For those looking for some highlights from the many Murray Gold Dr. Who scores, this BSX Records release (available from their website www.buysoundtrax.com) may just scratch the right itch.  Dominik Hauser has pulled together a number of classic musical moments and themes from the series for this first volume.  The blend of electronic and studio work (by the Meridian Studio Orchestra) manages to traverse the music fairly well.  One does have to suspend any familiarity with the original sources only on occasion to allow for the interpretations here.  This is really only the case in the opening “Season 5 Main Title” which is wholly convincing musically and serves as a great opening to the disc.

Later the season 8 theme will help bring the variety of selections to a close with a brief performance of “Martha and Rose”, a medley of these character themes put together by pianist Mark Northam who performs here.  The album is a sort of “greatest” hits and bits of the rebooted series.  Included are themes for “The Doctor” and “I Am the Doctor”, “Martha”, “Amy”, “Melody Pond”, and  “Clara”.  The romantic music for “Madame de Pompadour” makes for an equally nice addition.  The farewell music for Rose appears in the poignant “Doomsday” music, and there is also the music for the introduction of Donna Noble in “The Doctor Forever”, and some of her theme which is used in “A Noble Girl About Town”.

The program also features some unique tracks from the series.  First of these is the “Song for Ten”, the first original song written for a Dr. Who series since 1966 and which appeared when David Tennant assumed the role of the Doctor.  There is also the swing number, “My Angel Put the Devil In Me”.  The wonderful “Song of Freedom” and “The Wedding of River Song” are also good to have here mixed in with the themes and other memorable musical moments.

As a sort of bonus to an already ample album, BSX includes some music from the 1996 Dr. Who movie.  The film, which had great potential to reboot the faltering series cancelled as Sylvester McCoy was just hitting his stride in the role, saw the short-lived Paul McGann regeneration in what ended up as a low-budget TV production.  Interestingly though, John Debney, just gaining attention after his superb work on Cutthroat Island, was hired to provide the score with additional music added by Louis Ferbe and John Sponsler.  Three selections are included here: “Night Walk”, “Open the Eye”, and “Farewell”.  The release ends with a version of Ron Grainer’s iconic theme.  Sort of bringing us full circle back to the beginning after hearing the theme in its many updated and varied forms from the film and Gold’s own alterations.

Dr. Who fans will likely already have the original scores for the new series.  This compilation is a great overview of Gold’s work, perhaps a bit more intimate at times than the big orchestral sound that has gradually been brought to the series.  But the inclusion of the selections from the 1996 film does indeed make this a bit more desirable.  The program notes here are also exemplary with good, brief explanations of the concept for the album and where the pieces fall in the pantheon of episodes.  Soloists (for songs and vocalizes) and ensemble musicians are not identified however.

 Hollywood Blockbusters

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Nick Ingman, Nic Raine
RPO SP 034
Disc One: Total Time:  60:56
Disc Two: Total Time:  70:51
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

The Royal Philharmonic feature annual concerts celebrating film music and some of their Here Come the Classics series have included some film music along the way.  Many of their concert recordings are available solely through their website which makes them a bit harder to come by outside the UK.  The present release features selections from some of these earlier compilations recorded with Nick Ingman back in 2002, and with Nic Raine in 2009 and 2010.  Many of Raine’s own arrangements are featured here and parallel selections available on the Silva label which has been associated with over the past 20 years.

The music is not really presented with any sort of program in mind, not even chronology.  One might be hard pressed to think of something like Chocolat as a “blockbuster” and a few other films sort of seem odd in that respect as well, but regardless, there is an interesting collection of film music all the same featuring mostly music from more recent films, though it runs back to some early Mancini (1958’s Peter Gunn theme) to Horner’s Avatar (2009).

Disc One opens with Schifrin’s Mission Impossible TV theme in a more extended version, which seems a bit odd (disc two also opens with a TV theme).  But then we are off through a host of familiar melodies from Avatar, Gladiator, Forrest Gump, Out of Africa, The Pink Panther, The Thomas Crown Affair, Titanic, and License to Kill.  Some of the nice surprises in the programming are suites from Chocolate and Ratatouille.  Equally interesting is music from Desplat’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Zimmer’s The Da Vinci Code (oddly the least interesting piece here), and Horner’s A Beautiful Mind.

An interesting mix of popular melodies (like Lai’s Love Story theme, Hamlisch’s “The Way We Were” and Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You”) are dispersed among more serious fare like the beautiful “Elegy for Dunkirk” (Atonement) and the theme from Schindler’s List.  A bit of music from the first Lord of the Ring’s films allows for some fantasy music that returns at the end with two familiar selections from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.  Interesting items also include a suite from Warbeck’s Shakespeare in Love and interesting music from Zimmer’s King Arthur.  Action music comes from the main theme for Elfman’s Batman and Arnold’s Quantum of Solace (though this is a more lyrical “A Night at the Opera”).  Morricone’s beautiful theme from Cinema Paradiso is also paired here with Leonard Rosenman’s arrangement of a Handel “Sarabande” as used in Barry Lyndon (1975).

Overall, then this is a rather unusual mix of mostly contemporary film music.  There is plenty of familiar territory here for new or casual listeners, but also some good choices of less familiar composers and films.  They may not quite be “blockbusters” in the way we might think, but the music making is engaging enough to make it a disc that might make a great gift to a new film music enthusiast.  The second disc actually feels like it features the stronger program.  Something also to note is that there seem to be three distinct musical “approaches” here that come across in these studio recordings.  Some of the pop-like themes have a more easy listening feel to them while the jazz selections tend to be a bit hotter in the audio picture.  The more larger-scale orchestral arrangements fall closer to traditional film music recordings.  All of these feel multi-miked which takes away some ambience one might hear in a hall.  However, the performances are excellent throughout.  The booklet itself is pretty barebones with no real information about any of the films or pieces used here.