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PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of The Secret of N.I.M.H. (Jerry Goldsmith)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
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.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
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. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
1986 Varèse Album:
Total Time: 48:31
1994 Varèse and 2007 T.E. Album: Total Time: 49:05
2015 Intrada Album: Total Time: 63:01
* previously unreleased
NOTES & QUOTES:
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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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from The Secret of N.I.M.H. are Copyright © 1986, 1994, 2007, 2015, Varèse Sarabande, Varèse Sarabande, That's Entertainment, Intrada Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 6/4/03 and last updated 4/12/16. |
