The LA Opera has posted a podcast including a lengthy interview with Howard Shore discussing his work on The Fly.
It's a lovely, in-depth piece... definitely worth your 8 minutes!
Listen or download here.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Ongoing Discussion Thread [September, 2008]
Hi everyone,
How did it get to be September already? With time flying so fleetly, I'm not even sure when the last book update was. Nevertheless, here's the next one… let's just assume that I've kept them at evenly spaced monthly intervals… even if for no other reason than to assuage my guilt!
Much has happened since the text was locked way back whenever. We've now entered that zone where almost everything happens on paper, or as phone calls, or meetings, or lunches. This the business end where things seem creatively static, yet the real meat of the project is established.
The book project has now attracted the attention of a number of corporate entities. There is a potential to tie a couple of ideas together and perhaps make a bigger deal out of this release than was originally anticipated. While this complicates the business end, it wildly expands the creative end of things. I won't say more until I can (a song I'm sure you've all heard before), but we should all plan to have our expectations tweaked a little in the coming months. You'll see…
Not everything is pure business, however. Design elements continue to come in. You've probably noticed the blog header has been changing a lot recently. This relates to ongoing work on the book cover…. the standard edition cover, that is.
Let me try to be very, very clear about this, because it seems my past couple of explanations have confused many:
We're currently in the second stage of the cover design. It's a very linear process. The last deign lead to this design – this design will lead to something else as well. What you're seeing above is an adaptation of a portion of book cover proposal 2.2. It's not locked, it's not final, it's not even fully rendered. It's a version of a portion of a draft. ☺
That said, I LOVE this design! I don't think we're going to see much change, conceptually. The idea has always been to make this book feel like a granddaddy to the Complete Recordings… and I think that's being conveyed very gracefully here. (And while I appreciate all the suggestions posted elsewhere, legally I cannot and do not read them. Sorry, guys!)
When the cover is fully locked, I’ll plan to debut it here.
Inside the book, I am now in the process of vetting about two-dozen new music examples that never appeared in the liners. Some relate to themes that weren't discussed before, some will be placed through the Annotated Score so that ALL sections of the book combine words and notated music. Sue Sinclair, who engraved the music examples for the liners and created the short score compressions, has put together wonderfully detailed examples of passages throughout the scores. Those of you who like to sit and pick out notes of the piano should be thrilled! And even if you don't read music, these examples bring a wonderful graphical element to the book.
We're also hoping to include some of Shore's pencil sketches and conductor's scores from the sessions, complete with live-from-the-podium pencil scrawling. So if you're a behind-the-scenes aficionado, we should have something for you too.
And of course, this is all in addition to nearly one hundred thousand words… so I think we can comfortably assert that the word "Comprehensive" has earned its spot on the cover.
Next weekend I'm headed out to LA to work with Shore – and of course, to enjoy The Fly – so perhaps I'll be able to have another significant book update for you soon. Two updates in under a month! I'm on a roll!
☺
Enjoy the new discussion board below. Talk soon!
-Doug
How did it get to be September already? With time flying so fleetly, I'm not even sure when the last book update was. Nevertheless, here's the next one… let's just assume that I've kept them at evenly spaced monthly intervals… even if for no other reason than to assuage my guilt!
Much has happened since the text was locked way back whenever. We've now entered that zone where almost everything happens on paper, or as phone calls, or meetings, or lunches. This the business end where things seem creatively static, yet the real meat of the project is established.
The book project has now attracted the attention of a number of corporate entities. There is a potential to tie a couple of ideas together and perhaps make a bigger deal out of this release than was originally anticipated. While this complicates the business end, it wildly expands the creative end of things. I won't say more until I can (a song I'm sure you've all heard before), but we should all plan to have our expectations tweaked a little in the coming months. You'll see…
Not everything is pure business, however. Design elements continue to come in. You've probably noticed the blog header has been changing a lot recently. This relates to ongoing work on the book cover…. the standard edition cover, that is.
Let me try to be very, very clear about this, because it seems my past couple of explanations have confused many:
We're currently in the second stage of the cover design. It's a very linear process. The last deign lead to this design – this design will lead to something else as well. What you're seeing above is an adaptation of a portion of book cover proposal 2.2. It's not locked, it's not final, it's not even fully rendered. It's a version of a portion of a draft. ☺
That said, I LOVE this design! I don't think we're going to see much change, conceptually. The idea has always been to make this book feel like a granddaddy to the Complete Recordings… and I think that's being conveyed very gracefully here. (And while I appreciate all the suggestions posted elsewhere, legally I cannot and do not read them. Sorry, guys!)
When the cover is fully locked, I’ll plan to debut it here.
Inside the book, I am now in the process of vetting about two-dozen new music examples that never appeared in the liners. Some relate to themes that weren't discussed before, some will be placed through the Annotated Score so that ALL sections of the book combine words and notated music. Sue Sinclair, who engraved the music examples for the liners and created the short score compressions, has put together wonderfully detailed examples of passages throughout the scores. Those of you who like to sit and pick out notes of the piano should be thrilled! And even if you don't read music, these examples bring a wonderful graphical element to the book.
We're also hoping to include some of Shore's pencil sketches and conductor's scores from the sessions, complete with live-from-the-podium pencil scrawling. So if you're a behind-the-scenes aficionado, we should have something for you too.
And of course, this is all in addition to nearly one hundred thousand words… so I think we can comfortably assert that the word "Comprehensive" has earned its spot on the cover.
Next weekend I'm headed out to LA to work with Shore – and of course, to enjoy The Fly – so perhaps I'll be able to have another significant book update for you soon. Two updates in under a month! I'm on a roll!
☺
Enjoy the new discussion board below. Talk soon!
-Doug
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Reminder: Shore and Cronenberg AFI Event Tonight
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 8:00 p.m.
THE FLY
1986 95 MIN RATED R
DIR David Cronenberg SCR David Cronenberg and Charles Edward Pogue, from a story by George Langelaan CAST Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, John Getz, Leslie Carlson
THE FLY is an extraordinary example of Cronenberg's particular brand of "body horror"; flesh transformed by disease. Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) is an eccentric scientist, whose experiments with teleportation go awry, leading to one of the horror genre's most disgusting and gory physical transformations. Ultimately, David Cronenberg's version of THE FLY - based on a short story by George Langelaan and the 1958 film that starred Vincent Price -- is a dark romantic tragedy about the wasting away of a brilliant man who mutates into an insect as his loved one looks on helplessly.
AFI, in association with the LA Opera, presents a brand new print , in the CINERAMA DOME, to coincide with the US premiere of the opera The Fly.
Placido Domingo conducts the LA Opera-commissioned opera written by Oscar(R)-winning composer Howard Shore (LORD OF THE RINGS), with libretto by Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly). This also marks the LA Opera debut of Academy Award-winning production designer Dante Ferretti (THE AVIATOR, SWEENEY TODD).
Tickets still available here.
LA residents, if anyone attends this, let me know!
Friday, August 29, 2008
Post-Parisian Impressions
Downtown LA has a good article up on The Fly... including the creators' comments re: the Paris premiere a few weeks back. Read it here.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Logo
It's still not a lock, but I thought I'd update the blog's header to reflect the current cover book cover. Any strong objections?
Hark the Herald
The Calgary Herald has a short piece up on the Calgary Philharmonic's 2008-2009 season. It's not much, but the LOTR Symphony gets a quick shout out... even if the name's not quite accurate. (The Lord of the Rings Suite?) You'd think a Canadian paper would take care to get the details right regarding one of their own...
Ah well! Read the piece here.
Ah well! Read the piece here.
Another Fly Poster
Another new Fly poster for those interested. Any one here planning on attending the upcoming AFI event with Shore and Cronenberg? I'm going to miss it by just a few days, but would love to hear what transpired.
Friday, August 22, 2008
News Roundup 2
Just a little more news, if you can stand it:
Just posted at the American Film Institute website:
AFI's Directors Screenings presented by Audi
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 8:00 p.m.
THE FLY
1986 95 MIN RATED R
DIR David Cronenberg SCR David Cronenberg and Charles Edward Pogue, from a story by George Langelaan CAST Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, John Getz, Leslie Carlson
THE FLY is an extraordinary example of Cronenberg's particular brand of "body horror"; flesh transformed by disease. Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) is an eccentric scientist, whose experiments with teleportation go awry, leading to one of the horror genre's most disgusting and gory physical transformations. Ultimately, David Cronenberg's version of THE FLY - based on a short story by George Langelaan and the 1958 film that starred Vincent Price -- is a dark romantic tragedy about the wasting away of a brilliant man who mutates into an insect as his loved one looks on helplessly.
AFI, in association with the LA Opera, presents a brand new print , in the CINERAMA DOME, to coincide with the US premiere of the opera The Fly.
Placido Domingo conducts the LA Opera-commissioned opera written by Oscar(R)-winning composer Howard Shore (LORD OF THE RINGS), with libretto by Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly). This also marks the LA Opera debut of Academy Award-winning production designer Dante Ferretti (THE AVIATOR, SWEENEY TODD). More information.
A Q&A with David Cronenberg and Howard Shore will precede the screening.
Tickets available here.
And I just loved this intro to a piece on New Zealand-based band Cut Off Your Hands:
The list of musical success stories from New Zealand isn't exactly a long one. There's Split Enz, who became Crowded House, the Datsuns, Flight of the Conchords and... well, the score from Lord of the Rings was rather nice but that was composed by Howard Shore, and he's Canadian.
News Roundup
Hi everyone,
Sorry for my scarcity this week... I've barely been home and am running on about 10 hours of sleep amassed since last Friday. If I owe you a phone call or an email, I promise I'll get to you soon.
The rest of the world, however, has been ticking right along. So enjoy the mass media update:
Black Book has posted a nice little piece on The Fly, primarily coming from the Cronenberg point of view. Click here.
Variety's Jon Burlingame has posted two pieces this week, both of which mention Shore. Seen here is a genuinely wonderful examination of the increasingly blurred line between film composers and concert composers. I tend to cringe when this subject is broached, only because most journalists miss the mark and end up writing about composers' quaint struggles to abandon fluff and risk it all with the big boys. Burlingame is too smart for that. His piece respects film music and concert music alike, and asserts that a smart composer can bring something of worth to any field. Bravo, Jon!
Shore gets less text in Burlingame's piece on videogame scores, but it provides a prime opportunity to mention the composer's work on Soul of the Ultimate Nation (a.k.a. S.U.N.). This is a fantastic score that plays like a sci-fi version of LOTR. Fans should make efforts to track this one down... which isn't always the easiest endeavor.
And finally, the press invites for the LA Opera Premiere of The Fly went out this week. Take a gander (contact info is blocked out, sorry!):
...Oh yeah, and in Music of LOTR book news... I'm going to spent my weekend picking through music example graphics and requesting new ones that are based on material that never made it to the liners, but which the book will need.
But first... it's power nap time!
-Doug
Monday, August 18, 2008
Fly Parts
My poor French skills are preventing me from determining whether or not this is legit, but Telerama has posted several clips from Shore's The Fly. Click here for your first extended listen to select passages from the opera. Enjoy! (And if our French-speaking readers determine that this is horrible copyright infringement... don't tell me! :) )
Saturday, August 16, 2008
LOTR Symphony in Malaysia
Looks like the Malaysian press is ready to join the LOTR bandwagon. Nice to see The Star highlighting the Symphony in a piece on the Malaysian Philharmonic's upcoming season.
Jim Ware Reviews The Fly
It took a good month and a half, but here--finally--is an intelligent, musically-literate review of Howard Shore's The Fly. Leave it to one of our own to pen the first comprehensive look at this massive work. Thanks to Jim Ware for taking the time to share his impressions with us.
-Jim Ware
David Cronenberg's 1986 'remake' of The Fly has been among my favourite films for many years. I recall first watching it at the age of eleven and being truly repulsed and disturbed at its conclusion. The film introduced me to the decidedly warped imagination of David Cronenberg and by extension the music of Howard Shore.
The opera version of The Fly has been in development hell for what seems like an eternity. The only undeniable facts during this period were the involvement of long-time collaborators Howard Shore and David Cronenberg. It seemed slightly surreal to be taking my seat in the Theatre du Chatelet in July of this year to witness the final performance of the Paris run. At this point I wasn't sure what to expect; I had heard brief snippets of the music but not enough to form any opinion of it.
On the surface The Fly did seem well suited to becoming a stage production - both the size of the cast and the number of locations are limited - but how could the teleportation effects and Brundle's hideous physical meltdown be reproduced?
During the lengthy development of this piece, both Shore and Cronenberg have been very quick to distance it from the 1986 film; in reality it shares a number of major elements, not least of which is the plot. Aside from a shift to the 1950s and a few minor adjustments it is identical in structure and content: the inside-out baboon is there, as are the arm-wrestle and Veronica's aborted abortion. All of the film's characters survived the transition, and some of them receive more character development than they did in 1986. If those references to the film weren't enough, David Henry Hwang's eloquent (and often very funny) libretto quotes significant amounts of the film verbatim.
The shift of setting to the 1950s results in a very different look and brings increased analogue gizmo potential. The digital screens on the telepods feel a little anachronistic, but otherwise the staging is successful; the single set of Brundle's laboratory is repurposed into a hospital, a 50s dive bar and other locations with subtle assistance from the performers.
The story has been divided into two acts, the intermission occurring as Brundle teleports himself - apparently successfully - between telepods to a chorus of 'long live the new flesh' (very Videodrome). Both acts play as continuous pieces with few strictly defined scene changes. Other alterations include the telling of the story in flashback as Veronica is interviewed by police and a twist at the end, which I will not spoil here.
Fans of Howard Shore's majestic and lyrical work on The Lord of the Rings should proceed with caution - this is a very different insect. The opera opens with an excerpt from Shore's 1986 film score but this does not proceed as the listener might expect; dissonant brass takes over after a few bars to set the tone for the rest of the opera. Dissonance and atonality abound, and the music is almost universally grim throughout.
In terms of orchestration it is reminiscent of Shore's work on The Aviator (minus the castanets) - there is a similar emphasis on heavy brass and complex contrapuntal writing. There are several sequences in the opera that can only be described as montages with overlapping orchestral, choral and solo lines building to a climax - the most impressive examples of these are the teleportation sequences. In these, Brundle's computer is 'voiced' by the chorus which chants numbers and statistics in a style oddly reminiscent of Einstein on the Beach.
This was not the only element of the opera reminiscent of Philip Glass - The 'Particle Magazine Party' sequence towards the beginning of the first act is underscored with a series of whirling arpeggiations. This is one of the lighter parts of the opera and the libretto pokes fun at the supposed inadequacies of scientists.
Other stand-out sequences include Brundle's rejection of Veronica - underscored with Shore's trademark bowed cymbals and uneasy aleatoric strings - and another post-arm-wrestle 'montage' as Stathis, Veronica and a scientist discuss Brundle's mysterious insect hairs while Brundle copulates wildly with Tawny in the background.
Brundle's deterioration is perhaps the most moving sequence. The writing here is emotional but bleak, reminiscent of Shore's Looking for Richard. Brundle's physical meltdown is showcased with some appropriately gruesome latex costumes. They do not receive a huge amount of time on-stage but it must be a feat of endurance for Daniel Okulitch to wear such heavy latex and perform on a fully-lit stage.
At over two hours in length the opera is longer than the film and the pacing seems to suffer as a result. The first act leading up to Brundle's transformation feels overlong, but Brundle's final deterioration in the second act is rather rushed. This is a minor criticism; it remains a compelling piece throughout. At its conclusion the audience responded enthusiastically with none of the negativity reported at previous performances.
The Fly is recommended with reservations. It is more accessible than several of his other Cronenberg scores (Naked Lunch for example) but the unremittingly bleak tone and modernistic style may discourage some. If you can overlook that, it is a rewarding musical experience that will undoubtedly stand up to repeated viewings and listenings in the future.
-Jim Ware
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Pixel Party #3
The 33 gigs of LOTR images have arrived, been sorted though, and are now implemented!
It's amazing how insignificant 100,000 words looks all scrunched down into nothingness. That's ok, the bags under my eyes still tell the tale.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Return of the Scores
Those of you having a difficult time with John Jennette's Scores of the Ring website over the past days will be happy to know that he's just posted in the Ongoing Discussion thread, and everything appears to be back to normal.
Click here, and enjoy your visit!
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Time to Fly
Though it's not yet a lock, it looks as if I'll be in LA the weekend of Sept. 13 and 14... both enjoying The Fly and doing a bit of Rarities Archives work with Mr. Shore. Anyone here planning on attending the performances that weekend? I may be able to arrange a preview or two for curious attendees. Drop me a line at the email link at top right.
-Doug
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