MY WILDEST DREAM op.49 (May 1968)

Published by: HARMS-WITMARK LTD
Commissioned by: ABC Studios, Elstree
Instrumentation: Orchestra
[Key to Abbreviations]
Duration: 20 mins

THE AVENGERS -TARA KING SEASON SCORE Double album CD released 08 08 2011 on SILVA SCREEN RECORDS SILCD1363

 

DVDs of complete film episodes available from AMAZON

Notes

The principal composer of "The Avengers" was Laurie Johnson who asked Howard Blake to take over scoring on 10 of the films whilst he was engaged on writing a musical. Producer: Albert Fennell

Reviews

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Mit Schirm, Charme und Melone

In seinem Gastspiel bei der Serienmusik zu The Avengers bietet Howard Blake Musik auf hohem Niveau (As guest-composer for The Avengers series Howard Blake presented music of the highest level.)

At the end of the sixties Howard Blake wrote ten episodes of  The Avengers. The series was already in the post-Emma Peel era and concerned to match its earlier high level. It succeeded with beautiful episodes among the twenty-six made with Linda Thorson as Diana Rigg’s successor Tara King, and the ten with music by Howard Blake presenting a small but arguably important musical counterbalance to the over- one-hundred-episodes set to music by Laurie Johnson (which over the last year have become somewhat hard to obtain.) At root the two composers have much in common: both use the typical mixture established by Johnson - big band and classical symphony orchestra, including harp, reducing down to wind soloists and a small string section. Howard Blake arrived as an academically-trained composer from the Royal Academy with nothing more (and nothing less) than a recommendation from Bernard Hermann, but he produced from the same sound-body something different from the veteran Laurie Johnson’s ‘smoother’ Big Band style - something sharper, more dramatic, giving more of a scurrilous edge to the often obstruse Avengers plots – something most interesting. For the episode with people as living toys up against angry giants he uses screeching xylophone scales as these ‘people-puppets’ tumble down their ‘Snakes and Ladders’ game. He writes a ‘burlesque for contra-bassoon’ (so titled) and throughout one feels that such titles should not just be linked to the action alone, but that they are really more like abstract pieces called something like ‘Interludes for Harp’. Unmistakably this is music-making on the highest level where film has given stimulus to sound and compositional possibilities, not just the straightforward following of film action. This double CD ought to be a teaching CD for today’s film and tv composers.

 

Tobias van de Locht, Cinema Musica (Germany), 15/12/2011

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The Avengers remains one of the great institutions of British television, a landmark series and the epitome of the swinging 60s. Alongside the impeccable production values, the cream of British acting talent and the sheer quality of a TV series that was born in 1961, there is the immaculately crafted music. Jazz legend Johnny Dankworth supplied the jazzy sounds for the original videotaped series and then Laurie Johnson took over for the filmed series, delivering the now iconic theme and a whole raft of scoring for each individual episode. However, in 1967, Johnson began working on a new musical The Four Musketeers so conductor/composer Howard Blake stepped in as cover and composed for ten episodes of series 6, the final chapter for The Avengers as Tara King entered to replace Emma Peel as Steed’s glamorous but deadly sidekick. Howard already had a long connection with the series having played piano for many of Laurie Johnson’s scoring sessions. The chance to write and record music with many of the top musicians of that era (including Kenny Baker, Don Lusher, George Chisholm and Herbie Flowers) proved a golden window of opportunity. It led to a career that has delivered a succession of diverse musical triumphs as a composer that range from choral works and ballet to TV and film scores. His music for the much loved annual Christmas treat The Snowman highlights his prodigious talent and the Walking In The Air theme sits easily alongside the many great Yuletide songs. Silva Screen is delighted to be able to release Howard’s music for the first time, featuring all ten episodes of The Avengers that he both composed and conducted. This 2CD set comprises 50 tracks and also includes the essential Laurie Johnson theme. The 16 page booklet includes a fascinating background to the music with full episode credits and a wealth of pictures. SILCD1363 Original Television Soundtrack The Avengers Music by Howard Blake $18.95     Disc One 01. The Avengers Theme (Laurie Johnson) MY WILDEST DREAM 02. Main Title 03. Action Sequence 04. Nightmare For Harp 05. Finale WHOEVER SHOT POOR GEORGE OBLIQUE STROKE XR40? 06. Main Title ALL DONE WITH MIRRORS 07. Main Title 08. Action Sequence 09. Blues in Suspense 10. Over The Top 11. Optical Illusions 12. Fife & Drum SUPER SECRET CYPHER SNATCH 13. Main Title 14. Action Sequence 15. Action Sequence 2 16. Cyber Crush 17. Finale 18. Tag Scene GAME 19. Main Title 20. Contrabasson Plays Burlesque 21. Circus Snakes & Ladders NOON DOOMSDAY 22. Main Title 23. South of the Border 24. Lone Railroad 25. Ticking Clock 26. Death By Bullfight 27. Insistant Heartbeat 28. Marking Time 29. Finale Disc Two WISH YOU WERE HERE 01. Main Title 02. Interlude for Bassoon 03. Woodwind Games 04. Cor Anglais 05. Tag Scene THE INTERROGATORS 06. Main Title 07. Adagio Flute / Main Theme 08. Harp to Flute / Brass Menace 09. Tag Scene TAKE ME YOUR LEADER 10. Main Title 11. Wah-wah Blues March 1 12. Wah-wah Blues March 2 13. Light Suspense WHO WAS THAT MAN I SAW YOU WITH? 14. Main Title 15. Winds & Oboe Solo 16. Fender Rhodes Leading Back to Theme 17. Fender Rhodes Suspense 18. Extended Title Music 19. Quiet Winds 20. Finale 21. The Avengers Theme (Laurie Johnson) To order this CD using PayPal go to AVENGERS, THE - Original Soundtrack by Howard Blake - 2 CD SET SILCD1363$18.95

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Buy Soundtracks, 8/8/2011

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While composers like Lalo Schifrin, Jerry Goldsmith and Morton Stevens went to the bank when American TV cashed in on the British spy craze with THE MAN FROM UNCLE and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, the top show in the country where Bond started it all was THE AVENGERS, which cast Patrick MacNee as the debonair agent John Steed. Most popularly gracing this show’s hip musical stylings were Laurie Johnson and Johnny Dankworth as the bowler-hatted Steed partnered with such lovely, cat-suited ass-kickers as Honor Blackman’s Catherine Gale and Diana Rigg’s Emma Peel. Now it’s time for Linda Thorson’s lesser-known Tara King and her oft-accompanist Howard Blake (later to gain even more cult appeal for scoring FLASH GORDON) to get their place in the jazzy sun with Silva Screen’s release of THE AVENGERS- ORIGINAL TARA KING SEASON SCORE. It was during the show’s final run from 1968 to 1969 when Blake joined the team, ably picking up the baton from Johnson (whose inimitable theme opens and closes the album) to continue the show’s swinging espionage. Whether it was the jazz bass nightmares of “Wildest Dreams,” the Morse-code combo of “It’s All Done With Mirrors,” the knock-down swing that packs “The Interrogators”’ punch, a Wah-wah blues march that commands “Take Me Your Leader” or the Mexican horn menace of “Noon Doomsday,” the ten Blake episodes that are packed onto this two-CD set show the composer could speak the international language of TV spying with the best of them.

Soundtrack Picks By Daniel Schweiger, Film Music Magazine, 21/7/2011

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