In the hopes of changing their minds, Rick has created a poll on the forum where you can cast a vote for releasing this album. This link should (I hope) bring you directly to the poll (where you can also read Rick's response):
www.silvascreen.co.uk/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=147

But two important things:

1. You need to REGISTER at the website before you can vote in the poll. Just click on the little "Register" button near the top of the page, and you'll be guided through the easy steps. Very soon after that (just a few minutes, in my case), you'll get an e-mail in reply; you send an automated reply to that, and your registration is immediately activated.

2. Even after you register, you need to LOG IN when you get to the website before you can vote in the poll.

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Originally posted by Rick Clark (Silva):
thanks everyone for such a quick response on this one… you wont believe it but, after bringing the subject up again with David Stoner, he informs me that the album will now defiantly be coming out this year, this was only decided on Monday.

No final track listing or anything. But I hope this keeps the Tiomkin fans happy!

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He also called me an ass-hole and asked me to apologize for calling Silva cheap when I didn't have all the facts.

Personally, I'd be ashamed to admit that these CDs cost a lot to produce considering the results. Besides, throwing money at something doesn't insure it will be of quality.

I'm not sure just what the Tiomkin estate was impressed with as the Silva Western themes and especially the suite from The Thing struck me as weak.

And, if someone else paid, why was Silva still balking at issuing the thing?

Tiomkin is hard to do. He worked his orchestras to death to get these scores to come out right. Even Elmer Bernstein recorded Tiomkin and it came out poor. Erich Kunzel did fine but do Bateman or Raine have the right stuff to deliver the goods?

Ford again reminded me of the Silva discs that many people like and even I have to admit they are getting better even if they still haven't won me over. The Plague Orchestra actually seems to be fine in recordings done with other conductors so the blame has to be on the conductors or some other factor. Of course, Marco Polo still supports Adriano, so not dumping bad conductors isn't something that's exclusive to Silva.

It is unfair and prejudicial to attack a disc you haven't heard yet. So, I should wait to hear it and hope for a miracle. But a lot of other Silva CDs just sit on my shelf after I've played them once or twice. I'd really like this Tiomkin disc to be an exception.

I have consequently been proven incorrect.

Admittedly the COPPO are not suited too all genres of music, swing for instance, certainly they have improved in this area over the last few years. People who suggest that Prague are a “bad” orchestra are simply foolish and ignorant, it’s a simple matter of what the musicians are used to playing and hearing.

As Prague (up until fairly recently) were a communist country the music they heard (and played) was restricted, so of course some forms of music will be tricky for them to play, but this does not make them incompetent…and in this case as Tiomkin is a Russian composer, Prague are very comfortable playing his music.

Now, I don’t clam to have expert knowledge of Prague and its orchestras, nor Tiomkin for that matter (I leave that up to James Fitzpatrick), but I suspect I have more first hand knowledge on this subject than most of you.

To some extent, I guess it may not be the orchestra's fault. Silva has time and time gain claimed that the core of the City of Prague Philharmonic comes from the Czech Philharmonic. I have yet to hear the Czech Philharmonic plays as sloppily as the City of Prague. So then it becomes a question of really poor conducting, in which case, if thinking that Raine and Bateman are poor conductors is 'foolish and ignorant', then again I happily plead guilty.

Piss poor orchestra or third rate conductors, I frankly care not a bit. Either way, there's something rotten in the city of Prague.

I would say that the MSO and COPPO are very equally matched in quality of playing, but to my knowledge the MSO have very rarely been asked to record much beyond the norm.

Altho I have to say on a recent visit to Moscow, I saw the orchestra perform Elgar (a composer who very few Russians know), they played the pants off it.
Not very British at all mind, so in that respect is it a good performance? Yes it certainly was!

First, my apologies for unintentionally overstating the case when I said in starting this thread that Silva had decided not to release this album.

James Fitzpatrick sez the following Big T tracks on Way Out West will also appear on the Essential DT effort: The Alamo [The Green Leaves of Summer, Davy Crockett], Duel in the Sun [Main Title/The legend/Orizaba], Friendly Persuason [Thee I Love], Giant [Main Title], Gunfight at OK Corral [Suite], High Noon [Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darlin'], Rio Bravo [Rio Bravo/De Guella], The Unforgiven [The Need for Love].

Re The Essential DT, he also said The Alamo portion will be a 20-plus minute suite, Duel in the Sun will be a 12-minute suite, The Love Theme and the Ballad of Jett Rink were added to Giant, Rio Bravo will also have the Love Theme, two more cues were recorded for The Unforgiven and three cues from Tension at Table Rock were recorded.

The above was as of May, 2002, so it's possible more additions or changes could have been made since then.

As far as Tiomkin goes, I look forward to their album. As most of you know, our RED RIVER CD will be out in a few months. We did have an advantage as Tiomkin is Russian and a Russian orchestra played his music for us! Those musicians recognized all the "American" folk songs Tiomkin claimed to have written. That is, they recognized them as Russian folk songs!

Bill and I leave for Moscow in 9 days for two more CDs, so we are busily doing final touches to the music.

Anyway, give Rick a break. He's one of the good guys.

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Originally posted by John Morgan:
Those musicians recognized all the "American" folk songs Tiomkin claimed to have written. That is, they recognized them as Russian folk songs!

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well thank you for confirming what my mother once said about "Tiomkin's" music.
I was playing a CD of some Tiomkin piece or other, and she asked me where I had gotten this old song that she and her "comrades" had been singing in their old villages in the countryside.

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Anyway, give Rick a break. He's one of the good guys.

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…But seriously thanks for the kind words, but I now officially give up arguing on this point, I’ve done it all before.

And you're up against film music, one of the toughest things to re-record in music.

Note that I don't even say perform or record. The whole idea behind calling these things re-records is that you're putting out a music that has been done before in a set way as a permanent element on the soundtrack of some film. That, on the other hand, sets up an expectation that concert music doesn't necessarily have to contend with. A version of Elgar "a la Russe" might kick asss, but a "Russian interpretation" of Vertigo, I mean it might even come off well but it isn't really Vertigo is it?

People have heard film music in movies, they've seen some films 30-40 times and are used to a certain performance of it, even a specific mix of the orchestral elements. [Add more hearings to those who've recorded the cues onto tape to play over and over.] Hollywood orchestras were probably the best in the world. The composer/conductors could be tyrants and taskmasters and they had time to make lots of takes at recording sessions to get things right (timings, changes, weak performance).

Maybe it is too much to ask of non-studio musicians, conductors, arrangers, and mixers to be able to compete with those standards. But if you don't try to, the results just don't match the quality of performances we already have of this music and the memory of people who are familiar with those performances.

The great thing about re-records is that they can rescue this music from out underneath all that dialogue and effects and record it with modern technology. The potential is prayer-fullfiling.

Some people say that it's wrong to re-record film music based on the film performance, that musicians don't like to match something someone else has already done, that the music can survive being done differently. I've heard rare but existing versions that show this can work.

But, in general, it doesn't work--if you get a CD home of music you've waited 30 years to listen to and it sounds nothing like you know this music can sound like because the energy is wrong, the notes are wrong, the tempi are wrong, the strings aren't sharp, and on and on and on, then all the good intentions of everyone to bring music to this small fan base are wasted.

Then "interpretation" becomes a spin word to cloak the fact you couldn't do the job.

And all you've brought home to me is disappointment.

So I don't want people who believe "a different style of performance on a piece of music" is a good thing working on film music. I don't believe it's a good thing. Maybe it's fine for Elgar but not Miklos Rozsa.

Also, just because you are doing music for a small fan base doesn't mean you should act as if you're doing me a favor and I should be grateful for whatever crumbs I get.

Having sex with a fat girl is better than no sex at all, sure, maybe, but I'm not going to buy it if she also tries to tell me it's like sex with Sharon Stone. For that, she needs to go to the gym.

So it's not sad that I'm dissing your stuff even if it's hard to come by, it's sad that you're putting out trash with a haughty attitude.

Also, don't hide behind the idiot critics who like your records but who really don't know the sound enough to know what they are talking about.

Also, come out and debate this stuff rather than simply say, you can't change people's minds and so it isn't worth debating. All you've just told me with that attitude is that you're the mind that can't be changed and that you'll just go on producing crap thinking it's gold and won't listen to any outcry from the public that suggests it's not as you say. "That guy is deaf, crazy," that's what Ford says to me. And with that attitude he can ignore what I'm saying and go on slacking in peace.

Bateman and Raine and Adriano need to be let go to record other kinds of music. The Prague orchestra either needs better leadership or to be flogged like a horse. Just because they lived behind the Iron Curtain and aren't used to playing a certain kind of music isn't an excuse. If they are musicians, they should be able to play music, right? If they aren't up to it, find other guys who are--the guys who actually record music for real films in France or Italy or Spain. Silva used to record with Kenneth Alwyn and British orchestras. If you're spending so much money money on these things, what's with the Eastern Bloc, go back to London. Of course, if the Prague is really up to it, then prove it.

Now, you all might be good nice guys who should be given a break. I'd probably meet you all and feel fine raising a pint with you. But that has nothing to do with the sound that comes out of my speakers.

I said this to Ford and I'll say it to you. I've met people who are into tough love. They actually are satisfied and think you're doing fine but they pretend that isn't the case, they withhold their love in a ploy to get you to work even harder or to exploit you and get more out of you. In my opinion those people are pricks.

I'm not handing you that ploy. The truth is I'm not satisfied. You may have people kissing your feet but when I start doing it then you know you've accomplished something. Not before. And you should be playing to me, your toughest critic, rather than to simps who'll take anything. And I'm not impossible to reach. I don't even think I'm that tough. I think you guys have been lame. The truth is (if you have any kind of care or integrity), whether you like to hear it or not or want to own up to it is, you need to recognize that you are flubbing up, that you need to dump the excuses, and need to work harder on these things.

It bears repeating: Instead of feeling self-satisfied, you need to work harder on these things.

Morgan and Stromberg are off to Moscow to do Robin Hood. We have the original tracks on a Tsunami bootleg, go listen to them, 14 times if necessary--tremendous energy, speed, performance, power, but only with the sound potential of 1938. Now to get a version that gives us all that the original had and the more we can give it today, that would be....ecstasy is the closest adjective.

But if you're going to "interpret" it, slow it down, let the orchestra get away with this or that, etc. so that it turns out as lackluster as Previn's best-selling but mediocre Korngold disc on DGR, then turn in the plane tickets and save everyone the trouble.

I agree it's unfair to attack a record that hasn't come out yet. I already said that. I'm basing my attitude about the Tiomkin on Silva's past track record, which I give Silva credit for--I realize they've been improving.

Still, improvement from an E to a B- doesn't mean you're sterling. Maybe in other fields that would be ok, but this isn't office work. This is artistic peformance: you guys should be Jackie Chans, Olympians, not doudy clerks.