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.

Last year, Gregg Nestor released a surprisingly engaging album of film music, and a few concert miniatures, by Miklos Rosza.  The disc drew on the composer’s wealth of thematic ideas that laid well in guitar arrangements, many by the performer himself.  That was an album worthy of anyone’s attention worth adding to any order that will include this latest release from BSX.  One of the attractive things about the release is that it pulls together familiar themes, often for two guitars now, as well as lesser known ones (like Korngold’s early song “My Love and I” from Give Us This Night) all in performances that sparkle.

Just looking at the film titles represented here, mostly from the Golden Age of Hollywood, might make one wonder just how these will translate into more intimate situations.  Gold’s finale for It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World opens the disc as an unlikely candidate even for two guitars, but it soon takes on the character of even the finest Spanish guitar music in its dance-like rhythms.  The many quick key changes meant that each segment had to be recorded separately and then edited together for the recording.  It makes for a rather smooth bit of music making when all is said and done.  The opening for All About Eve is another unlikely candidate that turns out to work surprisingly well in this intimate setting.  For his Rosza album, Nestor chose a number of dance-like formal pieces that had a decidedly Baroque influence.  There is less of that here, but the same idea is in place for the little “Hornpipe” from Down to the Sea in Ships.  “Cathy’s Theme” from Wuthering Heights is simply exquisite in this setting giving it a very poignant intimate sense that only a solo guitar performance can bring to this music.

The center piece of this disc is a concert arrangement of music by Miklos Rozsa.  His “Suite in Olden Style” is an obvious influence to how Nestor has taken to delving into film music that lays well for guitar.  The suite was put together shortly before the composer’s death by his long-time friend, Christopher Palmer.  That particular arrangement was arranged for harpsichord with flute, oboe, and cello giving it a Trio Sonata feel.  The transcription of the keyboard part to guitar feels effortless and very appropriate to the style of the period implied in the selections chosen for the original suite.  Nestor has added an additional movement, the “Bouree” from Moonfleet to make it a six-movement work.

Odder still, though no less successful, is a suite of music from Herrmann’s Psycho.  Here it feels like a perfectly normal little 20^th century guitar piece closer to something by Castelnuovo-Tedesco.  It somehow works quite well though.  The Impressionistic colors of Morley’s beautiful main theme is one of the many highlights of the album as is the theme from Friendly Persuasion.  The performance by Anna Bartos of “Music of the Night” from I Confess is an interesting choice in an otherwise instrumental disc.  Bartos does a fine job of turning Tiomkin’s little tune almost into a polished art song.  The selection helps make the transition to the final part of the disc which features that composer’s music and culminates in a to minute suite of music, which adds harmonica, from the 1966 film A President’s Country.  We leave with a definite sense of the Old West in our ear, a far cry from the Baroque-styled, and semi-romantic themes which opened the disc.  The piece is taken from a short film that featured a number of familiar Western Tiomkin themes arranged for small orchestra.  It makes for a trip through some of the composer’s best Western songs, complete with a little horse whip for the theme from Rawhide.  It works for the most part, adding a bit of humor perhaps to an otherwise serious disc and it makes an apt conclusion to the disc.

Overall You Must Remember This Too makes for an amazingly enjoyable near hour of fine music making.  There are enough familiar tunes to help the hesitant be drawn into the disc as a listening experience.  It is a well-though out program as well that has enough variety to make it thoroughly enjoyable.  Highly recommended!

You can get yourself a copy from most on-line retailers (Intrada, Screen Archives, etc.) or from the BSX Records website:  www.buysoundtrax.com.