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| • | Newest Major Reviews: | . | • | This Week's Most Popular Reviews: | • | Best-Selling Albums: | ||
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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 |
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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) |
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Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Goldsmith is familiar with the London Symphony Orchestra, and vice versa, and the 2000 recording heard on this album is performed by the vaulted group without the presence of an audience. If Goldsmith chooses to present a cue less than three minutes long from a film, he will tend to include it as part of a lengthy 20-minute suite with other related scores. His concert of choice has changed significantly over the past 13 years, when his most famous "Suites and Themes" CD was pressed from a recording of his with the Philharmonic Orchestra. To encompass his scores of the 1990's, as well as those classics which have gained more popularity since the late 1980's, he has dropped some pieces from a few of his concerts. These include Masada, The Blue Max, Lionheart, and Gremlins, the last of which is a fabulous suite for concert and is sadly missed on this new Telarc compilation. Three older scores have been added, including Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Twilight Zone: The Movie, and curiously The Boys from Brazil. Goldsmith's choices for additions from the 1990's are all strong, including Basic Instinct, Air Force One, The Russia House, Rudy, and the two more underrated entries: Forever Young and Sleeping with the Enemy. The occasional performance of The Shadow does not appear on this album, though. Nevertheless, this newer concert arrangement maintains a good balance of the composer's works from each distinct stage of his career. Some of his works translate better into concert arrangments than others. Goldsmith's strength are his medleys. The motion picture medley he compiled now includes an action packed performance of Air Force One, although the subdued Basic Instinct cue breaks up the awesome tandem of Papillon and The Wind and the Lion, which worked well back to back. The television medley is exactly the same, except for the insertion of the Star Trek: Voyager theme in the middle (and it melds surprisingly well with the other themes). The Man from U.N.C.L.E. remains a great piece to start it off. The two underrated scores of the 1990's for Goldsmith, Forever Young and Sleeping with the Enemy are great additions to the compilation. Sleeping with the Enemy is especially underappreciated by even many Goldsmith fans. The generals suite is a tremendous finale. The Star Trek: The Motion Picture suite is awkwardly played in a few places, and a suite from Star Trek: The Final Frontier would probably be more fun in concert. The two most diappointing tracks on the album are those modern selections which Goldsmith fans love the most. For Rudy, the centerpiece of Goldsmith's last concert in London, Goldsmith has adapted the opening and finale cues into a suite which does not include but more than a hint of the actual brass practice/sporting theme, which is by far the more popular theme from that score. Finally, The Russia House simply can't float without a sax, no matter how large the size of the orchestra; it is strangled to near lifelessness here. Ironically, a few of these exact selections on this Telarc album have been better performed by Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops, which is the leader in film score recordings from that label. Kunzel's conducting of Twilight Zone: The Movie, for instance, was far more illustrious a number of years ago. Jerry Goldsmith is one of those composers whose career has included so many different sounds and styles that it is difficult to adapt many of his best scores into a form that would be useful or enjoyable to hear from a group like the LSO. In any case, compilations such as these still contain far more positive listening experiences than manglings, and are highly recommended. Telarc has always experimented with providing some of the best sound quality on CD since their early recordings back in the 1980's on CD. This particular CD is available in both the regular CD format and the SACD format, which is the six channel mixing that those of you with DTS systems as your stereo should consider investing. If you have the equipment, SACDs can be simply spectacular (and they only exist for a handful of scores, including Schindler's List and Titanic), so it might be worth the extra $8 to $10 for it. The sound quality on the regular CD is still very good, as always, and this Telarc film music album features no sound effect clips. Budding fans of Goldsmith's works should definitely check out this album, if not for the sole purpose of allowing you to hear snippets of many impressive Goldsmith scores that you likely do not own if you're just getting started. Telarc's string of strong film music compilations continues. ****
Insert includes notes about Goldsmith's career, but little more than technical information about the recording itself. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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