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Review of Triumph of the Spirit (Cliff Eidelman)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you respect the melodramatic awe that a truly well
researched and rendered Holocaust score can provide.
Avoid it... if poor depth of sound in recording quality tends to distract you during heavily layered orchestral scores.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Triumph of the Spirit: (Cliff Eidelman) Among the
lesser known dramas about the Holocaust, Triumph of the Spirit
featured the story of a prisoner (Willem Dafoe) who survives the death
camps by becoming a boxing champion over other prisoners at Auschwitz.
Understandably gloomy in the trials of the main character, the film was
ultimately an arthouse affair with a predictably bittersweet ending.
After scoring a string of even more obscure releases, the newly arrived
musician Cliff Eidelman was recommended for a composing position in the
production of Triumph of the Spirit at a very young age, only a
few years out of his music studies. Not many people are familiar with
the scores of Cliff Eidelman from his pre-Star Trek days, but
there is no doubt that Triumph of the Spirit is the strongest of
the young composer's early works. When presented with the prospect of
working on the true WWII/Auschwitz story, Eidelman jumped at the
opportunity, noting that the film had lengthy sequences without
dialogue, allowing the score to flourish in emotion for extended cues.
As part of the process of creating a few demonstration pieces for the
producers of the film, Eidelman manually researched the instrumentation
and language of the Greek Jew culture that was depicted in the story,
and this attention to ethnic detail won Eidelman the job. Because of
those lengthy sequences without dialogue, Eidelman would utilize a large
performing group and chorus to represent the emotional intangibles of
the tale, traveling to Rome to record this score with the large group of
performers and singers of the Unione Musicisti Di Roma. A common
question regarding the choral renditions involves the unconventional use
of language in the spoken chants; the language in which the chorus
performs is actually a native Ladino, a cross between Hebrew and Spanish
that Greek Jews in Spain and Eastern Europe spoke at the time. Eidelman
also took note of the instrumentation from the same pre-WWII time and
regions of Europe. Along with a primary role for strings (which carry
much of the emotional weight of the score), a mixture of Eastern and
Western instruments was used, including guitars, tamboras, mandolins,
and mandolas. Accenting the stark visuals for the film, this precise
choice of instrumentation provides one of the more authentic holocaust
sounds in film score history.
While thematic throughout, the strength and popularity of Eidelman's Triumph of the Spirit is rooted at the emotional level rather than the technical. Perhaps such fine attention was due to Eidelman's enthusiasm for the opportunity to score so largely, or perhaps due to his own family's connection to the Holocaust. Whatever the reason, Eidelman was successful in capturing the essence of the subject matter without resorting to old, Western cliches. Even so, the score, not forgetting its immense scale, is still a tricky piece to enjoy when divorced from the visuals. As you can imagine, Triumph of the Spirit is not a particularly upbeat experience, even with a somewhat happy ending to the storyline in the film (never betrayed by a simple listening to the score). There are extended sequences of horror, as performed with extreme disharmony in the choral performances of "Avram Refuses to Work," "The Slaughter," and "Death March." Where the score lacks in uplifting harmonies, it compensates by impressing you with its powerfully emotional depth. The size alone, which defines melodrama in new terms during such cues as "Salamo Desperately Finds Allegra," is a refreshing surprise. Such moments define Triumph of the Spirit as, by far, Eidelman's most ambitious score. However, the dated studio and mixing technology of the Roman studios will likely cause it to stumble behind Eidelman's more recent recordings. The sound quality is not very dynamic, a shame given that many of Eidelman's best cues for the film fall rather flat because of it. The composer has expressed an interest in perhaps re-recording this score for Varèse Sarabande (and executive producer Robert Townson in particular), the label which has served as the primary sponsor of Eidelman's works. Many of the composer's pre-1990's scores suffer from poor or muted sound quality, and Triumph of the Spirit deserves a fuller treatment beyond the rest. Given that it is one of Eidelman's personal favorites from his own career, it might just happen someday, depending on whether he can truly resurrect his career at some point. Regardless of the frustrations surrounding Eidelman's lack of realized potential in the decades to follow, this early entry is a score that is historically very true to the events in the film, moreso than many of its peers. And avid collectors of Eidelman's more obscure works will tend to readily recommend it as well. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 53:27
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
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