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| Barry |
(Out of Africa:) The Classic Film Music of John
Barry: (Compilation) In their long history of producing fine
compilations of film music re-recordings by the City of Prague
Philharmonic, Silva Screen Records has had a love affair with the music
of John Barry. Part of the significant attention Silva has given to
Barry's music is probably due in part to the easy marketability of
Barry's music across two generations. But a more likely reason is the
association of orchestrator and conductor Nic Raine with Silva and the
performers in Prague. Raine had orchestrated Barry's final two James
Bond scores (as well as
Chaplin) at the outset of his employment
on these Silva sets, so his knowledge of the reproduction of Barry's
sound is unparalleled. Indeed, some of the best performances to ever
come out of the City of Prague Philharmonic have been under the wand of
Raine and in front of sheets of Barry's music. Their first compilation
of Barry themes debuted in Great Britain in 1993, spread to America in
1994, and led to subsequent collections in 1996, 1999, and 2006, among
others. Silva also released full re-recordings of the Prague musicians
tackling entire scores for
The Lion in Winter,
The Last
Valley, and, most magnificently,
Raise the Titanic. When you
look back at this history, the most interesting aspect of all these
Barry-related albums is that their use of recordings differs from
Silva's usual practice of endlessly recycling performances across
multiple products. In fact, each of the albums listed above includes
performances that can't be found on other Silva products. And
mercifully, unlike most other Barry compilations, Silva doesn't take up
precious time with endless regurgitations of Barry's James Bond
material. Additionally, the musicians in Prague have re-recorded some of
their own performances to improve upon their offerings of the
mid-1990's. A good example of this is
Zulu, which Silva seems to
like to debut their John Barry albums with. The recording available on
the 1993/1994 compilation is an inferior one compared to the vibrant and
fresh one on the "Zulu" compilation set in 1999. And yet, the sound
quality of that performance on the 1999 set is superior to the
presentation of the same recording on the 2006 "Film Music Masterworks"
series CD.
So the moral of the story when it comes to Silva's John
Barry CDs is that each one is unique in its selection and perhaps even
its performances. The first CD in this history was the 1993 "The Classic
John Barry," a British product that would be issued with a different
cover but identical musical contents in America just six months later.
Both it and its 1995 sequel album would be released before Silva began
issuing their recordings in stunning surround sound quality, but the
quality here is still on par with other digital recordings of the era.
Barry's original recordings have always featured great sound quality
(going back to the 1960's), so in some cases, the quality here is not an
improvement over the originals, despite 25 years difference in age. As
mentioned before,
Zulu opens the album with significant bombast.
Among Barry's romantically lush string-dominated scores represented here
are
Out of Africa,
Dances with Wolves,
Hanover
Street,
Chaplin,
Indecent Proposal,
Raise the
Titanic,
Body Heat,
Robin and Marian, and
Somewhere
in Time. Critics of Barry have long pointed out that all of these
scores sound somewhat alike, despite their countless Oscar nominations,
and on a technical level, they're right. If you seek less of that kind
of unashamed, lovable melody, then the second album is for you. The
pacing of this album is only broken by the ambitious brass in
The
Last Valley and the faster jazz rhythms of
The Persuaders.
Among the disappointments on this album is
The Lion in Winter,
which was recorded here without the necessary chorus, rendering the cue
rather odd-sounding, especially compared to the rousing
choral-accompanied version that would grace the future Silva/Barry
albums on which it appears. The suite from
Born Free also seems
to lack the upbeat personality that Barry had intended. It should be
noted that the very lengthy album was considered more attractive in
1993/1994 because it contained several cues for which there had been no
CD recording, including the ever-elusive
Raise the Titanic. For
the most part, however, only Barry fans nowadays will find a few of the
recordings to be distinct among their Silva/Barry collection.
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The insert includes extensive information about the scores and films.
