Leslie Bricusse...pretty talented- Page 2

[grizzabella]

Posted: 3/24/06 at 11:13am

smaxie, your C Flat comment (ouch!) got me thinking about both the Scrooge and Willy Wonka scores. I'm not that accomplished a musician, but it would seem to me, just listening to it in my mind, that it must be loaded with accidentals and key changes from one minor key to the next. There is a feeling of something slightly dissonant below the surface of a lot of his music. It gives it interest but must be devilishly hard to play. The progressions in "Cheer Up, Charlie" are even hard to hum. Or is it just me?

[best12bars]

Posted: 3/24/06 at 11:34am

Grizzy, you're right! Especially the intro/verse to "Cheer Up Charlie" is NOT an easy thing to sing (on key), because it does skip around with difficult intervals and modulations.

As far as C Flat--- I'm sure there are many reasons why it was written in that key. I don't know what instrument smaxie plays, but if it's a brass or wind instrument (like a B-flat trumpet vs. C trumpet, etc.), that could account for it. Also, as he says, it modulated into C-flat (from some other key), so it may have "logically" needed to be written in that key to make sense musically... OR... the singer needed it in this "odd" key to pull it off... OR... Mr. Lang is indeed a masochist.

Updated On: 3/24/06 at 11:34 AM

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 3/24/06 at 12:04pm

I wouldn't characterize "When I Look In Your Eyes" as a "cute little song." I think it is a gorgeous love song. So simple and haunting. The fact that Harrison sings it to a seal in the film might seem silly, but the song itself is beautiful. Diana Krall does a heartfelt version. Of course she changes the last lyric from "Isn't it a pity you're a seal?" To "I love the world your eyes reveal."