Customer Reviews

The Sand Pebbles: Original Motion Picture Score (1997 Re-recording)

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

 

 

This 1966 movie starring Steve Mcqueen was epic in scope and the music compliments it nicely. The score deserved a rerecording and finally got one a few years ago by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Goldsmith. The CD is a mixed blessing. The performance is good, however some of the quieter parts are barely audible. It's also a shame the CD left out good music from the film and original album which I am fortunate to possess on vinyl. The original album's overture was left out on the CD in favor of a new arrangement Goldsmith put together that mainly features the love theme. The original overture is more powerful and has a more epic sound. Otherwise, this is a very good CD and is among the best of Goldsmith's extensive 60's output.

Varese-Sarabande has recently released a more complete "deluxe" edition of the score. It contains the twelve cuts found on the '97 version, as well as seventeen others.

Here are the tracks found on the 2002 release:

1. Overture (2:16)
2. Main Title (2:57)
3. Getting Acquainted (3:53)
4. Hello, Engine (1:24)
5. Death Of A Coolie (:57)
6. Maily Appears (1:07)
7. Training A New Coolie (:40)
8. Repel Boarders (Mono) (2:40)
9. The Mission at China Light (2:05)
10. Death of A Thousand Cuts (4:46)
11. Act One Finale (:59)
12. Entr'acte (1:02)
13. Back To Port (:53)
14. My Secret (4:00)
15. Jake and Shirley (4:24)
16. A Conversation (2:02)
17. The Wedding (6:11)
18. Coolies Jump Ship (1:50)
19. State Of Siege (5:53)
20. Frenchy's Death (2:19)
21. Maily's Abduction (2:49)
22. Final Mission (5:46)
23. Battle Continues (2:12)
24. Death of the Assassin (1:46)
25. Sniper (:58)
26. Almost Home (Finale) (1:00)
27. End Title (:38)
28. Exit Music (2:39)

BONUS TRACKS:
29. Overture (alternate) (2:54)
30. Chinese Love Theme (2:26)

Total running time: 76:28

One of Jerry Goldsmith's phenomenal gifts as a composer was his ability to evoke a place in music. Here, Mr. Goldsmith draws a picture of China during a turbulent time. The Sand Pebbles is an ambitious and highly dramatic film that offered a wide scope to the composer. He caught the taught drama of the story and its exotic location but also wrote a love theme that became a successful song (And We Were Lovers) with words supplied by Johnny Mercer. The Sand Pebbles is among his most successful scores and was nominated for an Oscar; it is one of the few films that Mr. Goldsmith scored that has an overture.

This CD is a re-recording of the score with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Mr. Goldsmith, making for a more vivid sound than a transfer of the original soundtrack. The new recording of the score allowed the composer to include new tracks that had not appeared on the original recording, such as The Wedding and Frenchy's Death. However, The Sand Pebbles contained more music than is present on this CD. As the other reviewers have pointed out, a 2002 soundtrack release timed out at over 76 minutes. So, as excellent as this CD is it is not a definitive recording.

The accompanying booklet described the action behind each of the tracks and points out interesting aspects of the music. There are a few stills from the movie in the booklet and a nice photograph of Jerry Goldsmith. This score is one of the essentials for a Jerry Goldsmith film score collection but what we have here is an extension of the original soundtrack, not a complete recording of the music.

turn out better re-recordings of the scores of other composers than Jerry Goldsmith. They turned out very fine product with releases of premiere recordings of the music of such masters as Franz Waxman, John Barry, Bernard
Herrmann and even Alex North.
So why are their projects less than satisfactory when it comes to new performances of Goldsmith's music? Not just
the performance of the orchestra but also the sound mix. THE SAND PEBBLES seems to suffer from the same problems
that I encountered on their album PATTON/TORA! TORA! TORA! The performances of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra
seems lethargic here again and the low passages are too low and the loud passages way too loud. I can only assume that for THE SAND PEBBLES, and the other album as well, the orchestra didn't have sufficient rehearsal time to really nail this great music. But since their deluxe edition of the original soundtrack sessions sold out long ago
and until some other label decides to rerelease the complete soundtrack this is the version we'll have to settle for.
This new recording does contain some music only available on the deluxe edition and we should be grateful that Varese took the time to make a new recording of this landmark music but I just wish they had put more time and effort into it and to put in more of the action music to even out the program as Goldsmith seemed to prefer to place more of the love theme variation pieces here. The complete "Final Mission," "Training a New Coolie" or even
the really beautiful "Hello Engine" tracks would have fit in this recording nicely.
All in all, I was disappointed with this album as it is one of my top Goldsmith scores and being my favorite composer it hurts to say that I was disappointed with this recording. Maybe one day Intrada will reissue the complete score. And if you want to hear stunning new recordings of his past scores conducted by the composer one should check out Intrada's recordings of RIO CONCHOS and ISLANDS IN THE STREAM. They did it right.

This is of course, not an origianl soundtrack recording as one would be led to believe by the advertisement on Amazon. It doesn't even have the quality recording a soundtrack album has. why there isn't a true soundtrack album available of this score is puzzling in the least. The least Amazon could do is take their original sountrack label off of this recording.

The original overture was my favorite piece of this sound tract. It is missing here, in favor of a rehash of the love theme, which was good, but does NOT replace the original overture. Disappointing...

Although a beautiful rendition of the original soundtrack, this is NOT the original, but rather a re-recording by the master Jerry Goldsmith.

The music is a mix of a large orchestral symphonic score, Jerry Goldsmith flair with beautiful Chinese acoustical instruments which bring back memories of the film, but the music will stand alone even for people who have never seen the film. The film too is great!

For the complete original score you will have to purchase the Varese Sarabande Club version which was issued to a limited pressing and is now long out of print and goes for a nice chunk of change, but then again, this version too is out of print and costly.

My problem with this rendition is that some of the ques go from being barely audible to blowing you out of the room. The fidelity is inconsistent and will cause you to constantly play with your volume control and that is why only 4-stars for this great score.

If you can find it for a decent price, pick it up, but keep your remote volume control in your hand at all times if you enjoy your music loud, otherwise your neighbors will also get the opportunity to listen to your music.

I am a big fan of motion picture soundtracks and this one was exceptional.
I owned the original before they had CD's if I remember correctly and the re-recording of this OST is actually better, I think, than the original. New technology was a blessing in this case. I don't think anyone who buys this soundtrack will be disappointed, I know I was well pleased!

This was a gift for my sister, we've been waiting for it to become available for a very long time. The theme song is as haunting as when we first saw it in the theatre.