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The Legend of 1900
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Co-Composed, Orchestrated, Conducted, and Produced by:
Performed by:
Accademia Musicale Italiana
Featured Soloists:
Fausto Anzelmo
Gianni Butta
Gianni Oddi
Cicci Santucci
Co-Composed and Piano Performances by:
Amedco Tommasi
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LABELS & RELEASE DATES
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ALBUM AVAILABILITY
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The 1998 commercial Italian release existed under the name The Legend of the
Pianist on the Ocean and has different packaging, contains more music, and is more expensive
and difficult to find. The 1999 American album is a regular release.
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AWARDS
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Winner of a Golden Globe.
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Buy it... if you seek a faithful souvenir from the film, for the
various album incarnations for this soundtrack reflect the sometimes
disjointed marriage of the styles of drama and jazz in the film.
Avoid it... if you expect to hear anything radically new or
impressive from Ennio Morricone, despite his unsuccessful attempts to
use Gershwin-style jazz as counterpoint to his standard orchestral
melodrama.
BUY IT
 | | Morricone |
The Legend of 1900: (Ennio Morricone) The second
popular film by director Giuseppe Tornatore to seek an ambitious,
Awards-seeking distribution in America within a ten-year span, The
Legend of 1900 unfortunately suffered from the same editing problems
as the Oscar-winning Cinema Paradiso. Not only was its
translation from Italian into English haphazard at best, Fine Line
Features insisted that well over half an hour of length be trimmed from
the picture, diluting its story. Still, Tornatore knows how to crank out
the tearjerkers, even if they are transparent in their attempts.
Originally titled La Leggenda Del Pianista Sull'Oceano in Europe,
The Legend of 1900 still manages, in its edited form, to tell the
life story of a famed piano performer of the early 20th Century who is
born and abandoned on a cruise liner, playing to adoring crowds on the
ship throughout his life and facing dilemmas of love and land that
challenge his intent to spend his entire existence on the liner.
Outstanding visual sensibilities are complimented by a soundtrack that
is very much a reflection of the ragtime and other jazz styles of the
era. Tornatore's longtime collaborator, Ennio Morricone, composed
original music for The Legend of 1900, in addition to the
adaptation of source pieces appropriate for the actual performances in
the film. He employed the help of pianist Amedco Tommasi, who co-wrote
several of the most frenetic sequences on the instrument heard in the
film. The style that Morricone applied to the film is extremely
predictable and will please the many longtime collectors of the
composer's works. There is an unapologetic romanticism to be heard in
the primary orchestral statements of the film's main themes, a sound
that will be very familiar to veteran film music ears. This flowing
orchestral harmony fits well with the sentimentality of the story and of
the era, though Morricone also taps the style of George and Ira Gershwin
to serve as accents to that material, and hints of Scott Joplin are
prevalent in the significant solo piano portions. The combination of
these sounds produce a mixed bag of a score. It won a Golden Globe for
Morricone, but it didn't prove to have strong, lasting appeal after the
initial blitz of media attention afforded to the film and its
soundtrack.
The title theme is a very typical Morricone powerhouse,
which is a positive in the sense that it serves The Legend of
1900 well, but it also lacks originality in its tone and structure.
Morricone does attempt to give the theme a twist, often adding wild
Gershwin-style piano ramblings as counterpoint. But as heard in the
latter moments of "1900's Theme," Morricone doesn't handle the
combination well, with the piano never complimenting the orchestra with
enough synchrony to function. His attempts flourish in parts of "The
Legend of the Pianist," however, with the cue's second and third minutes
offering attractive woodwind and brass counterpoint mixed at an eerie
distance. But later in that cue, more impromptu performances by the same
elements offer a spirit far too energetic for the dying orchestral
statements of theme. The awkward balance of jazz and drama extends to
the two "Crisis" cues, the first of which effectively forces the
striking of two adjoining piano keys to produce a slightly dissonant
effect that is, on album, quite annoying. The thematic extensions in the
two "Playing Love" cues are a highlight, with the first of the two
rotating performances of the theme beautifully between instruments that,
if not for the eventual trumpet solo, betray the Italian sensibility of
the composer. Another theme is introduced in "Child," which better
accomplishes the merging of the two music genres, though a brass flub at
0:45 into the cue is distracting (unless it's a poor attempt to once
again intentionally slur high notes). Despite their impressive
performances, the many solo piano cues in the latter half of the album
releases for The Legend of 1900 are somewhat mundane, as are the
final two score tracks (which end the experience on a distinctly sour
note, literally). Former Pink Floyd singer Roger Waters offers a
soothing vocal performance of Morricone's theme in "Lost Boys Calling,"
a song that only adds to the character crisis that the composer has
already caused in his orchestral and piano material. Two source cues
(pieces by Jelly Roll Morton and Scott Joplin) round out the album. A
lengthier version of the soundtrack was initially available in Europe;
the running time of the later, American album was cut to coincide with
the shorter version of the film in that country. Despite its singular
orchestral highlights and Golden Globe win, The Legend of 1900 is
surprisingly average, disjointed, and unengaging. *** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Ennio Morricone reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.11
(in 9 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.31
(in 8,603 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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1900 Expand >>
Allan smith - December 31, 2011, at 7:30 p.m. |
2 comments (1510 views)
Newest: June 11, 2012, at 8:48 a.m. by
ScottR |
the legend of 1900 Expand >>
elizabeth - February 20, 2009, at 5:26 p.m. |
2 comments (2210 views)
Newest: October 2, 2013, at 5:38 a.m. by
ZPIANOGuy |
love it
dreamingoutloud - December 15, 2007, at 8:21 a.m. |
1 comment (1552 views) |
| 1998 Italian Album Tracks ▼ | Total Time: 65:58 |
• 1. Playing Love (4:26)
• 2. The Legend of the Pianist on the Ocean (8:04)
• 3. The Crisis (2:46)
• 4. Peacherine Rag - written by Scott Joplin (2:37)
• 5. A Goodbye to Friends (2:32)
• 6. Study for Three Hands (0:59)
• 7. Tarantella in 3rd Class* (1:28)
• 8. Enduring Movement* (1:26)
• 9. Police* (0:47)
• 10. Trailer (1:37)
• 11. Thanks Danny* (3:23)
• 12. A Mozart Reincarnated (1:57)
• 13. Child (2:44)
• 14. Magic Waltz* (2:30)
• 15. The Goodbye Between Nineteen Hundred and Max* (3:43)
• 16. Goodbye Duet* (2:32)
• 17. Nineteen Hundred's Madness N. 1 (2:14)
• 18. Danny's Blues (2:09)
• 19. Second Crisis (2:02)
• 20. The Crave - written by Jelly Roll Morton (1:46)
• 21. Nocturne With No Moon (2:41)
• 22. Before the End (1:10)
• 23. Playing Love (3:02)
• 24. Ships and Snow (2:28)
• 25. Nineteen Hundred's Madness N. 2 (1:47)
• 26. I Can and Then (2:16)
• 27. Silent Goodbye (1:38)
• 28. 5 Portraits* (3:57)
• 29. Lost Boys Calling - performed by Roger Waters (5:17)
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* track not contained on American release |
| 1999 American Album Tracks ▼ | Total Time: 57:39 |
• 1. 1900's Theme (1:38)
• 2. The Legend of the Pianist (8:04)
• 3. The Crisis (2:47)
• 4. The Crave - written by Jelly Roll Morton (1:46)
• 5. A Goodbye to Friends (2:33)
• 6. Study for Three Hands (1:00)
• 7. Playing Love (4:26)
• 8. A Mozart Reincarnated (1:58)
• 9. Child (2:45)
• 10. 1900's Madness #1 (2:14)
• 11. Danny's Blues (2:09)
• 12. Second Crisis (2:03)
• 13. Peacherine Rag - written by Scott Joplin (2:37)
• 14. Nocturne with No Moon (2:41)
• 15. Before the End (1:11)
• 16. Playing Love (3:03)
• 17. I Can and Then (2:17)
• 18. 1900's Madness #2 (1:48)
• 19. Silent Goodbye (1:37)
• 20. Ships and Snow (2:29)
• 21. Lost Boys Calling - performed by Roger Waters (5:19)
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The inserts for both albums include no extra information about the score or film.
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