1. Fanfare from Also Sprach Zarathustra from 2001: A Space Odyssey
2. Parade of the Charioteers from Ben Hur
3. Suite from Gladiator
4. Tara's Theme from Gone with the Wind
5. Themes from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
6. War from Pearl Harbor
7. Love Theme from Spartacus
8. Overture from Lawrence of Arabia
9. Love Theme from Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones
10. May it Be and Themes from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
11. Hedwig's Theme from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
12. Prelude and Lara's Theme from Doctor Zhivago
13. Sean's Theme from Minority Report
14. The Magnificent Seven

quote:

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Originally posted by Hector J. Guzman:
This is going to be an exciting CD. Too bad there are no Goldsmith selections.

NP. Hermoinesex (John Adams, the composer)

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...Is life ever fair?

quote:

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Originally posted by Hector J. Guzman:
Ah, yes! Horner is also missing :P

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I wonder if they'll find the body.

WHERE THE HELL IS THE PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN?????????????

quote:

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Originally posted by Hector J. Guzman:
NP. Hermoinesex (John Adams, the composer)

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What is this? And I thought I knew every John Adams piece.

quote:

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Originally posted by VaultComplex:
What is this? And I thought I knew every John Adams piece.

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John Adams' is a huge Potter fan, didn't you know? It's a new sensual/erotic tone poem written as an homage to Hermione's character from Harry Potter.

quote:

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Originally posted by Jeron:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=1 face=arial>quote:</font><HR size=1>Originally posted by VaultComplex:
[b]What is this? And I thought I knew every John Adams piece.<HR size=1></BLOCKQUOTE>

John Adams' is a huge Potter fan, didn't you know? It's a new sensual/erotic tone poem written as an homage to Hermione's character from Harry Potter.

...isn't it? [/B]

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I canīt believe youīre actually analyzing this, heh heh.

When I was introduced to this piece I couldnīt pronounce the name, and as a joke I once said I was listening to "Hermionesex", and my friend goes "Itīs not Hermionesex, itīs Harmonielehre", at the time it was just a bunch of letters that resemble to that character from the Potter books :P So I always bug them by saying I love "Hermionesex"

As a SACD this album interests me mildly (that is if I ever buy an SACD player.) As a CD it doesn't interest me much at all. I'm not sure why we needed all of these cues from modern in-print scores (e.g. Gladiator, Pearl Harbor, Minority Report, and etc.) re-recorded. In fact, I already own three of the selections, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Tara's Theme, and the Magnificent Seven suite, on the single DVD-A I own! Oh what a world.

The great thing about re-recordings, is in fact it is a re-recording. It's the same when you purchase a classical cd, but you do it according to who is conducting and what orchestra is performing.

Who knows, these re-recorded works may sound better than the original. It is all down to the interpretation. The two Zimmer cues will be particularly interesting due to the absence of electronics.

Take care,
Aaron

Listening to the clips, the new arrangements are definitely cool.

Jeron

As always the Cincinnati Pops lacks the necessary weight to pull off a great film music rerecording, let alone one dedicated to epic scores. Maybe if they stuck a couple of more microphones closer to the strings, might give them more body.

Not that the sonics overall deserve much praise. Well-recorded brass, but WAAAAAYYY too much bass in the percussion, with an awful amount of reverb. Distant strings & woodwinds. Good upper and lower frequencies, but empty in the middle, makes the whole thing sound even more hollow.

Ben Hur, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Gone With the Wind, Spartacus, Star Wars and Doctor Zhivago come off rather well.

Lawrence of Arabia is inferior to the Williams/LSO recording, but still rather good.

I find Minority Report to be an improvement over the OST.

Harry Potter is good enough to almost equal the OST, and do much better than either the Prague Crapophonic or Royal Philharmonic recordings.

The Mag7 suite isn't too bad to my ears, but then I never paid much attention to any other Mag7 recordings, so I don't know. Though it seems too 'cultivated' and polished, lacking an extra bit of aggressivity which would seem to benefit the music.

The truly disappointing parts are Gladiator, Pearl Harbor, Crouching Tiger and Lord of the Rings.
Pearl Harbor lacks the martial tightness found on the OST. Kunzel's version is a little limp.
The arrangement of Gladiator is a useless mess (by far inferior to the Silva arrangement). It jumps all over the place, motifs from Zimmer's score appear and disappear in complete incoherence.

Lord of the Rings sounds like a James Last arrangement. Might work for Titanic. It doesn't work for LOTR.

Crouching Tiger starts with potential, but quickly enters James Last territory as well. It ends up sounding neither epic, nor serene, nor chinese, nor anything like the OST. It's mostly just plain lame. Where again the strings are burried in the mix the very moment any other part of the orchestra starts playing.

And when it comes to lameness, the booklet is king. Jimmy won this, Jeffrey won that, William won the other thing... who cares!? Seems like the only composer who did not win or get nominated for an Academy Award or any other award is Richard Strauss. "Who won what" is the only focus of the liner notes.

That said, on the whole, the disc somehow still comes off as a coherent whole (minus the Gladiator mess). The orchestra is very satisfying, with none of the ugly brass of the Czech high school band. Kunzel's readings attempt to showcase the best aspects of the scores, under the circumstances at least.

For a supposed audiophile label though, the sound sucks. It ruins the album. Whether it's the wet acoustics of the hall, a small orchestra, not enough microphones, deliberate choices in the mixing process... either way the strings & woodwinds are completely overpowered by the brass, let alone by the percussion which completely covers everything else. I like reverb. I even like most of Varese Sarabande's RSNO recordings, but the reverb and distance of the band on this Telarc disc is much more exaggerated than anything Varese has yet produced.

Yes, I'm pissed. It could have been great. Instead it's just... useless and never lives up to its pompous concept.

Too much reverb = bad.
Sucky sound = bad.
Sucky music = bad.