March 31, 2010

  • Best of March: New to the "Collection"

    With a huge host of special limited editions coming out in March, there are plenty of discs to wade through.  Settling on five personal favorites from among the many is a bit hard but here are the "highlights" for me this month.

    First up is Chandos' superb new release of Bernard Herrmann's scores for Citizen Kane and Hangover Square.  Reviewed here earlier in the month, this new release makes one of the composer's most noted scores a gorgeous listening experience in fantastic performances under Rumon Gamba's direction.  Chados has a growing collection of fantastic releases in their film score series and this is their latest and a true "best of" that will probably show up on end-of-year lists.

    Also striking was a new Naxos disc of choral music by James Whitbourn, Luminosity.  The larger scale piece is quite fascinating and listeners get a chance to hear enough of the composer's style to appreciate how he is able to sustain his seemingly simple textures and harmonic language for large stretches of time.  Check earlier in the month for a fuller review.

    Archivmusik.com had a sale on the Albany label earlier in the month which allowed me to fill in some holes in my American Music area.  One of the great discs to be discovered had one of the more obnoxious titles:  The Cool, The Cowboyish, the Coy, the Combustible.  David Alan Miller leads the Albany Symphony Orchestra through four fascinating and fine compositions which kicks off with Morton Gould's rarely heard Cowboy Rhapsody.  It is a great pops piece that certainly deserves more playtime on symphony programs alongside other more familiar-themed works.  It literally explodes the disc open with an overture like quality.  Roy Harris' rarely heard Symphony No. 11:1967 is similar to the one movement structure superbly realized in his Third Symphony but this one is very accessible and clocks in aroudn 20 minutes.  Another delightful little piece is a symphony by Cecil Effinger.  Popular in its own day, the Little Symphony is in some ways a modern day Suite for Strings a la Arthur Foote.  Both great little pieces by the way.  The simplicity of the music does not take away from the fact that it is perhaps far more difficult to play than it sounds.  The disc concludes with a wonderful performance of Douglas Moore's second symphony a hugely engaging work from 1945 already seemingly out of place with the period.  Albany Records sound is simply unbelievably clear and reminds us of the lucky people in New York who have such a great regional orchestra.

    Film Score Monthly released a 5-disc collection, a "first volume," of 1960s film music by Lalo Schifrin that is filled with treasures.  First up is one of the composer's early scores, Rhino (1964)--which I actually think I saw as a kid!--, which finds the composer exploring some African-style musical ideas and jungle rhythms.  Score and album presentations of The Cincinnati Kid allow us to hear far more of this score than was previously available.  There are also scores for a couple of spy films: Once a Thief, The Venetian Affair and Sol Madrid.  Of additional interest are some Verve recordings and other singles that FSM throws in that show a bit of Mancini influence in terms of how a film soundtrack album might be put together.  Schifrin's style though is so different from Mancini's that it is humorous to think them writing similar music.  Schifrin's jazz has a more rhythmic edge to Mancini's suave classy lounge style.  Little surprises like a recording of the theme from TV's Medical Center make this a fun collection wetting the appetite for what is to come on a future volume.

    Finally, for those looking to give their ears a workout, consider picking up La-La Land's release of Dragonslayer.  This is Alex North's 1981 Oscar-nominated score for one of those fantasy dragon films and it is a an intense, densely-packed orchestral masterpiece with so many intricate, contrapuntal layers to disect that you will have many years to fully pick it apart to hear the many threads he composed here.  There are times when the score feels like a combination of his music for Spartacus with Journey to Fear.  Highly recommended and a limited edition so you might want to pick this one up before it disappears.

    The summer blockbusters are already starting to role out in April now so that means potential for many great action film scores--at least in theory.  For the most part though, there are plenty of limited edition film scores and great new classical releases to keep almost anyone's wallet from getting a rest.