James Horner's Music

[Maria Fernandez]

Ok guys, sorry if this has been discussed b4 but here goes.
what did you personally think of the music made for James Cameron's Titanic?
I still cry when i hear it. the one that really gets to be is 'Death of Titanic' it really makes u fell the horror disaster and shock and fear people were feeling at the time.
I also love "Take her to sea, Mr murdoch" which is played during the engine scenes, it really gives u that sense of Power that the ship had, storming through the waves.

 

[Alicia Windsor]

You're definitely not the only fan of the soundtrack. I love the songs Southampton and Rose, Southampton because it evokes the excitement of that day, and Rose because it's so romantic. You're right, Death of Titanic really is one of the more haunting pieces on the CD. It's my favourite CD (along with Back to Titanic, of course).

 

[Deborah Kogan]

Yes, I love that score, too. And my favorite part is also "Take her to sea, Mr. Murdoch".

 

[Stephen Hurst]

Hi Maria,

I Agree with you there. James Horner certainly did a excelent job in = capturing the scene in his unique way. My personal favorites too are = 'Take her to sea Mr Murdoch' and 'Death of Titanic', the last bings a = tear to my eye each time...

Kind Regards,

Stephen

 

[Alex McLean]

I love 'Southampton' (CD 1) and 'Epilogue - The Deep and Timeless Sea' (CD 2). They are just so majestic, and at the same time, so ghostly. I also love the small piece of Southampton in 'Titanic Suite', and the music when the Grand Staircase dome collapses ('A Building Panic', CD 2). I also love the full power of 'Take her to Sea, Mr. Murdoch' when they show that large full shot of the ship plouging out from Ireland. Soundtracks are my favourite types of music, and I am always listening to Hans Zimmer's scores from Pearl Harbor and Gladiator, and of course, Horner's Titanic pieces. Truely amazing.

 

[Bob Godfrey]

This has got me thinking in general about atmospheric music which aims to capture the varying moods of the sea. There's Ralph Vaughan Williams' Sea Symphony and (if we include ice) his Sinfonia Antartica based on the dramatic score for the 1948 film Scott of the Antarctic (and guaranteed to freeze your blood). Then there's Debussy's La Mer, for generally more pleasant associations. I reckon Dave Gittins could suggest a lot more. Are you there, Dave?

 

[Fiona Nitschke]

Totally agree re Ralph Vaughn Williams and his Sinfonia Antarctica. Wrote a fair bit of sea and thematically associated music did RVW.

While I'm not Dave, I'm from a similar latitude and would add to the list: - The Sinking of the Titanic by Gavin Bryars. What can I say? (Except that I really miss having a CD player...) - Mendelsson's Fingal's Cave (Hebrides) Overture. You can 'hear' the waves breaking on the shore. - Wagner's Overture to The Flying Dutchman (as much as I've ever heard of the opera, but what a howling, windswept ocean atmosphere this overture has). - Smetana's The Moldau, an atmospheric piece following a river from two sources through to joining the Elbe rather than being about the sea, but very evocative of water. I'll stop there before I get onto to tributes (rather than tributaries) to the Thames by Mr Handel.

I freely admit that Debussy's La Mer does nothing for me, while recognising that others would hold that suite of symphonic sketches a favourite. Didn't Elgar write some 'sea' music too? There's something else, a half remembered fragment of melody around an ocean, bubbling around in the back of my memory. I wonder if it will bubble to the surface or remain in my equivalent of the Marianas Trench?

Someone else's turn...

 

[Fiona Nitschke]

Er....

Sorry about the formatting of the previous post. I'm on ET-lite tonight and the email's formatting was eaten on its journey through cyberspace to the board. It was a list, really it was, with points'n'all.

 

[Bob Godfrey]

No worries, Fiona, it comes across ok. I'm now trying to think of other film soundtracks. Going back a bit, there's The Sea Hawk by Erich Korngold, which is often cited as a masterpiece but I can't recall it well enough to offer an opinion. Long before your time, no doubt, and even mine! Plus the music from Khachaturian's ballet Spartacus which translated amazingly well as the theme of the TV drama series The Onedin Line. I don't recall being too impressed by the scores of ANTR or any of the other shipwreck films we've been discussing lately. All credit to Horner for his Titanic score, though.

 

[Dave Gittins]

The Elgar Fiona is thinking of is Sea Pictures, which consists of poems by several poets including Elgar's wife. The "grim grey coast" in the last song is the coast down towards the Great Ocean Road, as Adam Lindsay Gordon saw it. There's a very famous recording by Dame Janet Baker and Barbirolli. The rest of the CD is taken up with the Cello Concerto, played by Jacqueline de Pre. If you don't have it, get it!

Delius wrote a haunting piece called Sea Drift, to words by Walt Whitman.

 

[Fiona Nitschke]

Thanks Dave - I knew there was some Elgar somewhere in the mix. Mmm, nice CD too (must get CD player, must). I've also got an idea that an early English composer (Holborne?) had some rather lovely short pieces related to the sea.

Bob - you're quite right about Khachaturian, I'd forgotten that one. Unfortunately I'm old enough to have watched The Onedin Line and it's ruined that ballet for me forever. Every time that theme starts up all I can see are ship's sails filling with wind...

 

[Bob Godfrey]

Fiona, if you have a CD drive on your PC then you have a CD player. So settle back with a nice cup of tea and enjoy some mood music. Right now mine is playing a disc with three pieces I'd forgotten, all played by the Ulster Orchestra who, like the Titanic, hail from the fair city of Belfast:

Benjamin Britten ... Four Sea Interludes
Frank Bridge ... Suite: The Sea
Arnold Bax ... On the Sea-Shore

 

[Fiona Nitschke]

Benjamin Britten! That was it! Thanks. I was thinking of Peter Grimes and the Four Sea Interludes. Will have to look up Frank Bridge and Arnold Bax, though.

(Erm, yes. I do have a CD drive, but not a working sound card. Long, sad story. Let's not go there.)

 

[Bob Godfrey]

You can still use the drive if you plug some 'phones directly into the socket on the front. The CD I mentioned, btw, is on the Chandos label in the Gallaher British Music Series (CHAN 8473) and dates from 1986.

 

[Dave Gittins]

Ben Britten of course wrote Peter Grimes, which has far more to it than the interludes. He also wrote Billy Budd, which is probably the only opera whose action takes place entirely at sea. And for some really good fun, there's sea-faring of a kind in his Noyes Fludde, complete with a stirring setting of Eternal Father, Strong to Save.

Let's not forget the sea-faring composer, Rimsky Korsakov. whose works feature the sea on several occasions.