This past September, King Records of Japan released three volumes of film music suites and themes titled "The Japan Philharmonic Plays Symphonic Film Spectacular". Too often albums with such pompous titles do not live up to their promise. These three volumes do. In fact, they manage to ridicule most of the labels which have specialized in film music recordings: Silva, Varèse Sarabande, Marco Polo, Telarc...

Recorded in 2001 and 2003, in different venues, but always in state of the art (Naxos take note) technology: 24 bit / 192kHz! Few albums, even in classical music, can claim to have been recorded at that quality. Of course technology does not assure quality: a well engineered CD will be superior to a badly mixed DVDA / SACD turkey.
These recordings are fairly close-miked. But darn it, listen to the tubas in The Great Escape: loud & clear. How often have we had to put up with recessed, squeeky, pinched-sounding tubas? Not here. Other instruments are reproduced with very high fidelity - virtually the way you might expect to hear them live.

Balance-wise, the recordings are very detailed, at times too much even. The recordings made in 2001 seem less close-miked, yet they also seem dryer, with more piercing brass, and a more natural orchestral balance. The 2003 recordings sound as if the orchestra were seated in a stadium-style theatre: there is less depth to the sound stage, it's more vertical than it is deep.
Reverb is perfect. There is a certain amount of it, but just enough to prevent the recording from sounding dry, yet not so much as to make it sound cavernous.

The brass section of the Japan Philharmonic is superb and easily steals the show: spot on, well controlled; biting when necessary, restrained when appropriate. Some exquisite winds take a colourful approach to their parts, they seem to think that beauty is more important than everything else. Mostly, their approach is very convincing.
The percussion section is good (helped by the engineering), but the strings are lacking. Mostly, the string section - or what there is of it - sounds uninvolved. Sometimes it sounds severly challenged by the demands of the music, and all the time the strings are not numerous enough. Don't expect soaring strings in Gone With the Wind because the 22 violins are burried by a couple of screeching piccolos. Considering that many orchestras perform with violin sections of 30+ players, the 20-25 used on these recordings are highly insufficient. Similar complaints apply to violas, cellos and basses (nevermind the proper Italian plurals). That's the first drawback, and the most significant.

The second drawback is one of the conductors. Taizo Takemoto may be an otherwise excellent conductor, I don't know anything about him, but here he's too obviously not in his element. He appears to have little innate feel for the music, and many of the cues he conducts end up somewhat shapeless compared to what they should be. Often they are too cute, too polished, and not vulgar enough. The approach works wonders for Across the Stars which at times exceeds even the original soundtrack in beauty. But Star Trek Nemesis sounds even more limp than Goldsmith's own recording. The Takemoto-conducted tracks are still very decent, mostly as a result of good playing from the musicians, and demonstration class sonics. Plus, Takemoto may not conduct the scores the way they ideally should be, but at least he doesn't do anything to ruin them. Placing the Indiana Jones cue back to back with the Prague version easily reveals that even under Takemoto, the Japanese still deliver the goods better than the rest.

The other selections are conducted with good flair, in robust, tightly controlled manner by Ryuskue Numajiri who gets better response from the orchestra than Tekemoto. Particular highlights include the Star Wars excerpts, the Jurassic Park suite and Mancini's energetic Lifeforce theme.

A symphonic version of the Terminator theme makes the Beltrami/Hollywood Studio Symphony attempt sound like amateurism, and William Motzing's Prague recording look like a bad joke. The Superman march puts the Royal Scots to shame. I never thought I'd say this, but even Kunzel and the Cincinatti Pops must admit defeat: The Magnificent Seven gets better treatment here, than it does on the Telarc "EPICS" turkey. If the Anvil of Crom track from Conan is any indication of what these folks at King Records and the Japan Philharmonic can do, then we can only hope that someday they'll be the ones to record the complete score: it's a rousing, exciting performance, with fantastic impact from the percussion section. It's only too short.

The 11 minute Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring suite is a mixed bag though. There are some moments where there is an improvement over the OST, whether due to the better recording, or the free arrangement I'm not sure. At other times, the absence of the chorus is obvious. The saddest part though is the "Breaking of the Fellowship" cue: the boy who sings it constantly struggles to keep it together, often with little success.

Liner notes are in Japanese. Technical credits are available in Japanese and English. There is a list of orchestra members participating on the various recording sessions.

For those who don't like the more contemporary cover art, the back page of the booklet could serve as alternate cover art: it features the title of the CDs ("Japan Philharmonic plays Symphonic Film Spectacular") arranged differently for each release:
volume 1: The title of the CD arranged in 3-dimensional projection, think Ben Hur or 20th Century Fox Logo.
volume 2: The title of the CD written in 4 lines, justified alignment, surmounted by the shadow of a lion roaring, the lion itself placed beneath a semi-circle of stars: an obvious cross between the MGM and Paramount logos.
volume 3: A Star Wars "rip off": the title of the CD fading into space like the Star Wars overtures.

At ¥2200 a pop, the three volumes are expensive (add obligatory FedEx shipping if ordering from HMV Japan). But they're the type of discs I'd gladly take to a desert island with me.

VOLUME 3
Main Title / Star Wars. A New Hope ¹
Main Title / Superman ¹
End Credits / Cocoon
Overture / Back To The Future
End Title / Alien
Anvil Of Cron / Conan The Barbarian
A New Ending / Star Trek: Nemesis ²
Frying / E.t. The Extra-terrestrial
Suite / The Lord Of The Rings - The Fellowship Of The Ring
Themes / Jurassic Park
Lifeforce Theme / Lifeforce
Harry`s Wondrous World / Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets ²
Somewhere In Time / Somewhere In Time
Theme / The Terminator

VOLUME 2
The Magnificent Seven
Suite / Casablanca
Tara`s Theme / Gone With The Wind
Theme / Exodus
Selection / My Fair Lady ¹
Main Title / Spartacus
Is Paris Burning?
Theme / The Twilight Zone
Prelude / Psycho
Earthquake / Panic Films Suite ¹
Towering Inferno / Panic Films Suite ¹
Jaws / Panic Films Suite ¹
Little House On The Prairie
I`m Forrest... / Forrest Gump
Throne Room & End Titles / Star Wars. A New Hope ¹

VOLUME 1
Also Sprach Zarathustra / 2001: Space Odyssey ²
Lawrence Of Arabia -main Title / Lawrence Of Arabia ²
Overture / Around The World In 80 Days ²
Born Free / Born Free ²
Prelude (Main Title) / Ben Hur ²
Main Title / The Great Escape ²
Moon River / Breakfast At Tiffany`s ²
Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines ²
Main Title / Immigrant / Godfather Part II ²
Prelude & Blues / Taxi Driver ²
Jazz Suite 2 Waltz 2 / Eyes Wide Shut ²
Theme From Schindler`s List / Schindler`s List ²
Hedwig`s Theme / Harry Potter And The Sorcerer`s Stone ²
Across The Stars (Love Theme From Attack Of The Clones) / Star Wars: Episode2.attack Of The Clones ²
Finale & End Credits / Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom ²

The Japan Philharmonic Orchestra
Conducted by Ryusuke Numajiri, except ( ² ) Conducted by Taizo Takemoto
All tracks recorded in 2003, except ( ¹ ) recorded in 2001

HMV Japan links:
Volume 1: http://www.hmv.co.jp/Product/detail.asp?sku=1964017
Volume 2: http://www.hmv.co.jp/Product/detail.asp?sku=1964014
Volume 3: http://www.hmv.co.jp/Product/detail.asp?sku=1964012

Tower Japan links:
Vol3: http://www.towerrecords.co.jp/sitemap/CSfCardMain.jsp?GOODS_NO=678804
Vol2: http://www.towerrecords.co.jp/sitemap/CSfCardMain.jsp?GOODS_NO=678803
Vol1: http://www.towerrecords.co.jp/sitemap/CSfCardMain.jsp?GOODS_NO=678802

Japan Philharmonic Shop links:
Vol 1: http://www.japanphil-21.com/cart-cgi/jposhop.cgi/E-08?uquqwgyf5j9ymr74;;80
Vol 2: http://www.japanphil-21.com/cart-cgi/jposhop.cgi/E-09?uquqwgyf5j9ymr74;;82
Vol 3: http://www.japanphil-21.com/cart-cgi/jposhop.cgi/E-10?uquqwgyf5j9ymr74;;84

On a related note, might as well get this one:
JPhil: http://www.japanphil-21.com/cart-cgi/jposhop.cgi/C-08?uquqwgyf5j9ymr74;;210
HMV: http://www.hmv.co.jp/Product/detail.asp?sku=714389
Tower: http://www.towerrecords.co.jp/sitemap/CSfCardMain.jsp?GOODS_NO=579291&GOODS_SORT_CD=102

Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade - one of the jewels of the classical music repertoire and sure to please anyone who ever had an interest in film scores. The same Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, this time conducted by Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi. Album released on the Exton label.
If anything, this one is even more stunning than the film music compilations. The string section is slightly larger, the brass is just as incredible, except the woodwinds are even more exquisitely beautiful than on the film music CDs. The whole orchestra obviously feels more relaxed playing classical than film music, for the listeners added enjoyment. And as hard as it is to believe, the sound is even better. If the film music CDs are qualified as 'Spectacular', I'm at a loss for words to describe the Scheherazade recording which has even more vivid sonics than the 3 volumes of film themes. It was originally recorded using DSD (Direct Stream Digital) technology and is "encoded" as an HDCD for maximization of sound quality - it shows.

Just what we need: new recordings of music from GONE WITH THE WIND and STAR WARS!!

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Originally posted by El Cid:
Why are Japanese CDs so expensive?

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Its due to the exchange rate of the Japanese yen to the American dollar. The same reason a DVD there is about 60 some-odd dollars. I remember paying a very unhealthy sum of money for a Japanese import because of this issue.

P.S.-Shipping makes it ten times worse. That darned pacific ocean...

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Originally posted by Dinko:
It's still better than a new Brian Tyler score. At least there are some nice cues here, instead of generic underscore.

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Originally posted by Alexborn007:

Its due to the exchange rate of the Japanese yen to the American dollar. The same reason a DVD there is about 60 some-odd dollars. I remember paying a very unhealthy sum of money for a Japanese import because of this issue.

P.S.-Shipping makes it ten times worse. That darned pacific ocean...

NP-Wild Wild West (Bernstein)

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The Raise the Titanic one by Barry wasn't too bad, but some of these are terrible.

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Originally posted by tjguitar:
Dinko, do you have Vol. 4-6 as well?

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Of course.

Equally fabulous, although the selection of tracks could have been a little better.

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Originally posted by Dinko:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=1 face=arial>quote:</font><HR size=1>Originally posted by tjguitar:
[b]Dinko, do you have Vol. 4-6 as well?<HR size=1></BLOCKQUOTE>

Of course.

Equally fabulous, although the selection of tracks could have been a little better.

I'd just be Hornering myself if I commented individually on volumes 4-6. They share just about all the positive and negative characteristics of the first three.[/B]

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1 Ten Commandments / Suite
2 East Of Eden / Finale
3 West Side Story / Selection
4 Sandpebbles / Overture
5 Chinatown / Main Title
6 Papillon / Theme
7 The Wind And The Lion / Main Title
8 Patton / Entr`acte
9 A President`s Country / Red River
10 Giant
11 Duel In The Sun
12 Rawhide
13 High Noon
14 Alamo
15 Gunfight At O.k.corral / Ballad
16 Shane / Suite - Prelude
17 Wyoming Sketched
18 Cemetary Hill
19 Dance With Wolves / The John Dunbar Theme
20 Big Country / Main Title

Very different topic, but in your great wisdom on such things, what albums of music by Silvestre Revueltas and Edmund Meisel do you recommend?

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Originally posted by franz_conrad:
Very different topic, but in your great wisdom on such things, what albums of music by Silvestre Revueltas and Edmund Meisel do you recommend?

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I must admit to complete and utter ignorance with respect to Mr. Meisel.

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Originally posted by John C Winfrey:
Well, Dinko I have the 40 Years of Film Music set on Goldsmith. Its not all that good really. Many of the re-recordings are subpar.

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