It has been a pretty busy October...over the last couple of weeks I think I've reviewed some 20 new score releases--many indistinguishable from approach.  Somehow there was even some time to listen to music I actually wanted to hear too.

I've mentioned earlier in the month picking up The Star Wars Trilogy that has been in Varese's catalogue for years.  This Utah Symphony recording is a great traversal of the "first" three films in wonderfully recorded sound.

Sony released John Corigliano's The Red Violin Concerto.  This is the larger scale work taken from Corigliano's amazing score for the film of the same name.  It is an extension of the "Chaconne" which he pieced together for concert use and which appeared on the original score CD.  The concerto is an interesting work, instantly engaging and beautifully played here by Joshua Bell in a recording made close to the work's premiere.  It enters a small cadre of violin concerti by film composers (Korngold, Rosza, Williams, Holdridge..to name a few).  The disc is oddly filled out by an earlier sonata.  It would have been fun to hear the orchestra play something from Altered States. 

The Cincinnati Pops continue to pull some great discs of popular music.  Russian Nights is a release from last year and features some great performances by the orchestra.  Many of the works included are standard Russian pops fare, but there are some surprises, like the couple of Liadov works. 

Spike Lee put together a documentary about the Katrina disaster.  Terrance Blanchard, one of the finest composers working in Hollywood today, provided a score for this work and the result is this CD, A Tale of God’s Will.  Not all the pieces are by Blanchard.  There is some really wonderful crossover jazz here that plays very well as an assembled set of pieces.  It is a deeply emotional album and makes for a moving listen.

The Silver Chalice was one of the first Waxman scores that really made me look for more of the composer's music.  I heard just a little of it from a Waxman compilation and was hooked.  There is some amazing orchestration in this piece.  Film Score Monthly has released the complete score in wonderful sound (mostly from mono sources) on two discs.  The second disc includes some bonus material as well.  European readers who may have Tsunami's release will notice a much improved sound.

BONUS:  The release date of the complete set for The Return of the King has now been pushed back until the end of the month, but hands down this is the best release I had the pleasure of listening to this past month.  Do yourselves a favor and put this one on your Christmas wishlist....and then head on over to try and choose from the many amazing releases on Intrada that continue to surprise along with BSX and Film Score Monthly. 

This has been a great year for older score releases.  New scores have had a harder time standing out.

I am not quite sure how it happened, but I now seem to be truly "electronicized" (if that is a word).  After a decade of having only one email (and at most two), I now have a personal email, 3 different emails, plus a facebook "inbox" and a MySpace inbox.  I also manage two other blogs in addition to this one.  I certainly hope my writing improves with all these opportunities!

It's that pre-test prep week for me so there has been less time to share many musical insights here.  Plus a pile of new discs arrived for review this week. 

A couple of things to note though for film music fans.  Intrada, which must have had something wonderful happen to have a year like they have had so far, just announced a limited edition of Monsignor.  This is one of those CDs, like The Witches of Eastwick, that has disappeared and never returned on re-issue.  Williams' score will be a welcome change to fans of his music who have heard little on CD from the maestro this year.  It's not going to be earth-shattering, but it is a big release for fans, and a limited one at that.  Now if we could just get Spacecamp....

Also, Film Score Monthly is announcing a two-disc set of Franz Waxman's awesome score for The Silver Chalice.  Music from this score appeared in the Varese Waxman surveys a few years ago (those are four discs worth seeking out).  This disc will in every respect remove the need for one that surfaced in Europe several years ago (often looked upon as a bootleg--but it's due to some of the greater wiggle room on copyright).

Movie Score Media has also returned to making hard-copy CD releases of their material after a beginning of download-only releases.  Dario Marianelli's score for the unseen 2005 film Beyond the Gates (aka Shooting Dogs) is a brief, but amazing score for a film dealing with the genocide in Rwanda.  It is a deeply moving score that continues to illustrate the composer's talent and is worth a few bucks.

Finally, the other day I finally bought a copy of the old Varese Star Wars Trilogy recording with the Utah Symphony (mostly because I was filling in my obsessive need for completeness).  I always passed over this disc for any number of reasons, but always wondered why it has remained in the catalog for so long.  Well, it remains in the catalog because it is one of the finest Williams Star Wars recordings you can find and I am glad to have now made it my latest guilty pleasure.

Speaking of which, another private label has just released a compilation disc of Sam Spence's music for NFL films which he provided from the mid-1960's through the following decade.  It's called Our Man In Munich and is one heck of a groovy album.  If you are fans of the movie jazz of the 1960s, John Barry, or Barry Gray, this is a great disc to add to your collection.