Beauty and the Beast (Alan Menken & Howard Ashman)
(1991)
Beauty and the Beast and been named by a good number of critics as the greatest animated film ever made. The second film in a trilogy of excellent quality animation, the other two being The Little Mermaid (1989) and Aladdin (1992) that remains highly regarded among film critics today. Composer Alan Menken scored all three of those films, winning a total of six Academy Awards for his work (one Best Score & Best Song Award for each), with another two to come for his efforts on 1995’s Pocahontas. Beauty and the Beast was the first film to earn three Best Song nominations alone, a feat that has been repeated only by The Lion King, Dreamgirls, and Enchanted (also Menken), although the Academy would introduce a rule disallowing such domination of nominees by a single film following Enchanted. In this particular case, the songs “Belle”, “Be Our Guest”, and “Beauty and the Beast” were all up for the award, the latter winning. In addition, Menken won an Oscar for his score, which, unlike the three others that were awarded as such, was undoubtedly the best of its year. The film also became the first animated film in history to receive a nomination for Best Picture, something that stood for nearly twenty years, until the Academy expanded the Best Picture category to ten nominees, which made room for films that would not normally be nominated, with Disney & Pixar’s Up (2009) and Toy Story 3 (2010) both receiving Best Picture nominations in their respective years.
As usual, the tracks on the album are not the in order in which they appear in the film. The first half of the album contains the songs, whilst the second is reserved for Menken’s orchestral score.
The songs are absolutely excellent, with the particular highlights being the three aforementioned Oscar nominees. What’s better is that they aren’t utterly (intentionally) ridiculous comedy performances in an attempt to be more appealing to younger audiences, as was the case with several of Menken’s songs to follow. “Belle”, performed by Paige O’Hara, is enjoyably upbeat and funny. “Beauty and the Beast” is undoubtedly one of the best songs ever written (not just from a film), with Menken’s beautiful theme woven just perfectly with Howard Ashman’s intelligent lyrics. Angela Lansbury’s voice could be a little better, but that’s a minor flaw. The album is dedicated to Ashman, who tragically died of AIDS before the film was completed.
Menken’s score is easily the best he has ever written. The album opens with the first orchestral cue, the haunting “Prologue”, accompanied by a voiceover by David Ogden Stiers telling the story up to the point where the film starts. Normally I find voiceovers rather annoying, but in this particular case it does compliment the piece extremely well.
The next eight tracks consist of song material, and the orchestral cues return with “To the Fair”, an enjoyable march based mainly on the themes for “Belle”. “West Wing” features and excellent string based suspense theme for the forbidden chambers of the castle, and then introduces the first fully orchestral performance of the theme for “Beauty and the Beast”, albeit in a slightly more haunting / menacing rendition to make it more appropriate for the scene it accompanies. It then becomes an excellent action piece, with the full orchestra being used to their full potential. The cue “The Beast Lets Belle Go” begins with a woodwind performance of main theme, and then becomes a wonderfully emotional piece performed mainly by strings.
“Battle On The Tower” is an hugely enjoyable piece, starting out with comical action music as the hilarious battle between the castle’s servants (transformed into various pieces of furniture due to the curse mentioned in the Prologue) and the thugs who have come to kill the beast. It then becomes an epic action piece, accompanying the battle between the Beast and Gaston on the castle’s towers.
The final orchestral cue is undoubtedly the best one. Starting with a simply beautiful string rendition of the theme from the title song, the cue features performances of all the themes, serving as a glorious finale to the film. Concluding the album (and the film – over the end credits), is a performance of “Beauty and the Beast” by Celine Dion, accompanied by Peabo Bryson, which is pretty good, but the version by Jordin Sparks is to be avoided at all costs.
Despite being written twenty years ago now, during which time a great number of excellent scores have been written for the genre, I think Beauty and the Beast still stands firmly as the best score ever written for an animated film, and it’ll take something pretty amazing to knock it off that pillar. It won practically every award it could have, and deserved every single one of them. Don’t miss out on this – a genuine masterpiece.
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Track Listing
1 – Prologue
2 – Belle
3 – Belle Reprise
4 – Gaston
5 – Gaston Reprise
6 – Be Our Guest
7 – Something There
8 – The Mob Song
9 – Beauty and the Beast
10 – To The Fair
11 – West Wing
12 – The Beast Lets Belle Go
13 – Battle On The Tower
14 – Transformation
15 – Beauty and the Beast (Celine Dion & Peabo Bryson)
16 – Beauty and the Beast (Jordin Sparks)
Credits
Composed & Produced by Alan Menken
Lyrics by Howard Ashman
Orchestrations by Danny Troob & Michael Starobin
Conducted by David Friedman
Awards
Academy Award for Best Original Score (Won)
Academy Award for Best Original Song for “Beauty and the Beast” (Won)
Academy Award for Best Original Song for “Be Our Guest” (nominated)
Academy Award for Best Original Song for “Belle” (nominated)
Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score (Won)
Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for “Beauty and the Beast” (Won)
Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for “Be Our Guest” (nominated)
Grammy Award for Best Score (Won)
Grammy Award for Best Song for “Beauty and the Beast” (Won)
BAFTA Award for Best Music (nominated)
Insert Notes
None
All images and artwork are Copyright © Walt Disney Records
