: (Compilation) The Royal Scottish
National Orchestra has recorded hundreds of film music works for release
by the Varèse Sarabande label. At the helm for most of their
early recordings of the mid-1990's was conductor/composer Joel McNeely,
considered at the time to be a student and possible successor for film
music legend John Williams. The collaboration of the RSNO and Joel
McNeely had proven moderately successful during a recording of scores
from 1994 (provided on an album called, of course, "Hollywood '94"), and
the enormous success of "Hollywood '95" would lead to one more similar
collection of recordings the following year before the collaboration
would take a few years off. The RSNO would continue to re-record entire
scores to be released by Varèse Sarabande, and like any
performing group, they have their days when they excel and days when
wrong notes miserably blurt out in nearly every cue. Such is the habit
of any performing group, however, especially when performing the works
of a composer for the first time. The strength of the great 1995
compilation was owed mostly to the vast quantity of good music produced
by Hollywood composers during that year, including a monumental year for
James Horner. The 1996 season wasn't half as strong by comparison, so
instead of providing a small number of scores with multiple cues from
several of those works, Varèse decided to record single themes
from a much wider variety of scores for 1996. This is one strike against
the "Hollywood '96" album, followed by a second strike caused by the
inherent nature of publishing an album that summarizes the year's best
music long before the year is over. Essentially, "Hollywood '96" is left
with choosing material that comes from the summer blockbusters and
forcing some of the spring surprises into the mix. The end result is an
album which features selections from scores that really don't sell
albums, even for devoted film music collectors.
The album opens with a disservice to Danny Elfman's
score to
Mission: Impossible by only including Lalo Schifrin's
memorable theme, though you can't really fault Varèse for being
unable to find a good compilation piece from Elfman's work. The
following suite of themes from
Twister is a worthy inclusion on
the album, but its performance lacks the spirited movement of the
original. Both Carter Burwell's
Fargo and Elliot Goldenthal's
A Time to Kill are awkward deviations, with the Burwell score's
quirky rhythms and fiddle solos meshing poorly with Goldenthal
strikingly complex movements. Producer Robert Townson couldn't resist
throwing John Williams' 1995 theme for
Sabrina onto the album,
despite its once again out-of-place position. After Thomas Newman's
Phenomenon passes shortly without any point of interest, Joel
McNeely's own fluffy and ultra-happy
Flipper is a tad annoying in
its bright outlook. Tamed to even more restrained levels is Rachel
Portman's eventual Oscar-winning score for
Emma. From this point
on, the album finally gets truly interesting, with the rousing brass
finale piece from William Ross'
Tin Cup standing well alongside
other triumphant sports finales. The hymnal theme from James Horner's
Courage Under Fire is solemn and restrained as necessary, in
stark contrast to Bernard Herrmann's lush and seemingly misplaced "Scene
D'Amour" from
Vertigo. The classic Alfred Hitchcock film was
restored and released in pristine form in 1996, and as part of the hype
surrounding that restoration, Joel McNeely would actually collaborate
with the RSNO to re-record the entire score for a separate album. The
one cue here would have been better appreciated if placed at the end,
though it's a beautiful cue no matter where it is heard. The two
monumental successes of the album are saved until last, with the
impressive and lengthy "Sanctuary" cue from Alan Menken's
The
Hunchback of Notre Dame featuring a 150-member chorus. Whipping up a
storm is the RSNO's performance of the final action pieces (and notably
not the usual concert suite) from David Arnold's necessary
Independence Day, the highlight of the summer blockbuster season.
The performance here is sadly lacking in choir, but the orchestral
ensemble's brass section does a great and valiant job of capturing the
robust size of the original. Overall, "Hollywood '96" is not as strong
as "Hollywood '95" due to its awkward progression in selections, but
it's superior to "Hollywood '94."
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Joel McNeely reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.38
(in 16 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.14
(in 8,429 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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