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| Talgorn |
Themes from The Phantom Menace and Other Film Hits:
(Compilation) In the mid-1990's, the Varèse Sarabande label
released a yearly compilation of performances by the Royal Scottish
National Orchestra and other notable performing groups. These
recordings, featuring the conducting of Joel McNeely, were offered from
1994 through 1996 and titled "Hollywood '94" and upward. With an
unfortunate break from the series in 1997 and 1998, Varèse
offered "Themes from The Phantom Menace and Other Film Hits" in late
1999 and, in reality, the album essentially could have been called
"Hollywood '99." For this entry, though, the album has been constructed
with a slightly new approach; replacing McNeely as conductor is European
composer Frederic Talgorn, who is the popular cult composer of such
scores as
Fortress and
Robotjox. Also, unlike some of the
previous compilations that featured mainly re-recordings of the cues
provided, this album contains mostly original selections from scores
that Varèse released over the previous spring and summer. Though
using
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace as its shelf appeal due to
the resurrection of the famed saga at the time, the album might be
better called "The Varèse Sarabande 1999 sampler." It shows, at
the very least, just how strong Varèse's line-up of score albums
for major pictures was that year. Although some fans' reactions to these
regurgitations of original cues might initially strike a negative chord,
producer Robert Townson must be given credit for choosing some excellent
material from his label's earlier albums for inclusion here. Townson
would compile other collections of music owned by the label in the
following years, often with great success (which is really no surprise
given how massive the Varèse library is). Of those original cues,
many of them represent the best material available from the complete
soundtrack albums. With the most noteworthy tracks taken from
Deep
Blue Sea,
Bowfinger,
The Iron Giant,
Instinct,
and
The Haunting, film music fans will be served well if they
choose to purchase this album instead of the complete originals.
On the other hand, a few curious choices were made; the
selections from
The Matrix and
The Sixth Sense are not the
grand finale cuts from either score (which harms the latter score far
more than Don Davis' still entertaining opening to
The Matrix).
With
The 13th Warrior, it's difficult to narrow such a vast
wealth of strong music to just a couple of minutes. Two of the more
unfortunate scores of the year,
Wild Wild West and
Payback, tear holes in the consistently high quality of music on
the album. The performances recorded by the RSNO for
The Phantom
Menace,
The Mummy,
Saving Private Ryan, and
Shakespeare in Love are, on the whole, quite entertaining. The
crisp, accurate quality of the 16+ minutes from
Star Wars: The
Phantom Menace may surprise; the main title performance is among the
best to be recorded, and Frederic Talgorn should be congratulated for
leading the orchestra to such ambitious performances for the louder
cues. The concert arrangements of "The Flag Parade" and "Adventures of
Jar Jar" seem overextended, but all ills are forgotten after the strong
performance of "Duel of the Fates." For this recording, the RSNO teamed
up with a chorus that is almost twice the size of that which performed
with Williams for the original recording, and the sheer size of the
music will dazzle. The same can be said for the track from
The
Mummy, which features the cue "The Sand Volcano." Touching on both
of Goldsmith's primary themes for the film, this cue sparkles in the
choral performance towards the latter half to such an extent that it may
exceed the quality of the original for some listeners. The "Hymn to the
Fallen" from
Saving Private Ryan is likewise impressive, with
worthy contributions continuing from the chorus. The only mishap with
Talgorn and the RSNO is the very long suite from
Shakespeare in
Love. Lacking the energy of the original main and end title
performances, the suite drags on for much too long. Overall, this
compilation gives you an adequate taste of many of Varèse's major
1999 albums without forcing you to purchase those products.
Unfortunately, though, the label would not make albums such as this a
habit in the following years.
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The insert includes short notes about each track, but little about the recording
process for the album or Frederic Talgorn's involvement with the project.
