Oz The Great And Powerful (Soundtrack)

The soundtrack to the film Oz The Great And Powerful was released on March 5 and scored by legendary film composer Danny Elfman. The film itself is a “spiritual” prequel to the more well known novel by L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and indirectly, the beloved 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz. Among so many soundtracks and scores created using synthesized instruments and the drumbass, it’s always delightful to have a score created with a traditional orchestra and that’s exactly what Sam Raimi, the director of the film, wanted. From Danny Elfman: “I didn’t really go in with any sense of what I wanted to do other than just to follow the film. It was incredibly clear because the characters and what they were doing, and what their quests were, and what needed to be done, were all laid out, so I fell into it very easily.”

 I have a number of Danny Elfman’s scores such as Alice in Wonderland, Batman, Spiderman and Peewee Herman’s Big Adventure. He has a brilliant and very expressive, unique style that can nearly tell a story on its own and this score is another great piece by Elfman. Some of my favorite tracks are the main theme, or Main Titles (track 1),  A Strange World (track 4, a motif that really makes you imagine you are entering a new world that is both wondrous, magical and eerie) and Fireside Dance (track 6) a mysterious and lovely tune. This entire soundtrack is worth the listen even without having seen the film; it is a great soundtrack with strong, beautiful and memorable themes. It can stand on its own and that’s one thing many more finicky fans of soundtracks and film scores look for. Elfman knows exactly how to transport you into another strange, wondrous but slightly off-kilter even dangerous world through his music. His scores are iconic, like John Williams’s scores and like Williams, once you hear a few notes of one of his themes, you know almost instantly which film it is from. I believe he was the perfect choice for this film project. Both Raimi and Elfman strove to give this soundtrack a classic, timeless feel. Says Raimi: “In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Raimi said, “Danny has a grand arsenal of musical abilities. He’s able to create a sweeping gigantic sound that can really describe a tremendous scale and help us create this very unique world that Frank Baum wrote about, the land of Oz.”

The MP3 version of the soundtrack is available for purchase on Amazon.com. The CD release of the soundtrack is available for purchase exclusively from Intrada.