Back to Titanic [Soundtrack]

James Horner (Composer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Composer: James Horner
• Audio CD (August 25, 1998)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B00000ADKZ
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MiniDisc  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (157 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #50,330 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Titanic Suite - James Horner

2. An Irish Party In Third Class (John Ryan's Polka / Blarney Pilgrim) - James Horner

3. Alexander's Ragtime Band, song - James Horner

4. The Portrait

5. Jack Dawson's Luck (Humours of Caledon / The Red-Haired Lass / The Boys

6. A Building Panic

7. Nearer My God to Thee, for voice & piano (or orchestra)

8. Come Josephine, In My Flying Machine

9. Lament (includes "A Spailpín A Rún")

10. A Shore Never Reached

11. My Heart Will Go On (Love Theme from "Titanic")

12. Nearer My God to Thee, for voice & piano (or orchestra)

13. Epilogue - The Deep And Timeless Sea

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Fans of the Titanic soundtrack will undoubtedly appreciate this sequel, a collection of original music and background tunes not found on the first disc. They won't be disappointed. The newly composed "Titanic Suite" and "Epilogue: The Deep and Timeless Sea" are patchwork quilts of James Horner's most moving themes from the movie. Despite a few awkward transitions in "Suite" (where melodies move from somber to uplifting), the compositions--played by the London Symphony Orchestra and the Choirsters of King's College, Cambridge--work well. There's also a lot of diversity here, such as Gaelic Storm's lively "An Irish Party in Third Class" and chamber group I Salonisti's "Alexander's Ragtime Band" and "Nearer My God to Thee." The misses are few: the breathy Maire Brennan's "Come Josephine, in My Flying Machine" is lethargic, and the movie dialogue peppering several songs (including Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On") is more distracting than effective. --Jason Verlinde

Entertainment Weekly

This second dip into Titanic's musical waters is more varied than the first, since it includes the film's Irish jigs and string-quartet tunes.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't be fooled by the track listing... you will LOVE this!, June 5, 2003

By 

San Fran Gruuv Fan (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Back to Titanic (Audio CD)

I know that the following comment I use to start off my review regarding BACK TO TITANIC will sound confusing and pointless at first, but please bear with me... there's a reason why I mention it.

I remember once in 1989 or so flipping through an issue of ROLLING STONE magazine out of sheer boredom, and happened across a review of the Guns n' Roses recording "G N' R Lies" which was released at the height of that band's mania, and the opening lines of it stated the following: "Given that Guns N' Roses could probably release an album of Baptist hymns at this point and go platinum, it would be all too easy to dismiss 'G n' R Lies' as a sneaky attempt by the band to throw together some outtakes and cash in on the busy holiday buying season. After all, half of 'Lies' was released in 1986 (as the EP 'Live Like a Suicide'), and one of its four new studio tracks is simply an acoustic version of 'You're Crazy,' from 'Appetite for Destruction'. The arithmetic is simple: hungry fans plus ***any*** new product plus hordes of holiday shoppers equals one profitable little stocking stuffer. The good news is that 'Lies' is a lot more interesting than that."

That's the sort of comment that could very easily be made about BACK TO TITANIC, an album that I was heavily suspicious of upon its issuing. The movie had just been released on home video in a frenzy of highly-deserved popularity, and this CD was also unleashed on the world at the same moment in time for the holidays. Looking at the track listing, I was unimpressed: it looked like it was simply an excuse to release a new CD for raking in extra cash, and the fact that it also "boasted" not one, but *two* recordings of "Nearer My God To Thee" and "My Heart Will Go On" with movie dialogue added didn't exactly help boost my confidence. So as a result, I didn't bother checking it out until just now.

And now here it is, five years later, and out of sheer curiosity I decide to check it out at my local music store. The result? I bought it immediately.

If I wanted to be bland, I'd merely make another comment like that magazine remark I mentioned and say something like, "The good news is that BACK TO TITANIC is a lot more interesting than that." But in this case, that would grossly undermine the impact of this recording. Happily, James Horner has kept this album's focus on being a worthy successor designed to complete a fan's yearning for all of the film's musical moods instead of just being some "Oh, and by the way, here's the leftovers" collection, and in such a way that you realize that Horner must be every bit as much as a perfectionist as James Cameron.

If it's at all possible, BACK TO TITANIC is even more heartwrenchingly beautiful and haunting than the official soundtrack album, so much so that it leaves a soft, wistful mist hanging over the CD player. Track titles such as "Titanic Suite" and "Lament" are deceiving in that they can easily convince you that they are just brief collages of bits from the original soundtrack simply tossed in to remind you of what this album is supposed to be. Don't worry, you'll get more than your money's worth, especially since this disc is four minutes LONGER than a normal CD is supposed to be! "Titanic Suite" clocks in at just over nineteen minutes, and it isn't just portions from the original disc: instead, it is the *film's* versions of the famous themes and cues which were not present on the official soundtrack. And even better, it ends with the full, complete "heaven finale" recording from the original film in its entireity so we can *finally* hear it as a full composition (the original had its end lopped off so that "My Heart Will Go On" could immediately start once the credits began to roll), and it puts the first CD's heartstopper "An Ocean of Memories" to shame.

The piano piece from the "sketching" scene, "The Portrait", is included here as well as "A Building Panic", the tremendous "Lament" and the tear-inducing "A Shore Never Reached". In short, if you own both discs together you will have every scrap of music from the movie and more. I had at first thought that including "Come Josephine, In My Flying Machine" would be hokey and pretentiously desperate-for-padding sounding, but as it turns out it is performed in such a lovely and hypnotic way that you can easily imagine it being in the film.

I know it sounds hard to believe, but BACK TO TITANIC threatens to make the TITANIC disc sound like junk, and if you are a fan of the movie or its music at all then you absolutely **MUST** purchase this, no excuses. You will (quite literally, as in my case) love it to tears, especially the Epilogue track "The Deep and Timeless Sea" in which Horner goes well above and beyond the call of duty by giving us a very special ten-minute arrangement which leaves me at a complete loss for words: let me put it to you this way, if the entire film's soundtrack had consisted only of this piece alone (the way "Cast Away" had only one piece of music written for it) then it by itself would have earned Horner his much-deserved Oscar and praise. It had me in tears so badly that I couldn't stop playing it, and it left me with a haunting feeling of passing time that I just couldn't shake.

An immaculate masterpiece. Get it now to go with your other disc or miss out on an important work of art that will bring you endless musical pleasure forever.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better than the first one !, March 18, 2001

By 

Crystal Wisdom (Tecumseh, OK United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Back to Titanic (Audio CD)

"Back To Titanic" is such a beautiful piece of music. James Horner did such a superb job on this soundtrack. If you want a CD that calms you when your stressed out,then this is the one for you. I first fell in love with this CD when I watched the movie "Titanic" for the first time. I ran right out and bought the first soundtrack "Titanic:Music From The Motion Picture" Then when I found out about this one I knew I had to have it. I found that this one is better then the first one. The songs are much longer. Every time you listen to the songs they get better and better. I like to find a nice comfortable chair to sit in,and I like to close my eyes and lay my head back against the chair and just listen to each song. I find myself picturing scenes from "Titanic" that go with the song I'm listening to. One song in particular stands out in my mind as I am writing this and that is "My Heart Will Go On" which is sung by Celine Dion. The song has dialogue from the movie,and it makes it much more enjoyable to listen to. I recommend this soundtrack to anyone who is a "Titanic" fanatic.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The music from BACK TO TITANIC is, June 25, 2000

By 

"drevil4934" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Back to Titanic (Audio CD)

an odd patchwork of previous stabs at making sequel soundtracks. And this holds true to all sequels: it's inferior by far, and holds no real emotional impact. The disc has a few excellent parts that must be pointed out: The Portrait, the haunting Come Josephine In My Flying Machine (which was made specifically for this release, and cannot be found in the film), Lament (ditto), and Jack Dawson's Luck (while not the piece played during the film when Jack and Fabrizio dash towards the mammoth ship at Southampton, it could easily be used as a substitute). As a matter of fact, almost every track on this disc was never heard in the film. Well let's start at the beggining. Titanic Suite is an odd collaboration of all of Titanic's themes, placed in such a queer order you'd think the recorders just took snippits from the music and peiced it together. And at a whopping 20 minutes, that's a long time to hate it. And Irish Party is good, save for the fact that in order to make the disc more appealing, they just HAD to have Jack and Rose's dialouge in it. Alexander's Ragtime Band is the first good piece on the disc, and brings us face to face with some original music of the period. The Portrait is the highlight of the CD for some, but it isn't THAT great the 2nd time you listen to it. It's the basic piano solo, and nothing more. Jack Dawson's Luck is a rousing, exciting originality that wasn't used in the film but holds some truely terrific moments. A Building Panic was used in the film, and is the only "sinking" piece that's really good (on either disk). It happens to not only have some new music, it seemlessly blends tracks 9 and 10 on the first disc, making it the true Sinking Suite of Titanic. Now, there are 2 different Nearer My God To Thees, and neither of them are very good. The first one is the one played while the sinking occured, the latter played for this release by a single person and with way to much pizzaz. Lament is a new piece not heard and it's rather good. The same goes for A Shore Never Reached, which is a basic brass and strings that was left out for obvious reasons (you have to listen to it to understand). My Heart Will Go On is a piece you wish wouldn't, since it's bombarded with annoying dialouge from the film. And the Epilogue is a timeless bore of tunes used over and over and over and over until you want to throw up or throw out the CD.