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The personality of Elfman's score for Tulip Fever is purely his own, the work sounding undeniably like his prior scores of similar instrumentation and character. That familiar sense is comforting but also a detraction in that the score's themes, when not dwelling in mundane obscurity, tend to remind of the composer's better scores. The choice of players certainly has much to do with this sound, skittish strings, percussion, and piano defining the score's soundscape. Celeste and wishy-washy synth keyboarding join at times, with acoustic guitar and other plucked and strummed equivalents for the era offering tones specific to the period. Fuller orchestral moments are too rare for this kind of story, audiences expecting sappiness that Elfman never provides; he is more comfortable using his fuller sequences to convey troubling conflict of the heart and doesn't provide overwhelming tonality in any satisfying doses here. In fact, the score's darker passages for percussion are among its more interesting, those players also supplying the best personality to the work's love theme. Otherwise, most of Tulip Fever stumbles through layers of string atmosphere of a slightly challenging melodramatic nature, the themes never breaking through this haze when required. It's the kind of work where the melodies are applied like counterpoint to other wandering ideas in the ensemble, causing the whole to never gain focus. The composer's habit of deconstructing his themes for conflict in the score is also overplayed, the progressions often losing meaning and identity in the more active dramatic passages. Suffering this issue foremost in Tulip Fever is Sophia's theme, representing the lead character. It's a very long-lined melody, with five renditions making up all of "Sophia's Theme." The idea's static progressions have no elegance of movement, the meandering melodic structures getting swallowed up by secondary lines. Still, there is a hint of both Black Beauty and Sleepy Hollow in the progressions of the theme, so listeners may find merit in it despite its poor enunciation in much of the score. In the suite arrangement of "Sophia's Theme," the theme debuts at 0:21 on background piano under high solo vocals and light percussion, comes to the forefront at 0:53 on same piano but still behind other action, continues achieving volume at 1:37 for the cue's crescendo, and builds out of other piano activity at 2:38 and 3:09, the latter rendition more dramatic.

One of the greatest disappointments of Elfman's music for Tulip Fever is the poor development of Sophia's theme in the work, possibly as recognition of her unsuccessful and unhappy life. It is barely recognizable in fragments during the ominous "A Storm is Coming" and fragmented throughout "Devastation" and "The Wait." It tries to recur at 0:58 into "It's Done" but dissolves in troubled string layers. The theme finally opens "The Storm" fully on piano over nicely varied percussion, but secondary lines still overpower the melody here, the theme becoming accelerated and frantically plucked and struck later in the cue. It shuffles through familiar renditions in "Sophia's Theme (Reprise)" with more urgency. The highlight of the score is the love theme for Sophia and her young squeeze, Jan, a carry-over from Sommersby that is more stylish and flowing, providing most of this score's true happiness. Revealed throughout "The Unveiling" (eventually involving celeste and woodwinds nicely), the theme bursts at 0:14 into "The Streets" in heightened percussive rhythm, turns panicked and dark in "Nailed," returns with enthusiasm in "The Streets - Part 2," and struggles mightily to emerge early in "The Grand Finale" before consolidating on piano in a rambling variant to close out the cue with some meager resolution. Meanwhile, another secondary theme is a direct extension of the Peter Parker material from Spider-Man, heard at 0:06 into "Lost" on piano and 0:33 on strings in fuller form, defining the rest of the cue. The idea is reprised early in "Nailed" on flutes over percussive suspense, building to fuller phrasing, and is deconstructed on strings in "The Reveal." Other rather untethered ideas include the tepid and substanceless "Maria's theme" throughout that brief cue, a flowery motif in the middle of "Willem," a theme of sadness in all of "Ultramarine" on strings, and a more notable vocal motif consisting of pairs of descending notes from the solo voice. This final idea opens "Sophia's Theme," "A Storm is Coming," and "Sophia's Theme (Reprise)" but shifts to an ascending phrase late in "The Wait" and goes full Sleepy Hollow to open "Happy Family" in an attractive, all-new melody that highlights the entire score. Overall, that "Happy Family" cue and the two "The Streets" cues present the only five minutes of truly engaging music in another fine but muddy thematic mess of lightly dramatic Elfman waywardness. Undoubtedly, Tulip Fever remains one of the composer's most frustrating missed opportunities despite the success it does experience in some corners. The score's short album is comfortably familiar but naggingly stagnant throughout.  ***   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Danny Elfman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.16 (in 89 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.27 (in 153,897 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.

Total Time: 43:10