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Once Upon a Time...The Essential Ennio Morricone |
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Performed by The City of Prague Philharmonic Crouch End Festival Chorus Conducted by Paul Bateman, Nic Raine, Derek Wadsworth, and James Fitzpatrick Produced by James Fitzpatrick Release Date: October 5, 2004
As far as compilation albums go, Silva Screen records has definitely tapped that market. You can practically find any coverage of musical selections that you could ever think of, from sci-fi to western, historical to romance, and even albums that seek to cover whole film franchises of whatever ilk. If you can think it up, you can probably find it (or at least something similar) in their extensive catalogue. The best of these, however, tend to be The Essential [fill in the blank with your desired composer]. These particular albums group their selections on the basis of named composer, giving them slightly better structure among the whole album, and the cues don't stray too wildly between similar styles. Such is the case with this title. It presents a nice selection of cues from Ennio Morricone's scores spanning between 1964's A Fistful of Dollars and 1993's In the Line of Fire. The selections are all what one would expect from a well-rounded display of Morricone's musical prowess, especially in the Western section that makes up the majority of the content of the first disc. Most of his scores get one short sample track, but the better known films get multiple cue. Oddly though, on the Western side of the disc they are spanned between several cues from other films. Mildly annoying, but manageable. The Mission gets the most playing time, with a suite at the end of the second disc which comprises five cues from that score. One track that I greatly appreciated being on this album was the main title to The Thing. It instantly stands out due to its electronic nature, but since both the film and the score were so revolutionary, it stands to reason that it should be included, and it is the first Morricone compilation that has come my way to feature it. It is performed well, especially considering that this is not a typical piece. The performances of the other cues are enjoyable, and the sound quality is good as always, though as re-recordings go, there will be detractors. Still, I've always enjoyed the City of Prague Philharmonic and just can't bring myself to level any criticism worth mentioning. Sometimes they don't get it just right, but so what? The music is still enjoyable regardless, and Silva has done a good job with this compilation. |
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| Track Listing | |||
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Disc 1: The Wild West - Italian Style Suite for Orchestra, Choir, and Soprano
1 - Once Upon a Time in the West Man With the Harmonica (3:53) 2 - A Fistful of Dollars (3:27) 3 - For A Few Dollars More (3:25) 4 - Days of Heaven - The Harvest (2:56) 5 - The Five Man Army (2:48) 6 - Once Upon a Time in the West Jill's Theme (6:06) 7 - The Man from Shiloh (3:01) 8 - Guns for San Sebastian - Overture (3:47) 9 - Two Mules for Sister Sara (5:19) 10 - A Fistful of Dynamite Duck, You Sucker (4:08) 11 - My Name is Nobody (3:09) 12 - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Main Theme (2:52) 13 - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly The Ecstasy of Gold (3:03)
14 - Cinema Paradiso (3:32) 15 - Once Upon a Time in America Deborah's Theme (4:44) |
Disc 2 1 - The Untouchables - Main Theme (2:22) 2 - The Red Tent (3:36) 3 - The Sicilian Clan (4:06) 4 - Exorcist II: The Heretic Regan's Theme (2:37) 5 - Moses the Lawgiver (3:51) 6 - In the Line of Fire (4:05) 7 - The Thing (4:27) 8 - Le Professionnel - Chi Mai (5:37) 9 - Hamlet (2:38) 10 - 1900 - Romania (3:30) 11 - Casualties of War Elegy for Brown (3:51) 12 - Marco Polo (2:38)
The Mission Suite for Symphony, Orchestra, and Choir
13 - The Mission (2:58) 14 - Gabriel's Oboe (2:19) 15 - Ave Maria (Guarini) (2:31) 16 - On Earth As it Is in Heaven (3:31) 17 - Epilogue - The Falls (1:42) |
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| Total Running Time: 56:25 | Total Running Time: 66:17 | ||
