Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #1,078
Written 10/16/97, Revised 6/17/07
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Buy it... if you want a collection of the definitive swashbuckling
works of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Max Steiner, Miklos Rózsa, and
other Golden Age composers.
Avoid it... if you are interested solely in the sparse inclusion of
digital era scores on these albums.
The Mark of Zorro/The Crimson Pirate:
(Compilations) The summer of 1997 was the "coming of age" for the Silva
Screen label and its compilations of film music recordings with The City
of Prague Philharmonic. Among its double-CD sets and the first, very
popular "Cinema Choral Classics" album, Silva released a pair of pirate
and swashbuckling related compilations later that summer. The two were
single CDs sold separately, despite having significant similarities in
style. They contain much of the same genre of music, however a slight
distinction is made between them; "The Mark of Zorro" is dedicated to
"swordsman," so it contains a wealth of the Robin Hood variety.
"The Crimson Pirate," on the other hand, is dedicated to "swashbucklers"
and is therefore more oriented towards music involving battles on the
high seas. Even with these distinctions, though, the contents of the two
albums sound much alike. "The Crimson Pirate" contains a louder and more
robust collection of overtures and prologues. Many of these bold, brassy
themes are infamous for inspiring the genre of music described as
"swashbuckling" throughout the years. Generally, the performances by The
City of Prague Philharmonic are excellent, however there are some
blaring mistakes that sneak through now and again (especially in the
brass section). The highlights are brief, but rousing selections from
Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Captain Blood and Bernard Herrmann's
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. The Korngold suite from The Sea
Hawk is perhaps the most associated entry in the genre, if not
perhaps a tad overplayed. By comparison, Elmer Bernstein's The
Buccaneer is a very enjoyable, far lesser known piece. Of the
recently composed tracks, John Debney's Cutthroat Island is
pulled from the original recording (so its quality is not up for
debate), while John Williams' suite from Hook makes use of the
badly arranged concert version of the film's trailer cue. The Monty
Python track by John Du Prez will remind of his large-scale sex scene
music for A Fish Called Wanda and is an awkward choice for
inclusion. Otherwise, the release is a solid listen, and the superior of
the two.
A few flaws put "The Mark of Zorro" a step behind its
sister album. Like "The Crimson Pirate," the product would probably have
been a better compilation for score collectors had the modern selections
been jettisoned (though that would have hurt the selling capability of
the album). The more modern scores on this CD do not compliment the
traditional sword-fighting themes, with the majority of the major
performance errors coming in those selections. The suite from the
ever-popular
Willow contains several extremely embarrassing
errors, especially from the woodwind section, with devastating pacing
problems plaguing the cue in its synchrony between sections. Likewise,
John Barry's style in
Robin and Marian, despite the fact that
Silva always handles Barry's music with great precision, sounds out of
place. Five minutes from the original recording Geoffrey Burgon's score
for the atrocious 1990 version of
Robin Hood is surprisingly
poor, especially when followed by the highly spirited version
contributed the next year by Michael Kamen for
Robin Hood: Prince of
Thieves. Outside of the expected quality and logical continuity of
the selections by Korngold, Max Steiner, Miklos Rózsa, and Hugo
Friedhofer, the more intriguing surprise of the album is the eight
minutes (over four tracks) from Howard Blake's
The Duelists, a
lovely score that many listeners won't be familiar with. On the whole,
"The Mark of Zorro" lacks the dynamic enthusiasm of "The Crimson
Pirate," though "The Mark of Zorro" is an enhanced CD offering content
similar to other Silva multimedia product offerings at the time. It has
short bios of the composers that are represented on the release, a video
file of a recording session, and other notes about Silva and the
product. Both albums feature surround sound and are about 50 minutes
long (perhaps there wasn't enough material to warrant another 2-CD
release from Silva, but there was too much they wanted to cover to fit
on one CD). The pair of releases as a whole might have been more
enjoyable (and economical) if some of the more modern selections had
been dropped and the remainder condensed onto one CD. As they are, these
products are among the weaker Silva compilations of the late 90's.
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- The Mark of Zorro: ***
- The Crimson Pirate: ****
