I picked up Silva's re-recording from my local library, but that left me unimpressed (I don't generally like re-recordings) and turned up nothing in my search for an OST.

Was an OST of this ever available? Any ideas how one might go about finding it?

Anyone have this release?
I see its in Mono, but that doesn't really bother me that much, but how about the length? Supercollector's site doesn't list the running time for the CD.

I really dig the theme, LOVE the blast of strings which open the cue.

Someone was attempting to sell the first edition (w/the oversized booklet) for about $250 just in the last month or so.

The music is great and I thought the performance was decent enough, especially for what appears to be a single day's worth of output. The recording sounds very good and it seems slightly more distant than the typical Mike Ross-Trevor recording. The engineering of the first track, by John Timperley, matches the rest of the disc quite nicely. The disc is HDCD and Prologic encoded.

The main title starts the disc off with a blast. The Prauge's constantly aggressive playing works rather well for this piece of music.

The "Polka" reminds me a lot of "The Lonely Goatherd" from The Sound of Music. Be prepared for some accordion and harmonica in the four dance tracks situated in the middle of the album.

I think that after the main title, my favorite track is 17. This piece is a good seven minute swath of music that brings together various different ideas that were introduced earlier in the score. Some of the music is suspenseful and rather repetitious, but I'm always impressed with a composer that can repeat something and then some, while still keeping my attention.

The orange artwork of the UK release appears to be vastly superior to the artwork used on the US release. Silva continues to put the credits in the CD tray area instead of in the liner notes. There's a picture of Gregory Peck having a fight with somebody on the back of the liner notes and this photo probably should have traded places with the credits. The layout of the liner notes is annoying as well, with three columns of text that are each about 1.25" wide. This format works fine in a newspaper, but for these liner notes I think the narrow columns make reading the text more difficult. Two columns would have sufficed. The contents are nice reading, though, with information on the composer and film.

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Originally posted by JEC:
Apparently, there was a limited edition first release with a 66-page booklet (the one I mentioned above) and a reissue without the booklet which currently sells at Super collector for a more modest $24.99. Intrada lists them for $19.99, but is out of stock.

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The SAE release is an unauthorized release.

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Originally posted by jonathan_little:
Chris, let me clarify something here... you're saying that Craig Spaulding is a bootlegger?

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No, I'm saying that the release of this title was not authorized by the owner of the master recordings, which is MGM/UA. At the time of it's release, Craig may have believed that he had proper clearance, but in reality he did not, which is why the title is no longer for sale. I don't believe that Craig would have intentionally released an unathorized title, but the fact remains that this release was unauthorized.

[Message edited by ChrisN on 06-23-2003]

However, it appears that two tracks appeared on the "Best of the West" compilation from Ryko. Soundtrack Collector listing for Big Country.

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Originally posted by JEC:
Chris, did Ryko release this?

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Originally posted by jonathan_little:
I don't remember this being in the Rykodisc catalog.

However, it appears that two tracks appeared on the "Best of the West" compilation from Ryko. Soundtrack Collector listing for Big Country.

[Message edited by jonathan_little on 06-23-2003]

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