How The West Was Won: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack [ORIGINAL RECORDING REISSUED] [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED] [SOUNDTRACK]

Alfred Newman

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 14, 1997)
• Original Release Date: February 20, 1963
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered, Soundtrack
• Label: Rhino / Wea
• ASIN: B0000033TD
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #40,033 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous, October 7, 1998

By	Vincenzo Stonitelli (Martinsville, VA USA) - See all my reviews

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.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not a Note Missed, October 9, 2002

By	Chrijeff (Scranton, PA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Greatest Film Scores Ever, August 3, 2002

By	D. COLLIER "Doug Collier" (Brownwood, TX United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.