Intrada Soundtrack Forum

With the re-issue of RCA's Classic Film Score Series, I was wondering how they compare to the original CDs. Are they worth buying or should I just look for the earlier CDs? Any advice?

To my ears, the new CDs are a vast improvement. The early and rather intrusive Dolby surround encoding has been eliminated and the music is much sharper, cleaner, more detailed. The stereo separation is also more obvious. Two decades of mastering technology improvements have helped as well.

The tapes have continued to age, however, and it appears there is a brief moment of wow at the start of the Treasure Of Sierra Madre suite, so you may want to hold on to the previous cd edition of the Classic Film Scores For Humphrey Bogart.

Also, the Star Wars/Close Encounters disc has not yet been reissued, nor has the Spectacular World sampler disc. Hopefully they soon will be.

Ed,
Thanks for the info. It will be very useful when I come to buy to the CDs. Do you know if the Star Wars and Spectacular CDs have been announced yet?

I found an old copy of Casablance online for less than $4, in good nick, and managed to get hold of a copy of Spectacular World. Looking forward to receiving those.

John,

No, I'm sorry I don't know, but I'm hopeful they will be and I'll post if I hear anything.

Alan,

Thanks for the info on the "wow" issue. I know someone who had that lp years ago and he thought the wow had been there before but he couldn't be sure. I love it when fans can share insight like that. I had only a few of the CFS Lps and sadly not that one.

What this seems to suggest is that RCA's vaults hold more treasures from the recording sessions that have yet to be released. More music from The Fountainhead was released on a limited edition cd, and the first cd of The Sea Hawk contained more material from Between Two Worlds. There are reports of boots of outtake material. I wish someone could explore this. I'm a big fan of Gerhardt's interpretations and would love to hear more from this sadly departed artist.

The RCA recordings were the first LPs I bought, introducing me to the world of classic film music from the likes of Newman, Rozsa, Steiner and Waxman. In the days prior to the internet, visiting places such as 58 Dean Street Records in London, I found a wealth of music from these classic composers. Record shops, remember those? Anyway, I'm glad these CDs are back in catalogue, as they are some of the best film music compilations around. They were the benchmark for all those that came after them.