On occasion, there are scores
which have the most catchy theme one could imagine, but listen to
the rest of the score and the illusion of quality composing is
shattered. Of course, the greatest composers don't rest the
entire success of a score on one big theme and Bernstein is truly
a great composer in every respect and duly obliges with a score
filled with other memorable themes and plenty of energy and
incident. The menacing, South of the Border tinged lick for bad
guy Calvera is introduced immediately after the Main Title and
plays in perfect counterpoint to the strident optimism of the
opening couple of minutes. The Mexican bent to the music
continues in several other places, but usually in a more cheerful
vein than Calvera's motif. This is no more apparent than during
the amusing Toreador and Training cues, but also with some quite
lovely acoustic guitar twangs here and there. Elmer Bernstein's contribution to
my esteemed trilogy of most famous western scores (the other two
of course being Morricone's The Good, the Bad and the
Ugly and Moross' Big Country) is of
course every bit deserving of it's status. Where Moross picks up
the expanse of the landscape and Morricone on the lonely stranger
routine, Bernstein hints more at the Mexican angle of the old
west with his kinetic syncopation and brassy orchestration. There
are currently three different versions of the score (as far as I
can tell), the two here as well as another re-recording, which I
gather is pretty good. However, these versions offer the most
complete releases to date. The original recording features
more music than the re-recording, but is in mono, although the
sound is excellent and the performance abrasive and exciting. The
re-recording was originally to be a Varese release, but for some
reason ended up on BMG. The album has evidently been engineered
slightly differently to usual Varese re-recordings and has a much
less muddy sound and actually has the balance between crispness
and reverb down just about right. The playing is exceptional,
even by the typically high RSNO standards and Bernstein conducts
the score with just as much enthusiasm as he didn some thirty
seven years previous. Both are well worth getting as a perfect
compliment to each other. An exceptional score by a great
composer and deserving of a place (or two) in anyone's soundtrack
catalogue. Rating ~ Total Time ~ 56:32 Total Time ~ 67:29
For some strange reason I never much saw myself as a person who actually liked western scores, preferring
instead comedy pastiche versions (take Marc Shaiman's
outrageously entertaining City Slickers 2 for a
start). I don't know why this is, but when I actually got around
to listening to some of the best scores the western genre
offered, I was of course pretty much immediately converted. I may
need some time adjusting to the harsher efforts of Jerry
Goldsmith or Jerry Fielding, but the more glamourous efforts of
Bernstein and Moross are immediately striking and joyously
entertaining. Elmer Bernstein has never really been a composer to
hide his light under a bushel and when he has the opportunity for
exuberence he duly obliges everyone and charges forward with
obvious delight and relish. This is confident music at its most
memorable and inspiring, even the opening repeated, syncopated
chords of the Main Titles don't hide anything and launch straight
into Bernstein's ultra catchy and memorable main theme. It is a
theme which is unlikely to require any introduction to anyone who
doesn't live in caves in Taho (or perhaps Alderney) and brings to
mind all that was manly, exciting and heroic about the wild west.
Re-recording
Original
Recording