Wednesday 30 November 2011

Love Theme - Lento Assai




This is a variation of the Love theme for Flute and Harp. The lilting harp accompaniment has the added texture of suspended chords that creates a slightly different harmonic feel to what we have heard before. In the melodic line, there are slight changes in its overall shape, most noticeably by the addition of quintuplets which create further embellishment and interest. The simple arrangement for Solo Flute and Harp creates an intimate feeling almost as though it was meant as source music that can be heard by the characters themselves.
















This may be a version that Rozsa created for the proposed song that Esther was to sing. He mentioned in interviews that there was to be a song in the score, Sam Zimbalist (the Producer) and he himself wanted this, it was Rozsa's own idea, probably for the first night scene. You can see it, Judah would have come across her singing on the balcony set, it would be just before the piece in the OST known as 'Love Theme'. This was probably not the existing 'Written in the Stars' song by Webster, which would have been a commercial record. The song might have been placed in the 'Memories' cue too, but for whatever reason it wasn't used, maybe was never even written. The inspiration for those two love-scenes artistically was clearly the 'Song of Solomon', right down to the lattice-work in the windows!

Saturday 26 November 2011

Spirit and Sword (Versions 1 + 2)

His Father's Business - Version B



This is exactly the same as Version A except for the last 5 bars where Rozsa develops the music differently.

The whole notion of this particuar piece is to introduce the adult Christ, the iconic figure that everyone in the audience knows, but whose significance for the story hasn't yet been developed. Rozsa also uses the trio middle of the Christ theme here, as in the 'Miracle' and 'The Christ Theme: Alleliua' in the recorded material. That section also appears briefly in an unused version of 'Battle Preparations' at the point where in the final film, the hero says, 'Once before a man helped me ...'

Friday 25 November 2011

His Father's Business - Version A



This cue belongs originally in the scene after Joseph's carpentry shop, where Jesus walks in the fields at Nazareth, part 1 of the 'Spirit and Sword' piece, before it was replaced.


Finale (Mixed Choir)

Finale - Choral Ending Version B


















I'm amazed just how good soundfonts can sound. With this Choral Ending cue, I first created the midi by playing the SATB score in realtime. I then recorded the choir sounds from both my KN2000 keyboard and Kurtzweill RG200 Digital Piano. Then, using Synthfont and Audacity I recorded using the Florestan Choir Ahh and Boys Choir soundfonts. The four parts where mixed in Audacity and exported as an MP3. I'm really impressed with the sound. The different sources and overdubbing give a depth and meatiness to it, even a feeling of authentic voices singing. It might sound a bit complicated but all of that process took only about one hour for this short cue and it was a total pleasure to do....well worth it to hear a decent mock up of unused/unreleased Rozsa music.