Return to Oz

about this album

Notes on the score from composer David Shire: I was glad to have an opportunity to write an extensive, symphonic score for a major orchestra -- the London Symphony -- a score with a great number of themes. I've done a lot of films that didn't require a great deal of music -- I call them "brain surgery scores" -- where you have to walk on eggs and work hard to keep the music out of the way most of the time and work, for the most part, on a subliminal level. So, I was happy when OZ director Walter Murch said he wanted a lot of music. There are nine major themes or thematic groups in RETURN TO OZ, and I tried to compose them so they would work as extended pieces of music in addition to their functioning as themes. I wanted the score to hold together like "Pictures at an Exhibition" or "Peter and the Wolf." I felt this would give the film a musical coherence and make for a soundtrack album that would really tell the story of the picture. I started working while Walter was still shooting. However, only one theme -- the Gump's theme -- was written before I actually got to see the rough cut of the film. Well before the spotting, Walter and I decided on certain basic ideas for the score's tone and texture. We had some ideas based on music we liked -- for instance, Charles Ives, especially his work for smaller combinations that can be heard on a wonderful album called Deranged Songs for Theatre Orchestra, plus some Prokofiev and Bartok. We later joked how one cue I'd written was

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