Cleopatra- Alex North

[dcoscina]

I just received this classic from North in the mail today from Varese (along with Giacchino's MI3) and gawd this is great. Amazing, lush themes, biting modernist atonalities, and some friggin' great action tracks. Some younger listeners on this forum might find this style overwrought or hokey because of the portamento in some of the string lines for the more romantic sections, but I think North's harmonic idiom for this score is utterly amazing. I hear Goldsmith and Fielding in North which of course means he obviously had quite an impact on those two composers (since he preceded both).

[TheVamp]

I got this score when it was first released and played it once.

I guess it was just too much for my fragile little mind. ;)

However, after reading your glowing recommendation here and at the FSM board (though I don't even know what "tetrachords, Coplandesque pandiatonicisms and pointillistic figures" even are!) I'll try and give it another whirl.

I'll let ya know...

[dcoscina]

Vamp, give it another try. North was an incredibly complicated composer and was the antecendent to Goldsmith's stylistic tendencies. North wasn't about the big homophonic theme (melody and accompaniment) that we get a lot of today. He worked in dense counterpoint and achieved his complex harmonies through motion of individual parts.

As always though, I respect that you are open-minded about these types of scores. Whether you like them or not is less important but that you are willing to give them a try.

thumbs up dude!