Though it is still possible a new shipment for review may arrive this afternoon, I won't be able to get to them until April, so here are 5 picks from a meager selection for the month of March, a generally slow period anyway.

1. Superman: The Music, 1978-1988 (Williams, Thorne, Courage, Jones, Moroder, etc.).

Already discussed earlier in the month, this fabulous release from Film Score Monthly gives Superman fans a great opportunity to hear music from all but the latest Superman film and the 1950s TV series.  Focusing on the 4 films with Christopher Reeves, FSM has given their same meticulous attention to detail to Superman which sounds as good as the Rhino edition, but the sources seem to be even better, and there are a few important extras here.  Superman II is less interesting since it is mostly reworking of the music from the previous film, but Thorne's work on Superman III  is considerably better and has an almost English-style scoring approach reminiscent of Roy Budd's orchestral scores.  The first of many great surprises is the complete score music for Superman IV with a wonderful score by Alexander Courage and several new themes by John Williams (all marked in the superb accompanying booklet).  Finally, Ron Jones music for a 1980s animated Superman series is filled with great music continuing to wish this composer more larger screen, and budget, projects.

2. Mysterious Island

Bernard Herrmann's original recording for this classic score appeared again from Silva.  This time better sources and remastering make this a very pleasant surprise to one's collection and a great historic partner to the complete re-recording made by Stromberg and Morgan last year.

3. The Other Boleyn Girl

Paul Cantelon had a wonderful little score for Everything is Illuminateda couple years ago.  The score material appeared mixed in with songs on the CD release, but it was still worth tracking down.  This is one of the best scores to appear this year.  The period drama culls from Cantelon a sound like a more serious style of Warbeck's as heard in Shakespeare in Love--without a "big" theme.  But there is thematic writing in this score that helps pull it together.  I listened to this 3-4 times when I first picked it up.  A great little surprise that one wonders would have had more attention if this film had appeared as planned last December.

4.  Untraceable

This little score for a mostly forgettable January release, features a wonderful score by Christopher Young.  The main theme is engaging and recurs enough to help keep interest throughout the brief 45 minute disc.  There is more interesting music in one measure of this score than most scores have in entire scenes.  It is well-crafted, superbly orchestrated, and will just have to do for Young fans who wish for better score releases in the future. 

5.  Arthur Fiedler Legacy

Cheating a bit here on these separately released 5 2-disc sets featuring the Boston Pops with Arthur Fiedler.  Many of these come from the 1970s.  It's hard to pick just one of these 5 varied collections since there are favorite moments spread out among all of them.  Nice surprises include the repackaging, first time on CD, of an old Polydor album called "Fiedler's Favorite Overtures" which featured a knockout performance of the Festival Overture of Shostakovich.  The Bach transcriptions are also wonderful music making, even if you are a purist, and it is always fascinating to hear the many arrangements of popular music from the cadre of arrangers who worked for the Pops in the 1970s.  One curiousity is the brief Star Wars music suite that concludes the Broadway/Film collection.  All 5 discs were discussed in an earlier blog.

Now on to April where we can hope that a few more interesting releases will begin to appear.  It has seemed pretty quite for new scores other than the new Indiana Jones music.  That does not bode well for the summer season, but there are always a few surprises.

While I am still enjoying Film Score Monthly's superb box set of scores for the Superman films, out comes a couple of new releases, one sure to cause fans to get excited.

The first of these is Gary McFarland's score for Eye of the Devil.  McFarland was a jazz composer and wrote 2 film scores before his untimely death at the age of 38.  So this will be of particular interest to those who know of his work in jazz, or fans of jazz-related scores. 

But perhaps the biggest news is FSM's release of Elmer Bernstein's score to the bizarre animated classic, Heavy Metal.  This is probably one of Bernstein's most requested later scores and surely one of his finest from the 1980s.  It makes one wonder how many more late 1970s and early 1980s scores are now possible to release from this and other labels.

A word on the Superman box....It might seem a bit much at first to pay when you already own the original album re-issue, or Rhino's set from a few years ago, but it is well worth it.  Superman is beautifully restored with greater detail than was available before and makes for a very coherent listen.  Ken Thorne's work on Superman II will feel more like a curiosity at first with its reuse of material from the first film, but it is in his music for Superman III where we get to hear his ability as more than just a glorified arranger and it turns out to be a pleasant surprise.  The new themes for Superman IV are classic Williams and the booklet outlines whose music we are hearing.  Themes are given album treatments and these, especially "Jeremy's Theme" is classic Williams style scoring.  In fact Courage's score is a wonderful blend of delicious 1960s-like soft pop/jazz and intriguingly scored big orchestral numbers.  The harmonic language here is worth the price of the discs alone.  A score we have not been able to hear for far too long, thankfully given a deluxe treatment. 

Still more to listen to, but give up a few Starbuck's coffees and treat yourself to some great music.