A few of the tracks seem fairly obligatory, notably Duel of the Fates from The Phantom Menace, which was undoubtedly one of the musical highlights of the film. However, like pretty much all of the re-recordings so far, it fails to capture the precise tempo and concise playing of the original and here the performance leaves a lot to be desired. The massed ranks of the choir is simply too heavy and lethargic to give it the athleticism it needs. The largeness of the choir is something of a hindrance elsewhere such as during Glory where again the choir needs some lightness, but comes across as a musical monolith unable to drive the music forward as it clearly demands. The less said about the fairly limp performance of Wagner's most famous work, Ride of the Valkyries the better, which manages to be loud, but not actually exciting.
Of course, there are some stand out tracks which work very well. The selections from Walton's marvellous Henry V are old hat for compilations, but sound good here as do some of the more obscure selections from The Lion in Winter. In this just the acappella quasi medieval music and not the more obviously Barry sounding main titles. Dune comes out nicely in this format distilling the best parts of the score into a well arranged suite and made me realise how much some of the synth layered action music sounds like Basil Poledouris. The Sonnenscheins from Maurice Jarre's often passed up Sunshine is another very welcome inclusion. Fans of Bruce Broughton will doubtless be delighted to catch a whiff of his infamous Young Sherlock Holmes score even if this particular section is one of the more obvious Carmina Burana sound alikes and not terribly representative of the score as a whole.
The two marvellous selections from Kilar will hopefully give his skills some more main stream appeal, his gorgeous Vocalise from The Ninth Gate being particularly notable, even if his scary Dracula titles are just a fraction repetitive. Amistad is a victim of attempting to make the chorus sound too impressive and forthright, although Hymn to the Fallen comes across with notable restraint, even if the up front acoustic doesn't work to the music's advantage. Paul Anka's marching song from The Longest Day re-asserts my belief that choral music shouldn't be in English and that marching songs are best left to the Russians. The suite from Starman is one of those themes you vaguely recall, but can't quite place it - somewhere into James Horner Cocoon type territory. Unfortunately, it gives the impression that Nitzsche doesn't really know what to do with his terrific melody and it simply repeats with ever more needlessly complex orchestrations.
The album is brought right up to date with Vide Cor Meum from Hannibal, composed by Patrick Cassidy. While usually I would usually be annoyed that none of the original score was included, in this instance, Cassidy's contribution far outstripped most of Hans Zimmer's fairly mediocre underscore. Not a terrible compilation by any means, but for most film music fans unlikely to contain much new or of note and while the re-recording performances are generally fairly good, the don't improve on the originals. I would still stick to the first two which were superior in both choice and performance.
Rating ~ Total Time ~ 74:33
The first two Cinema Choral Classics albums from Silva are two of the best compilations they've produced, mainly on the strength of the Crouch End Festival Chorus. As usual, the choices are generally good, but unfortunately falls short of the bench mark set by the first two. Whereas the previous albums contained a larger proportion of new material, only a few tracks here are newly recorded, although with so many Silva albums about, there might be some elsewhere that I didn't know about.
Charging Fort Wagner (3:03)
Hymn to the Fallen (6:03)
The Longest Day (4:43)
Vide Cor Meum (3:00)
Overture - Agincourt Song(7:22)
Vocalise (3:53)
Main Title (4:24)
Allons Gai, Gai, Gai (1:40)
Dry Your Tears Afrika (3:39)
Suite (6:06)
March of Men of Harlech (2:44)
Ride of the Valkyries (4:30)
Main Title (3:37)
Waxing Elizabeth (3:27)
Main Theme (4:46)
Duel of the Fates (4:21)
The Sonnenscheins (4:04)