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| Zimmer |
The Prince of Egypt: (Hans Zimmer/Stephen Schwartz)
The biggest question about Dreamworks' 1998 venture into animation was
how exactly the studio could base a children's musical on the first
chapters of the Book of Exodus without offending half of the world's
population (if not more). Several careful consultations with religious
historians and delicate liberties taken with the story led to a product
that worked surprisingly well, intelligent enough to impress adults
(including critics) and with vivid colors and compelling emotional
relationships to keep the kids interested. Regardless of the sticky
subject matter, the animated musical genre had been dominated by Disney
throughout the 1990's. In 1997 and 1998, however, 20th Century Fox,
Warner Bothers, and Dreamworks were all reaching into that same well of
vast potential earnings. While Fox had mostly succeeded with
Anastasia, Warner's
The Quest for Camelot was a monumental
failure (despite some outstanding music). Dreamworks would easily exceed
both in competition, matching Disney's
Mulan in 1998 with immense
praise and surprising financial returns given the topic of the story.
Dreamworks decided to stay true to the structure of the typical musical
for the era, meaning that the tunes for the songs would need to be
written early enough in the production process to properly synchronize
the story with its singing. Broadway songwriter and lyricist for the
recent Disney musicals by Alan Menken, Stephen Schwartz was finally
given the opportunity to write his own songs for a major feature. The
scoring duties were the assignment of Hans Zimmer, who had not only won
an Academy Award for
The Lion King, but was involved with the
early Dreamworks production
The Peacemaker the previous year.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of these two artists' involvement
with the songs and score for
The Prince of Egypt is the fact that
Zimmer seemingly came on board as early as Schwartz did in order to
arrange the film's songs. He asserted late in 1998 that he had been
involved with small portions of the song creation as early as 1995 and
had even contributed suggestions to help shape the film's story.
Unlike
The Lion King, Zimmer's involvement at the
very start of production for
The Prince of Egypt gave him a more
integral attachment to the concept. While touting his own work on the
songs, he is not quick to mention the collaboration with Schwartz, who
is solely credited as the writer of each of the six cast songs. The
balance between Schwartz's writing of the melodies and their
instrumental arrangements by Zimmer and a vast collection of Media
Ventures talent has always been somewhat nebulous, due in part to the
large quantity of contributing talent in the editing and recording
process. The project caused Zimmer significant anxiety, for his
determination to avoid offending viewers caused him to fret about the
appropriateness of his music for the daunting Biblical story. He
intentionally whipped through the process of writing the hour of
underscore for the film in just one month, quickly handing the score
over to his assistants after years of stirring the pot of ideas for the
production. As Zimmer told Film Score Monthly at the time of the film's
release, "While recording in London, I was the most miserable I have
ever been. I was so grumpy because I thought I ruined the whole movie. I
dropped into a complete insecurity. I was convinced none of the music
would fit the action. Then, I became more and more panicked and didn't
tell anybody. I was impossible to be with." The scene addressing the
burning bush was particularly troublesome for Zimmer, but after
assurances from his staff, he later said, "I think I pulled it off."
Unlike the rest of the score for the film, the "Burning Bush" cue was
one instance in which Zimmer did not have any visuals to write for, a
situation that resembled the uncertainty over synchronization with
The Lion King. Like the songs, Zimmer's music for the scene would
guide the animators' pacing. The Media Ventures staff proved to be more
crucial in the recording and editing process of
The Prince of
Egypt than perhaps ever before or since. One of these members, and
the most likely candidate is Jeff Rona (who had both performed on
woodwinds for Zimmer's scores and arranged his commercial albums), took
Zimmer's 88 recorded tracks for the film and finally organized them into
the final product.
The performing ensemble for
The Prince of Egypt is
staggering, which is likely part of the reason the production of the
score and the songs' instrumental arrangements was a nightmare for
Zimmer. Orchestral players making up several of London's notable
ensembles were combined with familiar soloists from earlier Zimmer
projects and the usual Media Ventures clan who, inevitably, helped the
composer lend the music its familiar masculine edge with a host of
synthetic accents and mixing techniques. Israeli chanteuse Ofra Haza was
the first choice by Zimmer to contribute to
The Prince of Egypt.
"I have always loved Ofra and asked for her," Zimmer recalled. "She is
tremendous." When Zimmer first sat down to tackle the score's content,
he claimed that the score he consulted with, interestingly, was John
Williams'
Schindler's List (with the common denominator being the
treatment of religious persecution, of course) and, after studying it
closely, claimed that "The one thing I didn't want to do is go anywhere
near that music." Indeed, Zimmer had to deal with the same tricky
balance of addressing the weight of the religious story with the PG
rating of the film. Schwartz faced the same dilemma as well, and he
arguably achieved a better result. His six songs followed the pattern of
most musicals, with heroic ballads of hope, a fierce vocal battle with
the villain, and even a variation on the usual comedy relief piece.
Perhaps one of the reasons Zimmer was worried about the viability of his
work on the score was because of the success of Schwartz's
contributions. There was much disagreement with this point at the time,
with reviewers all choosing different songs as the highlight of the
music. The magazine
Entertainment Weekly wrote at the time that
"No amount of positive thinking can make Schwartz's quasi-religious show
tunes fly." Audiences chose their own overwhelming favorite, however,
with "When You Believe" earning accolades ultimately resulting in
another Oscar for Schwartz. The pop variation of that song, performed by
Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, sustained itself on Billboard's charts
for a while, though Schwartz's refusal to give Kenneth "Babyface"
Edmonds co-writing credit for that version of the song for the purposes
of the Oscar nomination caused significant controversy (and boycott
threats) before the ceremonies in 1999.
Despite a somewhat muddled response from critics,
The
Prince of Egypt's songs remain a crowning mainstream achievement for
Schwartz, every one featuring uniquely positive attributes. Each of them
manages to balance the religious gravity of the story with the innocence
of the children's genre. His melodies are attractive and the
instrumental accompaniment by Zimmer's staff offers strong connections
to the style of the surrounding underscore. The opening of the film
features the powerful and compelling song "Deliver Us," an ensemble
expression of persecution with heartbreaking lyrics and two gorgeous
lead female performances in its middle sections. The uplifting and
buoyant "All I Ever Wanted" is the closest Schwartz comes to emulating
the hero's song of aspiration that Alen Menken made famous throughout
the decade. The determination in this short song is convincing and the
queen's reprise is elegantly merged with the river melody from "Deliver
Us" at its conclusion. While "Through Heaven's Eyes" is a common
favorite for listeners, its folk rhythms betray the resounding voice of
Brian Stokes Mitchell. The Steve Martin and Martin Short song "Playing
With the Big Boys" is surprisingly sinister, with tones similar to the
villain's song from
Anastasia. One of the more terrifyingly
effective songs of recent animation history comes with "The Plagues,"
which challenges the lyrical nature of the film's early songs with
deliberately harsh chanting that battles quite strikingly with a
pseudo-reprise of "All I Ever Wanted" (performed by Amick Bryam). Ralph
Fiennes's contribution in the last 45 seconds is intentionally mixed at
a distance, likely to hide the lack of power behind his voice. The
primary song from the film is "When You Believe," the sorrowful but
optimistic equivalent to "God Help the Outcasts" from
The Hunchback
of Notre Dame. A graceful duet between Sally Dworsky and Michelle
Pfeiffer yields to children's voices and a highly percussive rhythmic
presence in the last minute to address the victorious stance reprised at
the film's finale. It is "When You Believe" that went on to Grammy and
Oscar recognition in its radio-blitzed pop variant, despite terrible
editing that places percussion on top of both voices and wastes the
precision of those singing talents with an ambiguous mix.
To his credit, Schwartz achieved a level of consistency in
his songs that was rarely heard in musicals at the time, especially when
compared to Menken, who was often a "hit and miss" prospect. Other than
the brief performances by Fiennes and Pfeiffer, there are no singing
misadventures from Val Kilmer, Patrick Stewart, Jeff Goldblum, or the
remainder of the major cast. If you compare Schwartz's contributions to
The Prince of Egypt with the rival songs for
Mulan and
The Quest for Camelot, you'll note that Schwartz fares well next
to
Mulan, against which the scores for the two ventures split the
genre's Oscar votes and doomed one another's chances at gold. Unlike the
songs for
Mulan, which failed to be integrated well with the
style of Jerry Goldsmith's score, the songs for
The Prince of
Egypt are both strong in their melodies and performances, as well as
very effectively utilizing the arrangements by Zimmer's troop to promote
consistency with the score. Neither really stands up to the quality of
the songs in
The Quest for Camelot, which neglected to really
address Patrick Doyle's score (and vice versa) but topped the list with
at least two stunners in the songs alone. The song "The Prayer" from
The Quest for Camelot beats anything Schwartz has to offer, but
the failure of the film reduced that song (among the others for the
obscure project) to "hidden gem" status despite a Golden Globe win. As
expected, the end credits for
The Prince of Egypt are the host
for some of the pop songs that populate the end of the main album for
the film. The pop variant on "Through Heaven's Eyes" and "River Lullaby"
are from the pen of Schwartz, the latter song performed by Amy Grant
being an extension on the beautiful middle portion of "Deliver Us." The
other two songs are tacked on without any relation to the project and,
like the "K-Ci & Jo Jo" version of "Through Heaven's Eyes," will be
intolerable for most film score collectors. One of the significant
problems with the five pop songs on the album (including the opening
presentation of "When You Believe") is their mastering in relation to
the remaining material. Their gain levels are so blatantly and
obnoxiously loud that you simply cannot switch between the cast songs
(and score) and the pop songs without significant volume
adjustment.
For fans looking for the original score by Hans Zimmer for
The Prince of Egypt, a completely satisfying listening experience
is an elusive prospect. The score was the final entry in a string of
quality production by Zimmer dating back to
The Lion King. While
the major assignments continued to roll in after 1998, Zimmer's scores
would be more and more diluted by redundancy and a reliance on credited
secondary writers. Interestingly, though, this score represented
Zimmer's second Middle Eastern score in his previous three efforts at
the time, and even though it was composed for a completely different
genre of film,
The Prince of Egypt expands stylistically on
some of the ethnic traits heard in
The Peacemaker's Sarajevo
material. In some ways, Zimmer's fears about the appropriateness of his
music were realized, while in other regards, he succeeded very well. His
themes for the film are diverse, covering eight different characters and
plot elements. But his enunciation of these themes isn't as strong as
necessary to truly identify specific themes with those ideas. The only
themes that stand out among the eight are those for God, Ramses, and the
Egyptians. The Egyptian theme, heard most prominently in the last half
of "The Reprimand," will recall
The Peacemaker. Additionally,
Ofra Haza's vocals will, to many Western ears, sound similar to Mamak
Khadem's tones from the previous score. The theme for Ramses is a bold,
prototypical Zimmer expression of gloom, existing prominently in
"Goodbye Brother" and "Cry." The most impressive Zimmer theme, however,
is the one for God, explored with grandeur in "The Burning Bush" and
"Red Sea." The choral crescendos in these two tracks compensate for all
the ills that the remainder of the score tends to suffer, spectacularly
aiding in the film's quest for spritual identity and a sense of
historical importance. Singular moments of thematic complexity are
littered throughout
The Prince of Egypt, though Zimmer's heavy
instrumentation can obscure them. The overlapping of the God and
Egyptian themes in the fourth minute of "The Burning Bush" is a
highlight, though. The score's only moment of disjointed pounding is
late in "Red Sea," an unfortunate slip back into Zimmer's
action-oriented comfort zone.
A few specific aspects of the score's production should be
discussed to fairly evaluate Zimmer's work. First, whether you like it
or not, the composer's trademark style of a masculine rendering prevails
throughout the recording. Despite the contributions by solo and ensemble
voices, as well as an array of specialty Middle Eastern instruments, the
synthetic backing to the orchestral recordings, or perhaps the usual
mixing of that recording to replace the organic sound with a harsh
electronic edge, causes the score to lose some of its authenticity given
the topic. At some moments, Zimmer excels past this habit, but
The
Prince of Egypt is, on the whole, extremely consistent with his
occasionally overbearing 1990's style of simplistic bombast, and this
will bother some listeners who are not convinced of the match with this
subject matter. In terms of Middle Eastern flavor, the minor-key cliches
are there, but they aren't as obvious as Alan Menken's similar use in
Aladdin. Both the scores for
The Lion King and
The
Prince of Egypt rely on wholesale awe to float their major cues,
with scope and straight forward beauty the specialty of the moment,
though only the choral ensemble performances in the latter score can
compete with the magical woodwind solos in the former. Secondly, Zimmer
doesn't utilize the melodies from the songs often in his underscore,
creating somewhat of a disconnect between them. Another aspect of
Zimmer's involvement with
The Prince of Egypt that is worth
mentioning is the even flow between the cast songs and the score. Their
presentation on album is seamless, and this editing works because of
simple fact that Zimmer's team of Media Ventures assistants arranged the
accompaniment to the songs so that Zimmer's same drum pads, electric
bass, and other trademark instrumental sounds existed in the songs as
well. The problem that Zimmer fans ran into with the score is that only
half of its length was available on the main commercial album for the
film and, as was typical for Zimmer as well, the versions of the music
heard on the album did not match the mix that was used in the film. The
cues "Red Sea," "Goodbye Brother," "Death of the First Born" exist in
multiple mixes, as do the songs "Deliver Us" and "When You
Believe."
The album situation didn't help the confusion,
unfortunately forcing fans to search for various bootlegs to find
relief. Dreamworks initially released three major commercial albums for
The Prince of Egypt, with only the official soundtrack featuring
any of the music actually heard in the film. The "Inspirational" and
"Nashville" song compilations are useless to film score collectors and
should be shunned. Shortly after the theatrical release of the film,
Dreamworks issued "Collector's Edition" copies of
The Prince of
Egypt that include a short amount of music from the film in
combination with songs from all three song compilations. It was a teaser
product bundled initially with toys and available only at Walmart
stores, the soulless box store for the obese and destitute of America.
Two versions of the short 20 to 25-minute release exist, offering either
one or two tracks of score not available on the main commercial album.
All of them have the stunning "Chariot Race" track, which not only
features the romping survey of the score's themes in the first three
minutes actually devoted to that scene in the film, but also tacks on
the film's finale for another three minutes. This latter half of the cue
is the true highlight of the entire score, finally working the songs
into the score with glorious results. Featuring a massive choral
rendition of "Deliver Us" and weaving an intelligent interpolation of
the song "When You Believe" into the fabric of the score, the victorious
conclusion to this cue is not to be missed. Ironically, this recording
still isn't the actual music that you hear in the film, but it's a close
representation and stands as the single best score cue that Zimmer has
to offer here. Some of the "Collector's Editions" also include the "It is
Only Beginning..." cue, which accompanies the "Nile of Blood" scene and
serves up a dose of the "When You Believe" melody as well as all of
Zimmer's three most prominent themes. Although this track appears on the
version that is more difficult to find, it really isn't worth much fuss.
While the addendum CD was available in Walmart for incredibly cheap
prices, it temporarily fetched significant sums (over $50) worldwide, as
the score-collecting market snatched it up.
For the vast majority of mainstream listeners and
casual soundtrack enthusiasts, the commercial album alone will suffice.
For those who maintain a somewhat healthy collection of Zimmer's works,
the addition of the three Zimmer cues in two tracks on Dreamworks'
promotional "Collector's Edition" will be a reasonable addition for a
far more manageable price ten years later, with the best cue from either
album on that smaller release. For the die-hard Zimmer collectors,
however, the 30 minutes on the commercial album and 10 additional
minutes on the Walmart album will fail to address a few notable cues heard
in the film, including the hieroglyphics nightmare scene (among others).
There also exists, of course, the film versions of the aforementioned
cues and songs, amounting to another additional twenty minutes that you
could really rip from the film itself. Early versions of a bootleg did
just that, though these traded albums featured irritating sound effects
and often padded their running time on the second CD with music from
other Zimmer projects. In the mid-2000's, however, refined versions of
the unreleased score and the material actually used in the film was
leaked. The resulting 2-CD bootlegs of 80+ minutes of music are the
complete representations of all the music from the film, but the
additional material they offer is perhaps not as impressive as the
simple task of rearranging all of the film versions of the various score
and songs into a loyal listening experience. Some sound quality issues
remain, too. Overall,
The Prince of Egypt does have its
weaknesses, but it's an enjoyable and well conceived collection of songs
and score. The songs will easily appeal to fans of the genre, and
Zimmer's score will likewise appease fans of his distinct style of the
era. There are lingering questions about the effectiveness of that
electronically aided style, and Zimmer's handling of this multitude of
themes and the song melodies remains an easy target for criticism. The
album situation is somewhat souring as well, especially with the country
and religious albums muddying the waters. But even with only the regular
commercial album, you hear a score with the intensity of epic
proportions that fellow animated genre composers Alan Menken and Randy
Newman have difficulty obtaining consistently. It's an entertaining
listening experience with a handful of excellent highlights.
@Amazon.com: CD or
Download
- Songs: *****
- Score: ****
- All Album Releases: ****
- Overall: ****
| Bias Check: |
For Hans Zimmer reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.86
(in 118 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.01
(in 290,591 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The insert for the 'Original' commercial release includes a lengthy list of performers, both
instrumentally and vocally, as well as lyrics for the songs. The 'Collector's Edition' contains only a
single-page slip insert with no extra information about the music. The bootleg covers vary widely.
