What are you listening to now?
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Speaking of religious sounds, kudos to guitarist Pat Metheny for crafting an actual, gorgeous psalm for this. The rest of the score is great too, more folksy/jazzy/poppy in tone.
Jaws. It’s always a good time for Jaws, but I was checking out the latest remaster to see if it was worth consideration from my limited budget, and the lp program comes across to me as harsh and loud. In an attempt to clean it up, MM seems to have made its flaws more apparent. The original lp on the 90s cd was no audiophile presentation, but it has a naturalness, and extremely 70s analog quality, to it that I appreciate. Since I don’t care about the full score, that’s $40 saved, I suppose.
I bought the first Intrad 2CD edition because that indeed sounded better to me than the original album and the 20th(?) anniversary release I had. I also didn’t find the new edition’s samples significantly better.
I very much enjoy THE FALCON AND THE SNOWMAN, great Pat Metheny album.
As far as Intrada’s new JAWS release is concerned, I’m on the fence about it. On the one hand, I do have most previous JAWS releases (including the original LP), so I might as well get this one. However, I’m basically only interested in the original film score, much less the album, and I find that was already excellently remastered in the previous Intrada edition. The new master is good (it’s on Qobuz), but not really “better”. The thing is, audio technology has been long at the point where you basically get the same sound quality at home that is on the original tapes. I find the new album master from what I’ve heard excellent, certainly clear and sharp, but again, the previous release also had already an excellent master of the LP.I’m currently listening to this, just discovered it… a new recording of one of my favorite modern classical compositions.
Great (although slightly uneven album) ambient/house/trance from 1999. Creator Lars Marcus Jungnell now lives in my city.
Another entry in this series with Dirk Brossé and the Brussels Philharmonic; for some reason it passed me by and I only recently discovered there were already over a dozen of these, though I already had the Goldenthal and Rosenthal albums.
Three TV and one feature score (JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN) from Fielding. I already had JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN and A WAR OF CHILDREN on other releases, but not HONKY TONK or MR. HORN, so I’ve started with those. I really enjoy Fielding’s tight, lean orchestral writing, and both of these are great examples of that. Although HONKY TONK is more lightweight and lively, and at a times a bit too, uh, honky tonk for my taste.
Great sound quality, with that clean, close-miked recording style that Fielding favored.
I love Jerry Fielding, definitely one of the greats.
Absolutely! Too bad he left us way too early. As I understand it, he basically worked himself to death. After being blacklisted during the McCarthy era, he couldn’t find work, and when he finally could work again, it seems he said yes to more or less everything.
People were always so hard on these scores, and I don’t really understand why. Bernstein jr.’s scores are lovely, almost more old-fashioned than Williams’ work. It’s about time these get a proper, remastered CD release.
It’s a MASSIVE work — 78 minutes in 6 long tracks — but I THINK it is my favourite Glass score, all things considered.
THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST/PASSION by Peter Gabriel is another one of the scores I considered as example for “great” film scores.
After listening to (and reviewing) Sarde’s new score for MOI QUI T’AMAIS recently, and hearing his reuse of music from this 1972 film, I decided to listen to it again. It’s a beautiful affair, wistful and warm (and a little hotjazz thrown in), so I can understand why Sarde keeps using the theme(s).
The re-use of a musical “theme”, motif or subject isn’t really anything unusual, and never has been. Composers have been recycling and re-using themes — their own or others — for as long as there is music history. So I don’t mind it either when it fits. Even Beethoven got a lot of mileage out of a theme he used and recycled in different compositions, such as in “The Creatures of Prometheus”, his third symphony, or his violin concerto, plus some piano work. So if Beethoven could do it, why not Sarde. 🙂
Of course during Beethoven’s days music was not so wide spread available so probably not many noticed 😉 I can surely understand to re-use a good theme, especially if you maybe even feel it is wasted in its original movie. After all its his property he can do what he likes.
Yes, people have reused for centuries. Heck, I don’t even mind it when Horner does it.
I think it’s a great way of identifying film language, to identify recurrent emotional currents or situations, and score them with a musical idea from one’s past.
Years ago I was less forgiving for Horner but nowadays I made my peace with it. He does it so rather well that it doesn’t bother me. And I am not that familiar in detail that I don’t always notice (besides the danger motif maybe).
If you are nasty you could say for example Glass always sounds the same even if he does not re-use themes 😉 Just kidding, I like Glass but often need the mood for it. Thanks for tipp with VISITOR. Didn’t know that one and will give it a listen.
Recently resdiscovered these four acoustic Tangerine Dream covers a composer and school teacher did with his students.
That’s lovely. I don’t always think electronic music translates very well to acoustic (Vangelis being a prime example), but it kinda works there.
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