[Closed] Now Playing XLII

Is very high for me, I consider Joe Hisaishi to be a genius, I can connect with almost everything that he compose. His melodies goes straight to my heart.

I prefer the original score album to the symphonic re-recording somehow, but I am not a fan of re-recordings in general.

I prefer the Symphonic Suite album because I like suites, I consider to be a better listening experience.

haha, good to hear that

I had no interest in the new version of ST: TMP, but I've wanted to go through my STAR TREK CD's recently (all the films as well as a CD of the tv music -- the 30th anniv. disc) for some time now. Maybe now is the time, starting with the ol' Sony 2CD set (first disc anyway). Never been a Trek fan, but some of the music written for it has been excellent!

It's time you HEAR it buddy, to HEAR excellent film music, excellent sound, exceptional talent.

Music like that simply isn't written anymore, or isn't in Hollywood's interest any more. A bloody shame.

Film Scores of Miklos Rozsa

The Angel Records release. Rozsa was the first golden age composer I really got into, but I can't even remember the last time I lsitened to any of his music. Not sure why - I find the usually very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very long releases of his best scores hard to listen to from start to end, but in this compilation form it works a treat. Stunning music.

"Epilogue" from King of Kings is absolutely spectacular. I had forgotten just how much so. What an incredible piece of music.

I remember this view being voiced by a few of the guys who you'd think would be Rosza completists back at FMOTW. From their point of view the old LPs with a small handful of tracks from each score was the best way to absorb most composers.

I got back to this score years after my last listen and it was way better than I remembered. Way better than US Marshalls or, for that matter, Executive Decision.

I am actually quite a huge fan of Jerry Goldsmith's output from the 1970s, especially what I call his "intellectual" scores, Tora! Tora! Tora! and Chinatown are among my personal favourites from the man (and the only person who seems to like the first score except me is Alan!). I haven't listened to Alien for ages (except the film music festival in Krakow which had a hearty selection from the score on one of the concerts), but I plan to get back to it soon. Star Trek: TMP goes without saying. But yeah, the more challenging scores of Goldsmith's career (and Chinatown is in parts) are the most interesting for me and after finally appreciating Chinatown (ironically, since I have the original CD of it - the recent Varese Club batch) I was just reassured of this opinion.

I went through your review of City Hall and also of Snow Falling on Cedars. We are on the same page with the Howard score as well, though I wish you mentioned my favourite piece of, I think, James Newton Howard's career (though it's fighting for the first spot with The Village's The Gravel Road), that is Can I Hold You Now? I haven't read the novel, but I do love the film. Ethan Hawke is a bit off at moments, but he redeems himself in the final scene and Youki Kudoh is not just a great actress, but also joy to watch. I do wish James Cromwell had a bit more to act, though.

Definitely a TORA TORA TORA fan in this corner too. He was knocking them out of the park all over the place back then, but that one has an extra special something (probably the theme, which is a traditional melody, not original for the film).

Here's a few other versions of it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3cDwFqqNjo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chwADnoF … re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL4T_gLh … re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UD7DM0GV3tQ

It's called 'Sakura' usually. Very famous tune.

Thanks for the information and for taking the time to put this together.

After some problems being satisfied with my sound system layout (listening to the CD through headphones where the CD is played on a DVD player and the sound is fed through a NAD amp I can't help but feel that this set up produces a (at the same time) muddy and tinny sound), I ended up with a much more satisfying listen with the mp3s on my PC (I need to sort my sound system set up one of these days) and wallowed in some great tracks from Goldsmith's Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Some of the little-before heard tracks seem completely unrelated to what I am familiar with in this score: they sound quite different from the tracks heard on the original album. And I think that the Fred Steiner cues do seem to have a quality that is different to Goldsmith's score. In fact, Steiner's cues - to me - sound as though they have more in common with the music for the original TV series than with the movie (and that's not just related to the use of the TV theme).

Personally, all the music of their encounter with V'Ger - from "Meet V'Ger" through to "V'Ger Speaks" - amounts to some of the greatest music that Goldsmith ever composed. Melding (sorry) film scoring and SFX and blurring where one ends and the other begins, this is that part of the score that stands out as the greatest achievement. Yes, there are some outstanding tracks - e.g., "The Enterprise" & "Klingon Battle" - but the ingenuity of the previous sequence of cues is pure genius.