Risk-taking and exhilarating, Alex North's music for Elia Kazan's A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) explores a territory bounded by jazz, modernist currents, and the composer's idiosyncratic poignancy. Anticipating the rhythms of Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story by six years, North's use of jazz was a perfect choice given the unsparing of this Tennessee Williams drama, once ...
Recorded at Abbey Road, The Film Music of Jerry Goldsmith is conducted by the composer himself. The disc's programme is similar to those given by Goldsmith at his regular London concerts. Things get off to a disappointing start with Star Trek: The Motion Picture, momentary pauses/fades robbing the piece of its original exuberant glory. This is followed by an 18-minute medley which ...