Since Barry invented the Bond theme, I think my answer to your first sentence is yes. It doesn't have to be overly repetitive, but at least one recap somewhere in the score should be maintained.

As far as TWINE is concerned, Arnold recaps all three themes -- Bond, the title song, and the Elektra theme at one place or another within the 15-track score.



Okay, I understand a little better now. You want to hear the major themes of a score more than once. When you say “recap” do you mean you need to hear a “reprise,“ the theme played again in its entirety?

I think Barry's philosophy is not to overuse the Bond theme.

But I didn't hear it in The Living Daylights, and I didn't hear it but once (and faintly) in Thunderball. In fact, the best tracks on The Living Daylights CD are the bonus tracks rather than the main score.

Well, the bonus tracks are part of the main score. They just weren’t on the original release. Because of Ryko’s licensing agreement they could not interpolate the new material and were legally required to lump it together as “Bonus” tracks.

Anyway, this gave me a good excuse to listen to TLD again. I think it’s a wonderful score and has everything in it that I want from a Bond score. There are four principal themes used: 1) The famous Bond Theme; 2) The Main Title; 3) “Where Has Everybody Gone?;” and 4) “If There Was A Man.” These four themes are used liberally throughout the recording but not necessarily in their entirety.

The Bond Theme is used in “Koslov Escapes,” “Exercise at Gibraltar,” “Assassin and Drugged,” and the Bond vamp is present in “Final Confrontation.”

The Main Title pops up again in “Hercules Takes Off,” “Murder at the Fair,” and “Assassin and Drugged.”

“Where Has Everybody Gone?” is repeated in “Necros Attacks,” “Inflight Fight,” “Murder at the Fair,” “Assassin and Drugged,” and “Afghanistan Plan.”

The love theme “If There Was a Man” occurs in “Ice Chase,” “Kara Meets Bond,” “Exercise at Gibraltar (which re-uses “Ice Chase”),” “Approaching Kara,” and “Alternate End Titles.”

I’d think this fits the bill but, apparently, it doesn’t. So, there’s something I'm still not getting. It's no big deal but I just like to understand the musical taste of my friends.

It's the lack of a recap that I'm concerned with here. As far as the different cues, I suspect you and I will have to sit down and listen to the same music to make sure we're on the same... er, page/note.

I’d like that. I suspect I would learn something if you compared your listening experience of TLD to what I’ve posted above.

When I listen to any of the Bond scores, I hear the Bond theme broken into at least three different riffs.

I think you’re referring primarily to the guitar riff, the Bond vamp, and the main theme material. Barry uses all three of these independent of one another whenever he wants. Just a bit of any of these lets us know that Bond is present.

Different themes are okay with me as long as they're recapped within the context of a score -- otherwise the score loses personality in my opinion. As I understand your explanation of leit motif, I guess I prefer the European style best, since I recognize it in the work of Elmer Bernstein, Dmitri Tiomkin, Miklos Rozsa and several other composers.

The composers you name are three of my favorites and represent a goodly portion of my collection along with other greats like Bronislau Kaper, Alfred Newman, Max Steiner, Hugo Friedhofer, Franz Waxman, and Jerry Goldsmith to name only a few. I prefer the melodic, theme based score over the current tendency to just score for mood or atmosphere. That said, though, it doesn’t matter to me whether the main themes are recapitulated or not so long as I’m getting other great music in their stead.

If I'm understanding you correctly, then Barry does employ the European leit motif in many scores I'm fond of -- Out of Africa, Somewhere in Time, for example.

I’d have to listen to them again. Just repeating the music doesn’t necessarily make it a leit motif. However, it usually is if its used for the same reason each time or to musically remind the audience of something.


Granted it's a short score -- only 9 tracks on the CD I have -- but he does use more than one theme if you include the Men of Harlech chorale, and there are hints of another that I really like, but it isn't recapped. And yes, Zulu ranks as one of my favorite Barry productions.

I don’t include music not written by the score composer. Although I may like that particular music, and be thankful that it’s included on an album, I’m more interested in getting what the score composer created.

Where do you put King Rat in all of this?

It falls into the category with most of the other Barry I didn’t list. That’s to say that I might like the main theme, or two or three themes, but can’t list the album as a real favorite. Some I just don’t remember that well at this point because I never listened to them that much, a sign that I didn’t find them that satisfying as an album listening experience. BORN FREE, MIDNIGHT COWBOY, and KING RAT have a main theme or themes that I like but I don't remember them being that satisfying as an album experience. MAN IN THE MIDDLE, THE COTTON CLUB and some others I just don’t remember liking, period.

Again, the album doesn’t always include the best music from the film. Sometimes the album provides hardly any score music from the film as in the case of Barry’s THE GOLDEN CHILD. And, often, what are touted as “soundtrack” albums are actually re-scorings done especially for album release and designed to provide what the producer considers a good listening experience. The producer’s judgment isn’t always correct. As far as new releases go, this trend continues. Thankfully, we have labels producing new recordings of classic scores that revert to the original tracks.