Celebrate this year’s Halloween with our new release: Sleepy Hollow by Danny Elfman. Loosely based on Washington Irving's 1820 short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", the 1999 gothic horror film is directed by Tim Burton, and stars Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, Casper Van Dien, Christopher Lee, Jeffrey Jones, Michael Gough, Richard Griffiths, Ian McDiarmid, and Christopher Walken. Its plot follows police constable Ichabod Crane (Depp), who is sent from New York City to Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of strange beheadings. There he not only untangles a complex web of family affairs, sinister conspiracies, and even his own childhood traumas, but also comes face to face with the ghost of a headless Hessian horseman, who rides through town chopping off heads.
Even though the film suffers from stale acting performances and the lack of a strong narrative (especially in its third act), Sleepy Hollow has all the traits you can expect from a director like Burton tackling the horror genre: black comedy, an eccentric protagonist, an outlandish design (courtesy of production designer Rick Heinrichs), beautiful monochromatic visuals shot by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki… and countless macabre scenes of beheadings.
For the film music community, Sleepy Hollow was highly anticipated because it meant the eighth collaboration between Burton and Danny Elfman, and because it saw the return of the composer to the gothic fantasy genre. Elfman's composing style had evolved considerably in the mid nineties, with many nostalgic enthusiasts lamenting that he could no longer write scores like Beetlejuice, Batman and Edward Scissorhands. However, Sleepy Hollow proved that Elfman was still able to reach back into the orchestral approaches he had become widely known for in the film music business.
For Sleepy Hollow, Elfman wrote a considerable amount of music. The complete score as heard in the film is about 95 minutes long. But a large number of re-shoots and last-minute edits of the movie required many musical revisions, inserts and alternate cues, eventually doubling the amount of recorded music. In spite of this, surprisingly, Sleepy Hollow is mostly a monothematic score. Elfman resorts to his usual approach of introducing his main theme at the start of the film (“Introduction”) and building it up during the main title sequence (“A Place Called Sleepy Hollow”). This theme consists of a malleable motif that Elfman originally conceived for Ichabod’s dreamlike flashbacks. Instinctively, he later decided to appoint the same theme to the Horseman itself, establishing a musical thematic connection between Ichabod’s childhood and the villainous monster he has to overcome. Therefore, the theme is omnipresent throughout the score. The lyrical main melody is ghostly performed by a boy soprano soloist, accompanying Ichabod’s oneiric flashbacks, heard in cues such as ‘Young Ichabod’, and ‘More Dreams’. Elfman also dresses the theme with alto flute, piano and string for the romantic scenes between Ichabod and his love interest, Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter of Sleepy Hollow’s patriarch –cues “A Gift”, “Tender Moment”, and “Love Lost”. And lastly, aggressive arrangements of the theme with choir and a predominant brass section accompany those scenes in which the Horseman is onscreen –the cues “The Story of the Hessian” and “Masbath’s Terrible Death” are perfect examples. A secondary descending three-note theme exists for the Horseman for when he is rising up from his grave or galloping full blast. “The Tree of Death”, “Horror at Sleepy Hollow”, “The Church Battle”, “The Windmill”, “Carriage Chase”, and “The Final Confrontation” all exhibit excellent performances of this secondary motif, along with the other significant attribute of the score: the action music. The orchestra and choir are put to the test with these series of chase and fight cues, showcasing impressive low brasses, rolling percussion and the disturbing phantasmagoric tones of the Metro Voices.
The score for Sleepy Hollow was released as a 68-minute album by Hollywood Records in 1999 and it is indeed all that most collectors will require from the work. However, as expected, the album is missing some music as well as some of the composer's best alternate takes of several cues. The score was re-released two more times in expanded treatments. First, as part of the 2011 Warner Brothers Records set, "The Danny Elfman and Tim Burton 25th Anniversary Music Box". And later, as a limited 4-CD set assembled by Intrada Records in 2021, including everything Elfman recorded for the film. As you can imagine, these two sets are very lengthy. This new program put together by Renovatio Records addresses those conflicts and presents an album with new alternate cues, a new track assembly, as well as improved sound, providing a tight yet enjoyable narrative arc. Hit play and enjoy what may well be one of Danny Elfman’s top five best scores to date. Happy Halloween!
1. Introduction (4:15)
2. A Place Called Sleepy Hollow (3:12)
3. The Story of the Hessian (4:29)
4. Masbath's Terrible Death (1:37)
5. Young Ichabod (1:19)
6. A Gift (3:47)
7. Phillipse's Death (1:16)
8. More Dreams (1:41)
9. The Crone of the Woods (3:21)
10. The Tree of Death (4:00)
11. Horror at Sleepy Hollow (6:04)
12. Tender Moment (2:17)
13. Evil Eye (3:43)
14. The Church Battle (4:17)
15. Love Lost (4:31)
16. The Windmill (6:05)
17. Carriage Chase (3:18)
18. The Final Confrontation (4:17)
19. A New Century (1:27)
20. End Credits (3:21)
Total Running Time: 68:17
