Customer Reviews

Film Music by Bernard Herrmann

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The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra performs and Silva Screen Records presents "FILM MUSIC MASTERWORKS BERNARD HERRMANN", the gems by composer Bernard Herrmann ... conducted by Paul Bateman, James Fitzpatrick and Nic Raine, this latest release, has all the rhythmically dynamic and poetic scores ever conceived --- Herrmann's music remains in your mind with haunting and forbidding themes that will stay with you the rest of your days --- a rare find for all the comprehensive collectors in us --- all the splendor of this composer on 13 Tracks --- Herrmann creates visual moods for each film he scores...all individually wrapped-up into one neat package ... just the way "film-score-buffs" like 'em...flavored with cues of action, adventure, mystery, romance, sentimental and suspense...the list could go on...Every track moves you --- Each track comes back with a memory as the preceeding track ends --- It flows naturally and perfectly from score to score... If you're looking for a piece of music to capture your heart and a deeper meaning of the film...you've found it...Silva Screen's release traces several decades of film music...featuring "The City Of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra" --- conducted by Mr. Paul Bateman, Mr. James Fitzpatrick and Mr. Nic Raine (as always outstanding)...performing 13 selections, close to a full hour of symphonic suites with a full orchestra sound.

List are 13 Selections from the Bernard Herrmann Film Score Book (in the order in which they appear)

1. Psycho - Suite For Strings (7:23)
2. Citizen Kane - Overture (2:45)
3. The Day The Earth Stood Still - Suite - Nic Raine (5:36)
4. Jason And The Argonauts (1:58)
5. The Ghost And Mrs. Muir - Main Title/Finale (4:56)
6. 7th Voyage Of Sinbad - Main Title (1:59)
7. Vertigo - Scene D'Amour (5:11)
8. North By Northwest (3:20)
9. Cape Fear - Suite (5:40)
10. Marine (3:01)
11. Twisted Nerve - Theme And Variations - City Of Prague Philharmonic (5:34)
12. Mysterious Island - Prelude/The Balloon (4:16)
13. Taxi Driver - Night Piece For Saxophone And Orchestra (4:02)

Must ask the following to take a bow ~ James Fitzpatrick (compilation producer), always in their pitching, Reynold da Silva (executive producer) --- Paul Bateman, James Fitzpatrick and Nic Raine performing the conducting duties, a tremen!dous asset to every project they undertake...and the label which made it all possible...Silva America --- must say this collection is nicely priced.

Total Time: 58 mins on 13 Tracks ~ SILCD 2011 ~ (4/10/07)

Seems there's something called the "City of Prague" orchestra. From a poor Eastern European country, they get contracted to crank out under-rehearsed titles in this mediocre film series. It's a bad sign when the orchestra & conductor can't even get their name on the cover of the cd. The sound is somewhat shrill, but perhaps better than nothing. Of course none of the orchestra members are named on the liner notes. I am sure that many of them are competent artists, but this corporate venture by shell-corporation "silverscreenmusic" (dot.vampire) is all about paying poor musicians minimum wage & trying to hustle a profit on the composer's name. Naxos has a couple of Hermann titles and there is always the fine recording by Esa-Pekka Salonen & the Los Angeles Phil., recently for @$5. on Amazon.

If you are looking to get a Bernard Hermann CD I would recommend this buyer. It arrived when amazon said it would with ample protection and it has all the most famous songs by Bernard Hermann as you may know. The songs are nice because they're long enough for the listener to enjoy them but short enough to get all the songs on them. I would suggest this buyer if you are looking to buy this CD.