Movie Soundtracks that should be on every shelf.

[Bogey]

Blade Runner by Vangelis, a score which has excited quite a range of opinion. For my part, this electronic work, which moves to near abstraction at some points, serves the visuals and themes admirably, and some of the music is simply beautiful in its own right.

Great call! 

A few that have some "jazz" tint to them:

Any of the early John Barry Bond scores.
Rocky by Bill Conti
Dirty Harry by Lalo Schifrin

One that I am looking for, but seems very difficult to find on cd:




Also, but not jaaz:
Peter Gabriel's music for The Last Temptation of Christ

[Morn]

Spartacus (Alex North)
Alexander Nevsky (Prokofiev)
The Empire Strikes Back (John Williams)
The Untouchables (Ennio Morricone)
The Matrix (Don Davis)
I would suggest anyone unfamiliar with film music or not sure if they like it, get these scores.


BTW, the post above me talking about jazz scores, if you want the best jazz score get A Streetcar Named Desire (Alex North) This was the first fully jazz score in film music (1951) by a composer who had grown up on jazz.

[BachQ]

Morn!

[71 dB]

Okay, my selection of five soundtracks:



1 ... Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith (John Williams)

2 ... Star Wars Episode V The Empire Strikes Back (John Williams)

3 ... A.I. Artificial Intelligence (John Williams)

4 ... The Spielberg/Williams Collaboration (John Williams)

5 ... Mansfield Park (Lesley Barber)

[david johnson]

blackhawk down
any mix of the morricone/eastwood spaghetti westerns
the man with the golden arm
seahawk
starwars stuff

dj

[Mystery]

The Pianist
Grease!
West Side Story

OK, maybe they don't really count :-S :-)

[Bogey]

the man with the golden arm

dj

I had that on lp....great Elmer Bernstein effort.

[david johnson]

alright!  someone else knows 'the man w/the golden arm'.
wasn't shelly manne drumming and shorty rogers trpt/flugel on that?  i haven't heard it in quite awhile.

dj

[Bogey]

alright!  someone else knows 'the man w/the golden arm'.
wasn't shelly manne drumming and shorty rogers trpt/flugel on that?  i haven't heard it in quite awhile.

dj

I do not recall the musicians' names.  Believe it or not, I have it on my wish-list as I got rid of the lp a couple years back....it's one I definitely miss.  FWIW, I enjoyed the movie as well.

[Robert]

alright!  someone else knows 'the man w/the golden arm'.
wasn't shelly manne drumming and shorty rogers trpt/flugel on that?  i haven't heard it in quite awhile.

dj

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM
A FILM BY OTTO PREMINGER
ORCHESTRA CONDUCTED BY ELMER BERNSTEIN
ORCHESTRATIONS BY FRED STEINER
JAZZ ARRANGEMENTS BY SHORTY ROGERS
DRUMMING SEQUENCES BY SHELLY MANNE
WITH ASSISTING MR BERNSTEIN (JAZZ ORCHESTRA SOLOS)
PETE CANDOLI TRUMPET
MILT BERNHART TROMBONE
BUD SHANK ALTO
BOB COOPER TENOR
RALPH PENA BASS
SHELLY MANNE DRUMS
SHORTY ROGERS FLUEGELHORN

[Bogey]

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM
A FILM BY OTTO PREMINGER
ORCHESTRA CONDUCTED BY ELMER BERNSTEIN
ORCHESTRATIONS BY FRED STEINER
JAZZ ARRANGEMENTS BY SHORTY ROGERS
DRUMMING SEQUENCES BY SHELLY MANNE
WITH ASSISTING MR BERNSTEIN (JAZZ ORCHESTRA SOLOS)
PETE CANDOLI TRUMPET
MILT BERNHART TROMBONE
BUD SHANK ALTO
BOB COOPER TENOR
RALPH PENA BASS
SHELLY MANNE DRUMS
SHORTY ROGERS FLUEGELHORN

You'd da man Robert!

[Joe_Campbell]

Are there any soundtracks that you enjoy (do not need to be top-5) that do not rely on a "symphonic" sound?  A few have been mentioned I believe, but are there others?

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Lost Highway

on another note:
Master and Commander's choice of theme was well picked. (fantasia on a theme by tallis)
LotR continually moves me whenever I have a chance to hear it.
Children of Men's score selection was gritty.

[Bogey]

Bought this one last week. I already got all the other re-recordings of selections from "The Sea Hawk", by Charles Gerhardt, Varujan Koijan, James de Preist (8 minutes only) and André Previn, respectively, and sadly I must report that while the new version is welcome for being complete, it is all too obviously the weakest in terms of both performance and recorded sound.

The trouble begins with the dullest recording of the Main Titles imaginable. Stromberg's reading here lacks any of the "schwung" this fanfare demands and that is best captured by Kojian as part of his 45-min Utah Symphony recording. The brass from Moscow sound limp and defensive not just here, but in many places. Things improve after that, with some sensitive playing especially in the lyrical or atmospheric (Panama) sequences. However, the Moscow forces cannot swash nor buckle with the best orchestras from England or the US.

Why Stromberg/Morgan chose to hire a Russian soprano (Irina Romishevskaya) for the short but beautiful Dona Maria's song, other than because of easy availability, is a mystery. She sings the ballad with the most inappropriate Russian accent, and with none of the required sensitivity. Even in comparison to Carol Wetzel's small-voiced but sweet and sensitive take on this song in the Kojian recording, Romishevskaya is totally unacceptable. Mind though, we're talking here of just under a minute of Naxos' 115minute reading of The Sea Hawk.

The Moscow Chorus do better in "Strike for the Shores of Dover", but again are no match for the London singers in Gerhardt's recording or the Utah Symphony Chorus (for reasons unknown, Previn chose to replace the chorus with a brass section carrying the theme in his LSO recording).

A word on sound: The Prelude alarmed me because of a rather cavernous and mushy sound that cannot be the state of the art today even in Moscow, but it gets better from track 2 on. However, solo instruments are frequently spotlighted in the way movie soundtracks are being recorded, which is true to these producers' expressed aim to make film music sound as intended and not as "ersatz symphonic music" - resulting in a balance that is clear but never natural. While this policy made a lot of sense in many of Morgan/Stromberg's earlier recordings, like the film music of Roy Webb, Hans Salter etc., it is highly questionable here. Erich Wolfgang Korngold made no distinction between concert and film music, and his orchestration here (except compromises with regard to the size of the Warner Bros Orchestra) does not differ from his concert music. It should IMHO be recorded ike concert music.

The notes on the scores are, predictably, splendid, and with one exception Brendan Carroll (the president of the Korngold Society) this time refrains from hyperbole when referring to Korngold's importance in the history of film music - in his notes for the Previn Sea Hawk CD he erroneously credited Korngold having singlehandedly reinvented Hollywood film music.

A slightly disappointing release then as far as The Sea Hawk is concerned (the twofer also contains a 30-minute suite of Korngold's Deception score, including the shorter film version of the Cello Concerto, which also gets a rather pedestrian treatment by soloist Alexander Zagorinsky), which is valuable for its completeness, but falls short occasionally in the "perfomance department". If you want a CD of most of the substantial music from THE SEA HAWK, go with Varese Sarabande's clearly superior Utah Symphony Orchestra version of 1987. If you need the highlights only, but shown to the greatest possible advantage, try and hunt down the RCA suites conducted by Charles Gerhardt and recorded by the best classical recording engineer of them all, Decca's Ken J. Wilkinson.

Thomas

Thomas,
Felt it is worth bringing this one over, even made me change the name of the thread a bit....wish I had your talent for reviewing music.  Always a pleasure to read your reviews.  I take it that this is the one to go after if one wants a complete (?) score:

[The Mad Hatter]

Are there any soundtracks that you enjoy (do not need to be top-5) that do not rely on a "symphonic" sound?  A few have been mentioned I believe, but are there others?

I think that Thomas Newman's soundtrack to A Series of Unfortunate Events demonstrates a wonderful lightness of touch, and it's certainly not symphonic. The theme has actually made its way into a large number of trailers for other films, due to its attractive, mysterious nature. Also, I love the film (as I love any film or book that can be enjoyed equally well by both children and adults)!

Edit to add: I should probably point out that I don't actually own this soundtrack, and am just going by what I heard in the film.

[mahlertitan]

Rampo

[ChamberNut]

2001: A Space Odyssey, Barry Lyndon, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Eyes Wide Shut.

I have these, and this is what drew me into classical music!  Hip, hip, hooray!   

Also have The Omen soundtrack, Jerry Goldsmith.

[pjme]

Rosenthal/Gurdjief

Michel Legrand - THe three musketiers ( a great mix of Milhaud, Verdi & bagpipes...)

and : Auric : La belle et la bête
Miklos Rozsa : Ben HUr , Sodom & Gomorra
Close encounters of the third kind
Music to Pasolini's 1001 nights ( ? composer?)
American beauty
....

[Don]

The music to The Ice Storm greatly impressed me as being a perfect fit for the film.  I doubt it would stand well on its own.

[Drasko]

Music to Pasolini's 1001 nights ( ? composer?)

Morricone

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Movie Soundtracks I like: several Herrmann scores (Psycho, Vertigo, North-By-Northwest), The Ten Commandments (Elmer Bernstein), Ben Hur (Miklosz Rosza), Return to Oz (David Shire), The Lord of the Rings (Howard Shore), The Sea-Hawk (Korngold), Lawrence of Arabia (Jarre), The Empire Strikes Back (Williams)...