[Nick Zwar]

Same with operas, I appreciate if there’s a libretto and summary of what’s going on and why who is singing what, since most operas are hard to follow if they are sung in a language you don’t understand and don’t see what’s going on. BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE is such a case where good liner notes (with translated libretto and stage directions) really help to “put you on the journey”.

I have the Marco Polo recording of Dimitri Tiomkin’s RED RIVER on my desk here, that has really good notes. There’s an introductory note by the conductor (William Stromberg), short notes about Tiomkin, notes about how the recording came about, quotes by Tiomkin himself and Christopher Palmer, notes about Howard Hawks and the movie, what Hawks was trying to accomplish and how that aligned with Tiomkin’s music, as well as a detailed track by track analysis of the complete score. That’s a lot packed into 30 pages or so.