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The book sounds REALLY interesting. The SAE CoC is one of the best reccomendations you've given me, Yavar (and that's saying a lot, considering I'm pretty sure you've been batting 1000 in that area for me).
I'm so glad to hear it! It is not only my favorite Alfred Newman score, but possibly also my favorite Golden Age score. A dozen or more great and varied themes. The superb liner notes will tell you that (as Rozsa often did) he spent a great deal of time researching Spanish and Native American music for the score, and I think it shows in his material, quite different from anything that had come out in Hollywood up to that point. I did grow up with the film so there's some nostalgia factoring it, but I really think it may be the most impressive score Newman ever wrote. And the Conquest march was so popular it became the fight song for USC's football team. I was totally unaware and this really threw me for a loop the first time I heard it: I had applied to USC and was visiting their campus, and their band started playing this great Alfred Newman piece! I had thought they had just selected it to perform and I couldn't believe my ears, hearing this familiar melody I never expected to hear live, much less by a modern marching band at the university I was planning to attend. It was only later that I found out they played it all the time, but it made an amazing first impression on me and I thought, "THESE ARE MY PEOPLE" ... ha!
You definitely should check out the novel if you have the time. I'll warn you that it does get pretty dark and graphic in the second half, which realistically covers the actual conquest of Mexico (and how horrible the Spanish were). It's no surprise that Hollywood decided they would only adapt the first half of the novel (the other reason being length, of course).
Yavar
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The book sounds REALLY interesting. The SAE CoC is one of the best reccomendations you've given me, Yavar (and that's saying a lot, considering I'm pretty sure you've been batting 1000 in that area for me).
I'm so glad to hear it! It is not only my favorite Alfred Newman score, but possibly also my favorite Golden Age score. A dozen or more great and varied themes. The superb liner notes will tell you that (as Rozsa often did) he spent a great deal of time researching Spanish and Native American music for the score, and I think it shows in his material, quite different from anything that had come out in Hollywood up to that point. I did grow up with the film so there's some nostalgia factoring it, but I really think it may be the most impressive score Newman ever wrote. And the Conquest march was so popular it became the fight song for USC's football team. I was totally unaware and this really threw me for a loop the first time I heard it: I had applied to USC and was visiting their campus, and their band started playing this great Alfred Newman piece! I had thought they had just selected it to perform and I couldn't believe my ears, hearing this familiar melody I never expected to hear live, much less by a modern marching band at the university I was planning to attend. It was only later that I found out they played it all the time, but it made an amazing first impression on me and I thought, "THESE ARE MY PEOPLE" ... ha!
You definitely should check out the novel if you have the time. I'll warn you that it does get pretty dark and graphic in the second half, which realistically covers the actual conquest of Mexico (and how horrible the Spanish were). It's no surprise that Hollywood decided they would only adapt the first half of the novel (the other reason being length, of course).
Yavar
That's amazing about USC, what a magical coincidence! The spirit of Alfred the Great.
The booklet was obviously done by people who love the music, it's rare things get THIS thorough yet engaging with a release.
You know, I'm deliriously happy about the upcoming Tadlow KoK...but wouldn't this make an astounding rerecording? I mean, from the amount of Westerns it's likely they'd turn to How the West Was Won first (wouldn't mind that either  ). But just think how great CoC would sound...
I'll look into the book, but I'm still deep into my Rozsa studies. The scores and the awesome Pro Musica Sana issues on both King of Kings and Ben Hur have been keeping me smilingly busy 
I'm just crazy about my Chosen Three lol! The new Jerry stuff is terrific too.
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There are so many scores that I love by Alfred, especially Greatest Story Ever Told but multitudinous others...but lately Diary of Anne Frank has been really standing out.
One of the things I love most about Diary is how personal the overall score comes across as a whole; to me it sounds like a sound world that you can immerse yourself into. Kind of like getting to know a unique personality intimately, far more intimately than a dozen meetings might yield.
It's a terrible shame that Alfred's music doesn't sell like Bernard and Miklos', as scores like this and Song of Bernadette are not too far from irreparably old, and would make outstanding rerecordings imo.
There are so many scores I'd love to see get the Tadlow treatment, but to me Alfred is the most strikingly neglected. I also do take into account the fact that many learned folk think any rerecording might suffer when not conducted by the composer, but hey I'm not sure I'm quite THAT picky lol!
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I'm relieved, WA, you like David And Bathsheba. I haven't really hit the nail with the hammer all that hard, however, when Kritzerland presented their release initially, I mentioned the tambourine had a lot of attention in the score. I'm not at all certain if the tamb had more emphasis in other typical productions, but it's there in buckets and spades in D & B, relatively speaking.
There's also one more thing which I tried to throw in as a point of discussion and that is right at the start of the D & B MT, you've got the orchestral double entrant statement. In the first brass flourish, the tamb more or less is timed to coincide with all else. In the second, there is an interesting delay tactic used in bringing in the second brass statement. The question is, the tamb in that second statement is slightly out of synch because it comes in advance of the brass. Is this a mistake on the part of the tamb, or was it actually intended that way? That quirk gives the orchestra's entry slightly extra flavor as a result, or, so methinks. Originally, I had wondered whether these slightly unorthodox techniques of, perhaps, deliberately mistiming certain orchestral cues might have had some underlying stylistic architectural motivation/consideration?
I'm inclined to think it was intentional. One of my favorite aspects of Alfred Newman's music is how (like the best of the other composers) he seemed to write at least as much for other composers, musicians, and himself (as opposed to McScoring disposably for the sheep). His writing itself portrays a welcome self-consciousness, as if he wanted to make sure he himself would get something out of the music with each repeated listen. I refer to them as little treasures (and btw thank you for all of them Alfred!). They are in each of the scores I own of his (and that's not a small collection anymore ).
I learned myself a long time ago as to the importance of happy accidents, and I think those are evident in both Alfred and Jerry's works (especially the 60s and 70s Jerry, though there were wonderful "mistakes on purpose" (tiny tuning goofs, timing oddities, etc).
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Why is there no archival recording of the complete score to WUTHERING HEIGHTS? An inferior b**t was released some time ago.
I was told to pass on the inferior bt.
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I respect Alfred Newman's' numerous contributions to film music as any other Composer & related to the great film music family!
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Also, don't forget Newman as an adapter and conductor of the music of others. The Capitol/Angel soundtrack albums from CAROUSEL and THE KING AND I, especially, are superb.
I’ve recently been listening to some of Newman’s arrangements for some of those musicals (particularly South Pacific) and I find myself remembering what a fantastic gift he had for bringing those classic Rodgers and Hammerstein melodies to life (while I adore Irwin Kostal’s arrangements for The Sound of Music, I can’t help but wonder what Alfred would have done with it had he not been caught up on Greatest Story Ever Told). It would be really great if one of the labels (Kritzerland, Intrada, or LLL) could work something out with the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization to put out expanded editions of his work on those films.
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