Customer Reviews

The Alamo (1960)

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Dimitri Tiomkin has written the film music of some of my favorite movies and westerns. I think "The Alamo" is his masterpiece. Mixing Spanish themes with other western standards captures the period of the Alamo perfectly. When he introduces Davy Crockett, riding to immortality with his ragged bunch towards the Alamo with a funny accordian theme, or the bombastic fanfares of generalisamo Santa Anna, or the exciting battle music, history comes alive. His beautiful "Green Leaves of Summer,' perfectly captures the sadness of a noble stand and regret. John Wayne, if my memory serves me, when he won his only Oscar for playing Rooster Cogburn in "True Grit,"thanked the Academy and Dimitri Tiomkin, for Tiomkin scored many films Wayne acted in, classics like "Red River," and others.Also,"The Alamo" was Wayne's only directorial effort and he must have had a great love of Tiomkin's music. This CD gives the listener more music. I had and still have the original LP of "The Alamo" and remains one of my favorites. It is wonderful when Tiomkin takes the "Dueglo," or "no quarter" trumpet solo and blends in "The Green Leaves of Summer" for added effect and power. After the last song, like the survivors of the Alamo, we too feel regret and know that this is great music. Highly recommended. Also try to get or request out of print Tiomkin scores, classics like "The Old Man and the Sea,"(He won an Academy Award for it) and one of my other favorites, "The Guns of Navarone," a great score to a rousing classic as "The Alamo" is. There are many many others but "The Alamo" is a good introduction to Dimitri Tiomkin's wide range of film scores as any and still stands the test of time.

The musical score for John Wayne's "The Alamo" was arranged by the Russian-born composer, Dimitri Tiomkin. It is ironic that a man with Russian heritage would compose many of the great American western scores, including "High Noon," "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral," and "Rio Bravo." Tiomkin also wrote scores for other genre including "The Guns of Navarone" and "The Fall of the Roman Empire." "The Alamo" is his signature western work.

Tiomkin beautifully captures the many moods and themes of the film in his haunting and reflective Overture. These themes play out again and again in the natural setting of the movie, from the plaintive guitar and harmonica to depict the southwestern flavor of the mission near San Antonio, to the stirring brass to introduce Davy Crockett, or the imperial trumpets to announce Santa Anna. The music is varied, rich, robust, and teeming with excitement.

Tiomkin is a master. He can at once soothe the soul with "The Green Leaves of Summer" on the eve of the final climatic battle when the defenders of the Alamo lay wake in the still of the night, as one of them said, "not thinking...just remembering." He can then stir the soul with the clash of strings, brass and percussion in the final dramatic assault. I have listened to this music for forty years, first on records and now this CD. It evokes the many memorable scenes from the movie and is timeless and enduring...

I'm a great fan of "The Alamo" since I first saw it at the age of 14. Now I'm 48. Since then, I saw it whenever I could. Its music amused me. I worship "The Green Leaves of Summer"and its openig, too. The other tracks included recently, such as Marty Robbins' "Ballad of The Alamo", made this CD a precious item. I've been after it for a long time. Since the time of vinils, but never managed to get it here in Brazil. Recently, I found it at Amazon.com. So the dream of having it in my collection at last came true. So now I see the film and listen to this great, great soundtrack. In time, I'm very found of movies tracks and songs.

The Alamo not only bridges the gap between truth and legend, but almost every element of this production is riddled with legendary concepts and personalities (the Alamo set, John Wayne's only turn as actor and director, and the score). Hollywood itself was graced with many European emigrants of exceptional heritage, Tiomkin among one of the most versatile and legendary. Let us not forget that this was a man who studied harmony and counterpoint under Alexander Glazunov (along with classmate Sergie Prokofiev) at the Moscow conservatory, who studied pedagogy under Ferruccio Busoni; and a vertuoso pianist who toured during the 1920's first inroducing his friend George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue to European audiences. By 1960 Tiomkin was the most recognized and highest paid of Hollywood composers. The Alamo score comes at the height of Tiomkin's maturity as a composer coupled with the legendary (and sometimes inundatingly orchestrated) Guns of Navarone (1961), The Fall of the Roman Empire (1963), and 55 Days at Peking (1964). The Alamo cd is an unbelievable bargain and musically could stand solidly on the Overture, Main Title, Raid for Cattle, and Final Assault tracks. Music enthusiasts should pay particular attention to the Raid for Cattle track which is an exquisite example of compositional mastery well beyond the rquirements of a film composer (pay particularly attention to the crescendo moments of this track which include trombone counterpoint melodies underlying an all out rendition of the main track melody). As Tiomkin biographer Christopher Palmer has pointed out the Final Assault and Battle music is nearly symphonic in nature. This outstanding composer has such a deep, wonderful tradition in American folk music styles (refer to his work on Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, It's a Wonderful Life, etc.), and a rich tradition of music style that traces origins to Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, and many of the great romantic era Russian composers. It is a testimony that John Wayne had only one composer in mind when he began work on the most important project of his personal career; in fact, Wayne originally thought that Tiomkin's main title trumpet theme ("De Guello"- also used as the title music to Rio Bravo), was the authentic Mexican melody played at the original Alamo battle.

Absolutely a rarity,absolutely a marvellous recording that must be in every archive that are interested not only in soundtracks but also contemporary classics...Just a few months ago,I saw this movie on TV and I found the vinyl LP of this album (Which was nearly 40 years old)which was on sale in an antiques shop at a price of US$100 (which is around the half of minimum wage in Turkey)and this was purchased by a collectioner,regardless of its age and the scratches on it...From that day,I was looking for that marvellous album until I met "amazon.com". Now I am very happy to be an owner of that rarity and thank you "amazon.com" for realizing my dream!

In short: A great score by Dimitri (The Guns of Navarone) Tiomkin. Say what you will about the motion picture, but the soundtrack epitomizes the Texian war of independence. During an extended stint in southern Texas, I had this CD playing almost non-stop.

The CD is supplemented with tracks taken directly from the 1960 movie, dialogue, sound effects and all. Apparently many of the original soundtrack tapes disappeared and the only recourse was to borrow heavily from the film itself. Way back in 1960, when the movie was released, the soundtrack was to be a two-record set. The film's less than successful release caused the soundtrack to be pared-down to a single record.

I am hopefull that the full soundtrack will yet be recovered and re-released. Until then, enjoy the combination of music, horses hooves pounding the prairie, and John Wayne dissertations.

Recently the Disney company inflicted upon the viewing public a revisionist version of "The Alamo"..It was released in April after being yanked from a christmas day opening ..That film was among the worst "Alamo"films ever made,and,adding to the garbage seen on-screen the film was saddled with a minamalist "celtic"yanni-type score by Carter Burwell...This version of "The Alamo"starring John Wyane works well as mythology,and boasts one of Dimitri Tiomkin's best ever fully symphonic scores..
What can one say when one compares the two?In the John Wyane version,history is side-tracked in favor of entertainment,and the result is marvelous.A lot of action,larger-than-life charecters,and robust,coplanesque "western"flavored music...No wonder the film was nominated for so many awards.
In the recent version Billy Bob Thornton replaces John Wyane as Davey Crockett,and instead of getting an all-american hero we get an opportunist who has come to Texas thinking that the revolution was already over,and that as a former congressman,he might renew his political career as a big shot in the new Texas republic..Worse,the revisionist weenies who wrote the script chose to ignore every account that had davey crockett dying an heroic death in favor of the one,MEXICAN(and therefore biased)account that branded crockett one tiny step up from a craven coward...No wonder the music used in this fiasco was not only minamalist,but poorly written to boot.
Tiomkin's music,on the other hand,celebrates heroic men and heroic deeds.It it tuneful,melodic,memorable,and very "american"...It is the kind of music one associates with an"epic"motion picture.Burwell,writing to induce sleep,gives a murky score devoid of any interest..
In the John Wyane version,and contrary to historical fact,the final battle is fought in broad daylight.The sequence is long and exciting,and Tiomkin gives us an exciting sequence of music..In the recent fiasco the producers give us an historical rendering of that final battle,fought in almost total darkness,and Burwell gives us a dirge-like monotone that is more suitable for a funeral service that an epic life and death battle.
Buy this album...It is one of the great scores.Skip the Burwell flapdoodle...Tiomkin's score has been in-print and available for over 40 years,a testament to it's greatness.Burwell's score will go out of print soon,if it has not done so already,and it will stay out of print,a testament to it's basic unsuitability both as a score for a would-be adventure film,and it's general grade zee quality.

Quite frankly, as a composer for films, Tiomkin is, in my view, unsurpassed in terms of his ability at orchestration, harmonics, melody, et al., in other words, all of the characteristics which go to make up excellence in a composer. No, he's not as good as Richard Strauss, or Gustave Mahler, or Britten or most of the other giants of classical music, but as a writer of movie music, no one is better, and this album is an example of Tiomkin at his very best [although removing most of the dialogue from the recording would be a distinct improvement].

Of course, we know now from both archaeological evidence and inarguably genuine documents and letters that have come to light in the last 40 years that most of the film's, and John Wayne's, skewed historicity is way off the mark, and that most of what is presented as fact in the film is egregiously erroneous. Historians probably knew much of the truth even in 1960, although the producers of the film apparently ignore it for whatever reason: The very heroic Jim Bowie, for example was a forger and an embezzler, fabricating as he did phony land grant papers to pawn off on various government entities of the time. Like others among the defenders, the fort's very capable and courageous commander, William Travis was not only a slave owner but was also a rabid promoter and defender of slavery as an institution, as were others among the Texian independence movement, a fact which undercuts much of the patently heroic " 'Republic' Is A Word" speech about the importance of words like "freedom" and "independence." Further, Travis had abandoned his wife and children when he left Louisiana and went to Texas. Much the same sort of background is true of some of the other defenders, many of them rootless adventurers, others, for various reasons,believers in a Republic of Texas, including those of some of the other `Tejanos,' citizens of Mexican Texas who also fought at the Alamo, although not mentioned in the movie for some reason, because they too wanted freedom from Mexico.

Historical accuracy aside, Tiomkin's `Alamo' score is, like his work for 'Giant' and '55 Days At Peking,' a masterpiece of film music. In 'The Alamo,'suspending one's knowledge of the truth for a few hours allows a person to enjoy Tiomkin's unforgettable masterwork to the fullest in addition to providing a musical experience which will find you not only remembering the melodies from the film for a long time, but humming and singing them to yourself for a lifetime, especially in those moments when skill, determination, and great courage are of the utmost importance.

It is more than 40 years since John Wayne's epic film appeared in London's West End and, with this CD, it is as yesterday. Not only does it include all the music from the film and the old vinyl recording but here are the words of Wayne's David Crockett and Harvey's Travis. It is as if the whole film has been condensed into an hourglass. Listen...and "remember the Alamo!"

This recording is heaps better than the old lp, but i could have done without the spoken words. still, i liked this version of this subject a lot better than the more recent version with Billy Bob Thornton.
However, the John Wayne version has its flaws as well. The final battle took place before daylight, for example, not after daylight as Wayne depicts it.
Plus, Jim Bowie was very critically ill at the time of the battle, and had lost his wife three years before, not during the siege as Wayne describes it.
Otherwise, this is one of Dimitri Tiomkin's best scores.