The Nightcomers - Remastered

Intrada presents a remastered edition of their prior release of Jerry Fielding's masterpiece, The Nightcomers (1971). It was the second of five films Jerry Fielding scored for Michael Winner, for which he composed one of his most diverse and complex scores. Fielding appeared to be intrigued by the film's two major conflicts.The first conflict is primarily visual - a dynamic contrast between frequent shots of the pastoral, regal English landscapes and the similarly frequent sequences of dark, sordid happenings occurring behind closed doors. The second conflict is more internally dramatic, a battle between the malicious Peter Quint and innocent Miss Jessel for the well-being of the children. With such intense material, Fielding avoided composing a solitary theme to unify the story, or even working with a theme and variations approach. Ever the intellectual composer, Fielding instead created his own world of contrasts to musically shape and dissect.

The score opens strong, with a bright major-key fanfare for brass to herald the locale followed by classically imbued harmonies to underscore youthful innocence juxtaposed with the odd and disturbing nature of this tale. A warm pastoral mode pops up (a rarity of style for Fielding), but don't be deceived, for not far behind is a cold, dark string motif that anchors the score. The character of Miss Jessel gets not one, but two dramatically contrasting musical ideas, one painted with warm glowing colors in strings, woodwinds, and French horns to reflect her outer beauty, the other a cold string theme with violent brass and percussion sections to underscore her submissive, sexually perverse nature. All just a few highlights from this Fielding gem.

This album maintains the previous release's chronological order, featuring crisp stereo sound from recording engineer Richard Lewzey at Cine-Tele Sound in London, remastered for optimal sonics. A shout out to James Fitzpatrick whose foresight rescued the master tapes from oblivion when the studio closed down.