0:11 Always loved that little tune. It absolutely _kills_ the perfect "tragic fairy tale" ambience. Sorrow, loneliness, desolation & hope all wrapped up in the same fourteen notes.
When I heard this one in kindergarten in the mid'90s it changed my life forever. The legendary intro theme stuck in my head and I doubt it will ever go away ❤️ Since then, I wanted to become a composer and I just got my first instrumental released!
Congratulations! I was born in 2002, but sometimes I wish I was born the year this movie came out, so I would have the opportunity to watch it in theaters and love it even more. In the end, this movie has always been one of my fav childhood classics as one of my original recorded cassettes in storage, back when things were simple.
@Lenny Of course I wouldn’t remember! I’m just saying that it’s be cool to find out my fav princess movie came out the year I was born. Well at least I have Stitch
Oh wow, I never realized how many motifs were hidden in this song! When the prince becomes a beast, you can hear his theme, the music that plays when he finds Maurice or when he shouts Belle out of the West Wing. When the rose is shown, a snippet of "Beauty and the Beast" plays. What musical genius!
Don't forget about Howard Ashman who also worked along side Alan Menken for both the Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast including 3 songs for Aladdin.
I have vivid memories of there being a very bass-y undertone to this song (maybe with trumpets too) and yet I can't find any version of it that sounds like that 😂
Amen, I remember watching this on vhs from my brothers collection of Disney films from when he was a kid, and my god it honestly stuck with me all these years later.
I love how it starts gently, then it gets very intense, and then gentle again. It blends so well together with the first note from "Belle", another fantastic musical number.
R.I.P., David Ogden Stiers. Thanks for doing the narration at the beginning. I already know it by heart. Once upon a time in a faraway land, a young prince lived in a shining castle. Although he had everything his heart desired, the prince was spoiled, selfish, and unkind. But then, one winter’s night, an old beggar woman came to the castle and offered him a single rose in return for shelter from the bitter cold. Repulsed by her haggard appearance, the prince sneered at the gift and turned the old woman away. But she warned him not to be deceived by appearances, for beauty is found within. And when he dismissed her again, the old woman’s ugliness melted away to reveal a beautiful enchantress. The prince tried to apologize, but it was too late. For she had seen that there was no love in his heart. And as punishment, she transformed him into a hideous beast and placed a powerful spell on the castle and all who lived there. Ashamed of his monstrous form, the Beast concealed himself inside his castle with a magic mirror as his only window to the outside world. The rose she had offered was truly an enchanted rose which would bloom until his twenty-first year. If he could learn to love another and earn her love in return by the time the last petal fell, then the spell would be broken. If not, he would be doomed to remain a beast for all times. As the years passed, he fell into despair and lost all hope. For who could ever learn to love a beast?
Fun facts: In Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve's "The Story of Beauty and the Beast", - the original version of the tale - the Prince was not turned into a beast for being selfish and unloving, but because he refused to marry his evil fairy godmother. Likewise, Beauty's challenge in understanding the beast was not his volatile temperament, but his stupidity, for in beast form, he could not express himself intelligently. The first stained-glass window seen in the prologue has the Latin phrase "vincit qui se vincit", which means, in a subtle prefiguring of the arc of the whole story, "He conquers, who conquers himself."
that is true. there are truly some great aspects about the story of beauty and the beast, it's not just about looks or personality, but also most importantly about communication. it is a beautifully written story and goes on so many levels. also it's mainly about being misunderstood.
I was seven years old when I saw this in theaters, and everything about this film-the characters, story, and the score-it left a huge impact on me and still remains one of my favorite films to this day.
Imagine being in late 1991, watching this movie for the first time ever in theaters. What a magical experience it must have been! This is the one movie (along with Wizard of Oz) that I wish I could see for the first time again, on the big screen, and be utterly enchanted by every second of it. Sadly, I've never seen it for the first time, but when I shall have children someday, they'll definitely watch it!
@@ladyangelsongbird Last year a theater in my town was screening classic Disney movies, and fortunately for me, this was one of them! I mention it because I'd really like to know what version (edit) it was-it definitely wasn't the original because it said "Walt Disney Pictures presents," for all 8 seconds, rather than "In Association with Silver Screen Partners IV" for seconds 4-8. Still, it was an experience, and I wish you could watch it on the big screen too!
@ 0:43 pause there and there's Beast's royal family motto or something. vincit qui se vincit .... according to google translate ( I am no expert in latin by any means) "He conquers who conquers himself"
Even as a squirt I loved this song to bits. It reeked of tragedy, and it made me sad without understanding why. I didn't need a reason. I loved it just the same. It's nice to finally hear it without a narration for the first time.
I gained appreciation for stained glass windows when I watched this scene. I loved them. It even inspired me to do a red rose stained glass painting for my senior finals in High school years ago. That got me a good grade, my teacher even asked me if he could keep it to show for next year’s class.
I feel a strong Saint-Saëns influence. when I first heard this I was in awe on how any music could be this beautiful. this has such a mysterious, delicate magical vibe, but also has grandness at the same time
You’re actually not wrong at all! Alan Menkan did say that when he recorded the Prologue’s score, he was very much inspired by Carnival of the Animals, enough that he was looking to make his own version of Carnival of the Animals, which is what became the Prologue. The influence is very present, so much so that when bootleg versions of Beauty and the Beast came out, some of them even picked up on this…though in those cases they actually USED Carnival of the Animals instead of making their own original scores because it’s a public domain track and the hacks behind those bootlegs knew they couldn’t actually make good music.
The music in this film was amazing, hitting you to your core. Lion King was okay, though it was far too pop heavy that made the soundtrack a little worse, and Mulan was really good with it's orchestral work, but sometimes missed the mark. To me, this and Hunchback have the greatest soundtracks of all of Disney.
Im 31 years old now and according to my mum before school i had to watch beauty and the beast. A tick tock had this intro music and i knew exactly what it was from straight away. Ot made me feel all fuzzy and warm inside, a feeling i cant express. Disney movies were something else back then. I feared the beast as a child because he was scary and formidable. As an adult, i learned he lives in all of us but learn to be kind to everyone and learn to forgive.
from 00:09 There is nothing more deeply engraved than the experiences you have as a child. This short melody is enough to take me back to a time when I still believed in fairy tales myself. When the world and life were still full of wonder. I have grown older, more realistic, more pragmatic, but this melody will continue to make me feel like a child for the rest of my life. I love this opening melody, for me perhaps the most beautiful sequence ever composed. And yes, at this point I want to confess something else: the comic (!) Gaston from the Disney film adaptation is my Sexiest Man Alive hahahahahahaha oooo Gaston...🥺🥰
Thanks a million. I so needed an instrumental of the Prologue to "Beauty & The Beast" (1991)! Please keep it on RU-vid forever & don't remove it at all. 😀😉😁😊
“Once upon a time, in a faraway land, a young prince lived in a shining castle. Although he had everything his heart desired, the prince was spoiled, selfish, and unkind. But then, one winter's night, an old beggar woman came to the castle and offered him a single rose in return for shelter from the bitter cold. Repulsed by her haggard appearance, the prince sneered at the gift and turned the old woman away, but she warned him not to be deceived by appearances, for beauty is found within. And when he dismissed her again, the old woman's ugliness melted away to reveal a beautiful enchantress. The prince tried to apologize, but it was too late, for she had seen that there was no love in his heart, and as punishment, she transformed him into a hideous beast, and placed a powerful spell on the castle, and all who lived there. Ashamed of his monstrous form, the beast concealed himself inside his castle, with a magic mirror as his only window to the outside world. The rose she had offered was truly an enchanted rose, which would bloom until his twenty-first year. If he could learn to love another, and earn her love in return by the time the last petal fell, then the spell would be broken. If not, he would be doomed to remain a beast for all time. As the years passed, he fell into despair, and lost all hope, for who could ever learn to love a beast?”
It seems strange to me that no one highlights the absolute elegance and beauty of those illustrations, made as if they were Gothic church windows. Besides the music, which is divine without a doubt
I’m listening to this while painting/gluing a beauty and the beast cellphone case I think this could be my best cellphone case that I’ve decorated/embellished 🌹💛 🕯 🪞
I was lucky to see this magical scene in theaters. And I will still never forget that feeling in my heart of being so transfixed. I was pulled into the world, and all else faded away. It truly was as though I were spellbound, perhaps by the enchantress herself. And that pose of the Beast as he covers his face with his claws.. honestly, such a good pose. So much anger and shame.
The reveal of the forest and castle was a mouth-opener in the theater in late 1991. You instantly knew that this production was going to be something extraordinary.
As much as I love Lion King, this really seems like peak Renaissance Era of Disney. It feels the most "Renaissance Era" of all the other movies within the same era. That classic Disney fairytale helps with that as well as the fantastic score.
They had a rejuvenation after a mediocre period, and created a few winners: The Little Mermaid in 1989, Beauty and the Beast in 1991, and then Aladdin in 1992. This was a great era; and they stayed with fairy tales, a Disney winner ever since 1937.
Hi, may I ask where you found this version with no voiceover? I am looking to buy it to use professionally, or can use this one if I have your permission? Thank you.
It's available on the long out-of-print CD set "The Music Behind the Magic", which also includes a huge amount of demo and master recordings from Ashman & Menken's three completed Disney movie scores. Difficult to find and expensive these days, though.
