After Carter Burwell's somewhat mundane music for
Rob Roy, the explosive fanfare from Jerome Moross for
The War
Lord, resembling a Maurice Jarre tune in many ways, stirs the pot.
The thirteen minutes from Patrick Doyle's
Henry V is extremely
well performed, eclipsing the original in all three of its tracks. The
two cues outside of the famous "Non Nobis Domine" are treats that use
every last corner of the improved soundscape to convey their percussion.
Following Alex North's bombastic title and lush love theme from
Sparticus, the ensemble returns to John Barry territory for, not
unexpectedly, a superior performance of
The Last Valley (they
would eventually re-record this entire score alongside
The Lion in
Winter). The end titles for James Horner's
Braveheart will be
a major attraction for many mainstream buyers, and the performance here
is loyally conveyed with the appropriate light choir, uillean pipes, and
tin whistles. The suite from Basil Poledouris'
Conan the
Barbarian strangely meanders through the "Prologue" cue before
getting down to business with the film's primary two themes in "Anvil of
Crom." The "Riders of Doom" cue would be made available on the first
"Cinema Choral Classics" album. Concluding the second CD (after the
always pompous and somewhat irritating "Prelude" to Bernard Herrmann's
Jason and the Argonauts) are seven tracks and eighteen minutes
from Mario Nascimbene's
The Vikings, the last track from which
also appearing on "Cinema Choral Classics." Recognizable instantly by
the three note theme representing the culture in the film, Nascimbene's
score is a good one that still perhaps gets too much attention from
Silva. At any rate, its "Funeral and Finale" cue is once again a fitting
finale to the album and set. Unlike some of the concurrent single-CD
releases by Silva that summer, "Warriors of the Silver Screen" is
largely free of performance errors, and the Dolby sound quality, as
always, is second to none. The enhanced CD features are an additional
bonus, especially with the footage of
Taras Bulba being
recorded.
***** @Amazon.com: CD or
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