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In the case of Eidelman, who began his scoring career even before graduating with his advanced music degree, he was bestowed with an astonishing stroke of luck when he met in his apartment with the producer and director of Magdalene. During that conversation, Eidelman told the inquiring party that a group of seventy performers would be adequate for the heavily dramatic score. Producer Ernst Ritter von Theumer then responded with the now famous line, "Why seventy when you can have one hundred and twenty?" Eidelman was officially hired shortly thereafter and sent to Europe to compose for and conduct the Munich Symphony Orchestra. His eventual score would include a massive orchestral and choral sound, eclipsing most of the scores he would produce in the next two decades of his career. The score that Eidelman wrote for Magdalene would be among the best ever for a rookie composer, preserved by a generous album that serves as both an enjoyable listen and a fascinating case study (it was also the lone collaboration between Eidelman and Intrada Records' Doug Fake). Magdalene is a touching score, balancing the two concurrent story lines from the film. Both the relationship between the eponymous prostitute and the priest, and the French Revolution raging literally outside their door, are joined by a liturgical style that addresses the obvious oppression by the religion. For the romantic sequences, Eidelman uses piano and woodwinds in an adagio format. For the most robust sequences of revolution, Eidelman turns gothic, and explodes with full statements of orchestral and choral mass. These two elements of the score, the romantic theme and powerful orchestra and choir, only intermingle for two or three cues, however.

The orchestra also makes some notable performance flubs, such as the brass errors in "Silent Night" and "Mohr's Farewell" and the violin hesitation in "The Archbishop's Entertainment." Otherwise, the score is well enough performed, and the overwhelming chorus remains a highlight. The solo vocals in "Kyrie Eleison" are extremely attractive, and the conclusive "Mohr's Farewell" serves as a strong suite of orchestral and choral material from the film. Eidelman does rely on Mozart's Requiem Mass in several places, which may bother those with finely tuned ears for classical music. While not as obvious as the aforementioned piece, it has been reported that parts of Mozart's "Rex Tremendae" and "Lachrymosa" are borrowed by Eidelman in several cues throughout the score as well. The use of Franz Gruber's "Stille Nacht" (Silent Night) to underscore the Christmas repenting scene at the end of the film is appropriate to the storyline, though some sources place the writing of the actual carol half a century later (that's a problem inherent with the script and not necessarily Eidelman's work). Most score fans won't care about this usage, though more problematic may be quality of the analog recording in Munich. The sound here is fuller than that of the similar Triumph of the Spirit score the following year, however. It has long been hoped that excerpts from both scores will be re-recorded sometime in the future. Magdalene was an impressive debut for Eidelman; unlike his friend and associate, Mark McKenzie, he hit the pavement running and jumpstarted a career that would land him a major Star Trek feature within only two more years. Many of his fans still long for the day when this style of fully orchestral writing will resurface in his career.  ****   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Cliff Eidelman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.29 (in 17 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.2 (in 8,860 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.

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