Customer Reviews

How The West Was Won: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Includes score (including several extended versions), source music, outtakes, demo.

The meat of this 2 CD set is the score itself, which is fabulous. I got this in April and have probably listened to it 50 times since then.

The accompanying brochure, which describes the history of the movie, the music, the composers(Alfred Newman with assistance from several prominent lyrists and arrangers), is also very informative.

While the movie itself is very entertaining, it is not great (but is significant - see Cinerama). If you want to see it in Cinerama, you'll have to go to Dayton.

Hopefully they'll remaster the video for DVD and include the entire screen. The widescreen video is from the 70 mm print made from the Cinerama prints, but actually does not include the entire screen width.

As a longtime devotee of Alfred Newman's genius as a composer and conductor, I highly recommend to everyone Rhino's 2-CD album of the complete score to MGM's 1963 film, "How the West Was Won."

In a perfect world, it would not have taken 34 years (from 1963 release date of film to 1997 release date of 2-CD soundtrack) for this music to have been revealed in such awesome, stunning splendor. It's reasonable to reflect, however, that technology has evolved during those three decades to the point where such a recording is not only possible, but affordable.

Perhaps Voltaire's satiric maxim, "All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds" (Dr. Pangloss -- "Candide"), can occasionally ring true.

For me, the revelations of the complete score are not the long-coveted magnificent cues (which remain breathtaking and heart-stopping) of the complete "Cheyennes/Indian Attack" and "Finale/Finale Ultimo," but such tracks as "Lincoln," "Zeb Returns" and the "Van Valen Auction" in which Newman develops his thematic underscore with basic simplicity, adding depth and beauty with various counterpoints to create a three-dimensional sound that never fails to engage the mind and the heart. This score is finally complete.

The phrasing in "Cheyennes" is, in a word, "phenomenal." An oft-cited anecdote by Ken Darby concerned Newman's pondering this sequence and wondering how in the world he was going to be able to come up with something fresh for an Indian attack. He then went home, sat down and wrote this series of cues that equalled, and exceeded (IMO), everything previously written in the genre.

There will, of course, be many out there who will fret and worry over which cues are actually original and which are based on folk themes. This album is evidence that it truly doesn't matter in the overall context of the score. Original Newman meshes with traditional themes so seamlessly that they become a new entity, so much so that Newman's work enters that timeless realm from which springs such tunes as "Shenandoah" and "Endless Prairie."

This recording reveals "How the West Was Won" as the filmmusic masterpiece most of us knew it to be upon first hearing it in 1963. Time has not diminished its splendor, and we shall never hear its like again.

Some quibbling notes:

The booklet is rather well-done, although I was amused to read the assertion that Newman was less well-known than Max Steiner or Miklos Rozsa. Steiner's name appeared on hundreds of films, but so did Newman's. Newman had won 9 Oscars when he died .... Steiner had won 3 and Rozsa had won 3. In the 1940s, Newman recorded music from "Song of Bernadette" and "Captain From Castile" -- two enormously popular, best-selling score recordings. I know Rozsa's "Spellbound" and Steiner's "Gone With the Wind" (in many variations) were very popular recordings, too. Few film composers ever had that privilege in the 40s. Newman also enjoyed an active recording life throughout the 50s with several very popular albums of music. Victor Young was probably better known than all three of them, but is virtually unknown today except by film score aficionadoes (and even then, Young is woefully underrepresented).

A mistake in the data is in the background on Darby. Darby won 3 Oscars. His 3rd was for "Camelot" with Newman.

And a slight quibble over choice of words -- in the discussion of the score's cues, the writer comments that "No Goodbye" concludes with an almost inarticulate male chorus singing "When Johnny Comes Marching Home." I hope that he meant "barely audible." The chorus is highly articulate...very understandable (i.e., articulate)...but also hushed.

The main theme as well as the entire score for HOW THE WEST WAS WON is (in my opinion, of course) every bit as good if not better than any of the musical scores of movies which are so often thought to be the greatest ever such as LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, CHARIOTS OF FIRE, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, STAR WARS, THE GODFATHER, E.T., GONE WITH THE WIND, THE STING...etc, etc.

I'm not saying these aren't great, and I'm not saying HWWW is better than all of these. But it seems that whenever most people discuss great soundtracks, this one never comes up. Don't think that this is merely great Western music (although it is certainly that). This is a wonderful film score that boasts of a power and beauty all its own.

And at the same time, some that is not its own. For Alfred Newman, in a creative fit of musical genius, arranged one of the two main themes for this film to be the old gospel hymn "Bound For the Promised Land". This along with "Shenandoah" and several other great classic songs were thrown in to help set the mood of a pioneer's life on the American frontier.

Of special interest on this matter is the hauntingly beautiful "Greensleeves" tune: "A Home In the Meadow," which, at the end, is sung powerfully and beautifully by a choir. Almost as well done as that is the first track on SIDE 2. Here, it ends with the simultaneous combining of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" and "Bound For the Promised Land".

Much like John Williams's STAR WARS, Mr. Newman knows always when to pick up the pace, and when to let it inch its way along, always setting the perfect mood for each scene. Also like the soundtrack for STAR WARS, you can play this music (without playing the movie), and it still makes you feel like the story is being told to you through the music.

And when you get right down to it, that's what a great soundtrack ought to do.

This double-CD set is an expansion of the original vinyl, with a playing time of over two hours as against the record's 45 minutes or so, and includes every bit of music from the movie--even the brief snippets ("Erie Canal" (0:32), "Workin'" (0:28)) and the pieces that play so softly in the background that you barely register them as you watch the video ("Wanderin'," "Careless Love")--plus expanded versions of several of the record's tracks (the "Overture," the brassy "Main Title," "The River Pirates," "Cleve Van Valen," etc.). There are also several outtakes like "He's Gone Away," and a clutch of supplemental material at the end--the vocal demo for "No Goodbye," reconstructed versions of "Miss Bailey's Ghost" and "When I Was Single" (originally sung by Debbie Reynolds as Lilith Prescott), and the like.

Nowadays many of the CD's that market themselves as "soundtracks" are really just assemblages of popular vocal music played under the action. "HtWWW" may have begun that trend with its liberal use of folk and traditional motifs, such as the "Greensleeves"-like "Home in the Meadow" and the many period songs sung in the background ("Sit Down Sister," "Poor Wayfarin' Stranger," "When Johnny Comes Marchin' Home," "A Railroader's Bride I'll Be"), but it does it much better, with lots of original instrumental music by Alfred Newman, ranging from the heart-pounding "Cheyennes!" to the light, bouncy "Cleve Van Valen" to the half-tearful, half-optimistic "No Goodbye" and "Climb a Higher Hill." Newman isn't one of the better-known film score composers--nowhere near as famous as John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, or even the truly "classic" names like Bernard Hermann and Erich Wolfgang Korngold--but these tracks prove that he deserves to be. Even if you don't care for the movie, you should make space for this track in your collection.

Awesome! I can't stop listening to both CDs! This is just great music, from the soft songs like "A Home In The Meadow" to the powerfully proud Western theme "Main Title." I must admit that having a great movie as the music's source helps mental imagery quite a bit, though. The music spans the whole gamut of emotions: choking grief at a funeral ("The Burial"), melancholy ("When I Was Single"), serenity ("Shenandoah"), comically slick salespitches ("Cleve Van Valen"), rousing sing-a-longs ("Raise A Ruckus Tonight"), fear and fleeing ("Cheyennes"), randy humor ("Miss Bailey's Ghost"), romance ("Come Share My Life"), gritty pride ("Main Title"). It took me a bit of time to get used to the newly modified versions of these tracks that have been around for decades, where occasional verses were added. I also didn't recognize many of the completely new songs, although I haven't seen the film in some years and they must be in the film somewhere. I did recognize "Miss Baily's Ghost," which was interrupted in the movie's plot where Eve's father scolds her for starting "a song like that," so it was nice to hear more of the amusing lyrics, though the song still sounds incomplete. The same with "When I Was Single," a new addition that was played in the background around the campfire before interrupted by "Raise A Ruckus Tonight." It's hard to tell which songs are authentic old standards, and which are modern songs written to sound like that style. Two new additions are "Wanderin'," a dismal-sounding folk song, and "Poor Wayfarin' Stranger," a good-sounding folk song, both with male singers and guitar. Very good music altogether: there are catchy songs, several powerful themes that work well fast or slow, varied instrumentation, varied styles and singers in the medleys, old standards, and all with a little U.S. history woven throughout. I know some people didn't like the movie, but I thought it was magnificent, and the great thing about the music is it stays magnificent even when the (supposedly) corny movie scenes are removed. I'd highly recommend seeing the movie a few days before taking a weekend desert trip, and then taking this CD along in your car, because the music and movie will be repeatedly playing in your head by then, anyway.

How the West Was Won is Alfred Newman's grand opera. All of Newman's scores have the rare ability to make the viewer care about the characters and the story, to feel that the story is important. The writing and conducting for this movie fit the sweeping scope of the picture as well as the reflective and bittersweet momements of personal drama perfectly.
My list of favorites by Newman include: Anastasia, The Robe, David and Bathsheba, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Nevada Smith, The Egyptian, (with Bernard Herrmann), The Diary of Anne Frank, Captain from Castille, but I believe that this score is what he will be remembered for. I had the good fortune to see this in Cinerama five times in the sixties at the Cinerama theater in Denver.
Newman also did wonderful adaptations of Broadway musicals for the movies. My favorite is his work in Camelot. Check out the wedding scene where he uses a countermelody on recorder.
Newman had the ability to write poignant countermelodies to strong, beautiful main melodies. Some people think you shouldn't notice the music in a movie. I always notice Newman, but in the same way that I notice Verdi or Mozart when I see their operas. They don't detract from the drama, but enhance the emotions and actions. Moviegoers are capable of listening and watching at the same time.
This is a masterpiece.

Unlike a previous reviewer, I like both the soundtrack and the movie - Hollywood hokum and all. The soundtrack contains much of the rich early American music - and 1962-composed soundalike. I find nothing tops this record (yes, I still have it on vinyl) when I want background to a strenuous project. It's that good for the energy level.

Simply put, the Main Title theme as played on this original soundtrack recording is the most thrilling opening music cue in movie history. Seeing this film recently at Hollywood's Cinerama Dome, with the MGM lion roaring as the curtains parted and the HOW THE WEST WAS WON title music boomed out over the audience, was an unforgettable experience.

This is a case of the soundtrack upstaging the film! The score by Alfred Newman; assisted by Ken Darby, is a rousing, spectacular celebration of the old west. Standards of the period are interwoven with an original score and some new songs to create a phenominal listening experience. The sound quality of these discs is rich and deep, full of width and breadth, and will blow you away if you have a proper sound system. For fans of the film or lovers of great film scores; this one is tops!

I thought the CD would be like the soundtrack album I had when the movie came out but was I WRONG --- IT WAS SO MUCH BETTER than I could have ever expected. It had songs I had not heard before because I contained the ENTIRE movie score from what I could tell. It was Spectacular !!! I cannot rave enought about this CD. THANKS Amazon