Cinema Century: A Musical Celebration of 100 Years of Cinema

See Larger Image	Manufacturer: Silva Screen Average Customer Rating:


Binding: Audio CD EAN: 5014929018027 Format: Soundtrack Label: Silva Screen Manufacturer: Silva Screen Number Of Discs: 3 Publisher: Silva Screen Release Date: 1999-10-01 Studio: Silva Screen
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Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: The most comprehensive package of cinema music on offer Comment: Cinema Century: A Musical Celebration of 100 Years of Cinema offers you the the most comprehensive package of the greatest musical songs to embrace their names in cinema history. This is a landmark celebration. In music retailing, you will not get any package that you offers the best and unique choice of high callibre music featured in movies. This takes some beating if you get what I mean. It is great value for money. Cinema Century: A Musical Celebration of 100 Years of Cinema features three CDs of all the cinema songs which are a pleasure to listen and you can relive the magical and special moments of the greatest movies of all time. The list ranges from Lawrence of Arabia, Star Wars, Taxi Driver,Gone with the Wind, Out of Africa, A Passage to India, Chariots of Fire, Raiders of the Lost Ark and many more. If you love classical music, then this is an album which is well suited to your musical taste. It is real treat for anyone who loves smoothing and relaxing music. Customer Rating: Summary: Play it Again...? Comment: Probably not. What a shame, given the excellent range of titles on this 3 disc package. It was very disappointing to discover that these re-recordings based on the original film scores are no match for the original soundtrack recordings. To give just three examples: Max Steiner's - of all composers - 'Gone with the Wind' is weak and lacks all the pace, fullness, vigour and drama of the original soundtrack recording. And the same can be said of '633 Squadron' which has none of Goodwin's almost breathless pace; 'The Great Escape' can only be described as plodding. Unfortunately, this lack of energy in the scoring is identifiable virtually throughout the collection. There is a lot to be said for original soundtrack recordings, because the studios put a huge amount of effort into the orchestrations to get them spot on to the mood of the film, so my advice has to be go for original soundtracks every time - digtally re-mastered or not. Customer Rating: Summary: Very good Comment: To be honest it is hard to review this box set. I can understand Andrew_mcp's point of view, and often find myself irritated by conductors playing around with the original material, or as Andrew wrote, when a small orchestra is used. In the case of these CDs I was not actually disappointed. I think with enough volume the recordings sound as good as the originals (though of course with a new orchestra and conductor). There are a lot of songs here for not a lot of money, which is good news, and in general the songs are great. I think I've rated this four and not five stars because I feel that potentially the song choices could have been better. For example, there is a lot of John Barry here, but it would have been nice to have varying themes as opposed to the very similar Dances with wolves, Born Free, and Out of Africa themes (though these are excellent). I also feel that there is more music from films like the Mission that I would have liked to hear rather than just the one theme. To be honest though I am being picky, and this is worth buying for unique tracks like the stroke of genius that is Where Eagles Dare, not to mention the likes of Zulu and Colonel Bogey. The more classical tracks are evened out with things like Mancini's Pink Panther and Fiedel's Terminator. This is well worth it for anyone who likes classic films. Customer Rating: Summary: Disappointingly "thin" versions Comment: I was hoping for the full orchestral experience, but compared to the original soundtracks (ok, my memory of them), many of these versions are distinctly uninspiring... or recorded on a day when half the orchestra was off sick. The playing as such isn't at fault, and 3 CDs for the price has to be good value for money. But I honestly can't recommend this. Customer Rating: Summary: You get a lot for your money! Comment: This CD arrived this morning and already I've listened to most of it and love it - music from some of my favourite films such as "The Godfather" all on the one compilation! Even though I haven't seen most of the films I still love listening to the music. I bought this along with another film music compilation, "The Classic Score" and with these two CDs I've got a bit of everything! A notable absence is "Titanic" but because I've heard the Titanic music so much, I was actually rather pleased to see it had been missed out! I was very pleased to discover that the track from "Bridge On the River Kwai" is the fun marching tune that all the soldiers whistle to on the film!! There are some real cinema classics on here, such as "Lawrence of Arabia", "Ben Hur", "Jaws"... the list is endless! So, three CDs, over 3 1/2 hours of great film music - you can't go far wrong with this! More Reviews