Varese Superman Track List

Compiled by Lukas Kendall

With thanks to Robert Townson at Varese Sarabande

Okay folks, here's something you've been waiting to see: the track list for the 2CD set of re-recorded Superman: The Movie music, due next Tuesday (10/20) from Varese Sarabande in stores everywhere. Here's the complete credit information, actually:

John Williams: SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE

John Debney - Royal Scottish National Orchestra

Produced by Robert Townson

Recording Engineer: Jonathan Allen

Assistant Engineer: Richard Hale

Mastering Engineer: Bruce Botnick

Cover Paintings by Bob Peak

Orchestration Reconstruction: Kevin Kaska and Brad Dechter with Don Nemitz, Frank Bennett and Larry Dominello

Based on Original Orchestrations by Herbert Spencer and Arthur Morton

Special Thanks to Simon Crookall, Danny Gould, Myra Mackay, Matthew Joseph Peak, Francisco Pires, Andrea Sine, Elaine Thomson and Mike Watts.

DISC ONE

1. Prologue and Main Title (5:31)

2. The Planet Krypton (4:35)

3. The Destruction of Krypton (5:27)

4. Trip to Earth (2:38)

5. Growing Up (2:05)

6. Jonathan's Death (4:09)

7. Leaving Home (4:46)

8. The Fortress of Solitude (8:22)

DISC TWO

1. The Helicopter Sequence (6:16)

2. The Penthouse (1:50)

3. The Flying Sequence (4:16)

4. The Truck Convoy (1:54)

5. To The Lair (2:18)

6. March of the Villains (3:56)

7. Chasing Rockets (5:12)

8. Pushing Boulders (2:24)

9. Flying to Lois (2:58)

10. Turning Back the World (2:01)

11. The Prison Yard and End Title (6:27)

12. Love Theme from Superman (5:01)

Varese Sarabande VSD2-5981

Street date: Tuesday, October 20, 1998

1. Theme from Superman (Main Title) (4:28)

2. The Planet Krypton (4:49)

3. Destruction of Krypton (6:04)

4. The Trip to Earth (2:28)

5. Growing Up (1:56)

6. Love Theme from Superman (5:04)

7. Leaving Home (4:53)

8. The Fortress of Solitude (8:29)

9. The Flying Sequence (8:10) [with Margot Kidder speaking... wow, my favorite part!]

10. Super Rescues (3:29)

11. Lex Luthor's Lair (2:33)

12. Superfeats (5:02)

13. The March of the Villains (3:36)

14. Chasing Rockets (7:37)

15. Turning Back to the World (2:07)

16. End Title (6:28)

On the scale of Superman music freaks, 1-10, I am probably around an 8, so I can identify some of the new music to the Varese recording, but not all. Obviously, on disc one there's the prologue, the first minute of track one, and "Jonathan's Death" (Pa Kent's funeral). On disc two there's the helicopter rescue, the truck convoy music, and the music for Superman flying to Luthor's lair ("There's only one thing on earth with less than four legs that can hear this" or whatever the cool quote is). The second half of disc two is jumbled together on the original Williams album, so I'm not sure what's new, and it's 12:30AM so I can't call Bob at Varese to ask. (I forget what "The Penthouse" and "Flying to Lois" are.)

In any case, we'll all know next Tuesday, and we'll get to find out the answer to the REALLY important question... how good of a recording is this? To be pessimistic, "The Trip to Earth" is ten seconds longer on the new recording than on the original, which indicates slower tempi, and also, the entire score has been re-orchestrated by a team of experts, since the original orchestrations were lost at some point. To be optimistic, the score overall is less reliant on the close-miking and weird instrumentations that have been problematic on other Varese CDs (like Torn Curtain), and Kevin Kaska, given first-billing for the new orchestrations, is a brilliant composer and musicologist who has worked for years with Williams at the Boston Pops. Ooh, the suspense is killing me.

To answer one question, however (why did Varese record a 2CD set and still not do the complete score?): As I understand it, Robert Townson went to Scotland with the idea of doing a really long single CD of highlights from the score (focusing on unreleased material), and ended up with just over one disc's worth--83 minutes. So rather than cut anything, he expanded the release to two CDs.

Be here tomorrow for Film Score Friday!

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