[Nicolai P. Zwar]

I never understood the obsession of many soundtrack fans with the original film recording. I’d be always more interested in later rerecordings of scores, especially due to the distance of the recording to the original picture which makes it for me more a musical work of its own.
I also rather listen to the McNeely rerecording of Jaws than to the original film recording, not even speaking of modern rerecordings of scores from the 40s and 50s.

Well, I definitely understand it to a point, regardless of whether I share it. I mean, there are just some performances you love. I have often heard a performance of a piece of music and wanted that particular performance, not another performance. If I fell in love with Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas”, I want that version, not Frank Sinatra, no matter how good that one is. Same with film performances, I perfectly understand why someone would want a particular performance. And especially film performances which you may have heard countless times in context of the movie.

What gets me riled up is something else: When people treat a re-recording of a film score as if it’s supposed to be a substitute for the original film performance. A new recording should be allowed to be its own thing, not an imitation of something that was. That is exactly why I find this recurring insistence for re-recordings to sound like the original film tracks totally misguided and misjudged. It is like asking Patrick Stewart to play Shakespeare like Laurence Olivier would have, instead of trying to do justice to the role rather than imitating someone else’s performance.

If what you want is the film recording, then what you want is the film recording. Nothing wrong with that. But a new recording will never be that, and trying to force it into that mold is a recipe for disappointment. And well, obviously, these are the folks who are disappointed then.

A short anecdote from the life of a film score collector:
I remember years ago, in the 1980s, a film came on TV. I was Saturday evening, I had a friend over, we were just about to go out, the opening credits started and I thought: “hey, that’s great music… let me watch the credits”.. we did, and then watched the entire movie. The movie was THE EIGER SANCTION, and the score was by John Williams of course. A decade later or so, sometime in the late 1990s, I picked up the Varèse Sarabande release of that music… ah, there it was again. Sounded great, good album. No quarrels. I wasn’t even aware it was a re-recording.

When Intrada eventually released the 2CD set, I got that too, and when I heard the film recording, I thought it was more interesting than the soundtrack recording. The film tracks are a bit edgier, the opening credit music takes some more interesting turns. So that was a pleasant surprise. I didn’t know there was such a difference between the tracks of the album and film recording. Had I known, I would have preferred the film tracks over the album recording. Again, not because the album recording is bad, I still like that album, but if I can have only one: the film recording is better. But even better: I have both, and I listen to both… perhaps in turns. 🙂

I have re-watched the movie since some time ago. So yeah, I can understand if someone says “Hey, I got THE EIGER SANCTION album, but I want the film tracks”.

But as I said, I view a new recording always as its own thing. And yes, I love McNeely’s JAWS, it’s great, it is a terrific recording, and it stands on its own legs. But it is not the film performance, and it does not need to be. I can understand people who say “hey, I want/prefer that film recording”, I’m just irked by people who complain that McNeely’s recording is not just that.

If you want the film recording, you have to get the film recording. Simple as that. But if you’re open to new recordings, then let it be a new recording, and that includes allowing a different conductor and a different orchestra to sound, well, different.

And yeah, McNeely’s JAWS is just great. I think I have just about every release of JAWS… Original LP, Decca, Intrada 1 & 2, McNeely recording… and like them all… but the McNeely is perhaps the one I like them most.