The Importance of Being Earnest: Benjamin Frankel's Music for the Movies

Benjamin Frankel (Composer), Werner Andreas Albert (Conductor), Queensland Symphony Orchestra Brisbane (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: Queensland Symphony Orchestra Brisbane
• Conductor: Werner Andreas Albert
• Composer: Benjamin Frankel
• Audio CD (March 5, 2002)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Cpo Records
• ASIN: B00005Y2J1
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #270,362 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Theme

2. Pastoral

3. Prelude

4. Mexican Washer Women

5. The Letter

6. Shannon Shanghaies the Coach

7. Hannah & Shannon Theme

8. A Personal View

9. Shannon's Way Out

10. Shannon's Long Swim

11. The Iguana is released

12. Maxine & Shannon Theme (Finale)

13. Gaiety Galop

14. The Balloon Toon

15. Trottie's Romance

16. The Life and Times of a Gaiety Girl

17. A Most Attractive Bounder

18. Trottie True Trot

19. Lullaby

20. Prelude - The Lily Watkins Theme

See all 23 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An outstanding selection of Benjamin Frankel film music..., March 6, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Importance of Being Earnest: Benjamin Frankel's Music for the Movies (Audio CD)

This CD is fine qualty DDD recording with spacious, detailed sound. It has excellent presentation and booklet, with a very nice choice of film stills. I particularly enjoyed the 'Importance of Being Earnest' and 'Trottie True' tracks, both with those jaunty lively themes at which Benjamin Frankel excels. 'Curse of the Werewolf' is an amazing quality score for such a low budget film, bearing in mind Hammer usually only budgeted for £85-100,000 per film in the early 1960s ! With a much bigger MGM budget and major stars, the 'Night of the Iguana' score is a revelation, as I have never heard it before - I only hope the film is on TV again soon so I can study the context of the music. The sombre moments reminds me at times of Mahler and the music in 'Death in Venice', and the 'Hannah and Shannon' theme is superb. I liked the use of the muted trumpet,(as in Miles Davis ' Sketches of Spain' ?) to suggest Mexican atmosphere. The 'Trottie True' suite is lovely: 'Gaiety Gallop' deserves to be a light music classic along with Benjamin Frankel's 'Carriage and Pair', capturing the Edwardian world of Sir Arthur Sullivan beautifully, and the haunting 'Balloon Toon' is already becoming one of my favourites. There are wonderful reconstructions for the 'Lullaby' from 'The Years Between', and 'Footsteps in the Fog'.... In the latter, apart from the lush, haunting 'Lily Watkins Theme', the use of the piano in 'Lowry's Secret' is particularly eerie....
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