: (Compilation)
Not until the late 1990's did Jerry Goldsmith's conducting career really
begin to flourish, when he slowed his pace of composing new scores and
spent a larger portion of his time conducting recordings of his own (or
other classic composers') pieces for straight-to-album release. Tickets
to his concerts in the United States and United Kingdom, among other
places, were a hot item during this time, especially since "Goldsmith
Conducting Goldsmith" concerts never occurred as frequently as his fans
desired. Like John Williams, Goldsmith had arranged several of his best
known and favorite film score themes into suites that can be performed
by nearly any orchestra. While this excluded performances of his
powerful electronically-aided efforts from the 1980's (
, etc.), it also allowed originally
smaller-scale score recordings to be heard in performances with the full
force of groups such as the London Symphony Orchestra. Also to be
reckoned with in his concert works is the lack of noteworthy solo
performances from the original recordings. Safe to say, though, if you
had the privilege to attend a Goldsmith concert in the late 1990's or
early 2000's, you most likely found its contents to be nearly identical
to those of this 2001 Goldsmith compilation album from Telarc
International. Goldsmith was familiar with the London Symphony
Orchestra, and vice versa, and the 2000 recording heard on this album is
performed by the talented group without the presence of an audience.
Structurally, if Goldsmith chose to present a cue of less than three
minutes in length in its original form, he tended to include it as part
of a lengthy 20-minute suite (sometimes with other related scores). His
concert of choice changed significantly over the last 15 years of his
career, inspired by his original, most famous collection of arrangements
that became a popular "Suites and Themes" album pressed from a recording
with the Philharmonic Orchestra in the late 80's.
To encompass his scores of the 1990's, as well as those
classics that gained more popularity since his original arrangements, he
eventually dropped some pieces that were once concert staples. These
included
Masada,
The Blue Max,
Lionheart, and
Gremlins, the last of which is a fabulous suite for concert and
is sadly missing on this 2001 Telarc compilation. Three older scores
have been added for the occasion, though, including
Star Trek: The
Motion Picture,
Twilight Zone: The Movie, and, more
curiously,
The Boys from Brazil. Goldsmith's choices for
additions from the 1990's are all strong, including
Basic
Instinct,
Air Force One,
The Russia House,
Rudy, and the two more underrated entries,
Forever Young
and
Sleeping with the Enemy. The occasional performance of
The
Shadow does not appear on this album, though. Nevertheless, this
particular concert arrangement maintains a good balance of the
composer's works from each distinct stage of his career. As usual, some
of his works translate better into concert arrangements than others.
Goldsmith's strength typically existed in his medleys. The motion
picture medley he compiled through the years includes here an action
packed performance of
Air Force One, although the subdued
Basic Instinct cue breaks up the awesome tandem of
Papillon and
The Wind and the Lion (which had always
worked well back to back). The television medley is largely the same,
except for the insertion of the
Star Trek: Voyager theme in the
middle (it melds surprisingly well with the other themes).
The Man
from U.N.C.L.E. remains a great piece to start off that suite. The
two underrated scores of the 1990's for Goldsmith,
Forever Young
and
Sleeping with the Enemy, are great additions for this
compilation. The latter is especially underappreciated by even many
devoted Goldsmith fans. The "Generals Suite" remains a tremendous finale
to the presentation. The selection from
Star Trek: The Motion
Picture is awkwardly performed in a few places, and a suite from
Star Trek: The Final Frontier has always proven to be a more
energized and fun piece for concerts.
The two most disappointing tracks on the album are from
those modern selections which Goldsmith collectors love the most. For
Rudy, the centerpiece of a previous Goldsmith concert in London,
Goldsmith adapted the opening and finale cues into a suite that
unfortunately does not include more than a hint of the secondary brass
theme for the practice and game scenes (which is by far the more popular
theme from that work). Finally,
The Russia House simply can't
float without a saxophone, a bass, and a prominent piano, no matter how
large the size of the orchestra. As in most concert performances of the
theme, it is strangled to near lifelessness here. Ironically, a few of
these exact selections on this Telarc album have been better performed
by Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops, which is the leader in film
score recordings from that label. Kunzel's conducting of
Twilight
Zone: The Movie a number of years prior, for instance, is far more
illustrious. On the whole, Goldsmith is one of those composers whose
career included so many different sounds and styles that it is difficult
to adapt many of his best scores into a form that would be useful or
enjoyable to hear from a group like the LSO. In any case, compilations
such as these still contain far more positive listening experiences than
manglings, and they are generally highly recommended. Telarc has always
experimented with providing some of the best sound quality on CD since
their early recordings back in the 1980's. This particular album is
available in both traditional CD format and the SACD format, which is
the six channel mixing that those of you with DTS systems should
consider investigating. If you have the equipment, SACD's can be simply
spectacular (and they only exist for a handful of scores, including
Schindler's List and
Titanic), so it might be worth the
extra $8 to $10 for the upgrade. The sound quality on the regular CD is
still very good, as always, and this Telarc film music album, unlike
most of their others, features no samples of sound effects. Novice fans
of Goldsmith's works should definitely consider this collection, if not
for the sole purpose of allowing you to hear snippets of many impressive
Goldsmith scores that you likely do not own. Telarc's history of
producing strong film music compilations continued with this solid
entry.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.28
(in 113 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.3
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