CINEMA CENTURY VOLUME II
VARIOUS
Rating: 
Original Review: Part II of Silva Screen's musical celebration of the Centenary of the Cinema picks up where Volume I left off, covering the years 1960-1981, beginning with one of my favourite themes on the album: Dimitri Tiomkin's The Alamo overture, a wistful, longing track which makes great use of muted trumpets. Overall, I think this is a the best of the three volumes, mainly because of the wide variety of styles it encompasses and, in the majority, it contains music I hadn't heard before. Henry Mancini's great bassoon theme from The Pink Panther is a sexy and stylish little number; the Great Escape march by Elmer Bernstein has since been immortalised in TV commercials, but is still gives a great sense of wartime brotherhood; John Barry's theme from Zulu is big, bold and dramatic, with a great lumbering drumbeat underscoring the brass-based melody; and Ennio Morricone's beautiful, seductive theme from Once Upon A Time In The West with its lilting strings and heavenly chorus. There are, of course, a number of legendary themes thrown in there as well, including two from Maurice Jarre: Lawrence of Arabia, with its exotic opening (reminiscent of the opening to Casablanca) and immortal sweeping orchestrations, and Lara's Theme from Doctor Zhivago; Mikis Theodorakis' brilliant dance from Zorba the Greek which makes wonderful use of ethnic instruments and quickens throughout the cue before ending in a dazzling pizzicato frenzy; John Barry's The Lion in Winter, which has a noble authority and grand brass fanfares; Nino Rota's finest hour captured in The Godfather Waltz which, despite its beauty, always frightens me a little as well (probably visions of horses heads haunting me) and two from John Williams which really need no description - Jaws and Star Wars. The only one I don't really like is Bernard Herrmann's score for Taxi Driver, which sounds a little all-over-the-place and doesn't have any real harmony to it. This piece has possibly the most interesting story linked to it though, because Herrmann died just hours after completing the recording of it in 1976.
Track Listing:
- Overture from The Alamo (Dimitri Tiomkin) (3:22)
- Main Theme from The Pink Panther (Henry Mancini) (2:47)
- Overture from Lawrence Of Arabia (Maurice Jarre) (4:24)
- March from The Great Escape (Elmer Bernstein) (2:17)
- Main Theme from 633 Squadron (Ron Goodwin) (2:59)
- Theme from Zulu (John Barry) (2:16)
- Zorba's Dance from Zorba The Greek (Mikis Theodorakis) (4:21)
- Lara's Theme from Doctor Zhivago (Maurice Jarre) (3:17)
- Theme from Born Free (John Barry) (2:46)
- Main Title from The Lion In Winter (John Barry) (2:22)
- Theme from Once Upon A Time In The West (Ennio Morricone) (6:03)
- Theme from Where Eagles Dare (Ron Goodwin) (3:20)
- Theme from Midnight Cowboy (John Barry) (3:59)
- Train Montage from The Wild Bunch (Jerry Fielding) (6:42)
- The Godfather Waltz from The Godfather (Nino Rota) (2:30)
- Theme from Jaws (John Williams) (2:15)
- Fanfare / Gonna Fly Now from Rocky (Bill Conti) (4:40)
- A Nightpiece fr Saxophone ad Orchestra from Taxi Driver (Bernard Herrmann) (8:01)
- Main Theme from Star Wars (John Williams) (5:24)
- Ebben? Ne Andro Lontano from La Wally from Diva (Alfredo Catalani, performed by Lesley Garrett) (3:37)
Running Time: 77 minutes 45 seconds
Silva Screen FILMCD-180-2
Conducted by Paul Bateman, Mike Townend, Tony Bremner, Nic Raine, Derek Wadsworth, Carmine Coppola and Andrew Greenwood. Performed by The City of Prague Philharmonic, The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, The Philharmonia, The Milan Philharmonic and The London Screen Orchestra. Orchestrations by Nic Raine, Mark McGurty, Henry Mancini, Don Wilkerson, Carmine Coppola, Peter Smith, Mike Townend and Christopher Palmer. Recorded and mixed by John L. Timperley, Mike Ross-Trevor, Eric Tomlinson, Dick Lewzey and Mark Ayres. Album produced by Alan Smithee.
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These web pages were designed and maintained by Jonathan Broxton copyright 1997. All opinions and views expressed on these pages are my own and are in no way intended to reflect those of my employer, the Trent Institute for Health Services Research, or those of the University of Sheffield.