GAUGUIN AND GERALD FRIED: Gauguin the Savage / Gauguin in Tahiti

CD Includes Digital Download / Digital Booklet

Dragon’s Domain Records presents GAUGUIN AND GERALD FRIED, featuring music composed by Gerald Fried (THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E., STAR TREK,ROOTS) for two very different television programs that focused on the French Impressionist painter Eugene Henri Paul Gauguin.

GAUGUIN THE SAVAGE was a feature-length docudrama that premiered on the CBS television network in the spring of 1980. David Carradine starred as the artist with Lynn Redgrave playing his long-suffering wife, Mette-Sophie Gad. The film begins with Gauguin as a Parisian stockbroker struggling to support his growing family. He is frustrated at having no free time to focus on the one thing he truly loves — his art. This obsession propels him to walk out on his family and eventually share quarters with Vincent Van Gogh (Barrie Houghton).

Gauguin’s self-centered attitude alienates him from many colleagues and patrons until he sees the only road to limitless creativity is to escape “civilization”. He flees to a land he believes is full of wild and primitive beauty — Tahiti. Yet, after a long sea voyage, he discovers to his dismay that it is a very modern community with all the comforts other French settlers have brought. Gauguin flees into the jungle, where he lives among the unspoiled natives and marries a local girl, Teha’amana, despite not being divorced from Mette-Sophie. It is here that Gauguin begins to develop his unique style, one marked by bold colors inspired by the landscape and native lifestyle, with Teha’amana as his main model. Fried composed a lush orchestral score to convey Gauguin’s passionate, often self-destructive, drive as he seeks to render his view of the world within his art.

Thirteen years earlier, Gerald Fried was engaged to score a 1967 CBS documentary GAUGUIN IN TAHITI: THE SEARCH FOR PARADISE. Narrated by Charles Kuralt, the one-hour presentation centered on the artist’s time in the islands painting, sculpting, and creating ceramic works. In another unusual coincidence, Lynn Redgrave’s father, Michael, was cast as the voice of Gauguin, reading the artist’s own words from his many diaries and letters.

Born February 1928 in the Bronx, Gerald Fried’s interest in music found its first fruition at the High School of Music & Art in New York City. He attended The Juilliard School of Music as an oboe major, graduating in 1945. Among his earliest friends was a bright kid named Stanley Kubrick. The two of them used to hang around Greenwich Village and talk about their budding interests, Fried’s in classical music and Kubrick’s in filmmaking. Their interests merged when Kubrick began filming DAY OF THE FIGHT, an 18-minute short about boxing. Knowing Fried was a music major, Kubrick asked him if he could write the score for his boxing picture. Fried agreed, then spent months going to the movies to learn how film scores worked, there being no schools or courses on film music in those days. Fried wrote an effective score, and Kubrick sold the film to RKO Pathé. Fried rejoined Kubrick to score four more of his films, including THE KILLING and PATHS TO GLORY, where the young filmmaker first gained his reputation.

After the success of THE KILLING in 1956, Kubrick moved to Los Angeles, shortly followed by Fried, who was immediately hired to compose and arrange music for several films, including THE VAMPIRE, THE RETURN OF DRACULA, MACHINE GUN KELLY and I, MOBSTER, I BURY THE LIVING, and TIMBUKTU (1959). By the 1960s, Fried moved into television, scoring episodes of such seminal shows of the decade as GILLIGAN’S ISLAND, THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E., MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE and STAR TREK. By the 1970s Fried was composing music for numerous made-for-TV movies. His best-known score of the decade was for the1977 miniseries ROOTS, which he took over scoring when Quincy Jones fell behind and was unable to meet the broadcast deadline for the eight-hour miniseries. Both Jones and Fried won Emmy Awards for their musical efforts on the series. During the ‘80s, Fried continued to compose music for television series, movies, and documentaries, and an occasional feature film. These are just two of the many magnificent scores Fried wrote throughout his career. The composer passed away on February 17, 2023 at the age of 95. His work remains a testament to his talent and dedication to the art of composition and he is remembered as a key figure in the evolution of music for film and television.

Dragon’s Domain Records presents GAUGUIN AND GERALD FRIED, featuring the world premiere release of GAUGUIN THE SAVAGE and GAUGUIN IN TAHITI: THE SEARCH FOR PARADISE, featuring music composed by Gerald Fried. The music has been mastered by James Nelson at Digital Outland and the liner notes have been written by author David Hirsch.

GAUGUIN AND GERALD FRIED is a limited edition release. GAUGUIN AND GERALD FRIED is expected to begin shipping the week of March 23rd, 2026

GAUGUIN THE SAVAGE
01. Main Title-Tahiti / Diagnosis & Paris Flashback (3:38)
02. I Hated That Hat And Coat (2:19)
03. Tahitian Hospital Recovery / Sex Is The Best Medicine (5:24)
04. Father & Daughter Talk / Painting In A Frozen Danish Attic (1:22)
05. Aline, I Can’t Work Here (3:02)
06. Painting With Van Gogh / A Disturbing Portrait / Vincent’s Girl /
       Mutilation (3:33)
07. Leaving Vincent / To Your Voyage / Sailing To Tahiti (2:07)
08. Rejecting ‘Civilization’ / A Letter To Aline (2:35)
09. Every Man Needs Wahini (2:29)
10. In Search Of A Wife (1:48)
11. “Gogi, Will You Be Good To My Daughter?” (2:19)
12. Forty-Four Canvases (1:42)
13. Ruffians Abduct Annah / Papa’s Home / Papa Put Out (2:59)
14. Before I Can Paint It, I Must First Find It (2:50)
15. The Doctor Has Given Me Mercury (1:04)
16. Aline Has Died / Painting The Great Vision (6:08)
17. Arsenic By The Sea / Gauguin’s End (1:56)
18. You Have To Believe In Me / End Credits (2:48)
19. “Get Big Drunk” (Bonus Music & Effects) (1:04)=
20. Journey To Tahiti (Bonus Music & Effects) (1:50)

GAUGUIN IN TAHITI: THE SEARCH FOR PARADISE

21. Prologue & Main Credits (1:56)
22. A Simple Brittany Life / Abandoning Family & Civilization For Paradise (8:16)
23. Alienating The European Settlers / Teha’amana’s Theme /
       Fired By His Patron (4:29)
24. Broke & Forced To Work / Syphilis / His Epic Work / Paradise Dead (3:43)
25. Pagan Gods & Myths / Paradise Lost & Found In Art (6:23)
26. Ready To Return / Deathbed / End Credits (1:59)

Total Time: 77:31