January 7, 2011
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Best of 2010: Golden & "Silver Age" Film Score Releases
Since I still have a little catching up to do on new scores from 2010, I will hold off a while to finalize my "best of the year" selections there. But there were still plenty of historic scores released in 2010 on CD at a time when most all new music is appearing as digital downloads only. There is still something to be said for holding in your hands a well-thought out package that is more than a silver disc.
As the 20th century came to a close it was perhaps logical to expect a number of pre-1960 scores making their way to CD. In the dawn of the new century, more and more post-1960 scores are now seeing expansions and re-mastering than ever before--the result of new licensing fees and aging of a different generation of film music fans. Two releases stand out among the smaller crowd of "Golden Age" releases and they couldn't come from two different composers or films. The first is from Chandos (reviewed on this blog earlier in the year) and features a new recording of Bernard Herrmann's important score for Citizen Kane as well as music from Hangover Square. The other is a lovingly produced 3-disc set of music by Friedrich Hollander for The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T from Film Score Monthly. Hollander was an important composer in the early days of cinema, starting out in Germany and beginning as a performer and songwriter for Marlene Dietrich. This score, one of his final efforts before turning to concert music, is along the same musical lines as Harline's The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm. The accompanying notes and overall information with this release is a stellar effort from FSM (whose releases are available from Screen Archives, www.screenarchives.com).
Straddling the shift in music from the Golden Age of Hollywood heralding a new era of music informed by modernism and more angular writing could not be more apparent than in Alex North's monumental score for Spartacus. Varese Sarabande's amazing, if over-priced, release provided fans of this great score a chance to hear much of this music on its own for the first time ever. Extras included an odd two-disc set of covers of the famous "Love Theme" which worked better than most people would give the sets producer, Bob Townson, much credit for in the end. This is a score that belongs in every music library! If you blinked or hesitated, you missed Intrada's re-release of an expanded CD of The Blue Max. Jerry Goldsmith's amazing score never sounded so great as it did in this release.
From there, we jump into the 1970s with a series of fascinating releases that brought to CD many scores for the first time. On the lesser known front, Film Score Monthly released another pair of Michael Small scores among which, Marathon Man, is a personal favorite with its odd theme and great thriller music. It was coupled with The Parallax View making it an even greater addition to Small's discography. Another odd little release was Paul Giovanni's score for The Wicker Man (really a late 1960s film but appearing in the early 1970s) with its pop-like songs and unique scoring (reviewed here earlier this year).
Turning to more mainstream releases, North fans got a second surprise when La-La Land released his amazing epic fantasy score for Dragonslayer in fabulous sound that reminded film music lovers that there was still plenty of great music in this now "past master." Jerry Fielding's nominated score for Straw Dogs from Intrada was another great surprise if from a lesser, though no less classic, film western.
Finally if you are a John Williams fan, there were always two frustrating holes in your collection of the composer's music, Black Sunday and Family Plot. These two scores are important because they give us a glimpse of the "high profile" projects he was beginning to get attached to while providing a pre-Star Wars window on his musical style. The final sequences in Black Sunday have many musical parallels to the final 12-13 minutes of Star Wars and makes for fascinating comparitive listening and viewing. Family Plot is one of the last non-sci fi scores in the composer's output with a style that recalls his 1960s comedy writing with his more dramatic narrative underscoring that would be overlooked in the coming Spielberg-Lucas scoring years.
No doubt your own personal favorites include many other releases from 2010, but these continue to find their way to my CD player more often than many others.
There were tons of newer scores from the 1980s and 1990s that apeared as well, and I will highlight those in an upcoming post.
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