Buy it... if you seek a competent survey of mostly Michael Kamen's more obscure works, including re-orchestrated performances of some old favorites as well.

Avoid it... if you're bothered by the lack of many of the composer's best scores in the selections, in addition to the surprisingly new identities of cues orchestrated so differently that they lose their original personality.

Kamen

Michael Kamen's Opus: (Compilation) At a time when compilations of film music were mostly devoted to John Williams, James Horner, and Jerry Goldsmith, the London Records release of a Michael Kamen compilation was a refreshing change. Titled "Michael Kamen's Opus" in America and "The Michael Kamen Soundtrack Album" abroad, the album was a labor of love for the composer himself, who re-orchestrated some of his more famous themes and produced the fresh recordings with The Seattle Symphony Orchestra and London Metropolitan Orchestra. Regardless of the composer's untimely death in the subsequent decade, the 1990's were easily the most popularly successful time for the composer, and this album rode the coattails of the appealing Mr. Holland's Opus and his grand theme for "From the Earth to the Moon" on television. As usual with a compilation like this, the selection of choices is the hottest topic of discussion, and in the case of "Michael Kamen's Opus," there also remains distinct curiosity about some of the arrangements of each individual piece. Kamen, with the help of Ed Shearmur and Williams Ross, gave a wide range of score themes from throughout his career a distinctly different sound, only sometimes with success. Some of the themes are only barely recognizable given their altered personalities, technical curiosities that may not be as satisfying for the listener as the originals. It should be noted, however, that several of the selections in "Michael Kamen's Opus" come from scores that were unreleased at the time or have always featured diminished sound quality, so kudos are deserved for the somewhat unexpected scope of the product. The album opens with the most predictable calling card of the composer's career, 1991's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. The "Overture" cue is abbreviated and yields to a lengthier rendition of the "Maid Marian at the Waterfall" concert arrangement of the love theme and famous song. The orchestrations in these cues are about as true to the originals as any on the album, and the improvement in sound quality over the original recording is notable.

Rather than inserting the usual "American Symphony" cue from Mr. Holland's Opus, Kamen decided upon "Rowena's Theme," which has been translated with somewhat muted success to a horn-led piece. The "Dona Ana" cue from Don Juan DeMarco is the gorgeous instrumental version of the Academy Award nominated song from the film. Representing some of Kamen's best romantic work, this performance is a bit disappointing because it was handed over to strings and woodwinds that steal the Hispanic spirit the score and give it a strangely Italian flavor. Throughout the performances, but especially in this cue, Kamen seems to treat his themes with a heavier dramaticism that occasionally deflates the character of the original composition. From this point on during "Michael Kamen's Opus," the album features more of the composer's obscure works. "You're the One" from Circle of Friends is a warm and intimate interlude featuring solid piano performances. The theme from the 1988 film Crusoe is desolate and desperate, with a solo cello weaving throughout a melancholy atmosphere. Strong and heroic is "There Can Only Be One" from Highlander, with an element of flightiness that well represents the fantasy and adventure of the concept. The Next Man, was Kamen's first scoring assignment, and it offers a lofty, string-plucking arrangement that mirrors the flickering lights of New York City as seen from the air. Kamen's association with Alan Rickman films (Die Hard, Robin Hood) continued when Rickman asked him to score his directorial debut, The Winter Guest. The horn solos replacing the piano in the original recording make for a much more complex thematic exploration than most of his previous efforts. The selection from Die Hard on this album was much hyped, but severely under-delivers. The score was only available in bootleg form at the time, and while it has since received a limited pressing that is itself now a collectible, the original recording has always suffered from muted sound quality. Because of his fascination with the motif for Rickman's villain, Kamen chose the short "Takagi Dies" cue for the performance on this album. Unfortunately, this cue is far less interesting than any of the numerous action pieces from the score (or its sequels).

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Rounding off the compilation are its two most bizarre tracks. Kamen's collaboration with Eric Clapton on the BBC TV production of Edge of Darkness features a wild electric guitar solo over a pulsating, turbulent orchestra, building to a final blast by the guitar with percussion in full. While not an embarrassment by any means, the track doesn't fit well with the far softer seven or eight tracks that precede it. The final track on the compilation is the Kate Bush cover version of Ary Baroso's classic 1930's song "Brazil," inspired by Terry Gilliam's Brazil. Although this performance never appeared in the film itself (and, incidentally, was already released on album at the time), it was personally significant to Kamen during his assignment of weaving the melody into his underscore for the project. Bush's performance is distantly mixed, giving it a hauntingly inaccessible elegance, and its balance of innocence and sinister madness makes for a perfect, Gilliam-appropriate conclusion to the compilation. As an overall listening experience, the music flows well despite the stylistically different "Nuclear Train" cue from Edge of Darkness. The only complaints you hear about "Michael Kamen's Opus" are legitimate questions about the material that didn't make the 49-minute album. Fans would have been better served with selections from one of the Lethal Weapon scores, the often forgotten License to Kill, The Dead Zone, The Three Musketeers, or even his "Amazing Stories" episode. Even as it is, however, the compilation includes a distinguished collection of music. Several of the cues offer very lightly mixed sound effects at their outset, including ocean waves in Don Juan DeMarco, distant police sirens and city rumblings in Die Hard, and an airy breeze in Brazil. Regardless of its somewhat curious choices for inclusion, "Michael Kamen's Opus" is a competent and sometimes interesting survey of the composer's career through the middle of 1998, just before the composer's outstanding last-minute replacement score for What Dreams May Come, and it comes highly recommended. ****   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Michael Kamen reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.14 (in 14 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.22 (in 32,684 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.