: (John Barry) Heralded as a magnificent
piece of visual and aural storytelling,
's depressingly
bleak and sometimes horrifying treatment of its characters kept audiences away.
Set during the Thirty Years' War, the film depicts the struggles of an unravaged
village (filmed in Austria) that deals with an occupation by forces of a foreign
army, and in so doing, the story blurs the lines of good and evil in its
characters. Lead actor Michael Caine asserts that it is among his favorite
personal works, although he, like the others involved with the project,
recognized that its brutal violence made it a difficult film to stomach. Despite
being at the height of his popularity in the James Bond franchise by 1970,
composer John Barry was building an impressive list of dark and dramatic scores
for which he was receiving equal attention in the industry. Having recently won
the Academy Award for the eerie, powerful score for
. As
in
would
address both the ethereal, religious nature of purity as well as the chilling
chants of war (together producing the composer's most gothic career sound). In
order to provide the best score possible for the production, Clavell's filming
schedule allowed Barry an outstanding six months to write music for the film. The
result is a deeply rendered, thoughtful score that makes use of a large
orchestral ensemble and the same Voices of The Accademia Monteverdiana that he
had utilized for
. Given so much time to complete the
score, Barry wrote six original, basic instrumental and choral songs that were
inserted as source material into the film, sometimes utilizing lyrics from
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century German poets and folk songs. The score for
, as often is the case with Barry's works, is surprisingly
simple in construction, but relies upon the brute force of its emotional power to
accomplish its goals.
An identical approach of simplicity in his structures had often
worked for Barry, with a strong sense of harmony leading the way in place of
complex instrumentation, tempi, or layers. This sparse sense of plainness is
effective for half of the score for
The Last Valley, but might present
difficulty for some listeners in its other half. Barry's writing functions very
well in communicating the unsophisticated lifestyles of the village and the last
valley itself, representing its people with a kind, uncomplicated touch that will
dazzle your ears with the same success as the vast cinematography shot within the
valley. The songs for the villagers are also handled well, with the appropriate
religious influence provided for the heavily superstitious people of the
community. On the other hand, Barry's score loses a step when it comes to its
driving cues for battle, as heard additionally over the title sequences. The
right ingredients are all in place for these cues: the timpani, the tolling bell,
the ripping snare, the deep male chorus, and brutal brass. But Barry's own style
of writing jazzy progressions into his themes betrays him here, with his title
identity for
The Last Valley losing power because of its slightly
inappropriate rhythmic movement for the genre. That title theme, despite being
performed by all the right elements, sounds a tad out of place, as though it was
adapted from a jazzy theme in Barry's previous compositions and inserted at a
slower pace to suffice as a war theme here. This slight swing to the theme causes
it to lack the same kind of primordial power and brutal effectiveness that was
realized with
The Lion in Winter. Even as such, however, the theme still
has positive moments when bracketed by the excruciating music for the valley, and
the overall package is serviceable despite being slightly suspicious during the
battle sequences. The authenticity of the work in the film is established through
the choral elements, which, needless to say, offer a dreamy atmosphere to the
horrors of the story. Overall,
The Last Valley isn't Barry's strongest
work in the genre, but it features several superb thematic performances for the
valley's beauty, and you won't go wrong with two of the three albums available in
regards to the music.
The score was long neglected on CD before finally receiving its
due treatment in the 2000's. It was available on LP at the time of the film's
release, and a CD of this material was pressed by Luxembourg's Tickertape label
in 1998. Unfortunately, being an unconventional label associated by some with
bootleg productions, this Tickertape album was difficult to find and usually
showed up only at soundtrack specialty outlets. As part of its trilogy of Barry
period recordings in 2001 (including
The Lion in Winter and
Robin &
Marian), Silva Screen Records commissioned the City of Prague Philharmonic to
perform the same music, and twenty minutes more, under the careful reconstruction
and conducting of Barry associate Nic Raine. The original performance features
more raw energy than the re-recording, although the production team for the 2001
Silva release made sure to accentuate the choral elements of their version
(since, after all, there was no dialogue in the film to contend with). They also
took some artistic liberty with different tempi for a few of the cues. As with
The Lion in Winter, Barry's original recording team for
The Last
Valley very well captured the resounding performance with a wet, echoing, and
sometimes booming sound quality. The Silva re-recording was widely available in
the commercial sector, and those partial to Barry and
The Last Valley will
likely be pleased by a comparison between Raine's interpretation and the original
recording. With the score's original sheet music lost in some cases, the extra
material on the Silva album had to be reconstructed by listening to the music as
it is heard on the DVD of the film. That fact alone makes a statement about the
relative simplicity of Barry's writing for the film; had his music taken a more
complex avenue, then such a reconstruction would obviously have been a more
difficult proposition. In 2007, Intrada Records made the original recording of
The Last Valley the 46th entry in their "Special Collection," an unusual
venture into Barry material for the label. It was limited to a pressing of 3,000
units, but unlike many of the label's similar products, it did not sell out
within the first two years of availability. Its contents are the same as the LP
and the 1998 Tickertape album, and for the best enjoyment of this score, both the
Intrada and Silva versions are recommended.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
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For John Barry reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.85
(in 27 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.54
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