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Review of The Land Before Time (James Horner)

1988 MCA

2020 Intrada

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... if you're enamored with James Horner's classically lyrical orchestral work for the animated children's film genre, because The Land Before Time is the gold standard by which all his other related scores would be compared.

Avoid it... if you expect the melodies and comparatively few action cues in this score to rival the rambunctious intensity of Horner's concurrent work for Willow.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

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.  *****

TRACK LISTINGS:

1988 MCA Album:
Total Time: 58:10

• 1. The Great Migration (7:49) • 2. Sharptooth and the Earthquake (10:33) • 3. Whispering Winds (9:00) • 4. "If We Hold On Together"* (4:07) • 5. Foraging for Food (7:15) • 6. The Rescue/Discovery of the Great Valley (12:43) • 7. End Credits (6:22)

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2020 Intrada Album:
Total Time: 73:57

• 1. The Great Migration (7:50) • 2. Sharptooth and the Earthquake (10:33) • 3. Whispering Winds (9:00) • 4. Foraging for Food (7:16) • 5. Journey of the Dinosaurs* (8:30) • 6. Separate Paths* (7:14) • 7. The Rescue/Discovery of the Great Valley (12:44) • 8. End Credits (6:21) • 9. "If We Hold On Together"** (4:07)

NOTES & QUOTES:

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.

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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 The Land Before Time are Copyright © 1988, 2020, MCA Records, Intrada Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 7/14/98 and last updated 4/28/21.