unstable - WT - Ab Dorian - A Dorian - WT - D Dorian
Meter:
4/4
Tempo (bpm):
150
Instrumentation:
orchestra
Description
On-screen:
Main titles over a speeding ambulance
Description:
Dramatic minor-mode theme creates excitement and suspense, starting with a dissonant brass stinger; features dotted-note melodic gestures, quick glissandi, ascending sequences, and repeated notes in the brass; the cue is played over an ambulance and its siren; the music dies down as the ambulance pulls into the hospital; Steiner borrows this dramatic cue from his score for the film Bird of Paradise (1932); although the cue sheet refers to the Whirlpool scene, this cue actually comes from an earlier scene where Johnny and Luana are being chased by natives (with two measures of new material added at the beginning and 11 measures of new material added at the end to adapt it to the length of this particular scene)
Analysis:
This turbulent opening music has five contrasting sections; the first features a menacing neighbor note motive harmonized with half-diminished sonorities over a dissonant pedal; the second uses a fanfare motif followed by whole-tone parallelism over a pedal tone; the third uses trills, tremolos and pentatonic melodies to evoke brutal "savage music" (in the Dorian mode); the fourth returns to the whole tone collection of the second; and the last slowly dies out over a D pedal, beginning with a dark unison theme and ending with a minor-mode fanfare
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