PRINTER FRIENDLY VIEW
(inverts site colors)

•	1994 Album

•	2015 Album

•	1994 Album

The composer's solution to his dilemma of writing music for this new genre was to treat The Secret of N.I.M.H. as though it were one of his regular live-action projects, allowing the music to maintain a sense of consistency that would assist the story reach organic appeal. The composer also noted that animated films need great continuity in their music to help ease the frequent transitions between quick scene and angle changes in the narrative. Thus, the end result of his work for The Secret of N.I.M.H. is a score that does not play like a post-2000 animated film score. There are no jumpy phrases, sudden parody blasts, or joke-line ensemble hits. Sparingly mixed into the orchestral performances by the National Philharmonic Orchestra are The Ambrosian Singers, a usual group of collaborators with the composer at the time. Structurally, Goldsmith tackles the score with the same lengthy cue structure as Poltergeist or Star Trek: The Motion Picture, with the music taking its good time building up momentum to its action sequences and then letting off its steam slowly. The choral application, squarely targeted at the supernatural wizardry elements of the plot, is expected and not of particular note, mostly because the composer treats the singers as though they are just another element of the symphonic ensemble. Thus, they perform lines that typically compliment or replace the strings and therefore aren't meant as overtly majestic accents. The orchestra's recording is crisp and surprisingly clear in the upper brass regions during cues of elevated action. There is some archival harshness to the brass that often resulted from the mixes of scores from this era, though this distinction adds an appropriate amount of minimal menace when needed in the tone of the music. A strong and fluid sense of consistency both aids and hinders the score, not allowing Goldsmith to pull out all the plugs in singular moments as he would for Legend. Also of note is the fact that Goldsmith completely abandons his synthetic elements in this recording, a rarity for the composer at the time. This yields moments of soaring symphonic grace such as "Flying High/End Title," which offers victorious renditions of the primary themes in a conservatively pretty environment. The composer wrote upwards of eight themes for the film, though many are targeted at specific characters in such a way as to only be utilized in minimal references in each case.

Of Goldsmith's themes for The Secret of N.I.M.H., the most memorable for most listeners will be the "Flying Dreams" song and its associated thematic integration into the score. Written by Goldsmith, the song is performed by lyricist Paul Williams, whose stylistically lazy vocal slurring perfectly fits the fantasy genre. The melody from this song is adapted throughout the score, with additional character performances and several dynamic orchestral statements, culminating in a pure fantasy mode for the idea at the height of "The House Raising." Its integration into the "Flying High" is reminiscent of the gentle and lyrical treatment of heartfelt melody that existed at the end of Poltergeist, but without the choir (and horror undertones, of course). Of the secondary themes, the wacky idea for Dom DeLuise's crow, Jeremy, is the comedic diversion ("Athletic Type" and the opening 20 seconds of "Flying High") while the fanfare surrounding the "Flying Dreams" melody featured prominently at the beginning and end of the film represents the heroics of the leading fighting rat, Justin. A lamentation theme for Mrs. Brisby's lost husband in "Escape from NIMH" (at 1:20) is a sentimental highlight. On album, the score was released on identical LP and CD formats in the 1980's, existing as one of the very early Japanese-pressed Varèse Sarabande CDs, complete with a piece of foam over the center of the CD in its packaging. Eventually, in 1994, Varèse re-pressed the album with different artwork and notes, taking the opportunity to reorder the tracks into their natural progression. The original CD was long out of print and difficult to find when the 1994 release offered identical contents overall and decent sound quality. In 2015, Intrada Records expanded the presentation on a limited product, but due to hopelessly lost master tapes, only one additional cue ("At Your Service," a very decent addition) and a few demos could be added. It seems as though some reverb was added to this album, which may assist in the depth issues from which this score has always suffered. Ultimately, Goldsmith fans may be disappointed by the lack of a true dynamic soundscape in many parts of this score, but you cannot discount the number of people who fondly recall the effect that The Secret of N.I.M.H. had on them or their children. It's a solid entry all around that only its relatively archival sound quality restrains. Outside of the lovely primary theme and some of the deep brass action pieces, however, it's not quite as impressive as James Horner's scores for Bluth's subsequent ventures.  ****   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.29 (in 113 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.31 (in 143,920 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.