Conan the Barbarian: Theology/Civilization

Way back in 1997 or 1998, Nintendo released the official trailer for their latest game,  The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.  I recall reading at the time (most likely in Nintendo Power) that a composer named Basil Poledouris had been hired to write the music for that trailer.  This was my introduction to a legendary film composer who has written some of my favorite pieces of music.

I found out later that the music for the Ocarina of Time trailer was really just a subtle reworking of the "Riders of Doom" theme from Poledouris' soundtrack to the 1982 movie Conan the Barbarian.  The soundtrack to Conan is considered by some film score enthusiasts to be one of the best movie soundtracks ever made.  While I scoffed at that claim early on (Conan is a cult classic but not exactly a masterpiece), I quickly began to reconsider after sitting down and listening to it.  Poledouris crafts a wide range of complex motifs in the soundtrack, from the brutally powerful "Main Theme" to the tender "Wifeing", a song that has been used in many movie trailers since.  Moreover, the soundtrack to Conan seems to act as a kind of musical transition from the Bernard Hermann era, Cinemascope sword and sandal epics of the '60s to the James Horner and John Williams operatic epics of the 80s and 90s.  When put all together, the soundtrack has a dreamlike, timeless quality to it, and I am fairly certain that it is the film's music which elevates Conan the Barbarian from mere B-movie pulp to something significantly more artistic.

I have had the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack in one form or another for many years now, but last year a brand new, 3 disc set was released.  Before 2012, the majority of the soundtrack was thought to be lost.  Only the original 1982 LP release had been remastered, while the rest of the score only existed on worn, low quality formats.  However the original recordings were recently found in vaults at Universal Studios, and the music was remastered and released in its complete form.

This song, Theology/Civilization, is my favorite track from that score.  It represents the older, 50s/60s style of movie music, where fantasy or Greek/Roman epics were often scored with medieval sounding music.  Towards the end of the track however, it moves into a more powerful, modern interpretation that is similar to Poledouris' other motifs.  A new Conan movie is being planned, with Arnold Schwarzenegger reprising his role as an older King Conan.  Although Poledouris is sadly no longer around to create new music for the movie, I hope that the new film will reuse his main theme, and maybe one or two other songs, in order to create some musical cohesion for what will now be a Conan trilogy.  One can only hope.

Enjoy!




Album info: http://www.amazon.com/Conan-Barbarian-CDs-Complete-Score/dp/B00ADW4I9O/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1360369057&sr=8-4&keywords=conan+the+barbarian+soundtrack