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The Secret of N.I.M.H.
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2007 That's Entertainment
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Composed, Conducted, and Produced by:
Orchestrated by:
Arthur Morton
Performed by:
The National Philharmonic Orchestra and The Ambrosian Singers
Lyrics by:
Paul Williams
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LABELS & RELEASE DATES
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ALBUM AVAILABILITY
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Both Varèse albums were regular U.S. releases, but the 1986
album was already long out of print by the time the 1994 album debuted. The 2007
That's Entertainment re-issue of the same contents was still commercially
available when Intrada offered its expanded album in 2015, a product limited to
an unknown quantity and retailing primarily through soundtrack specialty outlets
for an initial price of $20.
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AWARDS
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None.
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ALSO SEE
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Buy it... on any of its albums if you seek an impressive preview of
Jerry Goldsmith's future wealth of strong, consistent music for
children's fantasy and animated films.
Avoid it... if a more outwardly dynamic and powerful spirit
uninhibited by archival sound quality is what you seek in your Goldsmith
material of lyrical romanticism and grand fantasy scope.
BUY IT
 | Goldsmith |
The Secret of N.I.M.H.: (Jerry Goldsmith) Animated
films were undergoing a significant change in the 1980's, one which
would eventually lead to the vast business of made-for-video animated
pictures for small children. For a long time, Disney held a grip on the
large-scale, animated film industry, but by the time The Little
Mermaid revived their dominance in 1989 after a long string of
underachieving entries, several offshoots of that industry were
thriving. One such competitor was director and producer Don Bluth, who
had been a Disney animator until 1979, when, sensing a potential decline
at Disney, he started his own animation business. Eventually, he would
be best known for bringing to life the highly acclaimed An American
Tail and The Land Before Time series. One of his early
efforts was the animated, non-musical adaptation of Robert C. O'Brien's
"Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of N.I.M.H.," the tale of rats made
intelligent in human laboratories that escape to try to form a community
for themselves in the wild. They encounter a family attempting to find a
new home before they are obliterated by the harvesting of the farm on
which they live. Between the amount of illness and death in the story
and the dark fantasy concepts abounding, the story frightened more than
a few small children. But Bluth certainly triumphed in stealing some
attention from Disney, with The Secret of N.I.M.H., despite
struggling initially to recoup its budget, meeting with critical and
eventual popular success and remaining a sentimental favorite for many
viewers decades later. One of the reasons for this positive response was
the surprisingly traditional orchestral score for the movie by Jerry
Goldsmith. The early to mid-1980's were a remarkable time in Goldsmith's
career (and some will argue with good reason that it was his best), and
The Secret of N.I.M.H. was an entry during this period that
represented a major departure for the veteran composer. He had never
scored an animated picture; in fact, his body of work was limited on the
children's front, with the majority of attention paid to him for his
horror, science fiction, and war drama scores at the time. Goldsmith
admits that he at first did not know how to go about scoring the film,
remarking that animated films require a different role for the music
than their live action counterparts.
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.
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1986 Varèse Album Tracks ▼ | Total Time: 48:31 |
1. Main Title (3:14)
2. The Tractor (2:58)
3. The Sentry Reel/Story of N.I.M.H. (6:04)
4. Step Inside my House (4:41)
5. The House Raising (4:34)
6. Moving Day (7:56)
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7. No Thanks (2:01)
8. Allergic Reaction/Athletic Type (2:41)
9. Flying Dreams - Lullaby (3:17) - performed by Sally Stevens
10. Escape from NIMH/In Disguise (4:59)
11. Flying High/End Title (2:41)
12. Flying Dreams (3:25) - performed by Paul Williams
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1994 Varèse and 2007 T.E. Album Tracks ▼ | Total Time: 49:05 |
1. Main Title (3:13)
2. Allergic Reaction/Athletic Type (2:40)
3. Flying Dreams - Lullaby (3:45) - performed by Sally Stevens
4. The Tractor (2:58)
5. The Sentry Reel/The Story of N.I.M.H. (6:03)
6. Escape from N.I.M.H./In Disguise (4:58)
7. Flying Dreams (3:21) - performed by Paul Williams
8. Step Inside my House (4:40)
9. No Thanks (2:01)
10. Moving Day (7:57)
11. The House Rising (4:33)
12. Flying High/End Title (2:38)
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2015 Intrada Album Tracks ▼ | Total Time: 63:01 |
1. Main Title (3:15)
2. Allergic Reaction/Athletic Type (2:42)
3. Flying Dreams - Lullaby - performed by Sally Stevens (3:18)
4. The Tractor (3:00)
5. The Sentry Reel/The Story of NIMH (6:05)
6. At Your Service* (3:39)
7. Escape From NIMH/In Disguise (5:02)
8. Flying Dreams - performed by Paul Williams (3:21)
9. Step Inside My House (4:43)
10. No Thanks (2:03)
11. Moving Day (8:00)
12. The House Raising (4:36)
13. Flying High/End Title (2:39)
The Extras: (10:09)
14. Flying Dreams - End Title Demo* - performed by Sally Stevens (3:15)
15. Flying Dreams - Demo* - performed by Paul Williams (3:21)
16. Flying Dreams - Demo (Piano Duet)* (3:24)
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* previously unreleased |
The sparse 1986 album's insert contains a rare note from Goldsmith about
the score. That product came with a foam ring to hold the CD in place (a definite
sign of a very early CD product). The 1994 album's insert features a note about
Goldsmith's career up to the date of pressing. The insert of the 2007 That's
Entertainment product offers no information about the score or film. That of the
2015 Intrada album presents notation about both.
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