Lawman
Added on Tuesday, May 21, 2019 Posted by Philippe Mouchon
Intrada's latest release revisits one of Jerry Fielding's classic western scores – the 1971 United Artists film Lawman. Fielding's score avoids the customary western trappings, featuring a main theme that combines the scope of the great frontier with brooding intensity. Shifting between minor and major, his theme underlines the singular, unyielding pursuit by Burt Lancaster as the 'Lawman' in bringing several men to justice. Reflective moments are sensitive, counterbalancing the fierce and violent action scenes. Capping the score is a powerful finish with trumpets ascending into the stratosphere.
Intrada's latest release revisits one of Jerry Fielding's classic western scores – the 1971 United Artists film Lawman. Fielding's score avoids the customary western trappings, featuring a main theme that combines the scope of the great frontier with brooding intensity. Shifting between minor and major, his theme underlines the singular, unyielding pursuit by Burt Lancaster as the 'Lawman' in bringing several men to justice. Reflective moments are sensitive, counterbalancing the fierce and violent action scenes. Capping the score is a powerful finish with trumpets ascending into the stratosphere.
Presented in crystal clear stereo from newly located original master elements, the release offers a different program from the previous Intrada release. In the '70s Fielding had been frustrated at the lack of interest by record companies in his music, so he had approved a 2-LP set featuring suites from four of his scores, including Lawman. This suite was used as the base for the original Intrada album, with new material added in to supplement the suite.
With this new release the entire score has been remastered, and working with the unedited original cues, the score has been put in film order as is customary with most Intrada albums.
In the film, Burt Lancaster plays Sheriff Jered Maddox, a rude and arrogant fellow if there ever was one. Maddox enters a neighboring town searching for the men responsible for an accidental death. But even with justice on his side, his manner turns the town against him, and the town boss sends a series of henchman to do away with Maddox – one after another. Directed by Michael Winner, Lawman also features Robert Ryan, Lee J. Cobb, and Robert Duvall.
Jerry Fielding’s striking western score gets newly edited & remastered CD! British director Michael Winner comes to the U.S. to tell a uniquely American tale of the old west via an uncompromising, “take no prisoners” approach that turned heroism upside down.
The titular marshal quite simply enters the town of Sabbath with warrants to arrest seven men who had in drunken rowdiness killed an innocent citizen during a cattle drive.
One by one, the seven men are tracked down, cornered and executed in the name of the law. The finale remains one of the most savage of all westerns. Burt Lancaster stars, with solid support from Robert Ryan, Lee J. Cobb, Robert Duvall, Sheree North, Albert Salmi. Gerald Wilson pens the cynical script, United Artists releases in 1971, Jerry Fielding provides the brief but essential score.
Fielding matches Winner in uncompromising fashion by writing music that is decidedly non-western in terms of convention yet evokes the outdoor space, dry arid landscape and violent gunplay of the time and locale just the same.
His harmonic vernacular is tight, terse. His melodies have shape but aim for tension and brutality. Like the film, there are no heroes with white hats on horseback.
Lancaster’s dark clothes and black hat blur the lines between right and wrong and Fielding traverses that slippery slope by launching in his lengthy “Titles” with a bittersweet minor-key theme in violins over rhythms in the orchestra that suggest not the gallop or pace of the horse Marshal Maddox rides but the unrelenting drive and purpose he exhibits instead.
There are numerous highlights in the score but demanding a spotlight is Fielding’s “Finale”, which emerges from the carnage first on French horns but soon surges through the full orchestra.
In just over a minute, Fielding takes it from this stark opening to an incredible fortissimo, made all the more stunning by its use of trumpets in their highest register, well above the rest of the orchestra! No shining major key harmony here, the closing bars are slashing and definitive. A powerhouse finish! Intrada premiered this short albeit complete score years back in an edition edited not in film sequence but one which grouped the numerous short cues into longer pieces and mini-suites.
For this new presentation, Intrada has worked from recently located, unedited 2-track stereo masters, courtesy MGM, allowing a new listen in less brittle sound with the cues heard using Fielding’s original film sequencing for an entirely different experience. Nick Redman’s original 2004 notes have been retained out of respect for the gifted film historian. Kay Marshall designs the colorful booklet.
Recorded and mixed by Richard Lewzey at CTS Studios, London. Orchestrations by Greig McRitchie. Jerry Fielding composes, David Whitaker conducts.
Intrada Special Collection CD available while quantities and interest remain!