This disc was one of Ian Lace’s Recommended Original Film Score Recordings when first issued at full price as Marco Polo 8.223314. Here it resurfaces at upper bargain price.

Khachaturian, like many another composer, major and lesser, in Soviet Russia, turned his hand to the cinema and did so pretty extensively. This was a great leveller, a ready source of income and a means of reaching out to mass audiences across the Union. The pity is that we see so few of those films. If we think at all about them we much more readily accept seeing them written off as the work of political hacks. The composer’s first effort – of eighteen - was the film Pepo written for the Armenian Film Board a few years before his First Symphony (1934). His last film dated from 1960.

Here are suites assembled from the music for two of Khachaturian’s cinema scores. They are played for all they are worth. Adherents of this composer and of twentieth century music of the USSR will want to hear how he fared in dealing with the silver screen.

The Battle of Stalingrad original score ran to some two hours. The titles give us some impression of what is featured in this suite: I. A City on the Volga - II. The Invasion; IIIa. Stalingrad in Flames; IIIb. The Enemy is doomed; IV. For our Motherland; To the Attack! - Eternal Glory to the Heroes; V. To Victory - VI. There is a Cliff on the Volga. Much of this is urgent and not specially subtle – then again this is not meant to be about subtlety. The music often has a furious seething energy typical of the militaristic bravado found in the music for the Roman legionaries in Spartacus. We also hear little half-echoes of The Great Gate of Kiev. There are some glowing interludes such as that to be found in the almost Bridge-like battlefield bleakness of tr. 3 and at the close of tr. 4 (Eternal Glory to the Heroes). There are also moments that seem to evoke the composer’s great ballets – especially Spartacus. The cheery brassy march that is To Victory is noticeably purged of the ferocity to be found in the turbulent flag-waving first movement. This could almost be a march by Arthur Bliss. There’s a brass band version of the suite on Lawo which Nick Barnard did not think much of.

Both Chandos and Capriccio have done extensive series of the film music of Shostakovich. No such thorough efforts have gone in Khachaturian’s direction. There has been this single disc from Naxos and some film suites from ASV. Indeed fifteen minutes of Loris Tjeknavorian’s take on The Battle of Stalingrad was issued on Alto. It was originally issued with the Second Symphony.

If the Stalingrad score’s gaudy virtues are embraced, often at the expense of the more understated and nuanced, Othello from 1955 is much more multi-faceted. This is as befits a presumably fairly classy Shakespeare film in a translation made by Boris Pasternak – he of Doctor Zhivago fame. The Prologue and Intermezzo is especially touching with a memorable tolling solo violin which returns in the finale. There’s also some extremely inventive writing in a mode recalling Prokofiev who had died two years before this film. The Desdemona Arioso is a swellingly emotional vocalise for soprano with orchestra with more than few links with the famous Adagio from Spartacus. The little Venice Nocturne (tr.4) is a lovely miniature, showing as does much of this score, that Khachaturian is much more than a peddler of crushingly loud music. The grey psychological aspects of Nocturnal Murder make way for the intensity of Othello’s Despair. The urgently rushing A Fit of Jealousy will have you thinking of the ruthlessly athletic music for Crassus in Spartacus. If Khachaturian indulges in a Hollywood-style choir in the Finale – well, why not, and it is by no means cheesy.

The recording is extremely good despite its 25 year vintage. The notes by the conductor are helpful in placing the score and the films from which this music is drawn.

I hope that at some time, in a world where there are seemingly hundreds of film channels, we will get to see these films.

There you have it: specialist territory maybe but two very welcome substantial suites from the world of Khachaturian’s film music.

– Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

Click Here for the complete Naxos Film Music Classic Series

Shostakovich's film score to Hamlet is one of his finest, possibly because it's a serious film rather than a socialist-realist potboiler, and the composer's moody, mostly spare music supports the action with unfailing accuracy and makes compelling listening on its own. The well-known suite leaves out a lot of music, and while there's inevitably a degree of repetition involved, this complete recording is very welcome for its inclusion of such segments as "Hamlet's Parting from Ophelia", "Hamlet's Monologue", "Ophelia's Descent into Madness", "Hamlet at Ophelia's Grave", and "The Cemetery".

As you may have guessed from the titles, the added music creates a considerably darker overall impression than does the suite, and this in a work that begins with the "whip-crack" motive from the third movement of Shostakovich's not-exactly-jocose Thirteenth Symphony "Babi Yar". So it may not be the most emotionally varied score, but it does sound very Russian and very much like late Shostakovich, and conductor Dmitry Yablonsky treats it accordingly. He and his orchestra bring just as much conviction and intensity (try "The Ghost") as they would to one of the symphonies, and Naxos' sonics are vivid. Be sure, however, to get the regular stereo CD: the SACD is a failure, with way too much stuff coming from the rear channels. Definitely worth owning.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Full review from FANFARE Magazine:
Shakespeare’s indecisive hero played a persistent role in Shostakovich’s life. In 1932, the composer completed incidental music for a controversial stage production directed by Nikolai Akimov. Five years later, when the Fifth Symphony was completed, some commentators referred to it as the “Hamlet” Symphony because of its brooding and equivocal moods, and the composer himself did not escape comparisons with the great Dane. Given Shostakovich’s sizable experience with film scores, it was only natural for him to write the score to Grigori Kozintsev’s Hamlet in 1964. Over the years, there have been several recordings of the eight-item suite (op. 116a) that Lev Atovmian assembled from the score. This CD, however, appears to be the premiere recording of the complete score, including music that didn’t even make it into the film.

At this juncture, one usually makes the comment that Shostakovich’s film scores do not represent his best work, and that they shouldn’t be considered “typical” of his output. Even though I’ve made them myself, I’ve often found those comments a little condescending, however, and with Hamlet, we have music that is both top-of-the-line and typical of Shostakovich. To put this score in a chronological perspective, it is flanked by the 13th and 14th Symphonies, and it was completed in the same year as the Ninth and 10th String Quartets—hardly bad company! There’s much in Hamlet that is reminiscent of the composer’s very best work from this period. Shostakovich probably could write film music in his sleep, but it is clear that Hamlet engaged his attention and creativity in a very profound way.

Granted, not all the music is brilliant and essential—even 14-second fanfares have been included among these 23 tracks—but there’s much that is worth hearing outside of Atovmian’s suite. For example, the wonderfully eerie “Story of Horatio and the Ghost” might have been an outtake from the first movement of the 11th Symphony, and the five-minute “Hamlet’s Parting from Ophelia” proves once again that a note of music is worth a thousand words. A gently tinkling harpsichord aptly evokes both a courtly atmosphere and Ophelia’s emotional fragility. Hamlet’s music reveals his destructiveness and his nobility. And so it goes. Yes, there is some bombast here, yet it is bombast with a purpose—to evoke the empty pageantry of Claudius’s Elsinore, for example.

Yablonsky not only conducts this music passionately, he also plays it in its proper cinematic order. This is not true of Atovmian’s suite, in which the Players arrive after (!) they perform The Murder of Gonzago. As I suggested above, a few of the shorter cues are intrusive, but all in all, this CD is a satisfying listening experience, no matter what standard of judgment one uses.

Yablonsky is the son of pianist Oxana Yablonskaya, and he is accumulating quite a series of fine recordings for Naxos. Fine-sounding ones too, as the engineering is superb. Thirty years ago, who would have guessed that Russians would be making audiophile recordings in 2003? (I understand that there is an SACD version of this disc, too.)

If I had reviewed this disc a little earlier, I might have put it on my Want List for the year. The music, performances, and engineering are of the highest quality, and I can think of no better way to spend a leaden August (or November!) evening than to play this CD over and over again—which is exactly what I have done.

Raymond Tuttle, FANFARE

Click Here for the complete Naxos Film Music Classic Series

On its first appearance on the Marco Polo label, this recording was acclaimed as ‘a model of what these things should be’ (Fanfare) and that no release on the label was ‘better or more important than this’ (ClassicsToday.com). It presents a definitive restoration of Korngold’s music for the 1938 Warner Bros.’ production of The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring the ultimate swashbuckler, Errol Flynn, and still one of the most-loved of all motion pictures. Throughout—and to an unprecedented degree—Korngold captures its lavish spectacle, romance, colour, pageantry and humour in his magnificent score. Also included is the Original Theatre Trailer Music, not previously available on CD.

Ralph Vaughan Williams composed in a wide variety of genres, and film music became a significant part of his output in the latter decades of a long and distinguished career. He viewed film scores as more than just ephemera, seeking to "intensify" the spirit of the whole" in wartime productions such as the defiantly anti-Nazi 49th Parallel and Coastal Command, in which the graceful romance of sea-planes sends the spirits soaring. The haunting and evocative atmosphere of The Flemish Farm contrasts with Three Portraits that evoke the first Elizabethan age and announce the springtime of the second.

Classical Music

Shostakovich: Gadfly Suite (The) / Five Days-Five Nights Sui

Classical Music

The Truth about Love

Irving Berlin was one of the first and one of the most prolific of tunesmiths who wrote for the Broadway stage and for Hollywood musicals. Furthermore, like Cole Porter but unlike the majority of tunesmiths who worked with lyricists, Berlin wrote both tunes and lyrics. Here we have 19 of his most popular tunes in instrumentals arranged for brass bands. The band in question is the Chestnut Brass Company, founded in Philadelphia in 1977. Most of the tunes are up-tempo, but there are also some more wistful tracks like 'When I lost you', 'What'll I do?' and 'They say it's wonderful'. No Berlin collection would be complete of course without 'White Christmas', which sounds surprisingly poignant in this mellow brass arrangement.

Classical Music

SHOSTAKOVICH New Babylon. A Year Is like a Lifetime • Frank Strobel, cond; Kai Adomeit (pn); Southwest German RO Kaiserslautern • HÄNSSLER 93.188 (2 CDs: 135.49)


New Babylon is not one of Shostakovich’s standard, propagandistic, political potboilers. This is the music of the enfant terrible of Soviet music. Composed in 1928 immediately following his satirical opera, The Nose , the score for the silent film New Babylon reflects Shostakovich’s lifelong fascination with the cinema and his experience as a piano accompanist for silent films. The film’s directors, Grigori Kosintev and Leonid Trauberg, were considered to be avant-garde, if that were possible at the time. New Babylon deals with the rebellion of the Paris commune in 1870–71, with a superimposed tragic love story between a working girl and a bourgeois soldier. Shostakovich had recently completed his brilliant First Symphony, and the directors immediately wanted him to score the film. Shostakovich’s music is laced with dissonance, acerbic wit, bitonality, and flirts with atonality. The composer utilizes numerous fragmentary quotations from sources as disparate as Offenbach, Tchaikovsky, and the Marseillaise.


An abridged Melodiya version conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky was released in 1976 by CBS, and a more-or-less complete recording has been recently available on Capriccio conducted by James Judd. That was the most definitive recording, at least in terms of completeness, prior to the appearance of this one. The program notes state that this complete reconstructed version—including all the music cut from the film—is based on the composer’s personal manuscripts stored in the Glinka museum in Moscow and the orchestral parts and piano score printed for the premiere. The manuscript was edited by the D-S-C-H publishing house and cross-referenced to a proof copy from the composer’s personal estate. In addition, Frank Strobel synchronized the newly edited music with the 1929 premiere version of the film. All of this is not surprising when you consider Strobel’s incredible reconstruction of Prokofiev’s complete score for Alexander Nevsky ( Fanfare 28:3).


There appears to be no reason to doubt the authenticity of this version, but it really doesn’t matter because Strobel’s performance and Hänssler’s sound are superior to the previous Capriccio recording. Capriccio’s soft edged, more distantly miked sound does not serve the music as well as the more brash, brassy, and closely miked sonics on this recording. There is over an hour and a half of outrageous, funky, melodic but gently dissonant music reminiscent of The Nose and his impish ballets. Strobel’s conducting, aided by incisive and dynamic sound, is flamboyant as befits the music. Shostakovich’s bad-boy early style is an acquired taste for some, but if you have any interest in this aspect of Shostakovich’s art, New Babylon will be a treasure.


A Year Is like a Lifetime is an entirely different story, but is not without interest. It begins with three cues featuring straightforward, bombastic statements of the ubiquitous Marseillaise (as opposed to the fragmentary references and variations in New Babylon ), urgent low strings, strident brass, and slashing snare drums. But at the end of the “Intermezzo” a strange thing happens. The music subsides into pianissimo quivering strings and tolling bells from the sound world of the 11th Symphony. Then a 15-minute subdued, atmospheric, and introspective “Farewell” featuring a plaintive French horn solo is clearly the emotional and musical heart of the score. It is followed by a delicious, tongue-in-cheek waltz and a brief reappearance of some faceless battle music. The suite concludes with the horn solo and music of the “Farewell,” now more upbeat in a surprisingly understated way, with wind and brass chords embellished by lush, rising and falling string configurations building to a climax that Golden Age film music fans will love. Thus the noisy bombast offers contrast rather than dominating a score that remains cinematic, but is predominantly subdued and eminently likeable in the style of The Song of the Forests oratorio.


This album is a clear winner in every conceivable way. The music, performance, and sound make it required listening for any adventurous listener interested in the music of Shostakovich beyond the symphonies and string quartets.


FANFARE: Arthur Lintgen

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

A calendar filled with orchestral concerts and chamber recitals in many of the world’s most prestigious venues has given the clarinettist Martin Fröst ample opportunity to develop a wide range of encores, for every occasion. Known for the imaginatively themed concert programmes he devises with various musician friends, he has also explored a number of musical genres. These aspects of his artistry are both demonstrated on this constantly engaging disc, which includes immortal gems such as Rachmaninov’s Vocalise and Kreisler’s Liebeslied as well as pieces rather less usual in a classical context: Charlie Chaplin’s Smile and the klezmer traditional Let’s Be Happy rubbing shoulders with an improvisation over the Nat King Cole standard Nature Boy. Throughout the programme Fröst receives the expert support of the pianist Roland Pöntinen, a chamber music partner of long standing who has also been involved in devising many of the imaginative arrangements, for instance of Vittorio Monti’s Csárdás. Three other musical companions of Fröst’s make cameo appearances, with mezzo-soprano Malena Ernman joining the clarinet in the head-long flight of not one, but two bumble-bees. Torleif Thedéen’s cello sings a heartfelt Ave Maria above the gyrating accompaniment of Fröst’s clarinet, while Svante Henryson, also a cellist, plays in his own duo piece Off Pist, in which the clarinet and cello chase each other up and down alpine slopes. Martin Fröst’s spectacular career on disc began in 1995, with one of his first CD reviews, in In Tune Magazine, describing him as ‘A Swedish Clarinet Star’, and continuing ‘Fröst has everything – including genius’. More than 10 discs later his recording of Bernard Crusell’s three clarinet concertos caused the reviewer in French Classica-Répertoire to remark that ‘in every movement his playing hits upon the appropriate elegance, the perfect phrasing, the true colour, the required virtuosity, the necessary playfulness ... as he pursues his musical intentions all the way’ – a description that could equally well be applied to the present disc!.

Superheroes!, the latest release from John Morris Russell and the Cincinnati Pops, showcases some of Hollywood’s grandest musical scores from recent blockbusters, such as The Avengers, The Dark Knight, Iron Man 2, X-Men: The Last Stand, Thor, Spider-Man, and Captain America: The First Avenger, and also features themes from television classics including “The Adventures of Superman,” “Wonder Woman,” “The Incredible Hulk,” “Batman,” “Super Friends,” and more. This action-packed collection, with a special appearance by actor Adam West (“Batman,” 1960s), pays tribute to the heroes of our imagination and celebrates the wonderful creativity of Hollywood’s most accomplished and acclaimed composers. Also includes the world premiere of The Launch (Conduktor’s Theme).

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Directed by Julian Jarrold, Evelyn Waugh's novel, Brideshead Revisited receives its first cinematic adaptation this summer with a cast which includes Academy-Award winner Emma Thompson, Michael Gambon, Matthew Goode, Hayley Atwell and Ben Whishaw. The screenplay is written by Jeremy Brock and Andrew Davies. Brideshead Revisited follows the memoirs of Charles Ryder and his involvement with the Flyte family who own the Brideshead Estate. It relives the hedonistic days of 1920s Oxford University and tells an evocative story of forbidden love and the loss of innocence with particular focus on Charles's relationship with brother and sister, Sebastian and Julia and their mother, Lady Marchmain. Chandos is delighted to have been given the opportunity to record Adrian Johnston's soundtrack, the first original film score on Chandos Movies. Having won both BAFTA and Emmy Awards for his scores, Adrian Johnston has had an impressive career in television and film to date including Becoming Jane, Kinky Boots, The Mayor of Casterbridge and White Teeth. Adrian Johnston writes of the Brideshead Revisited recording "I was thrilled to have an opportunity to work with Chandos - a label whose philosophy I have always liked, and whose CDs of Philip Lane's fine film score reconstruction I have particularly admired. I know that to release a 'non historical' film score was somewhat of a departure for the label, but I hope that Brideshead Revisited can somehow exist as a Chandos product, and perhaps open up the way for future film music collaborations." The BBC Philharmonic is conducted by Olivier Award winner Terry Davies who has a wide range of credits in film, theatre and TV including Shakespeare in Love, Becoming Jane, House of Mirth and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

GERSHWIN (THE BEST OF)

Choral Concert: United States Air Force Singing Sergeants -

This month Chandos Movies, one of the best known film music labels in the industry, turns its spotlight on one of Britain's most prolific film composers. While some may not be familiar with the name Stanley Black, most people of a certain generation could hum a tune or two of his! Stanley Black produced music for projects as diverse as 'The Goon Show', 'Summer Holiday', 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' and 'Jack the Ripper'. He was an enormously versatile composer who could produce music from the wildly romantic through the comedic to the bloodcurdingly gruesome with equal élan. The BBC Concert Orchestra obviously relishes this music and performs it with great zest and enthusiasm. All these film scores have been specially arranged by Stephen Hogger for the concert hall and this is their first commercial recording.

� A legend in British concert halls, Sir Malcolm Arnold was also in demand as a composer of film music in Hollywood and beyond. � Including an overture for the New York premiere, the score for The Roots of Heaven adds drama and atmosphere to the story of one man's crusade to save African elephants from extinction. � David Copperfield was Arnold's last film score and one of his most expressive and memorable, summed up as 'truly amazing' by director Delbert Mann. � Classics Today.com has described this recording as 'a treat for Arnold fans and movie buffs alike. ' � Recorded at the Mosfilm Studio, Moscow, 4-7 April 2000 by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra conducted by William Stromberg. � The score restorations were realized by John W. Morgan, who, with Mr. Stromberg amongst others has, since the early 90s, worked in reconstructing and re-recording the great symphonic film scores composed during Hollywood's Golden Age of the mid 30s to the late 50s.

Victor Young was one of Hollywood's busiest and most esteemed film composers, his upbeat and engaging style ensuring that viewers left the cinema with a catchy tune in their ears. His lively circus march captures the spirit of The Greatest Show on Earth, and his Broadway-cum-Rachmaninov and eerie score for The Uninvited with it's hit tune Stella by Starlight was pivotal to arguably the best Hollywood ghost story ever produced. The animated Gulliver's Travels relied heavily for it's charm and dramatic impact on Young's fabulous orchestrations, while the tobacco dynasty drama Bright Leaf inspired one of his most restrained and thoughtful film scores.

On five previous discs the astonishing tuba player Øystein Baadsvik has demonstrated his incredible versatility as a musician, while at the same time establishing that ‘anything a violin can do, a tuba can do too’, to quote a review in the Daily Telegraph of his first disc on BIS, Tuba Carnival. As Baadsvik writes in his own liner notes to the present disc: 'Every tuba player soon learns to live with people’s “oompah-oompah” prejudices, but rarely have these been challenged more boldly than here. Never before has there been a Christmas record with symphony orchestra, women’s choir and tuba!' The programme consists of lavish arrangements of Baadsvik’s own international and Nordic Christmas favourites. As befits the season, the offering contains a few surprises as well – such as Eatnemen Vuelie, inspired by joik, the traditional singing of the Sami people, and a snowy version of Baadsvik’s own piece Fnugg (‘flakes’), with elements of beat-boxing as well as the sound of the Australian didgeridoo. With the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra lending the music all the variety and uplift that only a large orchestra can provide, and the glittering voices of the Cantus choir adding a festive glow, Baadsvik's tuba carries the day - atmospheric and joyous, tuneful and meditative by turns.

Classical Music

John Huston’s 1956 film adaptation of Melville’s epic novel Moby Dick is a genuine grand movie adventure. For it, Phillip Sainton (1897-1967) produced one of the most vibrant “sea scores” ever written, from the shimmering, rhapsodic depictions of the becalmed ocean to the thrilling, earth-shaking whale motif. Including music omitted from the soundtrack, this recording was widely acclaimed upon its original release, with Gramophone considering the score to be “music of richly stocked imagination…” “… anyone who enjoys Finzi and Howells will find Sainton’s music equally appealing …” (ClassicsToday)

Addinsell: Goodbye Mr. Chips - A Tale of Two Cities