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Jerry Goldsmith - THE RUSSIA HOUSE (Expanded by Quartet Records)


Brundlefly

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THE RUSSIA HOUSE
Expanded Original MGM Motion Picture Soundtrack
Music Composed and Conducted by Jerry Goldsmith
Reissue Produced and Mastered by Mike Matessino
Liner notes by Dirk Wickenden
Limited edition of 1000 units

Quartet Records, Universal Music Group and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer present the remastered, expanded edition of Jerry Goldsmith’s romantic noir score for the spy-drama THE RUSSIA HOUSE, a 1990 adaptation of a John Le Carré novel directed by Fred Schepisi, and starring Sean Connery, Michelle Pfeifer, Roy Schneider, James Fox and Klaus Maria Brandauer.

First of the collaborations between Goldsmith and Schepisi (they would continue working together on several films, giving Goldsmith the opportunity to write some of the most unusual—and controversial—scores of his final period), THE RUSSIA HOUSE was composed just after TOTAL RECALL, but is a radically different score. It’s one of the most intimate, melodic and special scores composed by Goldsmith in the nineties, and one of the composer’s personal favorites as well.

MCA released a generous 61-minute CD in 1990, including most of the score, but missing some key suspense cues. We now present the complete score with more than 15 minutes of unreleased music. This edition has been produced by Mike Matessino, with tracks prepared by Neil S. Bulk and mastered by Matessino from the original mixes by Bruce Botnick. The package includes a 16-page full color booklet with Dirk Wickenden providing in-depth liner notes and musical analysis of this masterful Goldsmith score.

 

Another great release which deserves its own thread! While I think I could have lived without it, this release is really thrilling and I think Quartet is doing extremely well. It's a shame this is another expansion that has to be limited to just 1000 copies!

The unreleased cues are surprisingly not just repeatitions of the known themes, but interesting variations of them and one or two highlights will be revealed on this release! What everyone is wondering about now is where are the 15 unreleased minutes coming from? One can assume that besides one alternate we have a huge amount of unused stuff, never heard before!

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5 hours ago, Baby Jane Hudson said:

Nice to see it released. But the OST does me fine.

Ditto.

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1.     Katya (04:03) [OST Track 1]
2.     First Meeting (02:05) [Unreleased]
3.     The Package / London House / We’ve Got Him (01:37) [Unreleased]
4.     Introductions (03:16) [OST Track 2]
5.     The Conversation (04:17) [OST Track 3]
6.     Portrait of Katya (00:49) [Unreleased]
7.     Training (02:05) [OST Track 4]
8.     Katya and Barley (02:35) [OST Track 5]
9.     Who Is He? (01:32) [Unreleased]
10.     First Name, Yakov (02:57) [OST Track 6]
11.     All Alone (00:37) [Unreleased]
12.     Bon Voyage (02:15) [OST Track 7]
13.     The Meeting (04:02) [OST Track 8]
14.     I’m With You (What Is This Thing Called Love?) (02:42) [OST Track 9]
15.     The Lie Detector (02:17) [Unreleased]
16.     The Gift (02:38) [OST Track 11]
17.     Full Marks (02:32) [OST Track 12]
18.     Barley’s Love (03:30) [OST Track 13]
19.     My Only Country (04:40) [OST Track 14]
20.     Crossing Over (04:17) [OST Track 15]
21.     The Cemetery (01:17) [Unreleased]
22.     The Deal (04:14) [OST Track 16]
23.     The Family Arrives (07:43) [OST Track 17]
24.     Alone in the World (04:14) [OST Track 10]
Vocal by Patti Austin
25.     Barley’s Love (Film Version) (03:32) [Unreleased]
 

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Why is there a thread with my avatar?;)

 

Nevermind, apparently the OST program was created very straightforward. They simply took the longest cues and put them chronologically on the CD, with the song inserted in the middle. Maybe Goldsmith didn't like it because no thoughts and less than five minutes were wasted to create a decent album listening experience. It still plays pretty well.

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Hey now, Jerry Goldsmith scored a bunch of good movies because he was so prolific...it's just that he scored even more bad movies. :)

 

Personally I really like The Russia House as a film but I wouldn't rank it on the same classic level as Lonely Are the Brave, Seconds, Planet of the Apes, Patton, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, Chinatown, Alien, Poltergeist, or L.A. Confidential.

 

It's more on the level of The List of Adrian Messenger, Rio Conchos, The Sand Pebbles, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Papillon, The Wind and the Lion, Capricorn One, The Great Train Robbery, The Secret of NIMH, Hoosiers, and maybe Rudy.

 

Yavar

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It's a very talky film. The problem with the adaptation is that while Tom Stoppard's dialogue is witty and flashy, the scenes with the MI6 and CIA men just fly over the viewer's head because it's loaded with esoteric references. For example, it took a second viewing (and some independent research) for me to realize that the reason why Russell's (Roy Scheider) superiors recommended trashing the manuscript was because the information revealed that the Soviet weapons program was under-capacity this whole time, and therefore the American side was engaged in a useless arms race. You don't get that understanding from the initial viewing because the scene is staged in a very boring way, as three men standing around, talking in espionage lingo that only they understand

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  • 3 weeks later...

I quite like all of the additional cues but I don't know that I'd go as far as to call them striking. But they are all good and do add to the atmosphere of the score, IMO. The cemetery cue near the end might be my favorite.

 

Yavar

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8 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

Not listened yet or nothing new?

 

I remember the first unreleased track in the movie was quite cool.

 

Bottlecaps, bottlecaps. The cue 'First Meeting' is somewhat uncharacteristic for this score in its icy, folorn descending strings but it's really not important. as for the rest, the deep end is considerably beefed up if you like this sort of sound aesthetic (more in line with recent scores, not with 1990 recording techniques). Again, if you want to shell out 20€, there may be much more rewarding expansions.

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  • 2 months later...
On 30.12.2017 at 10:54 AM, publicist said:

Bottlecaps, bottlecaps. The cue 'First Meeting' is somewhat uncharacteristic for this score in its icy, folorn descending strings but it's really not important. as for the rest, the deep end is considerably beefed up if you like this sort of sound aesthetic (more in line with recent scores, not with 1990 recording techniques). Again, if you want to shell out 20€, there may be much more rewarding expansions.

I really have to admit I expected a bottlecap, but it is not. "First Meeting" and "The Cementery" are major highlights of the score. "Portrait of Katya" and "Who Is He?" also add to the melancholic part of the score. In general, the lengthy OST still left off a few important cues and relied too heavily on the "spy"-music of the score. The C&C has important additions to the "drama"-aspect.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 years later...

Great news, I remember this sold out very quickly.  I think I paid over retail for my copy

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3 hours ago, crocodile said:

Doesn't look limited this time? I might get this. 

 

Karol

Yes it’s not really Limited. They have an initial batch of 500 pressings so better act fast if you want it now. 

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On 8/6/2021 at 11:44 AM, Brundlefly said:

Hopefully, they will be able to do the same thing with Papillon.


I share your hopes, but the only reason their original expansion of Papillion was limited to just 1000 copies (crazy for a score so beloved) was that Universal Music France (who control the title somehow) were only willing to grant them a license to make 1000. I wouldn’t get your hopes up on them budging.

 

Yavar

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14 minutes ago, Yavar Moradi said:


I share your hopes, but the only reason their original expansion of Papillion was limited to just 1000 copies (crazy for a score so beloved) was that Universal Music France (who control the title somehow) were only willing to grant them a license to make 1000. I wouldn’t get your hopes up on them budging.

 

Yavar

 

Correct. Sadly I dont think they are willing to license this anymore.

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