The Chandos film music series
- This topic has 12 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 2 weeks, 1 day ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Mark Burgess just published this article on the Chandos film music series, and how its composers foreshadow STAR WARS, among other things.
What’s your relationship to this series?
I love it myself, but I don’t have them all. I have the Ralph Vaughan Williams, Ron Goodwin and Georges Auric, perhaps a couple more. And then there are a couple that have left my collection over the years, I think Malcolm Arnold was one, for reasons I can’t remember (probably to get something I wanted even more). All wonderfully performed by Gamba/Hickox & co.
I have a few:
– Malcom Arnold 1 (CD)
– George Auric 1 (CD)
– Schostakovich 1-3 (Digital)
– William Alwyn 1 & 2 (Digital)
– Arthur Bliss 1 (Digital)
– Vaughn Williams 1 & 3 (Digital)
– Addinsell 1 (Digital)
– Goodwin 1 (Digital)They are generally great for especialy the English scores. I have a few as other recordings like from Silva so I don’t need all. Especially the Korngold or Rozsa for example. The only actual issue I sometimes have is the concert hall sound that is a bit too “unsharp” for my taste.
I love the “spacey” concert sound myself. Very fitting for this kind of project, where the music gets to shine in a more open landscape than the presumably “drier” film recordings.
I love the “spacey” concert sound myself. Very fitting for this kind of project, where the music gets to shine in a more open landscape than the presumably “drier” film recordings.
I don’t mean really as dry as some older Goldsmiths are. If I recall right the first Malcom Arnold volume has a bit different sound than later ones.
There is a bit of variability in the production sound. Given that they were recorded over many years, that isn’t too surprising. I personally felt that the Korngold was very flat and compressed, even though there is a sweet orchestra tone. I tend to like a raw sound (like the one on the second review I wrote recently … which is in its way :)) but I know that it’s a recent technical innovation to be able to record that.
There is a bit of variability in the production sound. Given that they were recorded over many years, that isn’t too surprising.
Of course. That’s thte case with other recordings like ones with the Royal Scottish Nation Orchestra, some recent ones are great and some earlier ones not so.
Excellent series. Ive recently aquired a lot of them
My favourite has to be the focus on Bristish Film Composers-
Sir Arther Bliss
Ron Goodwin
John Addison
Vaughn WilliamsAlso Konrgold, Herrmann, Rozsa.
The most interesting aspect of the article for me was the correlation of musical design and available sound quality. Why did Golden Age composers often for such “on the nose” arrangements and sound? Little nuances often wouldn’t have been audible. Of course it also was a matter of fashion and style. But the sound aspect deserves more investigation, I believe.
Yes, indeed interesting. For that old mono sound you have to arrange a bit differently to have it sound good. And of coures backe then you could nowhere near mix recodings with multitracks as we used to today. As far as I remember Morgan & Stromberg almost always extended the orchestra and especially strings for there re-recordings for that reason.
For the same technical reason a lot of action music nowadays sounds so generic because you don’t really hear it anyway with all the sfx. Not to speak the last minute re-cuts requiring music you can easily cut/loop… Film music always had many techical aspect interfering with the “musical” as we discussed on other topics.
For that old mono sound you have to arrange a bit differently to have it sound good.
Did they know back then that that was what they needed to do?
It must have been frustrating for them to hear the pristine stereo and then the mono recording. Does anyone know whether any composers mentioned this at the time?
Did they know back then that that was what they needed to do?
I am pretty sure they did. I remember I saw a documentation about song recording – I think on the radio – where there really worked out where anyone has to be placed in front of the mic to have it sound good. A kind of really analogue mixing.
It must have been frustrating for them to hear the pristine stereo and then the mono recording. Does anyone know whether any composers mentioned this at the time?
Yeah, I am sure they have not beend satified with recordings in the early days of sound… It must have been a revelation when Stereo was invented. When was that actually? In the 40s somewhere and really got through during the 50s, right? I mean up to the 60s it was still common to release mono records.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.