Music Composed by Elmer Bernstein
Rating: ****

I was tempted to opening this review with a typical, “Bernstein wrote for a lot different movies, but if there’s one thing he was loved for best, it was Westerns,” but I stopped, because at the last minute I realized how asinine that sentence sounded. To start, the sentence was asinine because it was just so poorly written; awful syntax, awkward subject-verb agreement – people are supposed to read this? But it was also an asinine statement because Bernstein wrote groundbreaking music in virtually every major drama, and won devoted fans for every new bridge he forged. Pigeonholing him with the Western is an insult. Yet having said that, the man did some damn fine work for the cowboy genre – in fact, with the possible exception of Tiomkin, nobody defined Hollywood Americana more than Bernstein. His most famous achievement in the genre is obviously The Magnificent Seven, but that’s just one of his many indelible classics for the genre. Far too few of those are available on CD, but James Fitzpatrick and the City of the Prague Philharmonic have just done us a great service by filling in one of the biggest gaps in Bernstein’s filmography – the magnificent True Grit.

The score is one of several that Bernstein wrote for John Wayne in the winter of the Duke’s acting career, and it’s arguably the best of the lot. At the very least, it’s the most spirited and unabashedly jubilant of the lot. Indeed, the score is much more carefree and joyous than we might expect for a story about a girl who hires John Wayne to help gun down her parents’ killers. Do I care? No. No I do not care. With so much raw joy and excitement packed into Bernstein’s music, who could possibly care?

Elmer Bernstein

The score revolves around two themes, both big, bold, memorable, and every other wonderful superlative we’re supposed to pull out when describing great themes. The primary theme is surprisingly romantic and wistful for a John Wayne movie (wasn’t he supposed to be a rough-and-tough “man’s man”?), but sensitive lyricism from Bernstein is never something to complain about. Admittedly, the theme doesn’t sound especially promising the first time we hear it in the opening “True Grit - Instrumental,” but that middling ’60s pop arrangement has little to do with the rest of the score. In the actual score-proper, Bernstein grounds the melody firmly in his signature Americana, where it truly soars. Within that Americana framework, and Bernstein sends that melody through just about every conceivable guise. It haunts with eerie sadness in “Papa’s Things,” marches with jubilant vigor in “Runaway Races Away” and even drives with dark desperation in “The Pace That Kills.” Bernstein certainly isn’t afraid to triumph the theme in all its glory on numerous occasions, but he also breaks it into tiny fragments on other occasions. This means that even the phrases that seem like throwaways get their own moments in the spotlight (the theme’s bridge gets a particularly shining moment in “Chase/On Their Way.”).

The second theme is more typical of Bernstein’s racing-through-wide-rolling-spaces Americana (”Where There Is Smoke/The Dying Moon”). To be fair, I will grant that you could probably substitute with the theme from The Magnificent Seven or Big Jake and not notice any discernable difference. But you’d have to be a pretty grouchy Guster to complain, as the theme is far too infectious and blissfully thrilling for such quibbles. In keeping with Bernstein’s classic western themes, the melody itself almost takes second stage to its terrific syncopated harmony line, alternately moving both with and against the melody to great effect. This is the stuff that gives even the effeminate modern man the urge to jump on a horse, get in a fist-fight, and eat beans (those who know me know that this is about the highest complement I give).

Highlights are present in almost every track, and the album flows flawlessly from point A to point B. But special attention must got the sequence that makes up “The Pace That Kills/A Ride for Life,” the score’s greatest tour-de-force. The cue incorporates all of the score’s thematic material into one of the most thrilling action pieces every written for the screen. It opens with a searing variation on the main theme, anguished, lyrical, and riveting all in one breath. Charging with gathering force, the piece eventually explodes into a crash of alternating majesty and brutality (although Bernstein never sacrifices the crystal-clear harmonies to that brutality). Listen closely and you can hear the triumphant bridge of the main theme heralding itself above the chaos, along with a fragment of the secondary Americana theme played out in the most grandiose dimensions conceivable. It’s about as over-the-top and breathless as film music gets, and it’s quite possibly the greatest piece of action music Bernstein contributed to the canon, surpassing even “The Showdown” from The Magnificent Seven and “The Chase” from The Great Escape.

From there, we gradually draw to the obligatory big finish and grand recapitulation of the main themes in “A Warm Wrap-Up.” We’re far from done after that though, as there are bonuses galore to fill up the running time. The first of these is the notorious vocal adaptation of the main theme, “True Grit” (what else). The theme as a song is about as unintentionally silly as they come, and should probably be placed as far from the score itself as possible if you want to spend the album with a straight face (sample lyric: “The pain of it / will ease a bit / when you find a man with [wait for it] True Grit [oh, snap!]). Then we have short suites from Bernstein’s other John Wayne Westerns, a feature that seems designed to render Varese Sarabande’s competing Bernstein/Wayne compilation album completely obsolete. All these bonuses are nice, but for all practical purposes, the album ends when True Grit ends. Compilations of Bernstein’s cowboy themes are a dime a dozen – hearing one of his best cowboy scores in its complete form is what makes this album special.

This recording is Fitzpatrick and the City of the Prague’s second release for Tadlow (the first was last year’s excellent reading of Tiomkin’s Guns of Navarone), and once again, they’ve come through with flying colors. I’ll grant that Fitzpatrick is occasionally slightly looser with the tempo than some purists might prefer, but I can hardly grudge him for letting the orchestra savor those rich Bernstein harmonies. I’m sure it’s sacrilege to call this Bernstein’s best score for a Western – that honor will always (deservedly) go to the revolutionary The Magnificent Seven. But I don’t think it would be too much of a stretch to say that True Grit is the Bernstein western that plays best as a stand-alone listen. I say this because it does just about everything that the average film music aficionado wants a score to do – it introduces a handful of instantly memorable themes, fills the score with every conceivable variation on those themes (both bold and subtle), offers hugs and thrills in equal measure, draws to a riveting climax and closes with a bang. Not all films benefit from that approach, but we’re in heaven when a film allows for that perfect listening experience. Unless for some reason you hate Bernstein’s Americana (in which case, I think I can reasonably presume that you also hate puppies, kittens, and ice cream), you should have this recording. So, uh, whadaryah waitin’ for, mon-syer. “Saddle” up with this … ah, screw it – do your own John Wayne impression. And buy this CD.

Music Composed by Elmer Bernstein; Orchestrated by Leo Shuken and Jack Hayes; Performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic; Conducted by and Produced by James Fitzpatrick; Recorded and Mixed by Jan Holzner; Label (Catalogue): Tadlow Music (002); Availability: Limited edition of 3,000 copies; U.S. Release Date: June, 2006

01. True Grit - Instrumental (1′44)
02. A Dastardly Deed / A Stiff Job (2′16)
03. Businesslike Mattie / Papa’s Things (2′02)
04. Pony Mine / Rooster And Le Boeuf / Runaway Races Away (4′08)
05. Chase / On Their Way (1′47)
06. The Big Trail (1′10)
07. Where There Is Smoke / The Dying Moon (4′16)
08. Preparation Dugout / Dugout Stakeout / Shots Galore! (5′28)
09. Ruffled Rooster (1′42)
10. Bouncing Into Danger / Over Bald Mountain (4′20)
11. Rooster In The Meadow / Meadow Fight / A Long Shot (3′26)
12. The Snake Pit / The Lift Out / Sad Departure (6′44)
13. The Pace That Kills / A Ride For Life (3′01)
14. A Warm Wrap-Up (1′56)
15. End Credits (0′55)
16. True Grit (1′49)
Vocals: Keith Ferreira / Lyrics: Don Black
17. The Songs Of Katie Elder: Concert Suite (4′18)
18. The Shootist: Opening Sequence (3′12)
19. The Comancheros: McBain / Main Title (2′40)
20. Cahill’ United States Marshal: Necktie Party (4′06)
21. Big Jake: Concert Suite (6′45)
22. True Grit - Instrumental (First Orchestration) (1′55)

Total Playing Time: 69′40