Reynold da Silva's Silva Screen Records label has amassed a considerable library of re-recorded film music, using (no doubt for economic reasons) the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. The company recycles the recordings in various configurations, and previous releases such as Herrmann/Hitchcock: A Partnership in Terror and Torn Curtain: The Classic Film Music of Bernard Herrmann have provided material for this entry in the Film Music Masterworks series of single-disc compilations devoted to Bernard Herrmann. (In fact ...
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Reynold da Silva's Silva Screen Records label has amassed a considerable library of re-recorded film music, using (no doubt for economic reasons) the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. The company recycles the recordings in various configurations, and previous releases such as Herrmann/Hitchcock: A Partnership in Terror and Torn Curtain: The Classic Film Music of Bernard Herrmann have provided material for this entry in the Film Music Masterworks series of single-disc compilations devoted to Bernard Herrmann. (In fact, the 13-track disc is actually an abridged version of the 28-track, two-disc set Bernard Herrmann: The Essential Film Music Collection, released only six months earlier.) Herrmann is very well represented on soundtrack albums, his own conducting of his music with the National Philharmonic Orchestra, and other re-creations of his film scores, and the City of Prague Philharmonic is not one of his great interpreters. Nevertheless, this album gives a sense of the range of his styles shaped to the needs of suspenseful films like Psycho, romances like The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, fantasy and science fiction movies like The Day the Earth Stood Still, and the urban psychological thriller Taxi Driver that proved to be his final effort. It's an inexpensive way to get a general sense of Herrmann's talent. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi
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