John Scott: Black Rainbow (1989) / Munich Symphony Orchestra

Описание: ABOUT THE SCORE: Mike Hodges' 1989 supernatural crime thriller "Black Rainbow", with its solid cast and unusual premise about a medium (Rosanna Arquette) who finds herself in the crosshairs of a hired-gun killer, allowed composer John Scott to pen one of his most angry and complex scores. Scott turned for inspiration to the concert music of composer Edgard Varèse's for the dense, colorful orchestrational language found herein, and even borrowed a motif from Strauss' "Salome", which fans of James Horner might recognize also (see "Humanoids from the Deep", another score that inexplicably recontextualizes the same motif from that masterful opera into a horror-score fabric). The resultant work is one that was particularly taxing on Scott due to its composition falling concurrent with the care of his mother, who was dying of Alzheimer's at the time. As such the score teems with darkness, paranoia, anger and loneliness - emotions the man himself was redolent with at the time. This is highly accomplished and rigorous music; while a recurring oboe motif provides a few respites of tonality, there are certainly no "rainbows" to be found here.

This recording derives from two sources: The composer's own first-generation album master of select highlights that never got released (0:00 - 15:15) and then a somewhat compressed-sounding backup copy of the complete score with somewhat limited dynamics (15:15 to end). The score was recorded by Peter Kramper with the Munich Symphony, and has to date never been released in any capacity.