Intrada Soundtrack Forum

Licensing John Barry stuff seems be a real problem these days. Without the safety of working for a studio like Fox (and being a victim of his own commercial success, with stuff licensed to defunct and acuired record labels) a lot of John Barry material seems to be difficult to license. I was told that The Last Valley was subject to just such problems, which is why it never came out all these years.

Was it difficult to license? Does it make Mary Queen Of Scots (even if it's just the album again) any more likely?

Cheers

This may not be on the licensing point, but may be of some interest. The newly rerecorded scores for "Last Valley" and for "Lion in Winter" by Raine of Prague were released in 2001 by Silva and may still be available. This "Valley" version has a lot of extra music not originally released; while the "Winter" version seems almost the same in content as the original release, but with an additional six cue suite from "Mary Queen of Scots" as an extra.

For someone linked to so many recordings of John Barry music, I find nearly all the Nic Raine rerecordings of Barry scores deeply lacking. And it's exactly because I (like Mr. Fake) consider THE LAST VALLEY to be one of the most fabulous of ALL Barry's scores, that Raine's rerecording on Silva Screen is hard to bear.

The producer's liner notes claim the Silva Screen recording is the complete score, even though it isn't. (Yeah, it's missing only two cues that I noticed; but why claim something is "complete" if it's not -- except for sales volume and prestige?) And some Raine tracks -- especially his version of the brilliant "Rape of Khutal" -- are pathetically limp compared to the soundtrack performance. The notes are there but with none of the nuance of Barry's original.

I don't work for Intrada and know none of their staff personally. But as I have known and loved THE LAST VALLEY for 36 years, I say the original Barry album is far superior to the rerecording in power and effect, despite offering less of the score.

One thing though, staff: I know the original novel states that the story of LAST VALLEY starts in 1637 (as your text here on the website reports), but the roadshow program declares the time as 1641. Since you started shipping the CD yesterday, I figure it's too late to change that, huh?

I think we all owe a lot to the Raine re-recordings.
Yes, the performance can be very different at times - but a re-recording is not destined to be a perfect copy of the original perfomance - in many ways, it's supposed to be an alternative view on the original score, one that's very loyal, and above all, respectful to the composer's intentions.
I'm certain that if the Raine re-recordings were not out there today, a good number of individuals would be lamenting about not having re-recordings.
However, i'm very excited about Intrada's release. I just think we tend to ask for more and complain when we do have enough.

Alex

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Music composed, arranged and conducted by JOHN BARRY

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Music composed, arranged and conducted by JOHN BARRY

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Dimitri Tiomkin:"Well, a steppe is a steppe is a steppe."

And what a genuine article it is! This LP was a 'blind buy' a very long time ago - I got it the same time I got The Lion in Winter (which was the score I was looking for; they were both in the "L" section and by John Barry) and I was completely blown away by the music. It's great to finally have it on CD, and sounding this good to boot.

I am curious... the original LP listed the choir as being the Voices of Accademia Monteverdiana and the producer as Phil Ramone. The new disc doesn't mention either one of them, crediting Barry as producer. Were these credits erroneous (as Pat Methany on Under Fire)?