Forever Amber

Ian Lace

Label: Varese Sarabande
Catalogue No: VSD 5857

Release Date: 1998

Total Duration: 64:21

For myself, one of the highlights of the marvellous RCA Classic Film Score Series recorded back in the 1970s (and subsequently reissued in CD format) was GD81490 - David Raksin conducts his Great Film Scores: Laura; The Bad and the Beautiful and Forever Amber. That album was beautifully recorded and the playing of the New Philharmonia was first class. If you can find a copy of this CD grab it; it is crammed with memorable music - the haunting "Nocturne" from The Bad and the Beautiful, with its lovely clarinet solo, is worth the price of the CD alone - and Raksin's notes about his own music are revelatory particularly the poignant story about how he came to write his famous Laura theme. The Suite from Forever Amber, on the RCA disc is of 25 minutes duration and includes the very best from Raksin's score. Now, this new CD has nearly 65 minutes of music and every one of them is worth listening to - of how many (or rather how few) scores could you say that? I cannot pay this music a greater tribute.

Kathleen Winsor's racy book about an ambitious farm girl (Amber) who slept her way to the throne in 17th-century England was filmed by 20th Century-Fox in 1947 with (for then) an astronomical $6.5 million budget. It starred Linda Darnell, Cornel Wilde and George Sanders as Charles II. (Halliwell comment: Much bowdlerised version of a sensational novel of the forties; pretty but rather thin, with a colourless cast [except for Sanders], saved by lively action sequences.)

The 140 minute film has 110 minutes of music and about two thirds of this is derived from a single musical device, a ground bass around which Raksin builds various melodies and harmonies. He was inspired, in part, by Purcell. Raksin himself commented, "I knew that to the prospective audience the music that says "England" is not that which was being composed during the reign of Charles II, but rather the music written half a century later by a German, George Frederick Handel. Film scores are to an exceptional degree the wrong places to be misunderstood; therefore I decided I would try to evoke the required atmosphere by playing upon certain musical mannerisms generally thought of as 'English'". Despite this deceptively simple approach the Forever Amber score contains a wealth of diverse material and intricate writing. Again quoting Raksin :" ...'Amber was rich and self-indulgent in a way that calls for the composer to go all out. As befits the occasion, the music is opulent, not only in style and colour but also in melodic and contrapuntal invention." Indeed, the score reflects all the facets of the screenplay: heroism, saucy lust, romance, humour and tragedy set against dramatic historical events of the Restoration period: The Great Plague and The Great Fire of London.

The music is crammed with memorable tunes and there are so many highlights that it would be invidious to attempt to select some so I will mention only the inspired, powerfully dramatic, yet often eerily atmospheric music associated with Newgate Prison and the Great Plague.

The music for this CD has been very skilfully remixed from the original optical film elements so that the sound quality is very good. The score is conducted by the head of 20th Century-Fox's music department, Alfred Newman, who was a very fine conductor and arranger. In fact it is not widely appreciated that his many Oscars were won often, not for his own original scores (which explains why there are so few albums devoted to his scores), but for arranging and directing other people's music. The album starts, by the way, with Newman's original 1933 20th Century-Fox Fanfare (i.e. without the CinemaScope extension which he added later).

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