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12-16 Babe.qxp_Layout 1 12/8/16 12:12 PM Page 30 Notes on the Program By Genevieve Lang Babe Nigel Westlake n 1994 the Kennedy Miller post-production studio in Sydney, Australia was bursting at the seams with sound editors, visual effect artists, CGI programmers, film editors, animatronic operators, and the then 30-something composer Nigel Westlake, who has Technicolor memories of that time: west of Sydney. Engaging him to write the film score was a leap of faith — he’d only scored two other feature-length films. “I set up a room at the studio, and virtually didn’t go home for several months,” he says. Director Chris Noonan and producer George Miller would visit up to three times a day: We were all part of the Babe family, and all of us were trying to weave a tale that was underpinned by this simple philosophy — the idea that the purity of an unprejudiced spirit can be a real and tangible force for positive change in the world. Every morning Chris would hand me notes for that day’s work. It was so clear how he wanted the music to function in the film. It was a godsend to have someone so proscriptive. Chris wasn’t telling me what to do musically, but telling me what he wanted the music to achieve dramatically. It was really exciting to have such a focus, and for it not to be a hit-and-miss process. I Westlake was then living with his young family in St. Albans, about two hours north- Farmer Hoggett and Babe 30 | NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC 12-16 Babe.qxp_Layout 1 12/8/16 12:12 PM Page 31 The main theme — the Babe theme — is lifted directly from the famous Maestoso passage in the third movement of SaintSaëns’s Symphony No. 3 (1886), known as his Organ Symphony. In the context of the film score, the organ is never heard, as Westlake explains: It was too heavy, too gothic, for the tone of the movie, but the theme is optimistic and wholesome, and very versatile. It can be subtle and sweet, or heraldic and jubilant, depending on the demands of the scene. In fact, the Organ Symphony wasn’t the direct inspiration for Babe’s theme. In the 1970s pop singers Scott Fitzgerald and Yvonne Keeley had a Top of the Pops hit in Britain and Australia with “If I Had Words,” which took the same Maestoso melody from Saint-Saëns and added a reggae beat. It was this song, with lyrics by Jonathan Hodge, that Noonan and Miller had already settled on before Westlake joined the team: If I had words, to make a day for you I’d give you a morning, golden and true. I would make this day last for all time. Then fill the night deep in moonshine. The song is heard in full twice in the film — sung by Farmer Hoggett at the film’s emotional highpoint, when Babe’s survival is in question, and again as the end credits roll: all’s well that ends well, and the trio of mice who appear at each of the scene changes serenades the audience out of the theater with a more comic touch. Their performance is a sped-up version of the tune. In total, the 92-minute film contains a 78minute score, of which 10 minutes comes from the Saint-Saëns symphony, 62 minutes are original music by Westlake, and the remainder comprises music by Delibes (Pizzicato Polka, from the ballet Sylvia) and Grieg (Spring Dance, a Norwegian leaping dance from his Lyric Pieces, Op. 47, for piano). Westlake’s original music introduces two other leitmotifs — themes that accompany a character or idea in the story. Farmer Hoggett, as the The sheep share their password DECEMBER 2016 | 31 12-16 Babe.qxp_Layout 1 12/8/16 12:12 PM Page 32 Babe’s Backstory Chris Noonan’s and George Miller’s screenplay for Babe was based on the 1983 children’s novel The Sheep-Pig, by Dick King-Smith, who had spent 20 years working as a farmer in rural England. In a nod to the story’s provenance, the sheepdog championship takes place at “Kingsmith Fairground” and toward the beginning of the film, Esme Hoggett polishes a trophy for the “Kingsmith Dick Show” Babe was filmed in Robertson, a village with a population of less than 2,000 in the Southern Highlands of the state of New South Wales, along Australia’s southeastern coast. other central character, earned one of his very own. The composer says: He’s a hard-working, productive man. Somewhat eccentric, but completely honest. James Cromwell, who plays Hoggett, is tall and slim. The bassoon was the logical choice for him. In the right context, it can The first meeting 32 | NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC lend itself to slightly comical situations, but is capable of communicating poise and integrity at the same time. (Incidentally, it’s rumored that Cromwell nearly turned down the role on the basis that the script had only about 16 lines of dialogue. The film garnered him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.) Westlake’s other original theme, nicknamed The River of Sadness, underscored the dark fate that awaited many of the farmyard friends. For instance, the moment when the pigs are being herded into the meat truck to be transported to “the other world of endless pleasures,” Miller asked for poignant, heartrending music. Westlake says, “I wanted to imbue it with immense tragedy. It’s some of the saddest music I’d written up to that point in my life.” For Westlake, a film score’s purpose is “to lead the audience’s nose to the source of the dramatic subtext and emotional content. 12-16 Babe.qxp_Layout 1 12/8/16 12:12 PM Page 33 The composer adds: There’s a fine line between manipulating your audience through music to force the drama down their throats and allowing them to discover it for themselves.” Westlake revisited the score in 2014, setting aside a number of months to prepare it for live performance by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, which presented the World Premiere of the score performed live to the complete film in 2015. He says: You can do things in a recording studio that just aren’t possible in a concert hall. When it’s live, it’s all happening in the moment, so there’s not the same chance to move a microphone closer for greater warmth. Using the original as bare bones, I’ve enriched it by consolidating textures and colors. There’s different harmonic distribution of the notes, different voicings. The melodic ideas have been reinforced and given more coloration within the orchestration. Music can serve a different function for every film. The score for Babe is very proactive. It’s enmeshed in the onscreen action, almost like another character. Westlake says the score is very much in the style of a traditional storybook. “The idea was that the score would sound like some kind of classical symphony. Back in 1994, the last thing I wrote was the first thing you hear.” The “Overture” plays underneath the opening scene. He adds that just as the camera reveals all the characters, the music, too, reveals all the musical elements before you actually see them, functioning in the same way as a classical form overture. I look back now and see the use of classical elements as very clever. At the time, I had trouble accepting George and Chris’s instructions to use the Saint-Saëns, Grieg, and Delibes, but Barnyard friends DECEMBER 2016 | 33 12-16 Babe.qxp_Layout 1 12/8/16 12:12 PM Page 34 now I recognize it as something of a stroke of genius that has helped to make the film timeless. — Genevieve Lang © 2016 Instrumentation: two flutes (one doubling piccolo, and one doubling alto flute and tin whistle), two oboes (one doubling English horn), two clarinets (one doubling bass clarinet), two bassoons (one doubling contrabassoon), four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, orchestra bells, cymbals, waterphone, marimba, tom-toms, suspended cymbal, frame drums, crotales, mark tree, snare drum, xylophone, sleigh bells, small jingle bells, wind gong, marimba, sizzle cymbal, tambourine, ratchet, bass drum, triangle, castanets, suspended crash cymbal, tam-tam, splash cymbal, harp, celeste, piano, and strings. This program note was commssioned for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra by Symphony Services International. Reprinted with permission. Tiny troubadors 34 | NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC Welcome to the farm