 |
|
 |
|
 | |||||||||
| • | Newest Major Reviews: | . | • | This Week's Most Popular Reviews: | • | Best-Selling Albums: | ||
| . |
1. Nim's Island 2. The Life Before Her Eyes 3. Horton Hears a Who! 4. Leatherheads 5. The Spiderwick Chronicles | . | . |
1. Moulin Rouge 2. Gladiator 3. POTC: Curse of the Black Pearl 4. Star Wars: A New Hope 5. Edward Scissorhands |
6. Pearl Harbor 7. Schindler's List 8. Titanic 9. Braveheart 10. Home Alone | . | . |
1. Varèse Sarabande 25th 2. The Last of the Mohicans 3. Legends of the Fall 4. Schindler's List 5. LOTR: Return of the King (Set) |
 | ||||||||
|
|
|
Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you are so much of a Batman fan that you can forgive a flawed performance of music from Elfman's two scores. Avoid it... if you already have the "Hollywood '95" compilation from the same label and don't wish to hear an awkward performance of Elfman's material. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
The RSNO had performed several classic scores under the direction of composer Joel McNeely by the time of this album's release, and the group would go on to perform similar projects for a few more years. The quality of their performances is often excellent, especially in capturing the spirit of Bernard Herrmann scores. They had performed a suite of music from Batman Forever that was personally arranged by Goldenthal, appearing on the "Hollywood '95" album released by the same label. Thus, to fill an album with music from the Batman franchise, Varèse Sarabande commissioned the RSNO in a effort to record pieces of Elfman's two scores and the original television theme. Despite the concurrent release of Batman & Robin, Varèse worked backwards rather than forwards and the fourth and final score is unfortunately missing from this album. While, as mentioned before, the performances by the RSNO are often stellar, they do sometimes have their misses. Film music fans mostly agree that the "Hollywood '95" album was the best of the label's similar series, partly due to the masterful choice of material to be represented from Batman Forever and partly because Joel McNeely and the RSNO nailed the essence of Goldenthal's music and even provided an extra element of listenability to it. The same exact recording of Batman Forever appears on this album, and it is once again the highlight. Re-recordings of Batman are pretty common, though Batman Returns remains largely uninterpreted by other ensembles. Elfman fans will likely be disappointed, however, by the imprecise and clumsy performances of Elfman's two scores here. The arrangement of Batman is severely altered from the original score, and the curious part of this awkward presentation is that it doesn't always assist the listening experience as a suite. If you take Elfman's original "Music for a Darkened Theatre" as an example of how he would arrange a suite from the film himself, then you begin to realize how strange the one for the RSNO is. The performances themselves range from adequate to nearly unlistenable, with several key brass notes missed and other motifs simply omitted. The mixing of the orchestra overemphasizes the brass and percussion and ignores some of Elfman's finer touches with the strings and (particularly) the woodwinds. The same difficulty exists with the Batman Returns selections, with the proper instrumentation simply missing from the equation altogether (such as the mandatory organ). Thus, the performance is stripped down and lacking in the emotional meat that Elfman used to solidify his original recordings. On the whole, from the point of view of a casual listener of Batman music, the RSNO simply blew it with Elfman's material... a rare mistake. The quality of the performance increases suddenly with Batman Forever, and the album offers a token, spirited performance of the original 1960's television theme (which is rearranged considerably as well). Overall, serious fans of Batman music should hesitate before purchasing this album. Other ensembles have better performed the original Batman theme, and what exists here from Batman Returns doesn't warrant a purchase, especially if you already have the Batman Forever material from the excellent "Hollywood '95" compilation. **
Insert includes notes about all the scores and the conductor, Joel McNeely. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
