Dances With Wolves [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]

by John Barry

Overview

John Barry's fifth Oscar-winning score is a profoundly moving body of music, generally (though not entirely) elegiac in tone, very much like the movie for which it was written. It's also a bit of a mixed bag, occasionally falling back on material that will be familiar to fans of the James Bond movies that Barry scored during the early- to mid-'60s. The main title theme uses some of those devices -- dense, heavy string passages adjacent to trumpet calls -- but it is hardly representative of the full score. The real heart of Dances With Wolves is the pensive, tragic "John Dunbar Theme," which is far closer in spirit to Barry's music for Somewhere in Time or They Might Be Giants -- films (and scores) far removed from the Bond movies. It seems as though, when Barry is asked to write music for characters who are complex and troubled (Bond is neither), he delivers the goods in the guise of musical material that reflects those elements. Some elements familiar from the Bond films can be found scattered throughout this soundtrack, particularly in the violin-driven "stings" that open "The Death of Timmons" and the horn calls that herald its closing; in the string parts underneath the hyperactive percussion of "Pawnee Attack" that might've been lifted right out of From Russia With Love; and also in "Stands With a Fist Remembers," with its secondary violin part in the upper register of the strings. Much of Dances With Wolves, however, shows a broadening of Barry's sound -- he uses the vast canvas of Kevin Costner's movie and Dean Semler's cinematography as the basis for one of the most richly scored soundtracks of his career, working with one of the largest orchestras ever heard in one of his films; "Journey to Fort Sedgewick," "Kicking Bird's Gift," "Two Socks at Play," "The Death of Cisco," and "Journey to the Buffalo Killing Ground" have an almost Copland-like majesty about them, and "The Buffalo Hunt" is one of the finest pieces of music the man ever wrote. At times, it sounds as though Barry had every string and horn player in Los Angeles present, and topped it all out with an oversized percussion section, but none of the music or the scoring here sound excessive. Dances With Wolves was reissued with two bonus tracks in 1995. The 2004 reissue expanded some tracks and added still more material to present the soundtrack "in its entirety." ~ Bruce Eder

Product Details

Release Date:	05/18/2004
Label:	Legacy / Epic
UPC:	0074646355527

Tracks

1. Dances with Wolves, film score~Main Title / Looks Like a Suicide (Expanded)
2. Dances with Wolves, film score~Ride To Fort Hayes
3. Dances with Wolves, film score~Journey to Fort Sedgewick / Shooting Star / John Dunbar Theme / Arrival at Fort Sedgewick (Expanded
4. Dances with Wolves, film score~The John Dunbar Theme
5. Dances with Wolves, film score~The Death of Timmons
6. Dances with Wolves, film score~Two Socks/ The Wolf Theme
7. Dances with Wolves, film score~Stands With A Fist Remembers
8. Dances with Wolves, film score~The Buffalo Robe
9. Dances with Wolves, film score~Journey To The Buffalo Killing Ground
10. Dances with Wolves, film score~Spotting the Herd
11. Dances with Wolves, film score~The Buffalo Hunt (Film Version)
12. Dances with Wolves, film score~Fire Dance
13. Dances with Wolves, film score~Two Socks At Play
14. Dances with Wolves, film score~Falling In Love
15. Dances with Wolves, film score~Love Theme
16. Dances with Wolves, film score~The John Dunbar Theme
17. Dances with Wolves, film score~Pawnees / Pawnee Attack / Stone Calf Dies / Toughest Dies
18. Dances with Wolves, film score~Victory
19. Dances with Wolves, film score~The Death of Cisco
20. Dances with Wolves, film score~Rescue of Dances With Wolves
21. Dances with Wolves, film score~The Loss of the Journal / The Return to Winter Camp
22. Dances with Wolves, film score~Farewell / End Title
23. Dances with Wolves, film score~The Buffalo Hunt (Album Version)
24. Dances with Wolves, film score~The John Dunbar Theme (Film Version)

Album Credits

Performance Credits

John Barry   Primary Artist,Vocals,Conductor,Orchestra
Greig McRitchie   Orchestra

Technical Credits

John Barry   Composer,Producer
Didier C. Deutsch   Producer,Reissue Producer
Mark McKenzie   Orchestration
Mark Wilder   Remastering,Reissue Producer,Mastering Engineer
Darren Salmieri   Artist Coordination
Shawn Murphy   Engineer
Gary Pacheco   Project Director
Humberto Gatica   Mixing
Peter Buffett   Producer
David Foster   Producer
Sue McLean   Assistant Engineer
Jon Burlingame   Liner Notes
Kevin Boutote   Engineer
Dave Collins   Mastering,Mastering Engineer
Stephen Saper   Engineer,Authoring
Bridget McGoldrick   Packaging Manager
Adam Farber   Artist Coordination
Greig McRitchie   Orchestration
Sue MacLean   Assistant Engineer
Ken Fredette   Art Direction
Steve Berkowitz   A&R
Joy Gilbert Manfried   Project Director
Darcy Proper   Editing Engineer,Reissue Producer