Varese's attempt to cash-in on the success of Titanic is probably a better attempt than the Silva Screen version, but there are several things that mar an otherwise excellent selection. The biggest thing from the point of view of an avid collector is that there isn't really much new material. In fact, I think only the suite from Titanic is the only selection that hasn't been previously released (although I don't think the selection from Star Trek 2 has been released before). Anyway, all the other selections are either from original soundtracks or from previous Varese compilations (most notably their excellent Hollywood 90-something series.)
The new suite from Titanic is, I'm afraid a bit much to take. There are a few moments where the somewhat beefy performance make it interesting to hear orchestrations that were apparently lost in the original rendering. The use of a real choir to replace the original synthetic one is actually less successful than one might imagine. There is a very operatic feel to the whole thing with Debney seemingly aiming for Wagnerian levels of emotion where the simple affecting emotion that Horner original intended has been smothered excessively. This isn't helped much by the over-enthusiastic brass playing which would work wonders on a Williams compilation, but Horner is just too restrained to take this kind of reading. The items conducted by Joel McNeely are uniformly excellent, however. The launch from Apollo 13 is staggeringly good and the slightly increased pace and the much more solid and dynamic performance in this case transcend the original, somewhat pathetic playing and really give the music much more drive than it originally had and so the end result is much more exciting. Casper, Courage Under FireHollywood 95 or Hollywood 96.
Cliff Eidelman's contributions are both proficient with Aliens being suitable exciting (although not quite as fiery as the original LSO reading). Star Trek 2 is good, but doesn't have quite the excitement and intensity of the original. The tracks conducted by Horner himself are obviously going to be as they were intended and so come off very well indeed. The claim that the track from Brainstorm is newly recorded is a fraction misleading as it was re-recorded for the original Brainstorm album. However, it was the highlight of the score, so who can complain?
In terms of performance this does somewhat better than the Silva Screen album, but it doesn't offer as much music and so for the same price, the Silva album offers a lot more to sample. Those who bought it on the basis they liked the original Titanic album will likely be somewhat puzzled at the new sounding recording (although after a few listens, you get used to it). To be diplomatic, I would suggest getting the new Silva Screen recording and then going to buy Hollywood 95 & 96 on Varese as that way you get to sample all the Horner you could want as well as some other fine film music on the more varied Hollywood recordings.
Rating ~ 