Marian Schedenig

Perhaps there's a Fiddler CD in it. …or bacon.

If you want to highlight variety, I'd also include: Look Down, Lord from Rosewood The Football Game from Sleepers Blood Moon from Images - and if you want the really hardcore stuff, some other track from that score as well

Here's proof that JNH can still write music that stands on its own for more than just a few brief minutes if you let him and/or he's in the mood:

Probably unlikely before the official soundtrack release.

True. There's overlap with Vienna I, Boston (and Tanglewood), and Berlin. My mind just lumped the first two (or three) together.

…and the concerto. Plus overlap with the Berlin concert. Yes, but those come from a back catalogue spanning decades. I suppose they were never too keen to bring out the same programme multiple times in short succession, even if it's different recordings (especially if it isn't some repertoire work that people are already familiar with an actively seeking out multiple recordings of). Case in point (as I've mentioned before): Karajan's Alpensinfonie, the live performance of which (made less than a year after the album, iirc) (from Salzburg) has only been published by some obscure Japanese label, although it's amazing and I'd buy it in a heartbeat. But they already had a studio recording by the same orchestra and conductor, so whoever had the rights to it (DG or some other label) probably didn't think it worth releasing.

You want to put a Vangelis cue on a Williams compilation?

Einleitung! Vorabend!

Not necessarily though, even in opera. I don't know when it became common to have the overture be a condensation of the story that follows, but look e.g. at Mozart's famous Figaro overture and it's really basically its own thing that just fits in with the rest of the opera.

The thing with JNH is, he usually supports the film very well, and he's clearly a very capable composer, but more often than not he seems to end up writing a few very good cues "musically" and then just creating the rest of the score from a pure point of view of doing what the film needs without any particular musical aspirations. The result are scores that tend to have a very fine suite (or opening or credits track), but where those bits actually appear in the score they're one minute highlights that come out of nowhere and are cut short by a sudden transition to far less interesting "background music" (in the sense of music that really shoves itself in the background). Of course, post 2000 and given how films are currently produced and what the demands of score composers are, you can hardly blame him (or anyone else) for that. Although I do think he was prone to that already earlier in his career. But there are at least a few standouts that really hold up and flow well throughout, like The Lady in the Water and King Kong (or at least most of its album).

For yesterday's Groundhog Day film night I did with a couple of friends, I had this song running in a loop for 90 minutes before we started the film. A sort of method viewing experiment, if you will. I'm surprised to say it never really wore out its welcome.

Never, and I do miss it on releases that don't include it.