All of Kojian's Varese recordings were of very high quality. They had energy and snap and the Utah Symphony responded with great enthusiasm. Moreover, the technical quality of the digital recordings were spectacular. At the time, Telarc was getting a lot of press for the impact of their recordings (though you don't hear much about them today - I could never enjoy their overly-aggressive miking of the percussion). Varese's Utah recordings put Telarc to shame because they had all the impact, but preserved the natural balance of the instruments.
Naturally, producer George Korngold deserves much of the credit. You could pretty much guarantee that if Korngold put his name on something, it was worth buying no matter what. There's a thread going over at FSM asking if John Williams is responsible for "saving" orchestral film music in the seventies. I'd say no, it was Korngold and the Classic Film Scores series that made "old" film music artistically acceptable again.
As an example of a comparatively bland performance of Star Wars music, I would reluctantly have to agree with others here and offer Williams own version on Sony with the "Skywalker Symphony" as the Bay-area session players were then known. It's not bad, just tired, and the acoustics aren't bad either, just not as punchy as Varese's.
Here's some of the other remarkable recordings made in Utah at the time:
THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD
THE SEA HAWK
MUSIC FOR ALFRED HITCHCOCK FILMS [correction: conducted by Charles Ketcham]
and for conductor Elmer Bernstein:
THE BLACK CAULDRON
MUSIC FOR JOHN WAYNE FILMS Vols 1 & 2
SPELLBOUND CONCERTO FOR TWO PIANOS & OTHERS BY MIKLOS ROZSA
Ryan: if you can, check out Kojian's performance of "The Asteroid Field"; the Sony one will never be the same for you
By the way, can anyone tell me why Williams has never recorded the concert version of "Han Solo And The Princess"?
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