Tom Guernsey

The Hooklet, if you will. 

The Hooklet, if you will. 

The Hooklet, if you will. 

Glad I got my Hook booklet. Great customer service by La-La Land!
 
 

Aha nice. Although inevitably not available in my country lol. 

So the Horner re-recordings have been announced! The Hand and The Dresser… kickstarter link below…
 
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/robes/james-horners-the-hand-and-the-dresser-complete-re-recordings
 

So the Horner re-recordings have been announced! The Hand and The Dresser… kickstarter link below…
 
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/robes/james-horners-the-hand-and-the-dresser-complete-re-recordings
 

I’ve given it a couple of listens having enjoyed the first score more than expected (his soundscape stuff doesn’t typically do much for me) and like much of it. The fact that it does at least have (fairly) recognisable themes and some incredibly effective sections is quite welcome, plus it had its own distinctive sound world (just like Mahler told Sibelius a symphony should have… even if Hans is no Mahler or Sibelius).
 
Having said that (and knowing it’s bad form to review something as to what it’s not) but part of me kinda wishes it was more of a fusion of synths and orchestra where each puncture through the overall texture as and when appropriate. There are just times when it’s some strange synth noise and I’m craving an orchestra. Perhaps I just want it to sound more like Intersetellar…

So the Horner re-recordings have been announced! The Hand and The Dresser… kickstarter link below…
 
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/robes/james-horners-the-hand-and-the-dresser-complete-re-recordings
 

At last I received my copy and I must say, I really enjoy that score. The title march doesn't do.much for me. But the rest is really beautiful. And varied.
As usual, Hitchcock seems to bring out the best in his composers.

Yeah it’s clear that villenueve was looking for something very specific score wise. Looking at the scores in his earlier movies both Dune scores are a lot more melodic than the scores to said earlier movies.

I totally agree. "The Creator" also comes to mind. I was hoping there would be something like "Prayer" of that score in Dune, but alas, religioso mode was probably not what Villeneuve was after here. Thus, "The Emperor" is the only cue vaguely going in that direction, I guess, albeit being much more aggressive

So the Horner re-recordings have been announced! The Hand and The Dresser… kickstarter link below…
 
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/robes/james-horners-the-hand-and-the-dresser-complete-re-recordings
 

Just found it:
 
 
And there we have the piano concerto! ;-)

http://www.beatrecords.it/shop.asp?lingua=i&idprodotto=CDX1033&uscita=prox


 
55 years ago, the fourth Western movie directed by Sergio Leone, C’ERA UNA VOLTA IL WEST, was screened for the first time, and in the plans of the director, should have closed the circle of his engagement with this cinematic genre. Compared to the Dollars Trilogy, the movie marks an important stylistic change; it’s an epic full of allegories, with an immensely powerful script. Considered by many to be Ennio Morricone’s masterpiece, it marks an evolution in his music, which often takes over for the images. Exceptional collaborators such as Edda Dell’Orso, Alessandro Alessandroni and Franco De Gemini are the main actors of this score, the director of which is the Maestro. It is to one of them, Franco De Gemini, whom Beat Records in collaboration with Universal Music Publishing wish to dedicate this 50th anniversary edition, in a guise you’ve never experienced before.
 
An accurate remastering by Claudio Fuiano and Daniel Winkler corrected a few formal imprecisions of the wonderful previous editions as well as some minor stereophonic flaws, and now we can finally say we have an album that meets our expectations for such a milestone edition of this score, even correcting some small flaws of the previous edition.
 
But the surprises don’t stop there. Five years after the death of the popular Ferraran harmonica player, the entire recording sessions of the score were discovered, over three hours long, including studio chatter from which we extracted a small recording of Franco’s voice while he is conducting sound tests to find the best sound for his harmonica in a particular scene. We present this gift to you at the end of the album as a memorial to this great harmonica artisan, a sonic cameo as a little witness to his industriousness.
 
The CD comes in a jewel case with a richly-illustrated, 24-page booklet featuring liner notes by Daniele De Gemini, along with 4 collector’s plasticized cards, all gathered in a hard box external case.
 
Limited to only 500 copies, it’s a meeting with cinema and music history that can’t be missed.
 
 
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
 
EDIT: nevermind, not interesting, just annoying

So, people seem to like this one.
 
Outside of the film (that I am lukewarm on) I've never heard it.
 
Hey, this is pretty good! I mean, there's nothing really "new" here from a Goldsmith perspective. It's Jerry doing what he was great at. Bit of Air Force One. Bits of Star Trek Insurrection / Nemesis. Swirled in with Lawrence of Arabia. (There are actually some bits that sound kind of Mask of Zorro! How often did THAT happen?)
 
But I have to say, this is a hoot. I don't know what's new and exciting on any expansions.
 
I think Ron Jones took a bite out of this for his video game score Starfleet Command 2. I never realized how Goldsmith that sounded, since it was such a departure from SFC 1 and the Star Trek sound in general.
 
Why is Mumia Attack "explicit"?
 
EDIT: OK, Camel Race is pretty spectacular, isn't it?

Over the course of the past two years Leigh Phillips has successfully self-produced new recordings of 79 minutes* of previously unreleased Jerry Goldsmith music written for eight episodes of the long-running TV anthology series The General Electric Theater (*including the gorgeous 9 minute bonus score called "Autumn Love", written for the CBS Music Library in the late 1950s). Last year Leigh already announced his intention to produce a new recording of Lionheart in 2024, but this is a mammoth project which requires a great deal of planning and materials. There is a chance he might be able to start a smaller project beforehand, and so with his blessing we are going to conduct a poll online to see what film music fans might be most excited for him to tackle next. At Leigh's suggestion I'll still include an option for Lionheart for folks who truly see that as their highest priority (the prospect that they are most eager for) out of these, and allow TWO votes for each person, from this list.

This vote absolutely WILL impact what Leigh prioritizes next, so please don't hold back in sharing your thoughts and preferences here! (But please don't suggest other titles not on this list of options, such as In Harm's Way or The Satan Bug -- these are bigger projects and Leigh doesn't want to consider any of those until Lionheart is done.)

1. Thriller Volume 3: Fairly self-explanatory... as a follow up to the two beloved Tadlow Music volumes co-produced by Leigh years ago, this would include suites from the four remaining Goldsmith scores for the series which have not yet received modern recordings, plus suites from three Morton Stevens scores. To find out the scores Leigh has in mind, plus hear samples from them (taken from the DVD M&E tracks), check out this short podcast conversation with Leigh:
https://goldsmithodyssey.buzzsprout.com/159614/8425660-odyssey-interviews-leigh-phillips

2. Jerry Goldsmith at Climax Mystery Theater: Uniquely in his entire career, Goldsmith was the primary composer for this live (and originally in color, for those with the right equipment!) anthology TV series during its entire four-season run. With a few exceptions, whenever an episode required original music, he was the one who provided it. But unfortunately, many of the easily-accessible extant episodes of this series are ones which didn't require original music, so we have exactly three hourlong episodes in our possession for which Leigh could reconstruct the scores by ear, and use to produce a new recording: "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (written for only three instruments in 1955, Leigh is a particular admirer of this one and would like to let it shine in modern sound), "Trail of Terror" (which has a lovely romantic theme that stands out in a few cues), and "A Matter of Life and Death" (my personal favorite -- just watch at least the beginning of this episode and marvel at the thrilling opening cue which sounds like fully mature Goldsmith, around 2 minutes in):
 
 
3. Jerry Goldsmith at The CBS Radio Workshop: Aside from "The Thunder of Imperial Names", re-arranged for wind band, none of Jerry Goldsmith's radio compositions have ever been released on album. That was one of four segments of the CBS Radio Workshop episode "1489 Words" which I and my cohosts at The Goldsmith Odyssey regard as Jerry Goldsmith's very first masterpiece, written earlier in 1957 before he even tackled his first film score Black Patch. Basically a series of four concert works setting famous poetry to music, conceived for narrator and orchestra, each one of them is a gem but especially the first lengthy segment "The Highwayman" which is positively spine-tingling at times. If you don't know this work already, check it out here in its original radio version narrated by Jerry's friend, actor William Conrad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFleK1sVxQs
For this new recording project, a version of all four pieces both with and without narration would form the centerpiece of the final album. But Goldsmith creatively scored at least a half dozen episodes of this series total, over a one year period. Here is our podcast coverage of his first score for the series, very much in his modernist style:
https://goldsmithodyssey.buzzsprout.com/159614/14067728-episode-41-storm-cbs-radio-workshop-1956
He also first crossed paths with Ray Bradbury on this series, brilliantly scoring a pair of short story adaptations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWiDEj-6Xbk
All in all, his music for this show constituted the most creative and experimental of his '50s output.

4. Three Western Premieres by Jerry Goldsmith: The western genre was one in which Goldsmith particularly excelled, and we have access to three projects he worked on which have never before been released on album: the dark score for the lost 1959 feature-length Playhouse 90 "Out of Dust" (IMDb's synopsis: "On a cattle drive across the prairie, the sons of a wealthy cattle baron plot his death"), a contrastingly light and energetic score for the unsold 1961 half-hour pilot "Mister Doc" which eventually was folded into the final season of The General Electric Theater (IMDb's synopsis: "Western comedy about a pharmacist and his son at the turn of the 20th century"), and last but not least Goldsmith's final work for CBS Radio, the 1958 western adventure series Frontier Gentleman, for which he composed the main theme and three full episode scores. Listeners of The Goldsmith Odyssey will remember that from our pilot episode, where we played some excerpts from all three Goldsmith scores for the show:
https://goldsmithodyssey.buzzsprout.com/159614/653347-episode-0-live-television-and-radio

5. Jerry Goldsmith's All-Synth Scores, for Orchestra: Alien Nation and Runaway seem generally well-liked, but with the latter in particular I think most Goldsmith fans tend to agree that the composition itself is much better than the very dated synths. Since Jerry basically "orchestrated" that score for synthesizers, I have long thought it would translate particularly well to a real orchestral ensemble, with synth being just an added element for some sci-fi flavor. Goldsmith's other all-synth score Criminal Law may be one of the most generally-hated scores of his entire career, but wait until you listen to this Leigh Phillips mockup which gives an idea of what it could sound like if performed by an orchestra. In my opinion, it's like hearing a whole new score!
https://mega.nz/file/eyQVAZaA#UqwCtT_L9TCdzlLU7Ox0KxMwE6BwGADwgiCjKYun_Xo
 
Leigh has been intrigued by the prospect of arranging these for orchestra for well over a decade now, and has floated the idea of tackling a 20 minute suite of highlights from each score to create an hourlong album. If there's enough interest, maybe the shortest score Criminal Law could even be recorded complete (the Varese album leaves off a few cues) because with 20 minutes from each of the other two scores, the whole thing would still fit on a single CD.

6. I am most eager for a new recording of Lionheart.

HAPPY VOTING! (Remember, you can choose TWO.)

Yavar

I admit that the great cover (well, great poster) was an element in deciding to give it a go. It's not for everyone though.
 
 
I'll probably bang on about this until the end of time, but the day we stop using 'Williams' level' as an indicator of a high quality score will be a good one.

Solo is here!
 

 

Sorry. But I am getting a little tired of these 90% always same concert programs on Deutsche Grammophon CDs. No matter how good the orchestras are. 
That reminds me a little of the time when Pearl Jam were publishing tons of bootlegs of almost all their concerts.
Something like that is a great souvenir for those who were there. Or for people who don’t already own other concert recordings. But I already have enough. I am out for this.

Thor's exactly right, this happens on a regular basis and has for many years now.  About twice a week sounds about right, it could be even more than that

I guess Danny needs all the money he can get nowadays...

Yep, in the end the only actual advantage of the UK store for anyone is the quicker ship time if you're ordering something that's in stock.
 
At least one of my recent DEs says 'discs made in the EU' so unless their packaging is behind the times politically, they're pressing them somewhere in mainland Europe and shipping them over to the UK. If that's going to cause up to a month's delay and extra costs for every release, there's very little point of the int'l store for anyone who buys everything at release time (i.e. us).
 
Varese could alleviate these problems to an extent by doing simultaneous digital releases for everything where they legally can.