The Abominable Snowman
Music by Humphrey Searle
Midi reconstruction by Gaetano Malaponti
Special Thanks to Brent Armstrong
In October of 2016, I was approached by renowned Sculptor and Artist Brent Armstrong and asked if I would be interested in reconstructing Humphrey Searle's score to the 1957 Hammer Film "The Abominable Snowman". Brent had heard my midi recordings of Hammer's "The Curse of Frankenstein" and "Dracula" and, impressed by them, had decided to see what I could come up with here. The only problem was, as there were no cue sheets available, the reconstruction would have to be done by ear. A challenge, to be sure, but one that I felt I was up to. I didn't know the music at all at that point, but boy did I get to know it over the coming weeks. So for a few hours a day, I got up around 6 am every morning, and started the arduous task of listening to every note, of every instrument, of every second of music, of the entire score. I would then reconstruct it, very carefully, trying to make it sound as authentic as possible using my Miroslav Philharmonik Sample Library. It was an extremely laborious task and not one for the faint hearted, but eventually, after 10 weeks of this daily routine, I completed the 25 minute Soundtrack. All in all, it took about 250 hours to complete. Brent and I were very happy with the final results.
At times, doing this reconstruction, I felt like I was on an expedition to the Himalayas myself, but in the end, I got there and reached my final destination. I also got to "really" know a great old school film score while at the same time learn a lot about orchestration and the skill of reconstructing a film score by ear. Many thanks to you, Brent for entrusting me with this reconstruction.
"I am also proud of your work. You accomplished a very difficult task for which I will be forever grateful. Thank you from the bottom of my heart" .... Brent Armstrong
