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I have it and feel it represents the music well. It’s important to note that they’re not the original tracks (which have never been released in any form, except for as an isolated track on the DVD). I don’t listen to this one a lot anymore, but the music is good, and it’s the only way to get it.
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> Well, although Williams was a successful composer at that time (1971), much of what would be known as his signature music was yet to be written when FIDDLER happened. I doubt Williams’ legitimacy as a composer was ever questioned like Elfman’s has been, and I don’t think his music has ever divided film music devotees the way more idiosyncratic guys like Elfman and Zimmer do.
Yeah, if Elfman did take the job, it would really piss off fans of SWEENEY TODD if he took many liberties. Therefore Elfman working on the picture would be a lose/lose… fans of the musical would bristle, and fans of Elfman wouldn’t be hearing Elfman’s take on anything… just his producing and arranging skills. The Elfman / Burton relationship isn’t in any trouble, and it looks like all parties involved are approaching it the right way.
I really like the finale piece as well, the electronic bits are neat, but a little too dissonant for my tastes. I don’t think it will become my favorite score by him, but I don’t think it’s bad either.
Well, this kind of writing probably requires a good deal of skill, but simply doesn’t make for a terribly good listening experience outside of the movie.
It’s a hard thing to remember that not all filmmusic is good on its own, which of course doesn’t mean that the composer f#@%ed up or was asleep at the switch, but it sympomatic of the movie needing that kind of music.
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but my friend who has says that Young reprised most of Elfman’s main title cue, but wrote his own thing for the “middle” part (where the Doc Ock theme is played in the SM2 main titles).
I haven’t heard about the end titles at all.
Shirley Walker was NOT working with Elfman / Bartek at the time of PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE. If you don’t believe me, look at the end credits of the movie: Lennie Niehaus is credited.
John Coleman conducted the ALBUM of PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE / BACK TO SCHOOL which was done a couple years later. It was a rerecording. Walker didn’t have anything to do with that either.
Shirley Walker did not work on either of the Pee Wee scores. She didn’t orchestrate or conduct. Her assocation with Elfman didn’t begin until BATMAN.
Lennie Niehaus (known for his work on various Clint Eastwood movies) conducted PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE and according to Bartek did a clean-up on the orchestrations.
William Ross conducted BIG TOP PEE WEE, which was orchestrated by Bartek, Steven Scott Smalley and a few others, I think.
I think the answer to your inquiry is that Elfman simply does things differently now then he did back then. I’m not sure orchestration has much to do with it, frankly. Elfman, like most composers, is still pretty much on top of every sound that comes out of the orchestra. And in case you haven’t noticed, Bartek has been heavily involved in pretty much every film Elfman has ever done, except for two or three. SOMMERSBY, which most fans seems to hold in very high esteem, was primiarily orchestrated by Thomas Pasateri (Thomas Newman’s regular guy). Bartek was busy with other projects while that was going on, and could only contribute a little. It still sounds like Elfman of that era and I think it’s pretty damn good.
I’m convinced it IS a new recording.
And for the record again, Bartek did not write anything for the film. The adaptations were done by John Debney AND Debra Lurie. There were recording days where all three would record their own cues for the exact same scene!
I posted something similar to this on the FSM board a few days back, but wanted to repost here (with a lttle new info) in case some of the readers here don’t read that board. Here’s all that I’ve been told from talking with various people who know what the hell is going on…
-Raimi really likes Young’s music and most — if not all — of it will stay in the picture.
-Young had made use of several components from the previous two scores, including the main Spider-Man theme and the Green Goblin theme.
-Sony seemed to have some concern over Young’s love theme, however, and last week paid for two days of sessions where variations of Elfman’s love theme from the first two pictures were recorded. [For the record, Sony had a lot of concern over the love theme back on the first Spider-Man that resulted in Elfman doing a bunch of last minute fixes before the release as well — it sounds like the love theme generates a lot of discussion among the suits there.]
-The adaptations were not done by Debra Lurie… not by Elfman himself or by Steve Bartek. Bartek did, however, orchestrate the adapted cues. Lurie adapted some bits of Serenada Schizophrana for DEEP SEA 3D that Elfman didn’t have time to do himself, and assisted him in revising several cues for the second CHARLOTTE WEB sessions that happened last fall.
-It’s unclear at the moment if the adapted cues will actually be used in the final mix.
-Young finished recording his score this week, and the musicans involved seem to think the music is pretty good!
Well, I’m a assistant editor for film in LA, so some of my info comes from being connected to that business. I hear other stuff from a combination of people I know who are involved with film music in some way (session players, music editors etc). Of course, I learn an awful lot from info that Ryan posts here too: He usually hears a lot more than I do on these matters!
In this case, I happen to have heard a lot of chatter over the last several days at parties and whatnot, so I’m in a rare position to pass info along. It’s juicy gossip in the film music world, so pretty much anyone who has anything to do with that sphere is talking about it how crazy the situation has become.
I really don’t know more than that the Elfman adaptations being recorded today, and it’s somewhat against Raimi’s wishes. When they first started recording, the word was that the studio really liked Young’s score, but were a little dissappointed that it did not sound more like Elfman. I heard about the Bartek material last week, and that they’d be recording for one day (today).
Young is keeping it cool and professional, but it’s really got to be hard to be in his position right now.
The new themes that Elfman wrote will _not_ be part of the equation. The film is out in 6 or 7 weeks, meaning that the sound mix will be happening very very soon. The studio is happy with a good portion of what Young did…. they just wanted more material reprised from the first two pictures because they don’t feel it’s enough like those scores.
The adapted Elfman material is being recorded tomorrow (3/13) and is scheduled for one day.
This is a guess, but I’m guessing the final “score” will be made up of Young’s new music, tomorrow’s sessions, and then sections tracked in from 1 and 2 that they didn’t want to take the time to rerecord.
I’m a little sad about how this is going down, honestly. I mean, my preference would have been to have Elfman do the whole picture of course, and while I’m not a fan of Chris Young, really, I don’t like it when film scores are goat-f***ed together like this at the last minute. I don’t think anyone wins in those situations, and the music clearly suffers.
Yeah, that’s completely wrong. Elfman and Burton didn’t meet until Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. As you know, any bloake can sniff around on IMDB and see that Burton made a couple TV projects before Pee Wee that were scored by David Newman and Michael Covertino (together).
Either he got his facts mixed up or decided to invent something. In either case, he didn’t do any research at all, clearly. It’s not like I had much of an opinion of Jeff Rona to damage to begin with, but oh well.
Elfman _did_ write new themes for SPIDER-MAN 3… at Sony’s request. He did so to maintain his relationship with the studio, and did not know (nor really care) if the material would be used.
The ultimate decision was Raimi’s, he chose to go with Young’s themes. It makes sense that he would, seeing that he could have more contact (and therefore input) with Young.
There was never an Elfman “walk out” on SM3, since he was never really on it in the first place.
Well, a situation like this is sort of like a musical Wortschatz test… people hear what they want to hear. I’m sure there will be a lot of people proclaiming what amazing music this is, regardless of how good it actually might be.
You can also download a QT of the same material in 480 HD here…
http://flash.sonypictures.com/video/movies/spiderman3/Spiderman3_480p_4000kbps.mov
As for the new Young material that plays over the third sequence… well, I think it pretty much sucks! I hope my feelings here are the result of the music getting a bad temp mix… we’ll have to see.
It’s interesting that the first two scenes contain Elfman music that Raimi rejected from the second movie.
Elfman has a great relationship with Sony, and he did indeed write new themes for the movie dealing only with Sony directly — not Raimi. He did this not knowing – or really caring -whether his material was to actually be used in the final score. Raimi decided in favor of Young’s themes.
Right now they’re mid-way through recording the music. They’ve kept the main Spider-Man theme and the Green Goblin theme, but everything else is Young’s. Most of the score reportedly doesn’t sound like Elfman, but the studio likes it and all is going well.
Elfman is busy recording THE KINGDOM for a few days this week (with more sessions to come later) and has said that he’s happy not to be involved with that “insane asylum.”
I would guess that the “fate” theme probably is the responsibility theme since there wasn’t really anything in part 2 that would fit that description.
Funny that Elfman writing new themes is apparently not happening, but I’m glad Elfman is staying clear of it. Be the music good or bad, Young should be held accountable.
It can really happen at any time. They can do it a month before or they can do it five months before.
As far as I know, there are no plans to release this, but I hope that changes!
The piece is about 8.5 minutes long and contains several little “movements” which are all quite charming.
The opening/conclusion is a bit reminiscent of Aaron Copeland’s classic “hoe-down” music, and uses a theme that’s a bit similar to the “In The Mud” cue from Charlotte’s Web. The following sections really evoke an old school Hollywood musical feel. There’s a big showy Hollywood fanfare, and my favorite bit: an epic flute theme which first appears half way through and gets a wonderful heroic treatment.
All in all, I’m not sure how this would get released unless it shows up on a compilation of some sort. Of course, my hope is that Elfman writes 4 or 5 more of these and that the success of ‘Serenada Schizophrana’ encourages one of the labels to put up the cash to record them all and do a proper release.
