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I Am Spartacus! (and so is my wife)

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Author	Topic: I Am Spartacus! (and so is my wife)

Laurence Page Standard Userer	Please oh please, some kind record company (Varese? FSM?) release the complete music to surely one of the best scores ever. If they can do Cleopatra, surely they can do this one - it would be very popular. It's such a shame that Jerry never managed to do his planned re-recording of this with the SNO. I was listening to "The Fall of the Roman Empire" last night and Tiomkin's score is fantastic - any chance of a complete release for this too? Happy listening!
posted 10-12-2004 05:00 AM PT (US)

Ed Standard Userer	I'd like to see an expanded SPARTACUS some day, but Universal owns the film and they've been so far unwilling to license their film scores to other labels. We can live in hope...
posted 10-12-2004 12:05 PM PT (US)

Philipp Standard Userer	Didn´t Robert Townson in one interview said he was ready to release this score any minute? Philipp np: concerto for cello and orchestra (john williams, yo yo ma, boston symphony orchestra)
posted 10-12-2004 03:18 PM PT (US)

Ed Standard Userer	quote: Originally posted by Philipp: Didn´t Robert Townson in one interview said he was ready to release this score any minute? I'm sure he would love to if he could; North is one of Townson's favorites (as the excellent release of CLEOPATRA demonstrates). At one time there were discussions of Jerry Goldsmith conducting excerpts from the score with the National Philharmonic; evidently Alex North himself had put together an arrangement of cues he thought best represented the score for re-recording. Instead, Goldsmith et al recorded 2001 and several other North scores. The SPARTACUS project, sadly, never materialized. As I said above, SPARTACUS is a Universal film and they own the original tracks.
posted 10-12-2004 04:49 PM PT (US)

Graham Watt Standard Userer	Does anyone know the story behind the 2CD release (almost two and a half hours of music) from SVC Records? Is this a promo or a bootleg or what? The presentation of the score isn't much better than those semi-legit Tsunami releases, but the quality of the music speaks for itself, and the second disc does have some very interesting tracks near the end which sound like demos or something. "Training", for example sounds like just piano and percussion (and, by the way, is amazingly similar to Jerry Goldsmith's "Time Out" from TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE). Yes, SPARTACUS is a tremendous score which would benefit from a decent release, but being an anal-retentive perfectionist I can only give it 9.99 out of ten, for two reasons. One is that Alex North was very prone to throwing in some extremely odd-sounding (in context) moments in some tracks - he did this in nearly every score - a sort of big spangly Broadway show glitziness. It's present in SPARTACUS' Intermission music, for example, and although I love it, its oddness kind of grates. That's a fraction knocked off a 10. Oh, and the other reason is that some bits remind me of Monty Python's "Lumberjack Song".
posted 10-17-2004 01:12 PM PT (US)

Ed Standard Userer	The 2cd set as indeed a boot. The bonus cues were demo tracks recorded before the film was shot to help director Kubrick on set. Those cues originally appeared on the Criterion laserdisc (and now dvd) of the film; they must have been stolen from that source. [Message edited by Ed on 10-17-2004]
posted 10-17-2004 08:35 PM PT (US)

Swashbuckler Standard Userer	The Spartacus re-recording was a project that Varese announced when 2001 came out. It remained on the boards until Goldsmith's death. I periodically would e-mail Varese about it (about once a year). They always responded that this project was very important to both Townson and Goldsmith, and that it will eventually be released. Although the material for the re-recording obviously exists, and Townson can no doubt get John Debney or Joel McNeely (or possibly Cliff Eidelman) to conduct the RSNO, if the recording is undertaken now, it will not be by Jerry Goldsmith, who's devotion to Alex North's music gave his recordings of 2001, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Viva Zapata! a personal investment. Of course, they had a decade to get the album out, so I guess that it never really was much of a priority.
posted 10-18-2004 12:34 PM PT (US)

Ron Pulliam Standard Userer	I'm not at all convinced that "Spartacus" is unavailable because of Universal's policies. I've been told, by folks who ought to know, that it's a matter of finances. I believe there are some stipulations to doing such a release that would make it as expensive as "Cleopatra" was...and that CD's success or lack of same was going to be a factor in whether "Spartacus" would be a worthwhile financial risk. It's one thing to do a limited run of a title and quite something else to have to press 5,000 or more units and be responsible for their distribution/marketing. I don't know the particulars -- especially now that "Cleopatra" was not as successful as hoped -- that might eventually see a release for the complete "Spartacus," but I believe it's more a monetary issue than a policy issue holding it up.
posted 10-18-2004 04:20 PM PT (US)

Laurence Page Standard Userer	Thanks for all your comments. Of course, I guess anyone from the Varese stable of conductors could re-record the score. I hope so - even if the re-release does happen! Graham - I know exactly the bit you mean from the Lumberjack song - "I wish I'd been a girlie, just like my dear Papa!" Will never sound the same again.. Watched the DVD over the last two nights. Still find the ending as heart-rendingly grim as ever! All the best
posted 10-19-2004 07:29 AM PT (US)

Swashbuckler Standard Userer	...and incidentally... I AM SPARTACUS!!!! Thank you.
posted 10-19-2004 12:07 PM PT (US)

John C Winfrey Standard Userer	No, I'm Spartacus. BTW Laurence, I think that Spartacus is one of the great scores of all film music history and I too would like a CD with all that great music. There is so much of it in there too. Some really great missing music in Agony and Ecstasy too and that newer CD of it recorded on Varese butchered a lot of it too. Not played well at all by the orchestra. Really messed up. I love that opening cue on the LP-great cue. I also like the pope in battle music there at first of film, so badly destroyed on the new CD, and the cue where he goes blind on the LP. Very powerful. Just a great score. Have not gotten the Shoes of Fisherman CD yet, but there is some great music in that too. John.
posted 10-24-2004 10:52 AM PT (US)

John C Winfrey Standard Userer	And oh yes, Laurence, if you have not heard North's music for the Penitent-1987(a very strange sort of film about the Indians in Colorado who crucify themselves), it has some super music in there especially for the scene where they are carrying the cross up the hill. Wow, what a tremendous piece. J.
posted 10-24-2004 10:55 AM PT (US)

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