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about
Prior to all his film and radio scores Bernard Herrmann wrote a series of orchestral works he called "Melodrams" as accompaniment to poetry readings. The success of these works led directly to his creation of original scores for the new art of radio drama and ultimately to his unparalleled film scoring career over the next four decades. The "Melodrams" have gone unheard and unrecorded for 80 years until now.
Herrmann's word "Melodram" derives from the Greek words for song and drama. This term, he said, is "not to be confused with the word Melodrama in which highly colored incidents are presented in dialogue form". The music was inspired by the poems much in the manner in which a song or opera is created. In these works Herrmann first explored the dramatic use of music to support emotional content and meaning beneath dialog. These early works were fundamental to his subsequent development as a composer of dramatic underscore for radio, film, and television.
In this release The Hollywood Studio Orchestra presents "The City of Brass" in which "the full resources of the symphony orchestra are employed to set the background, to intensify the emotional context, and to amplify your subconscious reaction by tonal color and dynamics. In this highly complex type of musical treatment meaning and story are subordinated to the sound values of the poet's words and the orchestra's voices."
Narrated by acclaimed film composer Christopher Young.
Cover art: Ishtar Gate
font: Sinbad
lyrics
"The City of Brass" from Tales of the Arabian Nights
Enter and learn the story of the rulers.
They rested a little in the shadow of my towers
and then they passed.
They were dispersed like those shadows.
when the sun goes down.
They were driven like straws before the wind of death.
The drunkenness of youth has passed like a fever.
And yet I saw many things.
Seeing my glory in the days of my glory;
The feet of my war horses drummed upon the cities of the world.
I sacked great towns like a hot wind
and fell like thunder upon far lands.
The Kings of the Earth were dragged behind my chariot
and the people of the Earth behind my laws.
But now... The drunkenness of youth has passed like a fever,
like foam upon the sand.
Listen - O Wayfarer, to the words of my death.
For they were not the words of my life.
Save up your soul and taste the beautiful wine of Peace.
About this table sat many hawk-eyed Kings
with many one-eyed kings to bear them company.
But now all sit in the dark
and none are able to see.
In the name of the Eternal.
in the name of the Master of Strength.
In the name of him who moves not.
Wayfarer, in this place.
Look not upon the glass of appearance
for a breath may shatter it
and illusion is a pit for the feet of men.
I had ten thousand horses groomed by captive Kings.
I had peculiar treasures.
And the west and the east were two heads bowing before me.
I thought my power eternal
and the days of my life fixed surely into years.
But a whisper came to me
from him who dies not.
I called my captains and my strong riders.
Thousands and thousands with swords and lances.
I called my tributary Kings together
and those who were proud rulers under me.
I opened the boxes of my treasure to them saying:
Take hills of Gold,
Mountains of Silver
and give me one more day upon the Earth.
But they stood silent
looking upon the ground
So that I died and death came to sit upon my throne.
The drunkenness of youth has passed like a fever,
like foam upon the sand.
Listen - O Wayfarer, to the words of my death.
For they were not the words of my life.
Save up your soul and taste the beautiful wine of Peace.
credits
released December 2, 2018
Narrated by Christopher Young, the dynamic composer of nearly 100 film scores including "Hellraiser", "The Shipping News", "Swordfish", and "Spider Man 3". His discovery of Bernard Herrmann led him to focusing on music for films. “Here was someone doing everything I wanted to do. I fell in love with the music before I realized that it was written for movies”, said Young.
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