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The COPP recordings of the early years were not always 100% true to the originals, but they were generally very good.
There were a few I didn't like, for instance some of the stuff on the Bond Back In Action pair didn't really work for me and there was the occasional suite that didn't quite hit it right for me either. Sometimes there was a missed note or a chord that was not quite on the money or a phrase that wasn't taken down quite right. But for the most part they are very enjoyable and very good versions of things we can't otherwise get.
And when you consider the poor business case for re-recording film music, I'm all the more inclined to say: look, this is a gift.
We know that John Barry often used synthesizers to augment the orchestra and change some of the natural depth, sustain and color of some of the sounds.
For instance, in The Lion In Winter, we know the timpani in the opening title is doubled by a moog to give it extra 'boom' and 'sustain'. In an interview Barry spoke of how he considered doubling the timpani with plucked cello strings to try and get the same effect he wanted but it didn't work for him so he went for the synth. I guess that shows how deliberate he was in his thinking here.
I can hear the synthesizer even in Deadfall, another seemingly 'pure' orchestral score. (If you listen to the unreleased cue where Michael Caine gets a briefing on his robbery, a synthesizer definitely comes in to augment the sustained low notes and make them extra dark.)
I'm pretty sure the same thing is happening in Moonraker.
All these are otherwise purely orchestral scores with their 'colour' and 'texture' being subtly changed.
In fact, while The Black Hole uses synthesizers more overtly, in that you can hear specific for-synthesizer parts in that score, when you listen to the bonus track, only then do you realize just how much synthesizer is going on in that score. And a lot of it is synthesizers doubling (augmenting) orchestra parts.
Now, I'm not a composer, musician or orchestrator and I recognize that a true one might laugh at me for saying this, but the thing about Raise The Titanic is that while the music is taken down very well for the most part, there is an unusual 'denseness' to the low notes in the original. Again, the words 'boom' and 'sustain' come to mind. If you listen to that opening credits sequence, there is a very deep 'boom' and 'sustain' to those low notes and this is typical of those undersea cues. I have always suspected that this extra boom and sustain was synthesizers doubling those parts of he orchestra. Just like that sequence in Deadfall I spoke of. After all, it's the year after The Black Hole and has a similar denseness.
Am I mad?
Anyway, as I said the Silva recording of this takes down the music well enough but it lacks that thickness in the low notes. Is that because it was a pure orchestral recording? I don't know, I'm a layman in speculation.
Please do not read that as me "having a go". I love that recording and I love James F, Nic Raine, etc. I'm simply making an objective observation that there's a deeper thickness to the low notes in the film recording of Raise The Titanic and I've often wondered what the difference is that's making the difference. Is it a synthesizer? Was it studio mixing technique? Was it just a bigger orchestra recording in a studio with more natural echo? I'm not good enough to know. I just know there is a difference and synthesizers comes to mind because of their observed use elsewhere.
Of course, it helps when you have original manuscripts. They did on Robin And Marian and that's the most perfectly recreated in that recording series.
I have to give praise to Nic Raine here. To take down scores like this by ear seems very impressive to me. Very impressive. And laborious.
If we go to The Last Valley: again, I love this recording but that doesn't mean you can't spot the occasional take-down difference. I don't think the first few notes of "The Villagers Fight For The Shrine" are quite what I thought they were (of course, that doesn't make me right: I could have cloth ears) and in "The Village Attack", you'll recall the cue works on features a repeating 4 note figure. It was taken down as 4 ascending notes, but I hear it as an 'up-down-up-down' broken chord on the original LP. (Forgive the numpty speak, it's because I'm a layman rather than a musician.)
Again, I am not having a go. I love, am thankful for, and totally endorse these recordings. Again, I'm just saying as a matter of objective observation you can spot differences sometimes.
On Mister Moses, due to the rarity of the film this is one of the very few John Barry scores I don't have burned deeply into my brain. I do have a poor quality transfer of the movie. When the opening title swells up, a very fast and agitated figure for strings starts repeating. I think I hear the figure just ever so slightly differently. In the new recording, it goes—again, forgive the numpty speak—dum-space-da-da-dum-space whereas in the film I think I hear it as: space-da-du-da-du-dum. But, it's really hard to pin-point it because it's so fast, aggressive and the source is poor. But in a way, in this case, it doesn't matter anyway. The point is, it's a fast, agitated repeating figure in the right register. It works. It makes no difference in this case.
Elsewhere I don't know enough to comment.
In my opinion, the Silva Screen recordings of fifteen years ago (yes, that's how long) were good with noticeable differences if you had sharp ears. As time has gone on, they've got even better still and I personally think Mister Moses is an amazing recording even if, on close inspection, you find maybe the original sounded a little different here or there, etc.
In short: buy this; support this. It's firkin' marvellous.
Cheers
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