FSM presents two classic WWII adventure scores from Silver Age greats in complete form: The Bridge at Remagen (1969) by Elmer Bernstein and The Train (1964) by Maurice Jarre.

The Bridge at Remagen was a large-scale dramatization of efforts to control the crucial Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine in Remagen, Germany, during the closing days of WWII. George Segal, Ben Gazzara and Robert Vaughn play participants on both sides of the conflict. The film was produced by acclaimed documentarian David L. Wolper, and blended traditional combat scenes with a humanistic look at the costs of war.

Elmer Bernstein's score to The Bridge at Remagen—making its premiere album release—has long been desired by fans of the composer and the genre. It features a majestic, stirring main title theme, one of Bernstein's best, the kind of piece that turns an average cinemagoer into a film music buff. Despite the score's brevity—less than a half-hour of music for a two-hour film—it features thrilling large-scale moments as well intimate, humanistic cues recalling, of all things, Bernstein's mastery of writing music for children.

The Train was John Frankenheimer's first large-scale action film and is today regarded as the last great black-and-white action-adventure. Burt Lancaster turns in a dynamic, athletic performance as a French railway inspector (and resistance operative) who leads an effort to stop a train full of classic French art from reaching Germany during the Nazi withdrawal from France. The film offers an ingenious chess match of manipulation between Lancaster and a cultured yet obsessed Nazi colonel (Paul Scofield) and a significant intellectual dimension, weighing the costs of art vs. human life.

Maurice Jarre's pulsating music for The Train drives the gritty physical action. Whereas Bernard Herrmann's "black and white" score for Psycho features solely strings, Jarre turns the "black and white" concept on its head to provide nothing but color. He omits strings from his orchestra, leaving woodwinds, percussion, brass and accordion, turning the train into a living, breathing creature that is equated with Lancaster in unstoppable power. Jarre's percussive, snarling textures provide action and tension, while his distinctive melodies put a uniquely French heart into the patriotic effort to preserve the art.

The Bridge at Remagen is a score long thought to be lost, but Elmer Bernstein kept 1/4" monaural tapes of the recording sessions which have been used for this premiere release—though there is a fair amount of overmodulation (distortion). The Train portion of this CD features the (electronic) stereo album master followed by previously unreleased cues in monaural sound as derived from the film's dubbing stems (as included on the deluxe laserdisc and DVD of the film). Liner notes are by Lukas Kendall.