[Nick Zwar]

Ha that one… a “classic”.

Okay, hold on…

(Enters stage…. solemny):

Complete or not complete – that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the cuts and fades of a tightly trimmed 30-minute Varese release, or to take arms against missing tracks and motifs and, by including them, to reveal all there is? A score may bleed when chopped, but swell when whole. Yet not every cue deserves the stage. The answer then, as ever, lies not in dogma.

Despite the fact that this is an old question, which Thor and I have discussed elsewhere before, I’m not ideological about it. I’m certainly not on a purist crusade to catalog and include every timpani thump and violin squeal from reel one to end credits and more. (Unless I like that one particular violin squeal, that is!) It’s not ideology. It’s about outcome. It’s about what works. Case by case. Score by score. Composer by composer. I don’t think every album plays best when released C&C, though some do. But it’s not even about “best” – sometimes, it’s just good to have options.

Film music is an art that lives at the crossroads of storytelling and structure, just like some classical music. A good film score develops, it unfolds. Like a Mahler Symphony or a Strauss Tone Poem or a Wagner Opera, the music alone leads you through a narrative as surely as any dialogue or camera move, independently from the movie. So it’s no surprise that a classically trained composer would often shape a score symphonically, because that’s what that type of music is.

Take Jerry Goldsmith. I remember Jerry Goldsmith was mentioned years ago in Grammophon as a superb musical architect. He didn’t just write a bunch of themes and cues for scenes – his film music is often classically developed, movement by movement. Expanding his scores isn’t indulgence, it has often shown to be excavation. You dig down and discover how every cue supports the next. Tension, release, development, climax – it’s all there. Presenting his work in full, in sequence, lets the listener hear the bones beneath the beauty.

Then you swing to the other side of the pendulum: Hans Zimmer. His music breathes in long, moody cues – it’s less architectural than Goldsmith’s. Zimmer’s music is less about structure, it’s more about atmosphere and emotional immersion. (I don’t mean to say these things are at odds – I’m just saying composers may be inclined differently.) Zimmer’s albums often ditch the “C&C” narrative roadmap (which usually isn’t pronounced in the fabric of the music anyway) in favor of a more mood-oriented arc. On album, Zimmer often rearranges and reshapes his cues for a coherent, more atmospheric album “flow,” and it works. I often like the way Zimmer presents his music on album – the man knows his medium.

So no, the answer isn’t always complete and chronological. And it sure as hell isn’t never. It’s case by case. Composer by composer.

Having said that, that’s about listening experience. But when it comes to releases? While I don’t think that all scores “need” C&C releases – certainly not – I definitely tend towards “complete” editions (not necessarily chronological). Why? There’s always that one cue. The sleeper. The heartbreaker. The five-note miracle someone out there loves just craves like oxygen. And if that snippet of music doesn’t fit the composer’s polished vision of the album? If that cue is not on there, somebody may be disappointed. So what the hell – if there is a way, include it anyway. Music is personal. Let it breathe.

That’s why I tip my hat to releases that include the original album, or original album edits, and the full film score, and bonus tracks, and extras… The album the composer wanted, the score as heard in the film, and the kitchen sink for the obsessives.

Look at FSM’s Days of Heaven: There is the original soundtrack album, then there are the actually used film tracks, and finally, another full “complete” version of the score made out of everything left on the cutting room floor. Three ways to hear that one masterpiece. That’s not overkill – that is respect. For the music, and for the people who love it.

Just my two cents. 🙂