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The 13th Warrior |
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Music Composed and Conducted by Jerry Goldsmith Orchestrations by Alexander Courage Release Date: 1999
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While fans of The Mummy will have to wait to
for a sequel (which is currently being worked on at the time of this
writing), many consider Goldsmith to have composed a sequel score in the
form of The 13th Warrior. As the story concerns an Arab
joining a band of Vikings, Goldsmith apparently felt no qualms about
adapting the musical style of The Mummy for this score. Both share a
lot of similarities including similar sounding themes and the use of a choir
and ethnic instruments. The 13th Warrior departs in style
from The Mummy by leaving out virtually all synth effects, keeping
away from the horror music moments, and more elaborate, but less intense,
action cues.
The opening tracks really set the stage, especially in depicting the musical landscape as being similar to The Mummy with track two sounding like a more expanded and drawn out version of the Camel Race track from that score. Following that, Goldsmith begins to weave in his Viking music, which is very effective and brings some originality to this score. The choir pieces are scattered around, but are on the European slant rather than bringing emphasis to the Arabic style portions. The score is mainly dark in tone, and a majority of the tracks consists of what sounds like ominous traveling music, but the blending of the two musical styles continually keeps things interesting. The action cues are all right, but I didn’t find them as wild as what could be found in The Mummy. Track nine is the best, with a foretaste of that cue appearing briefly in track six. The climactic ten-minute cue (Valhalla/Viking Victory) brings a nice end to the score, with the latter half of the piece standing out the best. Unfortunately, the last track really disappoints because it sounds like it ends abruptly, like the end title music was supposed to come right after it, but it doesn’t. If you enjoyed The Mummy, then you’ll probably get a kick out of this score, especially if you enjoyed the whole Egyptian style that permeated the music. While I liked The Mummy better, The 13th Warrior is still a good listen and an apt entry into the land of film scores. **** |
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Track Listing 1 - Old Baghdad (2:01) 2 - Exiled (3:41) 3 - Semantics (2:38) 4 - The Great Hall (5:20) 5 - Eaters of the Dead (3:32) 6 - Viking Heads (1:29) 7 - The Sword Maker (2:06) 8 - The Horns of Hell (3:25) 9 - The Fire Dragon (4:53) 10 - Honey (2:36) 11 - The Cave of Death (3:00) 12 - Swing Across (1:49) 13 - Mother Wendol's Cave (4:12) 14 - Underwater Escape (1:36) 15 - Valhalla / Viking Victory (10:35) 16 - A Useful Servant (1:18) Total Running Time: 54:58 |
