Bill Wrobel's DVD - Film Score Rundowns

Talking Herrmann: Truth, Justice, and the American Way
Reply by: Bill Wrobel
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“Yesterday I got my dvd of TALE OF THE NAVAJOS. Very interesting documentary,
nice scenery, and good music by Lan Adomian--virtually wall-to-wall carpet music! But
there is NO, I repeat, NO, Superman music in it.98% of the music is rather soft
background music but interesting to hear. Hard to clearly classify. Mood concert
music....Grand Canyon Suite-style low key music (but nothing "grand" per se or dynamic
& powerful per se...aka Disney nature documentary style...whatever. But, once again, you
won't find any Superman music in there--no flying music, no March, no First season type,
no Second Season type, and so forth. But he is an admirably fine composer, wrote 8
symphonies I believe (although lost to obscurity and not available on cd).”
There is a narrator to compete with the music but it’s not that bad. There is
minimum dialog, relatively few sound effects. How fascinating it would have been to
offer that Americana (Indian Americana) open canvas for any willing composer to write a
constant, stream of consciousness score for. Imagine if you had the same film but with
different composers of that period—say Herrmann, Max Steiner, Tiomkin, Frank
Skinner, you name them! So Herrmann would do a complete score, Steiner a complete
score, and so forth. It would be quite revealing how each composer would musically treat
it. William Grant Still would’ve been great on this project too. However, I am quite
satisfied with Adomian’s then modernistic narrative tour guide score. The colors are
supposed to be Technicolor but they are actually a bit bleached out—not terribly, though.
Lots of red rock colors of various shades, vibrant greens, deep blue skies at times. Great
cinematography here, like at 25 minutes into the documentary. Lots of beautiful and everchanging
desert & mountain scenes here. Adomian’s gentle American mood piece is just
right for this documentary. There are many interesting repeated rhythmic passages. I am
especially fond of 00:39:43 thru 00:40:08 that seems Herrmannesque to me!
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-Swan Lake (1991) ***** [music *****]
http://www.amazon.com/Tchaikovsky-Petipa-Ballet-Makhalina-
Zelensky/dp/B000G1ALF2/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1292878933&sr=1-2
[reviewed Monday, June 27, 2011] :
This 1991 Kirov Ballet performance and vision of Tchaikovsky’s famous and
enduring ballet is far, far better than the Bolshoi Ballet rendition from 1989. It is superb,
a masterpiece in my personal estimation. It gets a five ***** star rating (as well as, of
course, the music from the Master!). The sets are superior to the Bolshoi; the outfits are
prettier; the dancing I think is better. Odette here (Yulia Makhalina) is far younger and
fitting for the part than the much older Alla Mikhalchenko who plays Odette in the
Bolshoi version. I don’t like the revised choreography by Yuri Grigorvich in the Bolshoi
version, but I love the original Petipa/Ivanov choreography kept in the beautifully staged
Kirov rendition—such as when the corps moves away from Siegfried in the Pas d’action
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