April 30, 2010

  • Best of April (2010)

    The month of April sort of flew by with tons of new limited edition releases seeming to come from every direction.  There are conversations in several film-related boards about the need to release every single bar of music from an old film score in order as well.  It is most likely that part of the "problem" is that with electronic downloading the concept of an "album presentation" is all but disappearing.  One could say this really began when we could use the "random" feature on our CD players.  It is all something to ponder perhaps as we create our own playlists and consider what it means to "own" someonelse's music for our own use.

    Dorian is repackaging a number of back catalogue titles taking a page from the EMI book by putting CDs in cardboard sleeves and tossing them into a box with a single redesigned booklet.  I had a chance this month in listening to their 6-disc set featuring Eduardo Mata and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.  This was the last thing reviewed on the blog so you can read that extensive review if you wish.  This is great collection of mostly 20th century works with the strongest performances saved up for the final few discs.  For the price of about 2 CDs you get a tone of music so if you do not already own the original releases you will find a lot worth returning to in this set.  For me the best discs which moved up to "favorites" are the performances of Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky Cantata; the American disc featuring music by Bernstein, Harris, and Copland; the French disc with its music by Chausson and Ibert; and the Resphigi disc with superb performances of Pines of Rome, Roman Festivals, and Brazilian Impressions.  The latter is practically worth the price of the whole set.

    I finally found a real score disc of Elfman's music for Alice in Wonderland.  The film was an interesting visual

    feast with Elfman's music bubbling about underneath.  This is the second of two strong scores from the composer

    so far this year.  The "Alice Theme" is a perfect encapsulation of the story and its use throughout the film helps to

    tie together things at least musically.

     

    Intrada released Poledouris' Robocop score in a limited edition set.  This score has appeared a couple of times

    before so this new presentation which is wonderfully remastered and resequenced will still be around a little longer

    than most of the label's limited releases.  There are some real highlights in this score but it is one of those releases

    that makes you want an album-sequenced version as well for comparison.  You can sort of reorganizing the tracks

    to recreate previous incarnations.  But this was really one of the composer's strongest scores since Conan the

    Barbarian.

     

    Perhaps it is just that I get so many ambient design scores to deal with these days that when a more "traditional"

    Media Ventures effort comes along it seems like a revelation.  The Pacific is the HBO follow-up to the earlier

    Band of Brothers miniseries (scored by Michael Kamen).  The new score is a team effort with music by Hans

    Zimmer, Geoff Zanelli, and Blake Neely.  The music is along those elegiac war score lines with some strong

    thematic writing.  It is sort of Barber meets Saving Private Ryan.  The biggest problem with the disc is that at

    some 72 minutes it is almost too much of the same musical direction.  But it is a wonderful listening experience

    overall.

     

    Finally, just finished thoroughly enjoying Film Score Monthly's latest release featuring two scores by Michael Small.  It includes one of my favorite Small themes, that for 1976's Marathon Man and a briefer segment is devoted to material from The Parallax View.  You cannot beat Small's ability to craft some of the 1970s best paranoid film underscore.  This disc is really a fabulous listening experience and a real highlight of the year.  It can be purchased through their website at www.filmscoremonthly.org. 

     

     

    We head into May, the beginning of summer blockbuster season, with all that the new scores may provide.  Not

    much buzz on film music overall though many are anticipating James Newton Howard's score for the new

    Shyamalan film.  Let's hope there is a bit more to get excited about!