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Posted: |
Aug 22, 2015 - 5:13 PM
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By: |
bobbengan
(Member)
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There's been a lot of good stuff from Nic Raine and the City of Prague Philharmonic.
It's fun tracing their trajectory from some not-so-hot early recordings (An utterly messy suite from John Scott's "Antony and Cleopatra" and a weirdly lazy-sounding version of Trevor Jones' end title from "Arachnophobia" come to mind immediately, as does their clunky "Battle Beyond the Stars" suite) to a more robust and confident sound by the late 90's with amazing suites from Nascimbene's "One Million Years BC", my personal faovrite rendition of Elmer Bernstein's Taarna Theme from "Heavy Metal" (Raine just freaking nails its tempo, Ravelian ornamentation and breathtaking lyricism better than Bernstein did himself), an awesome iteration of Mancini's "Lifeforce" march, etc.
Their Williams career sampler album is terrific too - Love their slightly accelerated "Spacecamp" theme and achingly lovely "Jane Eyre" as well as their take on the handful of romantic themes gracing the Star Wars saga, too.
I consider the heartbreaking, sumptuous orchestral version they did of Goldsmith's theme from "The Russia House" to be a brilliant achievement that leaves the synth-n-sax original sounding like cheap elevator music bereft of emotion by comparison (let the hate mail begin - sorry, synth Jerry + my least favorite instrument in the world, not a good combo for my conservatively orchestral millennial ears).
Their take of John Scott's fantastic finale/end title music from "King Kong Lives" is also great, with the impressionistic woodwind flourishes far more prominent in the mix than in the original album, and the slightly accelerated tempo actually working in the theme's favor even if the thundering call and response between the horns and percussion at the onset of the end title portion of the cue is no match for the original's expansive brilliance.
Always loved that muscular, forceful "Omen" suite a great deal too.
Nowadays, of course, these guys are almost always on fire from a performance standpoint. Their "Conan" re-recordings are, well, freaking awesome works of art and their take on "El Cid" is, for me, THE version of El Cid for listening enjoyment and performance prowess.
I have ONE criticism of Raine and the CPPO in their current form - And it has nothing to do with Rain's work as a conductor or the orchestra's performance directly, per se.
I wish the (otherwise usually excellent) sound quality imbuing these recordings had more expansive REVERB -Especially for the golden or silver age scores. Rozsa's QUO VADIS comes to mind. Earlier recordings of the love theme in particular had that wonderfully vast sound to the strings that we never hear anymore, and to me the rather dry sound of the strings in some of these recordings (who also, frankly, weren't in top "emotional" form on the Quo Vadis recording in my book, sounding like they're hitting all the notes but not truly playing the MUSIC the way they did so brilliantly in the El Cid or elsewhere) somewhat undermines the sumptuous nature of the music itself. It's for this very reason that I much prefer the original version of Conan's "Love Theme" as well; The strings there just sound so much more velvety and rich and lush than in Raine's otherwise vastly improved recording.
This problem also graces their take of Roque Banos' gut-wrenching 'Come Back to Me' from his "Evil Dead" score; the strings sound oddly flat in both their recording and hugely mechanical in their playing. It takes the emotion out of what I consider one of the most emotionally-devastating pieces of music ever written for a horror film.
This is, of course, a purely a personal qualm for me - These guys have and continue to be an invaluable asset to the world of film music and in a number of instances, the aforementioned "Russia House" especially for me, their recordings often vastly supersede others out there by a long shot.
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Posted: |
Aug 22, 2015 - 8:57 PM
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By: |
Tadlow
(Member)
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There's been a lot of good stuff from Nic Raine and the City of Prague Philharmonic.
It's fun tracing their trajectory from some not-so-hot early recordings (An utterly messy suite from John Scott's "Antony and Cleopatra" and a weirdly lazy-sounding version of Trevor Jones' end title from "Arachnophobia" come to mind immediately, as does their clunky "Battle Beyond the Stars" suite) to a more robust and confident sound by the late 90's with amazing suites from Nascimbene's "One Million Years BC", my personal faovrite rendition of Elmer Bernstein's Taarna Theme from "Heavy Metal" (Raine just freaking nails its tempo, Ravelian ornamentation and breathtaking lyricism better than Bernstein did himself), an awesome iteration of Mancini's "Lifeforce" march, etc.
Their Williams career sampler album is terrific too - Love their slightly accelerated "Spacecamp" theme and achingly lovely "Jane Eyre" as well as their take on the handful of romantic themes gracing the Star Wars saga, too.
I consider the heartbreaking, sumptuous orchestral version they did of Goldsmith's theme from "The Russia House" to be a brilliant achievement that leaves the synth-n-sax original sounding like cheap elevator music bereft of emotion by comparison (let the hate mail begin - sorry, synth Jerry + my least favorite instrument in the world, not a good combo for my conservatively orchestral millennial ears).
Their take of John Scott's fantastic finale/end title music from "King Kong Lives" is also great, with the impressionistic woodwind flourishes far more prominent in the mix than in the original album, and the slightly accelerated tempo actually working in the theme's favor even if the thundering call and response between the horns and percussion at the onset of the end title portion of the cue is no match for the original's expansive brilliance.
Always loved that muscular, forceful "Omen" suite a great deal too.
Nowadays, of course, these guys are almost always on fire from a performance standpoint. Their "Conan" re-recordings are, well, freaking awesome works of art and their take on "El Cid" is, for me, THE version of El Cid for listening enjoyment and performance prowess.
I have ONE criticism of Raine and the CPPO in their current form - And it has nothing to do with Rain's work as a conductor or the orchestra's performance directly, per se.
I wish the (otherwise usually excellent) sound quality imbuing these recordings had more expansive REVERB -Especially for the golden or silver age scores. Rozsa's QUO VADIS comes to mind. Earlier recordings of the love theme in particular had that wonderfully vast sound to the strings that we never hear anymore, and to me the rather dry sound of the strings in some of these recordings (who also, frankly, weren't in top "emotional" form on the Quo Vadis recording in my book, sounding like they're hitting all the notes but not truly playing the MUSIC the way they did so brilliantly in the El Cid or elsewhere) somewhat undermines the sumptuous nature of the music itself. It's for this very reason that I much prefer the original version of Conan's "Love Theme" as well; The strings there just sound so much more velvety and rich and lush than in Raine's otherwise vastly improved recording.
This problem also graces their take of Roque Banos' gut-wrenching 'Come Back to Me' from his "Evil Dead" score; the strings sound oddly flat in both their recording and hugely mechanical in their playing. It takes the emotion out of what I consider one of the most emotionally-devastating pieces of music ever written for a horror film.
This is, of course, a purely a personal qualm for me - These guys have and continue to be an invaluable asset to the world of film music and in a number of instances, the aforementioned "Russia House" especially for me, their recordings often vastly supersede others out there by a long shot.
Many thanks for your kind comments....first time I've been accused of not adding enough reverb! Duely noted re Quo Vadis...although with The Alamo this I kept totally dry as it suited the music. Each recording I treat differently in the mix....I am sure you will love Sodom as the performance is stunning and we went for a more "classical" sound....
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TxIrish, here's the list you want:
http://www.tadlowmusic.com/category/catalogue/
[Masters of Light, Shores of Hope, A North Country Lass, The Lark Ascending, and Far From the Madding Crowd are not entirely conducted by Nic Raine. The Message/Lion of the Desert is not played by the CPPO.]
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Posted: |
Aug 23, 2015 - 12:55 AM
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By: |
Tadlow
(Member)
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TxIrish, here's the list you want:
http://www.tadlowmusic.com/category/catalogue/
[Masters of Light, Shores of Hope, A North Country Lass, The Lark Ascending, and Far From the Madding Crowd are not entirely conducted by Nic Raine. The Message/Lion of the Desert is not played by the CPPO.]
But not included there are all the recordings I did with Nic for Silva like Lion in Winter, Last Valley, Zulu, Robin and Marian, Raise the Titanic, plus all the composer collections......
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