Stephen_Murray's Full Review: Elmer Bernstein by Elmer Bernstein by Elmer Bernst...
Elmer Bernstein (1922-2004) is one of my three favorite composers who mostly composed music for movies (Ennio Morricone and Bernard Hermann are the other two). He was nominated for Academy Awards 17 times, beginning with his jazzy 1955 score for "Man with the Golden Arm" and ending with "Far from Heaven" in 2002. With typical Oscar perversity, the one he won was for "Thoroughly Modern Millie" (1967), a score that was quite untypical of his work (and not on my list of favorites).
For anyone of my generation, his signature work was the them for the 1960 "Magnificent Seven," which, appropriately enough opens the recording his conducted with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Pops in 1992. The jaunty music Bernstein composed for "The Great Escape" is also instantly recognizable for Baby Boomers who went to movies at the time (1963).
Because I had (indeed, still have) it on vinyl, his soundtrack for "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962) with its wistful flute solo and some very Aaron Copland harmonies is almost as recognizable. (I also have his excellent soundtrack for the forgotten 1957 "Kings Go Forth" on vinly.) The music for "Ghostbusters" and "Airplane!" may be as recognizable for a later generation.
Bernstein composed what sounds like archetypal "movie music" (not a term of praise for many) for Cecil B. deMille's "The Ten Commandments" (1956), which closes the disc with bombast. I much prefer the edgy, jazzy music he wrote for adaptations of two Nelson Algren novels, "The Man with the Golden Arm" (1955) "Walk on the Wild Side" (1962) (the first was a far better movie than the second, but I like the music for the second more).
In the quite interesting liner notes, Bernstein notes that in addition to indexing the (Mexican/US) border area, the music he wrote "is often faster in tempo than anything that is actually happening on the screen." The drive of the music increased excitement (in what is otherwise not all that exciting a movie).
His aim for the most recognizable themes from "To Kill a Mockingbird" was to index "an unsophisticated mysticism about a child's imagination," though there is also the more complex music for other scenes (included in the suite hereon).* The magic of childhoos is also the focus of the music Bernstein wrote for "Rambling Rose" (1991)
Bernstein says that his music for "The Man with the Golden Arm" was not "a jazz score," but had to be jazz-inflected, because Frankie (the title junkie) wanted to be a jazz drummer (Frank Sinatra a percussionist rather than a singer? yup.) There are some parts of it that been John Barry's "Goldfinger" music to mind--though if there is influence it had to be Bernstein-to-Barry, since "The Man with the Golden Arm" came first by nearly a decade.
Strings are almost unheard in his music for "The Grifters" (winds plus electronic sounds dominate), which, like the film, mixes mordant humor and noirish nastiness and despair.
The title music accompanying the feral cat prowling on the fence of a New Orleans bordello is a (rare!) solo for the bass fiddle. When it gets into a fight with another alleycat at the end of the opening title sequence (by far the best part of the movie!), the brass flare up. Words added by Mack David to make the theme a song for later in the movie are not included in the orchestral selection on the disc.
Bernstein was aiming for "euphoric" in his music for "Hawaii" and to use Polynesian percussion instruments (there not being melodic ones). He reported himself delighted that Hawaiians told he it sounded Hawaiian and that it is one of the scores of which he is proudest. It leaves me cold (something I was reminded last week that Hawai'i is not--except high on its volcanoes). It swirls plenty in the middle, but this seems somewhat cliched.
Like the Steve McQueen character in "The Great Escape," the music aims to be nose-thumbing (like "Colonel Bogey," resurrected for "The Bridge on the River Kwai" to great success). Again, the lush string sound of stereotypical "movie music" is MIA, with clarinets and tuba predominating.
Bernstein did not write the song "Ghostbusters!" and the jaunty music he wrote was usurped by that once popular song. The light-hearted (comic) music strikes my ears as like Nino Rota's music for Fellini movies with some conventional ghost tremoloes. It contrasts with the nostalgic music for the tv documentary series "Hollywood and the Stars" (which is string-heavy) and "Rambling Rose."
The music for "Heavy Metal" (1981) brings the music of Olivier Messiaen to mind, because it features the Ondes Martenot (played on the original soundtrack by the very woman for whom Messiaen wrote, Jeanne Loriod). The Ondes Martenot returns for the struggle with disability (and Ireland?) in "My Left Foot" (1989). There is also some Coplandesque music, both of the elegiac kind and of the upbeat not quite raucous (El Salon Mexico, Rodeo) kind.
Bernstein says that the music for "The Ten Commandments" "reflects Cecil B. deMille more than me," and that deMille had a Wagnerian vision (bombastic and leitmotif-driven). The music sounds Miklos Rosza (bombastic with blaring brass and lush strings to me)--"movie musicy."
Although I am underwhelmed by the music for "Hawaii" and "The Ten Commandments," I like everything else and especially like the music for the two Algren novel-based films, the also jazz-inflected music for "The Grifters" and the range from delicate to muscular music for "To Kill a Mockingbird." And I still find the theme from "The Magnificent Seven" stirring. If I'd been choosing, there'd be music from "The Sweet Smell of Success," though Elmer Bernstein's jazz-inflected scores are represented well already.
The haunting Ondes Martenot music for "Rambling Rose" and, especially, "My Left Foot" is growing on me. I don't find the swirl in "Rambling Rose" cliched as I do that in the "Hawaii" music
The recording, conducted by Bernstein himself and digitally is definitive (like Leonard Bernstein's recordings of his own compositions). And the liner notes he wrote are lucid and informative (informing much of my review, for instance!).
Magnificent Seven 5:01
To Kill A Mockingbird 8:16
Man With The Golden Arm 4:04
The Grifters 8:13
Walk On The Wild Side 3:59
Hawaii 5:01
The Great Escape 2:17
Ghostbusters 2:48
Hollywood And The Stars 3:01
Rambling Rose 2:57
Heavy Metal 4:55
My Left Foot 7:13
The Ten Commandments 7:49
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