Message de la discussion Conan the Barbarian and Destroyer

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From: Hal Jackson <jack...@cs.odu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.music.movies
Subject: Re: Conan the Barbarian and Destroyer
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 1995 14:51:05 -0500 (EST)
Organization: Old Dominion University, Department of Computer Science
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On 28 Mar 1995, RangerBarg wrote:

> Conan the Barbarian is fantastic. You don't need Conan the destroyer
> though. The is very little new music and what's there is ridiculously
> orchestrated and poorly played (by a small, terrible orchestra.)
> JZ
> 
> 

The composer agrees with you. He calls it the "Conan TV score" or
something to that effect. I spoke with Basil Poledouris on the phone
a couple of years ago and he told me about how he & his orchestrator
copied the CONAN I score and did a lot of cutting and pasting for some
cues.

By the way, the worst playing is an early shot in the film when Conan
and company go off on their quest. Prior to and after this scene, a 
syncopated horn part (all 4 horns in unison) is heard, HORRIBLY
out of tune. It is wretched. Even worse is hearing the great music
from the first film massacred by this substandard orchestra. Basil
told me they tried to cut costs. They scrimped a little too much on 
the CONAN II orchestra. 

Basil told me that, on the first film, producer Dino DeLaurentis wanted
a "Flash Gordon" like score with some rock songs in it. They were going
to do the film in lush stereo and the first reel or two in the film was
mixed that way. But DeLaurentis lost faith in the picture and the
budget became tighter. So the film was in mono and Basil had to fight
, in one instance, to get the appropriate number of musicians for
"Funeral Pyre". He told me he had trim the woodwinds and brass a little
to accomodate the budget. He also said he had to fight to be able to 
record the piece at all! This accounts for there being no End Title
(it's tracked from other cues in the film). Painful.......
This call was 2 years ago, but my recollection of the phone call is
still pretty strong.

Also, his daughter Zoe composed the horn theme in the Orgy music.
She was playing it on her recorder! I thought that was funny. I always
wondered who Zoe was and what her role in the composition of CONAN was.
One time I called for Basil and his wife answered. He was unavailable,
and I talked to her briefly. A very nice person. She told me of when
she and Basil went to Rome to record CONAN, and how the score for the
film covered the floor of their hotel room! That was interesting.....

Basil also told me that in the Prelude, there was originally some more parts
(like violin/woodwind stuff) over the main theme in the horns. He
promised to send me a copy of the score, but I haven't seen it. His
inside info was priceless. He told me he was disappointed in the cue 
when Conan and Valeria jump out of the snake tower, and also the cue
right after the final battle starts. (It begins with pizzicato string
chords, has some woodwind octave melody, and then plays the Dies Irae.
After that follows some wild percussion. It then segues into the cue
on the (relatively) new Varese disc, where Conan ventures to Thulsa
Doom's Mountain of Power.

I don't recall, but I think Basil said the choral music in the Snake
Tower was lost. It was for four violas and alto singers. A neat piece of
music.

Lukas Kendall wrote, recently, that Basil thought the gladiator cue near
the beginning of the film, was a little too Rozsa. I have even
heard that Basil thought the Wheel of Pain sequence was Rozsa. I still
can't hear that reference. Maybe the open fifths and heavy bass lines
are responsible for this opinion, but I don't really agree. To me,
Rozsa would have those aforementioned fifths, but also lots of counterpoint
and lots of seventh chords. (BEN-HUR is filled with seventh chords!)


BTW, the lyrics in the choral cues in Conan are latin translations of
"we are looking for steel", etc. etc. -- a reference to Thulsa Doom's
obsession with steel early in the film.

Does anyone agree with me the the string music heard when Thulsa Doom
hypnotizes Conan's mother is beautiful? The music there is so intense.
The string part suddenly becomes the 'Dies Irae' in c minor.

Enough on Conan, Ford Thaxton probably thinks I've forgotten about
STAR WARS and THE TEN COMMANDMENTS   :)