Review by Paul Cote

Rating:****

For some reason I always forget about Laurence Rosenthal. I have a few of his CDs and they’re excellent, but I only seem to remember how good he is when I stumble across one of his albums out of the blue. Take Lala Land’s (sadly out of print) release of The Island of Dr. Moreau – excellent avant-garde horror music that holds its own with the best that Jerry Goldsmith and Leonard Rosenman have to offer. This should not come as a surprise to anyone, for excellent music like this is Rosenthal’s standard. Yet it’s just the sort of thing I usually overlook, so I’m always surprised when a score like this is so amazingly good.

This Island of Dr. Moreau was the second adaption of the Wells book, if memory serves, the one that features neither Bela Lugosi in animal makeup nor Marlon Brando in, um, Marlon Brando makeup. For the music, Rosenthal creates a bleak and painstakingly challenging soundscape, one that borrows liberally from Stravinsky and Bartok, though Goldsmith and Rosenman’s Planet of the Apes music frequently comes to mind as well. But that said, the score is certainly not any sort of derivative hack-work. For one thing, it takes more talent to “borrow” a quote from Stravinsky and Bartok than it does to “composer” an entire year’s output at Remote Control (oh, snap! Take that people who are far richer and more successful than me!). But more to the point, these references only augment a world that is otherwise entirely Rosenthal’s own. Using extreme dissonance, serial techniques, and countless other unsettling devices, the composer creates a world barren of any humanity, driven entirely by unrelenting animalistic instinct. He gives us occasional relief with his rhapsodic love theme (“The Real Maria”), but even here the music is more instinctively passionate than emotional. The rest of the music tends to be more abstract, almost like a piece of music-concrete. That said, the climatic sequence that runs from “Moreau’s Death” through “ The Holocaust” certainly evokes a more specific and cinematic form of violent frenzy, and it brings the score to a riveting conclusion.

So Rosenthal’s The Island of Dr. Moreau is a brilliant piece of work, and a reminder that I need to spend more time with this composer. How often you’ll return to this CD is another story. It’s painstakingly difficult music, and there’s very little in the way of human emotion to ease the tension. Much like the aforementioned Planet of the Apes scores, this is very much music that you need to be in the right mood for. The album sold out in a heartbeat, but it’s well-worth tracking down if you have an appetite for challenging experimental film music. Just don’t expect to leave the album with any, you know, hope for the decency of humanity or any other warm and fuzzy feelings.

Music Composed, Conducted and Produced by Laurence Rosenthal; Orchestrations by Laurence Rosenthal and Alexander Courage; Engineer: Eric Tomlinson; Album Produced by Ford A. Thaxton; Label: La-La Land Records; Availability: In-print; U.S. Release Date: February 24, 2009

01. The Island of Dr. Moreau – Main Title / The Jungle (5:24)
02. Maria And Friend / After Dinner / Doctor’s Study (4:18)
03. On The Beach / More Questions (5:40)
04. Forest Murmurs / Dr. Moreau’s Zoo / Moreau Explains (5:28)
05. Maria And Andrew (3:05)
06. Bear Man / To The Cave / In The Garden /Tiger Fight / Dead Tiger (7:32)
07. To The House Of Pain / Funeral Pyre (4:33)
08. Involution (3:44)
09. Braddock’s Cage / The Humanimals (3:57)
10. Moreau’s Death (2:41)
11. Man And Beast (2:18)
12. The Holocaust (1:30)
13. The Real Maria / The Island of Dr. Moreau – End Credits (2:41)

Bonus Tracks
14. Jungle Pursuit (1:34)
15. To The House Of Pain – Alt (2:44)

Total Playing Time: 57:33