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Jerry Goldsmith's RIO CONCHOS - 1989 LSO re-recording - 2021 Intrada remaster


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INTRADA Announces:

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RIO CONCHOS/THE ARTIST WHO DID NOT WANT TO PAINT
Music Composed and Conducted by JERRY GOLDSMITH
Performed by the LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
INTRADA INT 7163


Intrada announces the second release of the Excalibur Collection in high-resolution digital. This release features the 1989 recording of Rio Conchos and The Artist Who Did Not Want to Paint under the baton of Jerry Goldsmith with the London Symphony Orchestra. The 24-bit, 96kHz hi-res format allows for a dramatic improvement in detail and depth in the quality of music over what one can hear with the the more common 16-bit, 44.1kHz CD format. The album has been remastered from the original session elements.

As with Ivanhoe, a limited edition CD release is also available from the new master to commemorate the release, available only until 6/21/2021.

When this digital recording of Rio Conchos was made on August 15 and 16, 1989, it was only the second time Goldsmith had taken an in-depth look at one of his earlier film scores. This exciting trip back in history followed the 1986 re-recording of his favorite work, the 1977 score for Islands in the Stream. Marking another debut of sorts, this new recording of Rio Conchos also brought Goldsmith face-to-face with the famous London Symphony Orchestra for the first time, a fortuitous encounter that launched the composer’s subsequent series of live concert performances.

With Rio Conchos (1964), Goldsmith hit a landmark in his early career, fashioning a challenging score that was difficult to perform, and creating musical devices that would later become Goldsmith “trademarks.” It was with this score that the composer developed his complex action writing. He also wrote virtuoso percussion material featuring, in particular, the snare and bass drum. The scoring called for large orchestra, augmented by guitars, banjos, harp and accordion. The large percussion section included such unusual instruments as bass marimba, crotales, jawbone and lujons.

INTRADA INT 7163
Barcode: 720258716309
Retail Price: $19.99
Available Now
For track listing and sound samples, please visit http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.12350/.f

 

 

 

RioConchos_int7163_1600a.jpg

 

RioConchos_int7163_600c.jpg

 

Jerry Goldsmith
Label: Intrada INT 7163
Film Date: 1964
Album Date: 2021
Time: 60:12
Tracks: 16
Price: $19.99

 

Completely remastered presentation of our celebrated 1989 Excalibur series recording with Jerry Goldsmith conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.

 

This CD release will only be available for 45 days and goes off sale June 21 2021 or when supplies run out.

 

The 24-bit, 96kHz hi-res digital format is coming soon to wherever hi-res digital music is sold!

 

Completely remastered presentation of our celebrated 1989 Excalibur series recording with Jerry Goldsmith conducting the London Symphony Orchestra! In a spectacular recording event, Intrada commissioned Jerry Goldsmith to take a look backward and newly record his dramatic and aggressive 1964 western score Rio Conchos, which featured an early example of his scoring for full orchestra augmented by an array of banjos, guitars and accordion, soon-to-be trademarks of his western scoring vernacular. 

 

Everything was captured in powerful, brilliant digital audio by his veteran engineer Bruce Botnick and played by the world class London Symphony Orchestra. Richard Boone, Stuart Whitman, Jim Brown, Anthony Franciosa led the cast, Gordon Douglas helmed the action, 20th Century Fox released the picture. Rio Conchos launches with a simple minor-key tune on accordion, accompanied by light percussion. It builds slightly through strings and French horns in the opening, then quickly recedes. But in what is surely one of the most powerful and spectacular finales of the composer’s entire career, that simple tune ultimately finishes the score with a resounding fortissimo in the entire orchestra, strings crying out with the melody, dissonant upper-register trumpets pealing, dynamic percussion thundering, everything but the proverbial kitchen sink. It is an explosive powerhouse finish rarely posited by the composer. Not just fortissimo, think triple forte! Wow! And in between, Goldsmith treats listeners to exciting action throughout. 

 

While locating and preparing the manuscripts for performance, Intrada suggested Goldsmith also record the majestic and soaring 12-minute “Prologue” he scored for the 1965 film The Agony And The Ecstasy with Charlton Heston as Michelangelo. Sub-titled The Artist Who Did Not Want To Paint, the unusually emotional piece, written in five distinct sections and played as one lengthy movement appeared in front of select “roadshow” screenings of the Carol Reed-directed film (which was otherwise scored by Alex North). At times evoking the rich harmonic vocabulary of Vaughan Williams, at other times offering the soaring majesty of his own The Blue Max score (written the following year), Goldsmith fashioned this masterful prologue for an orchestra of expanded strings, harps, woodwinds and the unparalleled power of eight French horns, at times heard antiphonally and often in unison. The resulting sound is Jerry Goldsmith at his most personal! 

 

The fully-remastered CD will be available only until June 21 2021 or while supplies last. After this period ends, the album will live on in the hi-res 24bit 96kHz digital format. Performed at Abbey Road, Bruce Botnick records, Jerry Goldsmith conducts the London Symphony Orchestra. A masterpiece!


The Agony and the Ecstasy
Prologue: “The Artist Who Did Not Want to Paint”

01. Rome/Florence/The Crucifix/The Stone Giants/The Agony Of Creation (12:37)

Rio Conchos
02. Rio Conchos (2:26)
03. Where’s The Water (1:55)
04. Bandits Ho (6:58)
05. The River (2:04)
06. River Crossing (4:22)
07. The Aftermath (2:06)
08. Wall Of Fire (2:21)
09. Lonely Indian (3:24)
10. Chief Bloodshirt (2:27)
11. The Corral (2:45)
12. Free Men / The Intruder (6:00)
13. Special Delivery (6:12)
14. End Cast (0:22)

THE EXTRAS
15. Wall Of Fire (Alternate take) (2:19)
16. End Cast (Take 1) (0:58)      (With voices of composer and engineer)

 

http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.12350/.f

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RIO CONCHOS is one my favourite Intrada rerecordings! Already have the previous 2 pressings and the latter was very pleasing in both quality and remastering.

So I really need to be persuaded if this is indeed worthy of a triple dip if the remastering of the remastering is significantly improved here.

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An extensive Update from Doug Fake Celebrating this fantastic new release :

5/3/2021


http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/sc.13/category.60330/.f

"Our spectacular re-recording of Rio Conchos has been in the film music market since 1989. The so-called target audience is most likely familiar with it by this point. Perhaps there are other listeners not yet on board and maybe this new presentation will bring them under the fold. I refer to it as spectacular because at the time, the concept of recreating earlier film scores was still a relatively new concept. Engaging the composer of the score at hand was new, as was the locating of original scores and parts to work with. Hiring the composer’s primary engineer was another luxury, recording everything in the famous Abbey Road Studios in London was an unusually lavish decision… and most spectacular of all, employing the full resources of the world-famous London Symphony Orchestra, augmented by more unique orchestral colors including banjos, guitars and accordion, brought everything to vibrant life. All of this before film score re-recordings became much more routine.

Jerry Goldsmith was, at this point in his legendary career, not particularly interested in looking back on his early career. In fact, it was Intrada that managed to convince him in 1986 that there was merit in doing just that when we commissioned a brand new recording of his 1977 score for Islands In The Stream, his own personal favorite work at that time. While not requiring the more ambitious research and orchestral accoutrements of Rio Conchos, it was still an extraordinary achievement to coax Goldsmith into making this happen. As far as accomplishments with this incredible composer go, we are pretty happy about having achieved such an important landmark in the preservation of film music.

Rio Conchos was the score we elected to focus the lavish attention on simply because it was my own favorite of Goldsmith’s numerous western scores. At that time, almost none of these earlier film scores were yet available in any format, with high licensing costs and missing master recordings all contributing factors. There just wasn’t yet the economic practicality of bringing old film scores into the commercial marketplace. In fact, it was Intrada, formed in 1985, that actually played a significant role in changing that situation. What had always drawn me to Rio Conchos was the incredible architecture that Goldsmith fashioned into his music. The score literally started with the main theme played as a single line on solo accordion without harmony, accompanied only by light percussion to establish a tempo. But by the (literally) explosive finish, unusually nihilistic for westerns of that day, Goldsmith had developed that gentle opening tune into the most powerful, dynamic and climactic piece of ending music of his then-growing career. And few scores following it ever achieved such a spectacular finish, replete with crashing percussion and piercing military-style trumpet figures ornamenting over and above a broadened and now triple-forte declamatory statement of that once-simple tune.

Our 1989 recreation of the score, courtesy Bruce Botnick’s perfect engineering, the magnificent musicians of the London Symphony and, in particular, Jerry Goldsmith’s enthusiasm for bringing it all to life remains a grand accomplishment. He really “got into it” all, became excited about the score itself and frequently conferred with me in between takes as to tempos and dynamics of the various cues. We shared lunches together and had fascinating talks about his music. He was enthusiastic for sure! As the album producer, upon first arriving at Abbey Road, I initially asked Bruce Botnick if we could just ensure everything sounded clean and crisp and he said he’d set up his array of microphones exactly as he would were this a brand new feature film recording - at that time certainly not the standard audio technique of recording orchestral music for listening purposes and marketed to the so-called “classical” music enthusiast. And the results were exactly what I had hoped for. Rather than a broad, reverb-heavy concert hall sound, we got clarity and extreme detail. You can hear where every instrument is positioned within the orchestra! And you can hear and feel that architecture of the score and how it goes from simple to massive with stunning detail.

Recording The Artist Who Did Not Want To Paint was also a major undertaking and premiere achievement. The idea of adding it to the sessions became part of a bigger discussion about having Goldsmith lead the LSO in his first live concert with the musicians, performing the entire five-movement work in front of a huge audience in London’s famed Barbican Centre, renowned for its various performing arts events. I was honored to sit next to Goldsmith’s father for this concert. We rehearsed and recorded the work the day after completing Rio Conchos. This “Prologue” is scored for a massive string section with additional harps plus the brilliant addition of a large section of eight French horns, recorded antiphonally and often playing in unison in high registers - an extremely challenging performance task. In fact, it was preparing this piece for recording that required the most rehearsal time - not because it was necessarily busy or intense music but rather because it required incredible nuances in performance. It was full of delicate solo work and ultimately went from delicate musical statements into massive, soaring figures designed to accompany on-screen visuals of the triumphant sculpted creations of Michelangelo. Being there in the studio as Goldsmith brought forth those artistic works to musical life with the score’s towering fourth movement, “The Stone Giants”, is a memory no one could forget. Goosebumps galore!

By the way, a few listeners have asked me about the alternate take of “Wall Of Fire” from Rio Conchos, and what it was about. When we made the first take of the cue, I was particularly enthused at the energy the brass brought to the music and I liked the aggressive tempo and style of everything. The performance wasn’t yet polished but it did showcase what Bruce Broughton once explained to me as being desirable: “Sometimes you want the take where they just go for it, rather than the more nuanced and rehearsed one.” With that in mind, for this one striking action cue, I embraced that philosophy. And since we obviously had the take on our session masters, it just seemed like a cool idea to include it on the album.

The sessions were recorded digitally back in 1989 and all the mixing and editing stayed in that domain. Modern high-resolution sampling standards such as 24bits and 96kHz were, of course, not yet available. For this current new presentation, we transferred everything into the higher resolutions and performed all of the editorial and mastering work in the hi-res format, enabling a modest degree of improvement in the lower end of the recording and a more significant enhancement of the dynamic levels themselves. This is the version to own, whether on the limited availability CD or in the hi-res digital format, where it will continue to live on."

-Doug Fake

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9 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Upsampling does practically nada for the sound quality.

 

Yes, and so does up-quantizing (from 16- to 24-bit, assuming that the original was 16-bit).  The "hi-res" release is a real oddity.

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On 5/4/2021 at 11:04 AM, thx99 said:

 

Yes, and so does up-quantizing (from 16- to 24-bit, assuming that the original was 16-bit).  The "hi-res" release is a real oddity.

 

I'm sure the original recording was done at higher than CD quality. I guess maybe it wasn't 24-bit, but maybe 20-bit? In any case I'll ask Doug about it in a couple of weeks when I interview him for another Goldsmith Odyssey Soundtrack Spotlight.

 

EDIT: Based on later conversations with Doug I'm pretty sure this was a 16 bit recording originally after all (just an amazing sounding one).

 

Yavar

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  • 1 month later...

Sand Pebbles, Patton, Islands in the Stream, Capricorn One, both Masada  and Chinatown(in a way). From the top of my head, at least. I?m sure I'm missing a bunch

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In terms of coming back years later to record an new album for a score that never had an OST album, it's just Rio Conchos (film 1964, album 1989), The Sand Pebbles (film 1966, album 1997) and Islands In The Stream (film 1977, album 1986) EDIT: And in 1997 he recorded a new album of containing music from both Patton (which had an OST album, which was already a re-recording) and Tora Tora Tora from (which didn't have an OST album)

 

In terms of the OST album released at the time of the film was a re-recording instead of the film recordings, there's a decent amount of them, as that was a common practice in the 60s into the 70s.  When the specialty labels get to those they are sometimes able to include the re-recording along with the film tracks in one package (Patton, Damien: Omen II), but some times they are not (Stagecoach, In Like Flint, Our Man Flint, Capricorn One, Masada)

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I am interested in the ones Goldsmith returned to years later and re-recorded, whether they had an original release or not.

 

So that's just The Sand Pebbles and Rio Conchos?

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I thought I read that somewhere but who knows.

 

I wish more composers would re-record their favorite scores later in their career like this. I can't wait to sit down and compare these with their original versions.

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Fake brought up Alien as a candidate but Goldsmith said he could never get all that down on tape again, as per the Intrada booklet.

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4 hours ago, blondheim said:

Wasn't he planning on doing another that he never got around to?

 

Several, there was an interview around the time of First Knight where he claimed that Columbia wanted him to re-record Chinatown and some other unexpected thing, and then it was never heard of again. Probably a lot of these deals that fell through.

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I thought I had read that he was planning on doing another western but then they went with Rio Conchos?

 

That's interesting about Chinatown. I can't imagine the new recording having the same mood. A curious choice.

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23 minutes ago, blondheim said:

I thought I had read that he was planning on doing another western but then they went with Rio Conchos?

 

That's interesting about Chinatown. I can't imagine the new recording having the same mood. A curious choice.

 

The other one was Papillon, now i remember. What you mention was Doug Fake's first choice, 'Lonely are the Brave'.

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16 hours ago, Romão said:

Just ordered this, this episode conviced me. Thank you, Yavar

 

You're welcome! Glad we got the episode out in time for some more people to order the disc before it goes off sale today.

 

13 hours ago, Jay said:

In terms of coming back years later to record an new album for a score that never had an OST album, it's just Rio Conchos (film 1964, album 1989), The Sand Pebbles (film 1966, album 1997) and Islands In The Stream (film 1977, album 1986) EDIT: And in 1997 he recorded a new album of containing music from both Patton (which had an OST album, which was already a re-recording) and Tora Tora Tora from (which didn't have an OST album)

 

Don't forget The Artist Who Did Not Want to Paint (film 1965, album 1989). ;) 

Goldsmith also conducted a number of compilation albums, like the LSO one for Telarc, the earlier Suites & Themes CD on Varese (which had a better performed cue from Lionheart), and Frontiers, the best re-recording he ever did for Varese which was the first chance anyone had to get a couple cues from Damnation Alley on album. But obviously you left these off because it's only bit and pieces of scores not a larger album presentation.

 

13 hours ago, Jay said:

In terms of the OST album released at the time of the film was a re-recording instead of the film recordings, there's a decent amount of them, as that was a common practice in the 60s into the 70s.  When the specialty labels get to those they are sometimes able to include the re-recording along with the film tracks in one package (Patton), but some times they are not (In Like Flint, Our Man Flint, Capricorn One, Masada)

 

Here's the full list, by year:

 

The Prize (1963, only 5 tracks...the 5th of which wasn't on the original LP but FSM rescued as a bonus on their Poltergeist release)

Our Man Flint (1966)
Stagecoach (1966)

Hour of the Gun (1967)
In Like Flint (1967)

Justine (1969)

Patton (1970)

Wild Rovers (1971)
The Last Run (1971)

MacArthur (1977)

Capricorn One (1978)
Damien: Omen II (1978)

Masada (1981, and I think the last, chronologically)

 

I've also heard it said (but not widely) that the original albums for Lilies of the Field (1963) and QBVII (1974) were unique and different from the film recordings. I have not verified this. The above are all ones I'm sure of, which brings the total number of times Jerry did this to... 12.5? (I'm not sure how to count The Prize since it was only half an LP, or 5 cues -- only 4 of which made it onto the LP -- which were re-recorded.) There's also oddball stuff like Warning Shot which got a re-recorded (and substantially re-arranged) album at the time of the film -- by Si Zentner -- but which I think Goldsmith himself had nothing to do with.

 

Has anyone (Jay?) figured out how many times John Williams did a completely separate album recording at the time of the film? I'm talking about stuff like Jaws and The Fury, not stuff like Jane Eyre and E.T. where half the original album is concert arrangements of things (but probably done at the same sessions as the film recording, like Goldsmith did with a couple of cues on Under Fire which made a bunch of people think that was a unique album recording when it wasn't.)

 

3 hours ago, blondheim said:

I thought I had read that he was planning on doing another western but then they went with Rio Conchos?

 

Someone clearly hasn't listened to our Soundtrack Spotlight podcast. ;)

 

Yavar

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On 21/06/2021 at 12:04 PM, Yavar Moradi said:

Has anyone (Jay?) figured out how many times John Williams did a completely separate album recording at the time of the film?

 

The complete list is just:

  1. Diamond Head (1963)
  2. How To Steal A Million (1966)
  3. Not With My Wife, You Don't! (1966)
  4. Penelope (1966)
  5. Fitzwilly (1967)
  6. Earthquake (1974)
  7. Jaws (1975)
  8. The Eiger Sanction (1975)
  9. The Missouri Breaks (1976)
  10. The Fury (1978)

 

(Plus Checkmate from 1960, but that was TV and not film)

 

Out of those 10 films, the specialty labels later gave us the film recordings decades later for almost all of them; Only Diamond Head and Eiger Sanction have yet to have a drop of their actual film recordings ever released.
 

Every other JW OST album is either entirely film cues, or film cues augmented with concert arrangements or other album-specific recordings made at the same recording scoring sessions as the film cues. 

 

E.T (1982), Return of the Jedi (1983) and The River (1984) being the three that have the largest portion of album-specific recordings over film cues (and the three that had an "album recording day" for this purpose, though the orchestra, room, and recording staff were all the same as the film cue recording days)

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49 minutes ago, Jay said:

Every single JW album not listed above is either entirely film cues, or film cues augmented with concert arrangements or other album-specific recordings made at the same scoring sessions as the film cues.  ET (1982), Return of the Jedi (1983) and The River (1984) being the three that have the largest portion of album-specific recordings over film cues.

 

Just like ET, half of Jane Eyre (1970) is tracks exclusive to the album while the other half matches the film. I discovered this while prepping for my guest co-host appearance on The Baton:

https://thebatonpodcast.podbean.com/e/episode-25-jane-eyre/

 

It should definitely be included with the three you listed. (I had no idea Return of the Jedi fit with them, too!)

 

Yavar

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51 minutes ago, Yavar Moradi said:

Just like ET, half of Jane Eyre (1970) is tracks exclusive to the album while the other half matches the film.

 

Sure, but was all that OST music which is not heard in the film recorded specifically for the album, or was some of it recorded for the film that the director chose not to use / replaced with revised versions?

 

I have no idea; I've never seen the film or studied the score, just idly speculatin'

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1 hour ago, Jay said:

 

Sure, but was all that OST music which is not heard in the film recorded specifically for the album, or was some of it recorded for the film that the director chose not to use / replaced with revised versions?

 

I believe it's at least mostly the former. "To Thornfield" might be a "concert piece" or it might somehow be an unused cue. The one source music cue on the album is a different one from in the film; maybe it was done for the album or maybe it was simply replaced in the film but kept on the album. One I am 100% sure is a special concert/album arrangement is "Restoration" -- there are a number of shorter cues that handle this thematic material in the film, but this was clearly a special arrangement to have a powerful album version of the theme. I did more detailed work analyzing this in the past but I'd have to dig it out. I remember basically noting down that it was very much a half-and-half, ET-like album situation though, with only half of the album appearing in the film (but matching the film cues in terms of performance, in that case).

 

Yavar

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  • 11 months later...

Does anyone know if these downloads are the new 2021 master?:

https://uk.7digital.com/artist/jerry-goldsmith/release/rio-conchos-original-motion-picture-score-re-recording-remastered-16237534?f=20%2C19%2C12%2C16%2C17%2C9%2C2

and

https://www.amazon.co.uk/music/player/albums/B09623JT7X?ref=sr_1_9&s=dmusic&keywords=rio+conchos+goldsmith&crid=JB01ZAH7VQ29&sprefix=rio+conchos+goldsmith%2Cdigital-music%2C53&qid=1655724653&sr=1-9


Both show the 2013 artwork but since it was released on May 4th 2021 I think it may be the most recent master? I already have the 1989 CD so just want to make sure I'm getting the most up to date master when I download it, any help appreciated!

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