Music Composed and Arranged by Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard
For the score of Gladiator, Scott reunited with composer Hans Zimmer, with whom he had worked on Black Rain and Thelma & Louise, and it must be said that the director’s choice was top-notch, as the German composer’s musical style fits Gladiator like a glove. Even if Zimmer is not the first name that would come to mind when you think about a score for a 100 million dollar Roman epic, his usual blend of orchestral music and electronics manage to conjure up a score that meets the scale, grandeur and complexity that an epic like this requires. Zimmer effectively combines orchestra and chorus with ethnic instrumentations, electronics and the magnificent vocal solos of Lisa Gerrard in a score that can be broken down into four distinctive approaches: vocal ethereal atmospherics, rousing battle scenes, suspenseful conspiracy sequences, and ethnic textures.
Zimmer opens the score with the 13-minute tour-de-force "The Wheat and the Battle", introducing first and foremost his serpentine flute theme for Commodus, the main antagonist of the film. This unnerving and poisonous theme is repeated throughout the score to evoke the evil and constant presence of the Emperor, as he schemes and conspires, eventually developing into a full exploration with choir in “Am I Not Merciful?”, a track that Zimmer usually regards as his favorite of the score for its emotional impact. “The Wheat and the Battle” quickly shifts to a beautiful duduk solo by Djivan Gasparyan (a recurrent instrument in the score), before transitioning to Lisa Gerrard’s rendition of what is known as the Elysium theme. Gerrard’s tender voice accompanies the movie’s iconic opening scene: a poetic image of a wheat field with a hand drifting over it. The music here evokes Maximus’s home, a place he longs for and that will eventually become his own personal Elysium. Gerrard’s rendition of this theme in “Sorrow” is a powerful vocal performance so emotional that instantly makes you feel a knot in your throat, making this track easily one the highlights of the entire score. The opening track then dissolves into the one of the score’s main action pieces, as it underscores an impressive battle between the Romans and the Germanic tribes. Zimmer approached this sequence as a classical Viennese Waltz, turned into something completely savage. This Gladiator Waltz idea is further explored in the “Barbarian Horde” scene and became the blueprint for most of the action sequences in the film, as well as setting a trend in scores for blockbuster films of the forthcoming decade.
Zimmer’s main theme is introduced in its fullest form in the second track, “Tell Me About Your Home”, a piece that the composer refers to as the Earth theme, in reference to Maximus’ recurrent gesture of picking up earth before every major battle, a nod to the character’s longing for his own land. In this track, the theme receives a lovely rendition in cello and solo trumpet, getting to the heart of the film. This theme reoccurs in many forms throughout the score, as in a gritty low-key variation during the beginning of "The Slave who Became a Gladiator", and as a victorious and grand full ensemble performance during the end of “Barbarian Horde”. At the end, the theme is combined with the Elysium theme to form the famous “Now We Are Free” song, performed by Gerrard.
Since most of the beginning of the movie’s second act takes place in Morocco, Zimmer introduces many Middle Eastern flavors, as the aforementioned Duduk performances as well as tribal rhythms which take the foreground in “To Zucchabar”. A standout of this whole sequence is the impressive track “The Slave Who Became a Gladiator”, which presents Zimmer’s Strength and Honor theme, a low key piece to frequently underscore Maximus rallying his gladiatorial troops as well as his heartfelt impulse to fight his way to eventually avenge his wife and son. The track later shifts into relentless action with a percussive crescendo and choral chants, and then dissolves into a Wagnerian orchestral and choral movement for Commodus' entrance to the mighty Rome as the new Emperor.
Last but not least, cues like “Patricide”, “Secrets” and “Conspiracy” make excellent use of a wide range of sounds to evoke suspense and send shivers down the listener's spine, from dramatic strings to electronic atmospherics to tingling percussion to woodwinds. While it is indeed impressive how Zimmer manages to shift from one style to the other in Gladiator, his employment of Gerrard's vocals to represent the afterlife is the selling point, with the final eight minutes of the score (encompassing "Elysium" and "Now We Are Free") ranking among some of the best music Zimmer has ever written.
The score has so far received three releases from Decca Records: the original soundtrack album, a 'More Music From' edition, and a 2-CD 'Anniversary' set which combines the previous two releases. Though highly enjoyable, the original album omitted some significant cues and the expanded edition had intrusive dialogue from the film added into the mix. Renovatio Records has now put together a new program that presents not only all of the standout moments of the score in chronological order but also introduces never before released cues. Jump once more into the arena and enjoy this new release of Gladiator, a score that stands well-grounded as an iconic cornerstone and one of the most influential in the modern age of soundtracks.
