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Review of Mr. Holland's Opus (Michael Kamen)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you, like many, were impressed by Michael Kamen's
balance of underscore and original source material in the context of the
film, led by fifteen minutes of music (in three cues) that have become a
defining moment in the composer's sadly shortened career.
Avoid it... if you want to hear Kamen blend the rock influences of the film's many song placements into his score outside of the famous "An American Symphony," or if you expect the engagingly resounding tone of that piece to carry over into much of the rest of the soundtrack.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Mr. Holland's Opus: (Michael Kamen) For all the
frustrated musicians and aspiring composers in the world who have never
managed to follow a passion for creating a life-defining piece of music,
the late 1995 film Mr. Holland's Opus is a memorable
encapsulation of that elusive dream. The initially obscure but
eventually successful film follows the adult life of one such tortured
musician/composer who quits his performing career and becomes a teacher
of music at a high school so that he can have more time with his family
and write the orchestral opus of his dreams. Nothing goes as planned,
however, and his life becomes a tortured trial of fate when his son is
born deaf and he never has the financial backing to have his orchestral
piece performed even when it is finished. As his teaching career at his
Portland, Oregon high school concludes in bitter budget dispute, a
collection of his former students combine to form an ensemble that
performs the title character's opus and finally brings meaning to his
endeavors over the previous thirty years. A tear-jerker in every sense,
Mr. Holland's Opus was buoyed by its screenplay and Richard
Dreyfuss in the lead role, both receiving major awards recognition. For
those who collect film music, the film is an outstanding exploration of
the merging of source and underscore material, requiring the original
music to serve multiple, overlapping purposes. On the other hand, a lack
of realism in how some of the music is conveyed, primarily a problem
with the momentous performance of the opus at the end, creates a few
fallacies of logic that are simply too glaring to ignore. Still,
composer Michael Kamen, continuing his collaboration with director
Stephen Herek from The Three Musketeers, managed to very
intelligently address all of the various elements pushing and pulling at
the lead character in the story. Additionally, Mr. Holland's
Opus, by necessity, is filled with a variety of pop culture tunes
extending from 1965 to 1995, a representation of the music that
dominates the interest of the man's pupils despite his efforts to push
them into the classical realm.
While famous works by Ludwig van Beethoven and J.S. Bach represent the ideals of Holland (and, by association, his wife), the influence of rock music forces both the character and Kamen to eventually merge the two genres as the story comes to its logical close. While somewhat controversial at the time, Kamen's handling of Holland's "An American Symphony," yielding in its middle portion to a rock band accompaniment, is indeed quite accurately representative of a wider portion of its namesake than another stuffy piece of classical music would have been. Because Kamen was responsible for writing both Holland's opus and the underscore that intermingles with the wide source usage of songs in the film, he was able to make "An American Symphony" an embodiment of a few of the themes he explores in the film. He wrote three recurring themes and one singular addition for Mr. Holland's Opus, each addressing a main character. Holland himself is given the theme that not surprisingly becomes the core of the opus at the end, heard immediately in "Mr. Holland Begins" and developing in spurts throughout the score. The scope of this theme is wider than nearly anything else in Kamen's career, even eclipsing his Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves overture in terms of its romantic and powerful, full ensemble glory. Holland's wife is afforded a pretty but ultimately somewhat anonymous piano theme introduced in "Iris and Glen" and occupying the opening portions of "An American Symphony." Enthusiasts of James Horner's small character themes will find similarities between that sound and Kamen's approach here. The third theme is the score's hidden gem, a simply gorgeous woodwind idea for Holland's deaf son. Forming a sublime four minute suite in "Cole's Tune," this theme recalls the unashamedly pretty portions of Ennio Morricone's The Mission, a rare feat. While a pop song rendition of this melody (performed by Julian Lennon) closes out the album, "Cole's Tune" joins "An American Symphony" as a necessary highlight from Mr. Holland's Opus. The final theme is a troubled, subdued representation in "Rowena" that slows the album's flow considerably and may go by largely unnoticed for casual listeners. While Kamen's high points in this score are among his best achievements, the score does have some issues with consistent movement and tone. The opening cues have an airy sense of innocence that maintains a fluffy and affable atmosphere, but the pair of "Vietnam (We Know Too Many of These Kids)" and "Rowena" put a formidable, ten-minute halt to the score's redemptive spirit with necessary but unfortunately solemn orchestral meandering in the lower ranks. Some film music collectors will also have no interest in the two classical source pieces, or perhaps the references to Beethoven in Kamen's "Rush to Hospital (While Parents Listen to Beethoven)." Some may also become bored by the composer's extremely conservative stance in the filler portions, failing to evoke the same lyrical consistency as in the just prior Don Juan DeMarco. The score's most troublesome fallacy (on top of the fact that it should take no composer so long to write eight minutes of music) is the split of performing duties between the Seattle and London ensembles employed for the recording. The London players perform the "Mr. Holland Begins" and "An American Symphony" cues, obviously the sound of Holland's dreams. The Seattle ensemble handles the remainder in a smaller environment with less reverb. The difference between the two is startling, and using the powerful London recordings, while understandable in one sense, betrays the logic of what you see on screen in a high school auditorium. Simply put, there's no chance this music would sound so good in that environment, despite the wet reverb added to yield a somewhat dreamy, elusive acoustic soundscape. Additionally, fans of the film will lament the fact that the entirety of "An American Symphony" as heard on album was not actually presented in the film. The rock-enhanced portion of that piece makes much more developmental sense when you hear it the way Kamen intended, on album. Although these discrepancies restrain Mr. Holland's Opus from the highest rating, the trio of "Mr. Holland Begins," "Cole's Tune," and "An American Symphony" offer fifteen minutes of engaging music that stands among the best of film scores in the entire decade, and if competition in 1995 had not been so fierce in the genre, Mr. Holland's Opus would be a worthy candidate to join any list of nominations for the best of that year. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 67:34
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes a note from the director about Kamen and the score,
as well as quotes about the film.
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