They're at it again. This time it's a CD devoted to Jerry Goldsmith, titled "Free as the Wind - Tribute to Jerry Goldsmith".

Same as before, it's a 24 bit, 192kHz high fidelity recording, with the same orchestra and the same production team.

The sound is big, bold and unashamedly in-your-face. Close-miking ensures some rather peculiar Silva-like shifts in balance between the instruments among the various tracks which is really annoying when listening to the album as a whole. In one track the brass is up front & really loud, in the next cue the brass moves back and the string section moves up front. But then neither strings, brass or winds matter much when the percussion enters the field: drums & timpani obliterate just about everything else.

Capricorn One has more energy than on the OST. The powerful recording makes it much more thrilling than on the OST. The Medley of Motion Picture Themes is definitely better than the LSO/Telarc recording which was just plain dull. It's not quite a match for the Goldsmith/Philharmonia recording though. One advantage here is that all the themes have been indexed and given their own tracks numbers, as opposed to being stuck in an 18 minute track, all the while being playing without interruption, just like the LSO & Philharmonia versions.
The Sand Pebbles isn't too bad, but the dynamic contrast between the opening bars and the "love theme" breaks up the piece. The love theme is too cute and sounds artificially theatrical. It's an approach that worked with Across the Stars, but sounds a little fake here.
Chinatown is decent. Nothing wrong, nothing great.
Air Force One has greater forward momentum than the OST did. It's less elegiaic, but more aggressive in tempo, and heroic in mood.
A Patch of Blue is cute, but the piano sounds rather steely, the solo violin rustic instead of romantic.
Poltergeist is lovely. The Japanese strings don't have the Brittish shine or lovely tone, but the players are definitely more interested in the music than their LSO counterparts, though again, the Philharmonians rule.
Papillon though starts off with a bolder opening than the previous rerecordings. The Japanese strings suddenly play with a lush tone they had for some reason reserved until now.
Basic Instinct emphasizes the winds over the strings (which again sound tiny and rather metallic).
The Wind & The Lion is the real disappointment of this recording. The excessively loud percussion ruins it, but then the rest of the orchestra seems slightly lost, scrambling to get their notes out. With the powerful sonics the disc is blessed with, and the crisp mighty brass of the orchestra, this could have been the best version, but it ain't. The Philharmonia obliterates the Japanese recording without much effort.

The Twilight Zone is among the highlights. It's a real treat hearing a rerecording so closely match a composer's style, especially when the composer has such a defined personality as Goldsmith. This performance is light-years ahead of the LSO version, helped in very large part by the close-miking which is closer to a Goldsmith OST than the broad acoustic the LSO was recorded in. The piano/violin duet in the Japanese version is much clearer; the well-defined brass is purely spectacular. Good sound & fabulous orchestra make good music incredible, especially when the trumpets blast away right before the end. Now this obliterates the LSO.

More of the same for the two excerpts from The Mummy. Camel Race is set in a bolder recording than the OST. The strings though have been moved to the back and are almost completely inaudible at times. Sand Storm covers the action material with the same energy the orchestra applies throughout, but really it's the sound that steals the show away from the orchestra.

The Patton entr'acte is the other great cue on the CD. I've never much cared for this music, but now it turns out, it was all because of the performances. LSO, Philharmonia, OST... bleh. The Japanese do it better than anyone.

Rambo features the softer side of the score. Some really lovely playing here. Perfectly captures the spirit of the beginning of the movie. There's a more heroic version at the end of the cue, which almost seems out of place.

Total Recall is pretty good for a rerecording. The metal clanging sound is really too loud and quickly becomes very, very annoying. But filter that out and what you have is a first-rate rendition of the Total Recall overture.

The track from Alien is taken from volume 3 of the previously released rerecordings. It's very good, although the brass may be a little too spectacular for the mood of the score. The Star Trek Nemesis recording hasn't improved between then and now, it sounds as limp & cute as before, although the liners claim this was recorded this year, it sounds like the same recording that previously appeared on the same CD as Alien.

All in all though, it is a great tribute, superbly played, very well conducted and fantastically recorded.

Liner notes are 99.9% in Japanese. It seems to have a filmography arranged by year from 1957 till 2003.
The music was recorded in March 2003 (Alien), then April & June 2004.

"All in all though, it is a great tribute, superbly played, very well conducted and fantastically recorded."

Whether 50 minutes, or 74,231 minutes of every note Goldsmith ever wrote, if it's played, conducted and recorded with "tribute" in mind (done passionately well), I'd say it does the job.

Surely you'd agree Ryan, otherwise I would expect your tribute on Cinemusic.net to be a little big bigger.... say 1800x1800 pixels instead of a measly 265x175.

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Originally posted by rkeaveney:
I have a question: how do you pay tribute to Jerry Goldsmith with a scant 50 minutes?

Ryan

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