The past month was a chance to catch up on some missed scores and enjoy a few special releases as well.

The best score of 2011 may well have been John Powell's How To Train Your Dragon.  I finally picked up a hard copy to enjoy in my regular, non-computer listening time.  It is easily recommended for all.  The other great score from 2011 was Carter Burwell's True Grit.  You might call this a "composer's" score because Burwell uses quotations of period hymns and shapes them in the score to follow specific characters and their growth over the course of the narrative.  This really is one of the most fascinating works deemed "ineligible" because it did not contain enough "original material" when Oscar nominations were handed out this year.  Too bad, but at least we can enjoy Burwell's fascinating arrangements and the subtlety he brings to this music. 

Film Score Monthly released Ennio Morricone's fascinating score to Days of Heaven.  The Terrance Malick film remains one of his masterpieces and both it and the score are worthy parallels for the director's latest film The Tree of Life.  The latter features an equally great score by Alexandre Desplat.  Both films feature music that was used uniquely by Malick.  Morricone's genious here was the way he incorporates a Saint-Saens piece that Malick wanted to use and recreates his very own stylistic version that can reference the other piece and be used in different ways on its own.  FSM's two-disc set lets you hear a film order and a disc of music as "originally' intended.  It is all simply fascinating.

In case you missed it, Intrada is releasing a number of CDs with Disney in a new agreement that fans hoped will bring many treasures to disc.  The label's first release was Giacchino's Up.  At first it seemed like it would be much ado about nothing, but the next release was a shocker.  The Black Hole has different associations depending on ones age.  It is not the masterpiece the studio hoped for by any means, but it does feature a number of amazing sequences.  More interesting was that John Barry was commissioned to provide a score.  In recorded history, this score is important because it was one of the first scores to be recorded using state-of-the-art digital technology.  The LP was a prized collector's item and now anyone can pick up a copy in its first CD release ever.  Fortunately, the release is not a limited edition!  Available at www.intrada.com.

Finally, a new two-disc compilation, Music of Michel Legrand from Silva, finds the composer performing his famous themes with the Moscow Virtuosi.  This is one of those sets that you listen to again almost immediately after it plays through.  The music here is simply gorgeous in these arrangements that stay somewhat faithful to the originals and add an element of jazz orchestral improv once in a while.  There are even some non-film selections from Legrands early days that make an appearance here.  The composer will be 80 next year, and this set is a great way to celebrate his many amazing works!

It would be a very safe bet that there is not a person who has gone to the movies in the past 40 years that has not heard the flute playing of Louise DiTullio.  DiTullio has over 1200 film score recordings to her credit and also bears the distinction of having made some of the classic Stravinsky Columbia recordings with the composer conducting.  Her exquisite playing in films like DANCES WITH WOLVES and HOOK elevated the music in ways its composers might never have expected.  The present disc is a pet project of the flautist intending to pull together some of the finest flute solo moments from some fond film scores so that they can be performed more often in concert.  The chamber music format allows a wider opportunity for the music to be used as well. 

The CD opens with a suite of selections arranged from HOOK by Mark Watters.  Watters has managed a fine reduction of this classic John Williams’ score and the reduced forces are not noticeable at all.  The music moves beautifully from the “Prologue” through smaller cues, the beautiful “You Are the Pan,” “When You’re Alone,” and concludes with “The Lost Boys Chase.”  It all works rather splendidly.

Conductor Ronald Royer arranged the remaining film music selections.  Again, pulling out more of the flute lines for the music from Dances With Wolves does not damage the integrity of Barry’s musical ideas at all.  They are helped by DiTullio’s sensitive and rich playing.  The music from Elfman’s CHARLOTTE’S WEB is an odd choice and less interesting than much of the other material on the disc, but it does provide for some stylistic diversity.  There are two Jerry Goldsmith themes included on the disc.  The first one from SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY has a sinuously dark quality while the sheer beauty of the theme from RUDY, which closes the entire program, is a gorgeous and fitting conclusion to the disc. 

Music inspired by the Wind in the Willows stories is heard in the unaccompanied flute piece by Laurence Rosenthal, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.  The work is receiving a premiere recording here and is an amazing demonstration of DiTullio’s technical skill as well as being a fine solo flute work in its own right.  It begins a segment of the disc devoted to concert hall pieces with some Hollywood connection.  The thirteen-minute Short Stories by conductor Ronald Royer is a sort of homage to great film music styles and composers from film noir to Mancini.  It a rather unique work in that each movement uses a flute from a different register allowing for a quick exploration of the virtuosic abilities on each.  The alto flute, bass flute, C flute (regular flute), and piccolo each get their own movement.  David Rose wrote Le Papillon for DiTullio in 1980 and through the work of Royer the piece can now be enjoyed by a host of chamber music audiences in this reduced ensemble version.  This near fifteen-minute piece is simply gorgeous with enough of Rose’s filmic touches to identify his musical voice quite easily.

Overall, the sound of this release is superb.  The flute manages to cut through the chamber textures quite well.  Apart from a couple of perhaps overly-exuberant French horn moments that almost blurt, the music making here by the Sinfonia Toronto is perfect with a dedication to rival their colleagues in Southern California.  DiTullio’s playing is simply magical and one quickly hears why so many of Hollywood’s finest composers turned and continue to turn to her to interpret their music.  Her brief comments personalize this music in a way we might otherwise overlook while the additional liner notes remind the listener that so often Hollywood performers come to sessions music unseen and have roughly an hour for every 5 minutes of music to get it right.  The present CD is worth tracking down for any number of reasons whether it be repertoire or performance.  It ends far too soon even though it is quite generous in its playing time.  Some might find themselves running to their music libraries to listen carefully again to DiTullio’s performances in their original score sessions.  Easily one of the best film music compilations this year!