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| Barry |
Out of Africa: (John Barry) The dominant dramatic
powerhouse of 1985, Sydney Pollack's
Out of Africa was a force to
be reckoned with from both the arthouse and technical perspectives.
Featuring the story of real-life Danish baroness Karen Blixen, the film
conveys a sweeping but ultimately sorrowful personal tale while
glorifying the setting of Kenya at the time of the first World War. Its
epic visuals were well mated to the intimate character interactions and
compelling commentary on lifestyles of the era, especially involving the
disillusionment that many Europeans felt about the "civilized" culture
of the continent when searching out new lives in Africa. When the
baroness and her husband (through convenient arrangement) purchase and
operate a farm in Kenya, she finds herself perpetually alone. When a
dashing adventurer, a pilot and hunter, enters her life, so begins the
charm between Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. While the ultimate fate
of the characters is understandably heavy with sadness, the broad
journey of their lives is, along with the atmosphere of Africa, the
overwhelming attraction of
Out of Africa. Between this film and
Back to the Future, Universal Pictures enjoyed a stunning year.
Out of Africa was nominated for eleven Academy Awards, winning
seven of them across the spectrum of categories from sound to overall
picture. Among the most memorable aspects of the film that led to a
predictable Oscar and Golden Globe was the score by John Barry, who was
experiencing the height of the romantic renaissance in his career at the
time. The soundtrack is a mix of three elements, with Barry's broad
score joined by several classical pieces, Gilbert & Sullivan songs, and
traditional African music, all these modes arranged and overseen by the
composer for diagetic and background applications in the film. These
portions provide a significant presence throughout the narrative, but
it's Barry's orchestral score for the romance of the tale that prevails
in memory.
The grandiose melodies on strings that were pervasive in
the composer's career at the time carried him as a mainstream favorite
from
Somewhere in Time to
Dances With Wolves, the latter
gaining him his final Academy Award. Although
Dances With Wolves
remains the best known of the three by the general public,
Out of
Africa is just as reflective of Barry's stereotypical romantic
flavor, albeit in a shorter and less burdensome dosage. The underlying
structures and instrumental techniques in these works are all pretty
much the same, from the almost obnoxious repetition of phrases to the
use strings to carry a primary melody while conservative brass tones
offer buffer and occasional counterpoint. The use of descending cello
and bass string figures will connect this score to
Somewhere in
Time more often for Barry collectors. Ultimately, the closest
practice run for
Out of Africa was
High Road to China,
which features many of the same plot elements that obviously inspired
Barry in consistent ways. Occasion percussion for the African makes a
marginal contribution. There are two primary and two secondary themes in
Out of Africa, not including the consistent use of a Mozart piece
as another, though most casual listeners will only recall the grand
title theme accompanying the massive vistas of Kenya. It is this
extremely tonal idea that slowly unfolds in flowing string tones and
concludes its statements with bold French horn counterpoint. It is as
lovely as it is sleep-inducing, providing the landscape with the kind of
romantic appeal that the story's protagonist obviously recalls upon
writing about her years in Africa. It also glamorizes the scenery in
ways that true Hollywood epics love to do. This theme opens and closes
the film and album presentations for
Out of Africa with
convincing authority, and in the narrative, it soars in "Flight Over
Africa" and "Beach at Night" and resolves in softer tones during "You
are Karen M' Sabu," the "Flight Over Africa" cue utilizing a light
choral introduction reminiscent of the composer's main melody for
Moonraker.
The other theme of high importance in
Out of Africa
is one of personal plight for the baroness. A tender woodwind theme for
Karen is integrated more thoroughly into the score, occupying four or
five cues in full, culminating in the somber "If I Know a Song of
Africa" near the conclusion. Its flute performances with soft string
backing are reminiscent of Barry's instrumental adaptations of the song
melody in the nearly concurrent
A View to a Kill. The primary
theme for Redford's adventurer is that which actually opens the film;
Mozart's 1791 adagio, "Clarinet Concerto in A Major," accompanies the
character throughout the film in Karen's recollections. As in
Somewhere in Time, the reliance upon a classical piece instead of
Barry's score for a major story concept is odd, especially when
considering the fact that the composer's material is so similar in tone
and could likely have sufficed for the occasion. Barry does actually
provide Redford's character with a beautiful theme, though it is
unfortunately limited to just one cue. Heard on piano in "Have You Got a
Story For Me?," this melancholy, minor-key theme uses extremely elegant
progressions that would sound familiar to enthusiasts of James Horner's
Casper ten years later. For listeners tired of hearing the
primary themes from
Out of Africa throughout the decades, this
one cue and its unique theme could very well serve as the highlight of
the album. A second musical identity associated with the two main
characters is their own distinct adventure theme, hinted during their
initial on-screen meeting in "The Farm" and bursting with symphonic
force in "Safari." In this cue, the horns are allowed to carry the theme
with bold resolve, producing another lesser-appreciated highlight of the
overall work. Film score collectors will find interesting parallels in
structure between this melody and the seldom referenced love theme in
David Arnold's
The World is Not Enough, especially in that
score's "Snow Business" cue. Altogether, these themes usually run back
to back in Barry's
Out of Africa, ensuring its position as an
easy, tonally pleasing listening experience from start to end.
The common style of rendering for each theme in
Out
of Africa helps to soften their mingling, though the secondary
themes in the score are disappointingly short-changed in terms of
development. The only significant break in the listening experience is
the dissonant and percussive "Karen's Journey" material, which was
closer to the traditional music of the region that Pollack had to be
talked out of using for the entire score by Barry. The composer's
large-scale recording mixes were typically beyond their era when he was
at his composing prime, but
Out of Africa is sadly a major
exception. Compared to his similar romance scores of the 1980's, this
one sounds badly muted on its album releases, restraining the expansive
scope of the music compared to its potential on paper. MCA Records
released Barry's identical album presentation in several issues over the
years, most with very similar cover art (even in international
pressings), and, despite an overpriced Gold Edition follow-up in the
1990's, all of them are unsatisfactory in sound. Some Barry enthusiasts
may also object to the insertion of the Mozart piece and some other
source and traditional music in the middle of the score's presentation,
which is cobbled together to combine the score's typically very short
cues into longer mini-suites, some with awkward transitions. Both of
these problems were solved when Varèse Sarabande commissioned
Joel McNeely to conduct the Royal Scottish National Orchestra for an
expanded selection of Barry's music for album release in 1997. While the
full Mozart piece was also recorded, the other incidental music was
removed in favor of additional material written by Barry for the film
but not always edited into the final cut due to Pollack's late
rearrangements. The sound quality on this product is outstanding, the
order of individually separated cues satisfactory, and the
interpretation of Barry's style quite competent. Barry's romantic music,
because of its inherent simplicity in constructs, is typically a safe
bet when it comes to such re-recordings, and more than perhaps any other
composer, his Bronze age works are often improved upon in subsequent,
digitally recorded performances.
Because of the vast improvement in dynamic soundscape
for such an epic score, this re-recording of
Out of Africa is
more necessary for your collection than Varèse Sarabande and the
same ensemble's later and less available recording of
Somewhere in
Time. It took until 2024 before the entirety of the original
recordings were provided on album, Intrada Records supplying a
comprehensive presentation of the full score, a bevy of alternate takes,
and the source music in what proved to be among the last products of
that label's longtime owner, Douglass Fake, who passed away prior to the
pressing of the set. His passion for the score is evident in the careful
arrangement of the film's final cues, many of which frightfully short
but nicely self-contained in Barry's typical style. There is about eight
minutes of truly unique additional material contained in this portion,
but enthusiasts of the score may better appreciate the wide selection of
alternate takes that sometimes explore more interesting variants of the
composer's themes. Barry was known for asking the ensemble to perform
the same short cue a dozen times to yield the best possible result, and
the 2024 album provides 23 minutes of this material. The full spread of
recordings made for the classical and stage source material, as well as
the African traditional music, is featured in a hefty 45 minutes of
additional tracks. The original album arrangements are also appended to
the second CD in the set, and the entirety was remastered. Even with the
renewed attention to the sound quality, don't expect the recording to
sound as vibrant as on similar Barry scores of the era, which is a
disappointment. That issue won't necessarily bother purists who have
long appreciated that original recording, though the listening
experience on the 2024 album can drag because of the long opening and
closing sequences that Barry afforded to each of his short cues. More
casual listeners should not hesitate to seek out the 1997 re-recording
as an alternative that is fairly complete. Convention would dictate that
Out of Africa should receive a five-star rating, but due to its
brevity, questionable production aspects, and failure to really adapt
some of the score's best subthemes into fuller roles, it stands a full
step behind
Dances With Wolves and thus earns a very solid four
stars.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For John Barry reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.85
(in 27 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.54
(in 28,651 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The insert of the MCA Records albums from 1986 and 1995 include no extra
information about the score or film. The 1997 Varèse Sarabande album contains
notes about both, as well as information about McNeely and the RSNO. The notation in
the 2024 Intrada album is extensive, including a note about Intrada producer Doug
Fake's involvement with the product at the end of his life.
