Intrada Soundtrack Forum

3/2/06

Something off our beaten path. We've got a new CD featuring Laurence Rosenthal. Well, sort of. It'll be posted on our site next week. Soundtrack fans are certainly welcome to order it but it's really something for classical afficianados. I'll explain.

Early 20th-century Russian spiritual master Gurdjieff, known for his teachings, also wrote music. The latter talent was developed in a collaboration with composer Thomas de Hartmann. Their sizeable body of work is a major subject of the Gurdjieff Foundation. Here's where Larry Rosenthal enters. He's one of three editors well-known for collecting the actual Gurdjieff/de Hartmann piano output for publisher Schott in Germany. You might even remember he adapted some of it in his score for Peter Brook's film MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE MEN. Anyway, the Gurdjieff Foundation - having a significant event in New York over this coming weekend - inspired Larry to record many of the original piano pieces. He did it over at Skywalker Sound no less, under the nose of George Lucas. Those of you who admire Rosenthal only as a film composer will be tickled to find out he's an incredible pianist, too!

Rosenthal's prepared the album with us under his Windemere publishing umbrella. His 16-page booklet has some fascinating stuff to say about the history of these remarkable men, their mystical and atmospheric music, and how during his Air Force years he became involved with it.

Though Rosenthal's a movie music icon, we're actually distributing this one to classical music outlets and fans of piano music. On the other hand (little piano joke) if you're one of the latter, it might just be your cup of tea.

We've got the CDs now and a bunch of them have already gone off to the New York event. Though we don't really anticipate much interest from soundtrack fans, we'll put it up on the site next week for you - just in case.

3/6/06

I didn't get what I wanted.

We watched Oscars with our daughter at UC Davis. Not in her dorm, mind you, in a bar with a bunch of guys who had basketball on the big screen, basketball on three or four modest screens and Oscars on one very small one. Fair enough. It was a sports bar. Neither I nor Mary Ann wanted to try and change any channels, either. (Regina has no TV in her dorm. I am not making this up - she and her roommate actually prefer to study.) So the sports bar was the only game in town. No pun intended.

Anyway, we saw the same show you did. We saw the same "Best Picture" surprise you did. And I admit it was actually kind of exciting to see all those reactions, too.

But golly gee dammit! What's up with that music category? They didn't even give BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN "Best Picture" this time so I can't blame things there. I mean, yes, Gustavo wrote some nice music. I forgot it quickly but it was gentle and unassuming and it supported those repressed emotions well enough. But it was not, by any stretch of the imagination, the best damn score last year! That honor goes to Williams.

So, when I heard the sorry announcement, I looked around for comfort. Sure, my family shared in the disappointment. But everyone else was focused on the basketball game.

Well. At least they were having a good time. I guess that that counts for something.

3/10/06

Musicals don't get much playtime around here. No reason, really. My main hangup is that I tune out the words and just listen to the music. Kind of defeats the idea. I guess my all-time favorite piece in any musical is the the one that plays out Act 1 in the movie version of FIDDLER ON THE ROOF. Yes, this is cheating. It's not based on any of Bock's tunes, it's just an original John Williams "incidental scoring" cue. Then again, since it's my hangup what does that matter?

Anyway, I just saw a performance of CATS. When it gets to "Memory", Mary Ann leans over and whispers she loves that song. I remind myself there's a great tune in every Webber musical. Afterwards I was thinking. Lots of famous shows have a great tune. Is there one that has just one great tune after another? And one show immediately pops into mind. WEST SIDE STORY. So, for no reason other than it's what popped into mind, I bring it up.

It's got hit after hit. Pick any one of a dozen tunes, they're all memorable. Interesting sidenote, for those musically literate folk: have you ever noticed how many times the "tritone" interval crops up? Man! It's everywhere! Take the famous "Maria". Out of those three opening notes, a tritone joins the first and second. Look at "Something's Coming". It's all over the place. If you go to the equally famous "Tonight" you'll find it's part of the lydian harmonic structure. It's certainly used a lot during the bridges for "America". In fact, the most crucial building block for the entire score - the opening whistle at the very beginning of the show - is literally three notes capped by that same tritone. WEST SIDE STORY must be the most cohesive, structurally unified musical anyone has ever written! Anyway, just one of my random observations.

The previously-mentioned Gurdjieff-de Hartmann piano album by Laurence Rosenthal should be ready shortly. For those interested, we'll post it in a few days. There's no movie music here, but it's certainly beautiful stuff just the same. Our next actual Intrada release will probably be posted within a few days as well.

Even with breaks for an occasional musical, we just can't stop cranking out those "hits".

3/14/06

Not a criticism, just an observation. I'm going through new releases, pull out RUNNING SCARED first. Not for any good reason, it's just where the dart landed. Anyway, the CD runs some 71 minutes. If nothing else, it gets me to thinking back.

There was a time when 2-LP sets yeilding 75-minutes of music were premiums. Extraordinary events. Think back to THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, to RAINTREE COUNTY when they were new. Okay, a lot of you weren't even born then and all I wanted to do was eat, sleep and play with my Tonka fire trucks. But years later I headed over to our local record store in 1977 looking for STAR WARS and found a 2-LP set on display. Wow, I thought. A 2-LP set! Over an hour's worth of music! That's unheard of! In short succession I watched John Williams become king of the double-play with THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and SUPERMAN.

Fast forward. Now, 70-minute albums are normal. I'm not so sure that they're all in a league with STAR WARS, either! We should be so lucky.

So here I am. RUNNING SCARED's over and I'm tossing another dart. I miss the bullseye, land on THE HILLS HAVE EYES. I also see it's clocking in at 70 minutes.

Maybe I'm unsure about the league we're in here but there's one thing I don't have any doubts about. We've gotten spoiled.

3/16/06

A quick heads up. Our newest Intrada release arrives in a few hours so we'll be posting it on our site by the end of today. It's a standard release and isn't limited. By the way, if we feel so inclined, we'll also post Larry Rosenthal's "Gurdjieff-de Hartmann" piano CD before the weekend arrives as well. It's not limited either.

Our next "Special Collection" arrives pretty soon, too. This one will be limited so stay tuned!

3/17/06

TOMBSTONE's up for sale. Not the town, of course, the expanded CD. This may not be as significant as the O.K. Corral gunfight but the album's been a big part of our little history. For one thing, it's our first taste of something selling some 30,000 units worldwide. It's also our first big lesson in the pitfalls of mass distribution, large quantity wholesaling, chain store retailing, linking with international film distributors, buying back returned inventory, slogging through unpaid invoices and whatnot. Fortunately the web revolution happened.

Anyway, we've got a long-term license on this one. It's never been out-of-print so we've certainly had our share of copies coming and going over the years. Rather than an umpteenth re-pressing we felt it was finally time to completely remaster the old parts. Since we had to go back to the session masters to do this we opted to just give the darn thing a complete facelift and restore every note, alternates and all. It's certainly a sensational score and worth the extra effort. Anyway, since this new edition now runs just a bit too long for one CD we've made it into two discs for roughly the price of one. What's more, you can play the full score on disc one without having to venture into the bonus stuff unless you feel like popping in disc two. You can't beat that with a stick.

3/22/06

If you've got an expanded TOMBSTONE on order give us an extra day or so to get it out to you. We've been slammed. To me that's a good thing but Jeff and George aren't as thrilled back there in the mail room. I say, make 'em work back there! They get lunch breaks, sometimes they get paychecks, what more incentives do they need?

For number crunchers, here's a heads up. We're down to the last 15 or so copies of WARLOCK/VIOLENT SATURDAY. If you're on that fence, it's time to make a decision. We're talking Leigh Harline and Hugo Friedhofer. What more incentitives do you need?

3/28/06

Our first pressing run on TOMBSTONE has already sold out. More copies have already been ordered and should be in very shortly.

We noticed a "pop" at the end of disc one. It doesn't interfere with the music but it shouldn't be there in any case. Though it may be in just a few batches we've already alerted the plant and they're sending out replacements accordingly. Those'll be here at the same time as the new pressing run. Watch here and we'll post the anticipated arrival date the minute we get it confirmed.

If you've got one with the bird poop on it, just holler and we'll get you a good one. If you ordered it elsewhere, that's no problem, either. We're sending out replacements to our other dealers, too!

3/30/06

Our next Special Collection release arrives late next week. We'll probably have a proper announcement this coming Wednesday. This one should please fans of those fabulous fifties.