• In Session: A Film Music Celebration

• The Royal Scottish National Orchestra, The National Philharmonic Orchestra,
  The Seattle Symphony Orchestra, The London Symphony Orchestra
• Conducted by Joel McNeely, Jerry Goldsmith John Debney, Georges Delerue
  Cliff Eidelman, Frederic Talgorn & Rick Wentworth
• Varese Sarabande
• 2001

One of the biggest problems of reviewing film music is that you often end up over analyzing music, particularly new albums about which you're forming opinions. However, some albums you just know are going to be wonderful and can predict what you might say before you ever hear them. This leaves you able to simply sit back and listen and In Session is just such an album. In fairness, I have all but a handful of the scores represented here and most of the original albums from which these particular recordings came. I therefore knew that it would be an absolute treat from start to finish. Robert Townson, Varese's head man and producer has celebrated his 500^th album with a wonderful collection of tracks from Varese's now considerable back catalogue of compilations and fully re-recorded film scores.

Robert Townson is not only an extremely nice guy and hugely passionate about the music, but has impeccable taste. I think almost all (Torn Curtain being the only exception I can spot offhand) of Varese's full length re-recordings are presented here and what a selection they make. From the golden age genius of Alex North and Bernard Herrmann to the current elder statesmen of film music Elmer Bernstein, Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams and John Barry. While these composers make up the majority of the album, there is still room for Miklos Rozsa, his absolutely gorgeous love theme from That Hamilton Woman, Alfred Newman and the exciting Conquest from Captain from Castille together with Franz Waxman and his sumptuous scoring from Hitchcock's Rebecca and Peyton Place. One of Townson's biggest passions, the music of the remarkable Georges Delerue, is represented by his painfully beautiful elegy from Platoon, one of a couple of cues from scores that were either ditched entirely or replaced (in this case by the almost dreaded Barber Adagio) partially by the director and/or studio.

One of the most famous replacements opens the album with North's thrilling original opener for Kubrick's 2001. Of course there are happier North collaborations that range from his grand, but intimate music for The Agony and the Ecstasy to the gentler, but no less inspiring Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Bernard Herrmann gets an extremely generous selection with Joel McNeely's now benchmark recording of Vertigo, but not forgetting the vibrant performances of Psycho, the Harryhausen classics of The 3 Worlds of Gulliver and the 7th Voyage of Sinbad and other Hitchcock including the less well known Marnie and The Trouble with Harry. The second disc is dominated by Goldsmith, Barry and Williams. Jerry Goldsmith's classic Patton march (in my favourite reading of the piece), one of my favourite cues of all time, The Enterprise from Star Trek: The Motion Picture which contains more majesty and grandeur than almost anything else I can think of. The Williams scores are mostly well know, except perhaps Midway, but even the unfamiliar percussive opening soon gives way to the well known march. Similarly the Barry selections are all popular scores, but the RSNO acoustic is absolutely perfect for Barry's rich style, with Out of Africa almost certainly surpassing even Barry's original take on his expansive, Oscar winning theme.

The only newcomer is Joel McNeely whose Shadows of the Empire score for a book I greatly admire and the clever strains of Xixor's Theme seem like a fairly worthy successor to the rest of the disc. In the fascinating anecdotal liner notes, Robert Townson says that Ride of the Cossacks from Franz Waxman's Taras Bulba is a perfect curtain call for any concert. I must admit that its old fashioned galloping style composition is less timeless than much of the rest, but it is certainly a thrilling finale. I know, I know, this is almost worthless as a review simply because every item on this album is a pure delight. The aforementioned liner notes are well worth reading and give some appreciation of the effort that Robert Townson and all the composers, conductors, engineers, copyists and so on have put into every recording. Even if it weren't such a monumental milestone in the relatively short life of Varese to date, I would still recommend it as one of the best summary compilations available. Yes, the selections are somewhat weighted towards certain composers, but the artistry of the composition and performance in every case is superb, the choices slightly less well known, but all the better for it. Anyone wanting to seriously discover the best of film music, probably one of the finest places to start.

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