September 19, 2009

  • Best of August: New to the "Collection"

    Yes, it is almost halfway through September, but after a month of houseguests and a backlog of things for review here are some highlights from last month that were "new".

    I'll start with the only classical release in the bunch.  Naxos released this 2-disc set, Lincoln Portraits, which is a superb collection of pieces about our 16th president released last February.  Yes, Copland's familiar work is there, but of the 8 pieces represented, it is just another fine performance of one of that master's pieces.  It's the amazing work by George Frederick McKay that will give you the most pleasure on this disc of music that includes pieces by Ives, Persichetti, Harris, Bacon, Turok and Gould.  Why is one of our great conductors, Leonard Slatkin not better recognized?  Here he reminds us of those great RCA Copland collections made with St. Louis.  Here he has gone a bit further east to another great regional orchestra in Nashville.  It's a great release of some fine American Music.

    Dr. Kildare is a bit before my time, and I waited a bit before picking up this Film Score Monthly 3-disc survey of music from the series.  The Goldsmith theme is one of his more familiar and the underscoring for the series is superb throughout.  It makes for a lot of medical music but is a great set.

    I almost missed La La Land's release of Airplane!  This quintessential Elmer Bernstein comedy score fills out any collection of the composer's work.  It's great fun hearing this music on its own while recalling what scenes it goes with along the way.

    And now two new scores are also worth noting.  Marco Beltrami's score for Knowing is a great listen that feels at times like it is haunted by the ghost of Goldsmith.  Beltrami's signature sinous melodic ideas are also on display and this is probably one of his better scores in some time.  Fascinating orchestral colors and exciting rhythmic ideas are on display throughout.

    Finally, Christopher Young returned to all out horror scoring with his over-the-top score for Drag Me to Hell.  This is great horror movie music complete with organs and full orchestral writing reminiscent of the composer's Hellraiser days.

    It's almost time to do this again for September!  But if you've missed any of the above, enjoy!