Winning a grand total of 11 Oscars, James Cameron's Titanic was THE cinematic event of 1997. The 3½ -hour epic love story between a high society girl Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) and the poor artist Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) and set on board one of the greatest seafaring disasters of all time, created immense critical and popular acclaim, both for the incredible visuals (they practically rebuilt the Titanic in scale), the historical accuracy and for a story that made many girls swoon and cry at the theatres (and why not even a few guys). For me the story was a little too run of the mill to create much of an impression, but I have to respect the technical side of the film, with the details of the ship, it's passengers, certain scenes, and the final sinking, making it one of the most accurate depictions of the Titanic disaster ever put on screen (A Night to Remember is the other truer account). These historical facts and details really make the film one of my favourites and I do like to see it again every no and again (it also proved very helpful when I was detailing my Titanic model). Supporting the drama on screen to no little effect was the score by James Horner and it opened the doors for Horner's subsequent style for his future projects.
James Horner has taken a lot of flak for his very apparent self rip-offs over the years, but with Titanic he took a very different and fresh approach with his scoring. The previous effort of Horner's with director James Cameron was for Aliens in 1986, but their relations somewhat cooled after the film was edited and re-edited and the score was mutilated to such a very big extent that Horner practically walked off the project. Ten years later, Horner agreed to write the score for Cameron's Titanic. Titanic is very much a subtle score, with much similarities to the music of Enya, especially in the cue "Southampton," resembling Enya's album "Book of Days." Horner utilizes a standard orchestra, endowed with one of his most memorable themes, a large array of percussion, an electronic chorus, and the vocal talents of Norwegian singer Sissel Kyrkjebo. This combination makes for a great Horner score and a fresh departure from his usual style. The music has a certain timeless quality to it, which can be attributed to the whole new age approach with Sissel's vocals often creating a softer vocal edge than the more usual soprano would have brought. Also the use of the electronic choir as opposed to a real one does make the sound more intriguing and unique.
The score's main thematic material is some of Horner's best, although there are still those fleeting glimpses of material recycled from elsewhere in Horner's output. The main theme is first heard in "Never an Absolution" by the Uillean pipes and then followed by Sissel's vocals (the pipes were edited out from the movie). This theme can be seen as the identification of the movie itself and what it represents rather than being attributed to any one element of the story. This theme becomes much more prominent towards the end of the film which is more retrospective than anything else. Secondly there is the more optimistic music for the ship itself, first heard in the cue "Southampton" and is mostly featured in the opening scenes of the film when the Titanic leaves port and heads out to sea in the cues "Leaving Port" and "Take Her to Sea, Mr. Murdoch". These are the cues that feature the electronic choir most prominently and especially the latter of the two mentioned previously makes for a very satisfying and enjoyable listen on a sunny day. But the theme that most people will most instantly remember from the film is the love theme for Jack and Rose. This has much in common with the main theme in their similarity to Irish music and it is this Celtic element that really tinges much of the score in general. The love theme makes several appearances in the score, but the place where it is presented in its fullest is in the cue "Rose" whose beginning could easily be mistaken for the beginning of the song at the end (it is identical). This cue, sung in vocalise by Sissel and accompanied by strings and harp make for a highlight on album.
The sinking music has pretty much become a standard Horner approach to scoring action. Lots of percussion of different types: cymbals, timpani, anvils, snare drum, piano… the list goes on. These cues open with "Hard to Starboard" and going through "The Sinking" and "Death of Titanic" with much clamour, smashing, dissonance and banging, something that may not be ideal listening to many. But it does work wonderfully well with the images as is usual with Horner's music. What is of note, however, is that there is precious little self-plagiarism here, which is a good thing. The similarity to Enya's music may put some people in a defensive mood and some of the orchestrations can get a little annoying, especially the use of the Uillenian pipes (an Irish instrument sounding much like bagpipes, that was used most notably in Braveheart) and the heavily percussive action music, which doesn't appeal to many who are looking for more romantic music instead of overly dissonant. However, the music does have the wonderful love theme that is translated to the enormously popular song sung by Celine Dion. This song differs somewhat from the one heard over and over again on the radio, the instrumentation being more orchestral with no electric guitars to ruin the song. With very little competition offered during the Academy Awards in 1997, the score for Titanic easily won the award, taking back some of the harm that Horner was afforded in 1995 when both Apollo 13 and Braveheart lost to Luis Bacalov's Il Postino. Not necessarily a groundbreaking Horner score, this is definitely a well written and cohesive one, something that some of the newer Horner scores have been desperately lacking. Overall this is a very good score, even though the Celine Dion song has become a little too hackneyed by now.
The album runs for a little over 70 minutes and contains the music in what I would perceive as its unedited form. The music was again very heavily edited in the film and nowhere is this more evident than in the action sequences. Due to the huge success of Titanic and the original soundtrack (one of the best selling score albums ever), there came a necessity to exploit this success by trying to milk as much money out of the movie as possible. Therefore, since the three-plus hours of the movie also featured much music that didn't make it onto the original release, it was thought smart to put out a second soundtrack, featuring music that you missed from the original and offering other source material heard in the film. Back to Titanic is like any other "more music from..."-CD, featuring dialogue from the film, alternate takes on other tracks, source-music, and some pieces of original music omitted previously. Since the CD is intended as a supplement to the original, it causes the overall structure to be very loose and incoherent, but that of course cannot be avoided. This release is not meant to stand on its own. There are three newly recorded pieces of Titanic music with the LSO, arranged and conducted by the composer, a few pieces of original film music, numerous source music tracks featuring traditional tunes, and, of course, "My Heart Will Go On" in its radio-remix.
The sole reason to get this second album lies in the roughly fifteen minutes of unreleased original music. The first is the piano rendition of the love theme in "The Portrait" which accompanied Jack's drawing of Rose. The other is the missing piece of action music ("A Building Panic") whose main attraction lies in that wonderful snippet of music heard in two places, namely in the scene where the people are running up the tilted deck of the ship and the scene where the water comes crashing through the dome over the grand staircase. But apart from these highlights there is precious little of importance on this second album. There are many source cues that don't even appear in the film in these arrangements and some are simply out of place, although "Nearer my God to Thee" (performed by I Salonisti) is a pretty nice addition. The three new cues Horner recorded with the LSO are a little arbitrary and don't feature anything you haven't heard before. So the sequel album can readily be missed if you don't feel the need to get those 15 minutes of missing music (unless you get a chance to copy this music for a compilation of your own).
Original 1997 album
1. Never an Absolution (3:03) 2. Distant Memories (2:24) 3. Southampton (4:02) 4. Rose (2:52) 5. Leaving Port (3:26) 6. "Take Her to Sea, Mr. Murdoch" (4:31) 7. "Hard to Starboard" (6:52) 8. Unable to Stay, Unwilling to Leave (3:57) 9. The Sinking (5:05) 10. Death of Titanic (8:26) 11. A Promise Kept (6:03) 12. A Life So Changed (2:13) 13. An Ocean of Memories (7:58) 14. My Heart Will Go On (Love Theme from Titanic) (5:11) 15. Hymn to the Sea (6:26)
Produced by James Horner Music Composed and Conducted by James Horner Orchestrated by James Horner and Don Davis Supervising Music Editor: Jim Henrikson Music Editor: Joe E. Rand Scoring Engineer: Shawn Murphy Vocal Performances: Sissel Instrumental Soloists: Simon Franglen, Ian Underwood, Eric Rigler, Tony Hinnigan, Randy Kerber and James Horner
1998 "Back to Titanic" sequel album
1. Titanic Suite (19:06) 2. An Irish Party in the Third Class (3:49) 3. Alexander's Ragtime Band 4. The Portrait (4:43) 5. Jack Dawson's Luck (5:39) 6. A Building Panic (8:09) 7. Nearer My God to Thee (2:50) 8. Come Josephine, In My Flying Machine (3:33) 9. Lament (4:37) 10. A Shore Never Reached (4:28) 11. My Heart Will Go On (4:43) 12. Nearer My God to Thee (2:22) 13. Epilogue - The Deep and Timeless Sea (12:38)
Performers: 1, 10, 13: The London Symphony Orchestra & The Choirsters of King's College Conducted by James Horner 2: Gaelic Storm 3, 7: I Salonisti 4: James Horner 8: Máire Brennan 11: Celine Dion 12: Eileen Ivers
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