• The Last Emperor

• Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Byrne & Cong Su
• London Studio Orchestra
• Virgin Records
• 1987

I'm not sure what circumstances lead to the strange selection of composers for this score. I'd have thought that given his previous success with Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence and relatively high standing, Ryuichi Sakamoto would have been entirely capable of composing the entire score himself. Despite lengthy notes about the film, the story, the producer and director, no mention of the score is made. A very curious omission on such a soundtrack, especially on one lavished with so much attention, relative to most regular releases.

Fortunately, Sakamoto's music takes up the largest share of the album (around 25 minutes) and is certainly the highlight. His Chinese music is of course suitably idiomatic, but into this he mixes a more traditional symphonic approach so the musical style so it is reassuringly familiar. First Coronation blends from traditional sounding music to a more majestic orchestral build up of the main theme, although this does not appear to be the case. Much of the music is surprisingly jaunty; Where is Armo? gradually picks up into a Philip Glass style chugging string figure which is very fetching, as is the latter half of Rain. The main theme is not only given a proper concert presentation but to variations. The first is with Chinese instruments, but the second seems to be synthesised which is not attractive in the slightest and somewhat unnecessary. Sakamoto's efforts are rounded out by the orchestral version which after a somewhat unpromising start builds into a quite memorable concert piece that is the highlight of the entire album.

David Byrne's Main Title Theme sounds like a demo for a song for Mulan, which is more than disappointing after Sakamoto's majestic efforts. Alright, perhaps not quite that bad, but the percussive, dancing Chinese girls type music rather undoes all the musical good Sakamoto has built up over his half. The other tracks are hardly more appealing and seem terribly inappropriate for the grand, dramatic sweep of the film. Most are written in a similar style of percussion and what sounds like synth bass lines. The album is rounded out by a couple of traditional songs, a Viennese waltz and a The Red Guard Dance, a traditional dance with dancing sound effects and accordion music. A very strange way to end the album that one.

On one of those occasions where the score gets swept up with the film, the score received an Oscar. As one somewhat bitter (although understandably so) reviewer commented, Cong Su now has as many Oscars as Jerry Goldsmith and Bernard Herrmann for a few minutes of plinking music. Take that a stage further and you realise that it is even worse than that given that it is one more than Alex North or Ennio Morricone (in other words, more than none). Sakamoto's effort would have been entirely worthy, but as presented, only the first half with likely appeal to most collectors. Given the epic proportions of the film itself, it seems likely that there was more score to go around than the album suggests, but more of Sakamoto's music seems unlikely.

Rating ~