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Review of Heart of the Ocean (Compilation)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you seek a decent sampling of James Horner's more
obscure scores of the 1980's before wasting money on an expensive search
for the originals' full albums.
Avoid it... if you expect this album to serve as a true "greatest hits of the 80's and 90's" representation of Horner's career; it leaves out too many of his famous scores to accomplish that purpose.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Heart of the Ocean: (Compilation) Collections of
James Horner themes were impossible to find in compilation form before
the success of 1997's Titanic. The following year confirmed the
composer's marketability with a sudden burst of such products, mostly
taking the hit film's title as some kind of inspiration. Re-recordings
of Horner's more famous pieces had been made for ten years, but 1998
marked the first time these recordings were assembled specifically
around Horner's career. Both The City of Prague Philharmonic, contracted
by Silva Screen, and Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops, contracted by
Telarc, rushed to perform several Horner pieces, though the former group
and label were the only ones to specifically release a 2-CD set of
solely these Horner recordings. The composer's more obscure, synthetic
works of the 1980's started receiving significant treatment during this
time, lending credibility to these collections. One compilation that was
similar to the others, but arranged differently, was "Heart of the
Ocean," an idea executed by soundtrack producer Ford A. Thaxton and
pressed by the increasingly active Sonic Images label. Instead of
collaborating with a single source for the recordings of each selection,
Thaxton licensed various recordings, both original to this album and
available on others, for a highly varied presentation of themes. The
resulting compilation betrays the Titanic-inspired title of the
album by providing far more synthetic selections from early in Horner's
career than mainstream listeners will be interested in hearing, though
film music collectors will be more content with these selections.
Chronologically, the album is a potentially difficult prospect, but the
individual highlights more than compensate.
The album opens with the piano solo from Titanic, an overrated piece that was in enormous demand between the release of the first album for the film and the second one (which provided the original solo performance heard in the film). Its performance here is adequate, but the cue is among the weaker concepts in the score when compared to majestic touch with which Horner approached the rest of his score. While that cue from Titanic was original to this album at the time, the selections from The Rocketeer and Legends of the Fall were licensed from the source for Bill Broughton's conducting of the Orchestra of the Americas. These performances can be heard on the various Intersound compilations of the mid-1990's, and they are typically of high quality. The recording of The Rocketeer is nothing less than spectacular, putting The City of Prague Philharmonic's poorly paced and error-prone performance of the same piece to absolute shame. The synthetic tingling effect over grand piano in the opening moments is brilliantly accomplished. Rarely does a re-recording eclipse the quality of the original in the authentic enthusiasm of a film theme, but aside from some slight microphone artifacts at about 1:50 and a horn flub in the love theme interlude, this is a outstandingly vibrant presentation. The same ensemble's take on Legends of the Fall is strong as well, though the cue performed is nowhere near being representative of the score as a whole, leaving the casual listener with no idea of the score's heavier, later tones. The Cincinnati Pops produced some very entertaining renditions of film music in the 1990's, and a few of their more accomplished performances of Horner's works were licensed for inclusion here. One of their best entries represents the splashdown sequence from Apollo 13. Kunzel's arrangement does great justice to the original, and his cost-saving synthesized choir is an effective substitute. They performed Braveheart's closing titles cue at about the same time, and with its pipes and synthetic choir, is average. More stirring are their performances of Cocoon and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, among their older works. Once again, the performance of Cocoon is superior to that of The City of Prague Philharmonic; the flute performances here are far more accurate. The compilation intersperses performances by trailer music master John Beal on the synthesizer in between the symphonic tracks. His interpretation skills have been praised widely, and while every synth programmer has his hits and misses, Beal's work here is more intriguingly faithful to the original recordings than Mark Ayres' similar attempts for the Silva Screen Horner compilations. Beal's performances of Commando and Vibes are strikingly similar to Horner's own recordings, with the best, exotic cue from Vibes arguably serving as a highlight of this entire compilation. His arrangement of Name of the Rose is adequate, but suffers from the same largely non-descript nature as the rest of that score (especially since it doesn't accentuate the theme as well). This is a case when Silva's commissioning of a different arrangement from the same score wins the prize. The Field of Dreams arrangement comes off of another Silva album and retains the country charm of the original. The City of Prague Philharmonic makes its only appearance on this album with Wolfen, a subtle score with many similar elements to Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and this performance comes from the ensemble's more suspect, early days of recording film music. It's difficult to see why Wolfen was included here, and the same applies to Where the River Runs Black. Thaxton managed to license Horner's original recording from MGM for this score, but its title theme is so weak that it again slows the momentum of the album. Where the River Runs Black's main title, as heard here, offers a very subdued preview of the folksy rhythms and instrumentation of the closing song-like cue from Willow, and it won't send anybody in a frantic search for the out-of-print Varèse Sarabande release. Overall, this CD's symphonic performances all appear elsewhere, though the product adeptly collects some of the stronger tracks from those albums for inclusion here. This is especially the case with the Intersound releases of Broughton's conducting of the Orchestra of the Americas. The Kunzel and Cincinnatti Pops performances likely merit a search for their original compilations (which are not only strong, but also include quite a decent performance of Willow that would have been a welcomed addition here). Beal's synth performances are enjoyably accurate. Because this compilation is so heavy on the early Horner works, it's a good product with which to become familiar with those hard-to-find collectible scores before you blindly buy them. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 69:01
* Corrected time listed ** Original recording
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert contains lengthy notes by Soundtrack! senior editor
Randall D. Larson about Horner's career.
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1998-2024, Filmtracks Publications. All rights reserved.
The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Heart of the Ocean are Copyright © 1998, Sonic Images Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 5/26/98 and last updated 8/12/07. |
