singular highlights of the
others, they are more than worthy additions, each with lyricism and
action. The sound quality is remastered as well, the woodwinds
especially brought to the forefront beautifully. It's rare to encounter
a limited expansion of a soundtrack without alternate takes, however;
Intrada's album offers only the formal presentation of the score and
song. Ultimately, among the plethora of animated genre film scores that
Horner composed over the earlier years of his career, none was able to
recapture the consistent majesty and beauty of
The Land Before
Time. Along with
Willow, it stood easily as one of the top
highlights of 1988.
***** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.16
(in 107 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.23
(in 197,460 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The insert of the 1988 MCA album contains no information about the score or film.
That of the 2020 Intrada product contains extensive details about both.
