July 17, 2018
Massive Alan Silvestri score gets lavish 2-CD treatment from Intrada
Intrada Records has announced the release of a lavish 2-CD treatment of Alan Silvestri’s massive score for 2001’s THE MUMMY RETURNS. Director Stephen Sommers followed his 1999 blockbuster THE MUMMY (scored by Jerry Goldsmith) with an even bigger event, bringing back Brendan Fraser in the lead, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah in support. Patricia Velasquez proves worthy opponent for Weisz while Dwayne Johnson makes his major film debut as “The Scorpion King”, soon to have an entire spinoff for himself. Expanding on those adventures in the 2001 sequel, archaeologist Fraser now finds himself embroiled in spectacular sword fights, battles hanging from dirigibles, desert warfare, screaming pygmy attacks, combat with the titular character… and of course dueling with “the Scorpion King”. Returning in larger roles are those noble Medjai Commanders, led by dashing Oded Fehr. In fact, one of composer Silvestri’s highlights is the sweeping, richly harmonized major-key theme for those heroic horse-mounted fighters. Swords flash to major chords galore.
Following in the path forged by Jerry Goldsmith for the 1999 movie, Silvestri writes to gigantic scale of Universal’s part-LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, part-THE SEA HAWK, part-THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, part-INDIANA JONES and part the proverbial kitchen sink. Silvestri nods to all of the above with his huge 100-piece orchestra and 60-voice chorus, recorded in London. Rather than separating this massive ensemble into separate groups for separate recording sessions, Silvestri instead recorded all of the musicians together, achieving a truly majestic sound. Besides the Medjai theme, numerous other themes appear, including not one but two rousing themes associated with Fraser’s spirited adventures. Love themes, sinister ideas and an aggressive orchestral/choral rhythmic theme for evil Velasquez and a sinuous English horn theme for the Scorpion King also gets its moments front and center.
All total, Silvestri recorded some 112 minutes of score, plus an additional 35 minutes of alternates to accommodate changes during film editing, making it one of his largest projects ever. Decca released a soundtrack CD of highlights but due to timing of 2001 album release in stores, they necessarily had to drop large portions of the score that had not yet been mixed, including every single cue scored for the climactic action sequences, totaling some 25 minutes alone! All of this is premiered here in Intrada’s 2-CD set for the first time, courtesy of Universal Pictures and Universal Music Group.
The album features a flipper-style booklet design by Kay Marshall and literate notes by Tim Grieving.
– Via Intrada’s web site
For more information, to hear sample tracks, and to order, see intrada
