Film Score Friday 3/2/01

Varese Sarabande has made public the track list and credits for their Cleopatra 2CD set due March 20th. Get a load of this monster treasure:

CLEOPATRA

Music Composed and Conducted by ALEX NORTH
Varese Sarabande 302 066 224 2
Release date: March 20, 2001

Disc One

1. Overture 2:42
2. Main Title 2:51
3. Pharsalia 1:17
4. Caesar to Egypt 1:57
5. The VIPs / King Ptolemy 0:59
6. Pompey's Ring 2:53
7. A Gift for Caesar 1:51
8. Only Yesterday 1:31
9. Epilepsy 3:20
10. Great Library 2:05
11. Moon Gate 4:20
12. Taste of Death 1:47
13. Sympathy 1:45
14. Coronation 1:51
15. Fertility 4:49
16. Alexander's Tomb 3:45
17. Calpurnia 1:59
18. The Fire Burns / Son of Caesar 3:43
19. Caesar's Departure 3:40
20. Cleopatra Enters Rome 6:49
21. By Divine Right 2:06
22. Death in the Garden 1:44
23. Caesar's Assassination 4:57
24. Requiem 1:32
25. Farewell 1:39
26. Entr'acte (Caesar & Cleopatra) 2:32
27. Hail Antony 3:12
28. Isis 1:23
29. Love Theme (reprise) 0:30

Total time: 76:12

Disc Two

1. Cleopatra's Barge 2:54
2. Most Becoming 1:38
3. Food 0:54
4. Antony and Cleopatra in Tarses 3:38
5. Bacchus 2:41
6. Antony and Cleopatra's Love 3:10
7. One Breath Closer 2:40
8. Love and Hate 2:16
9. Athens 2:37
10. Cleopatra's Ambition 1:15
11. War 0:44
12. Interlude / Sea Battle 14.36
13. My Love Is My Master 4:17
14. Two Heads 0:46
15. Better Late Than Never 2:37
16. Cleopatra's Son / Antony's Camp 2:19
17. Never Fear 3:16
18. Grant Me An Honorable Way to Die 2:37
19. Antony's Retreat / Transitions 2:02
20. Dying Is Less Than Love 4:26
21. Octavian the Victor 4:05
22. Antony...Wait 3:55
23. Epilogue 2:25
24. Exit Music (Antony and Cleopatra) 2:26

Total time: 74:49

Album Produced by Nick Redman
Executive Producer: Robert Townson

Restoration Producer: Lukas Kendall
Production Executive for Prometheus Entertainment: Kevin Burns
Soundtrack Executive for Twentieth Century Fox: Tom Cavanaugh
Project Consultants: Richard Green & Geoffrey Sharpe
35mm Assembly: Ron Fuglsby
Music remixed and assembled by Michael McDonald at Private Island Trax, Hollywood, California
Digital Editing and Mastering: Dan Hersch, DigiPrep, Hollywood, California
CD booklet design: Robert Townson

Still Photos and Poster Images Courtesy of the Twentieth Century Fox Photo Archives and the collection of Richard Green and Geoffrey Sharpe

Special thanks to: Robert Kraft, Sue Collins, Scott Hartford, Mimi Christensen, Brent Zacky, Bruce Kimmel, Jeff Bond, Jon Burlingame, Lloyd Hardy, Melissa Totten, Foxstar Productions, Van Ness Films, Kaki Kirby, Colin Cotter and Warren Salyer.

Fans of the movie will note that there are no real "lost" or deleted cues. There are a few instances where a portion of a cue was dialed out of the picture, and a couple of source-music fanfares that the filmmakers elected not to use. But there was not a single cue, remarkably enough, written for a scene cut from the movie -- apparently whatever other versions of Cleopatra were cut or assembled, they happened well before North recorded his music.

Fans can also see from the above list that not one piece of dramatic scoring is absent, and that it is a huge, exciting narrative. Part two is slightly longer than part one, so the producers elected not to split the discs exactly at the Entr'Acte. The only cue not in chronological sequence is the 30-second "Reprise" of the Love Theme that fittingly closes disc one. If anyone complains about this we'll bite your head off.

As indicated on the above credits I was the "Restoration Producer" on this, and to offer a few words of explanation, I basically supervised the remix and assembly of the basic elements which were then utilized for the new documentary and the new 2CD set.

Anyone who ever had any questions about FSM doing Silver Age scores like The Undefeated or Beneath the Planet of the Apes instead of diving headfirst into epic scores of the Cleopatra era, keep in mind this important point: Those smaller projects provided the building blocks for the knowledge we would need to tackle this mammoth score. Cleopatra was an enormous assembly involving up to 32 separate tracks (for the "Overture") -- on average 12 to 15 -- many of which were not synchronized. There is no way in a million years Cleopatra could have been restored had not someone -- and in this case it happened to be us at FSM, working with Michael MacDonald at Private Island Trax -- done incrementally smaller scores to learn how these Fox materials can be put back together with modern technology.

In any case, my thanks to everyone involved with the Cleopatra project -- particularly the producer, Nick Redman, and executive producer, Bob Townson -- for the opportunity to work on it, and I think fans will be thrilled with the result they can hear on March 20th.

Rhino's long promised series of limited edition film score CDs from the Turner vaults is becoming a reality. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Andre Previn) is the first release, with pre-orders now being accepted. Here's the link: http://www.rhinohandmade.com/RHIP/7764/index.html

Percepto Records has its Vic Mizzy: Suites & Themes promotional CD back from manufacturing -- a terrific collection of the composer's best work, featuring his great themes for Don Knotts films like The Ghost and Mr. Chicken and The Reluctant Astronaut. Quantities are limited to collectors: www.percepto.com.

Percepto's next projects are due in April: Invasion of the Saucer Men/It Conquered the World (Ronald Stein) and a promotional CD of Phar Lap/Zeus and Roxanne (Bruce Rowland).

The Los Angeles Jewish Symphony is performing two film music concerts this Sunday, March 4th at the Gindi Auditorium, U.J. 15600 Mulholland Drive, LA, at 2PM and 7:30PM. Call 818-753-6681 to reserve tickets in the $25, $36 or $45 ranges.

The concert will honor Alfred Newman and also feature music by Randy Newman (conducting the evening performance), Jerry Goldsmith and Victor Young. Being premiered is William Goldstein's Orchestral Suite from Disney's Miracle at Midnight with the composer as piano soloist. There will be a reception after the evening concert.

We had a Piero Umiliani obituary yesterday on the site. Claudio Fuiano, an Italian producer who was friends with the composer, tells me that Umiliani did not have a lingering illness but was very active recently and died of a heart attack. (He did have a stroke in 1983 but recovered.) We regret the error, which was my fault -- I added it to the article, not John Bender.

A reader wrote in to ask about the planned fifth volume of Franz Waxman: Legends of Hollywood which was to be recorded for Varese Sarabande by Richard Mills. According to the composer's son, John Waxman, due to other projects this volume has been delayed.

We have a poll running on the site now asking fans which composer they would most want to see in concert. Polling was neck and neck for a brief time and then John Barry took a huge lead, prompting some people to ask us if the mechanism was faulty...good question! (Not that I didn't vote for Barry myself, but his lead developed so quickly and is so pronounced, well, questions are being asked.) There is no technical problem we can see, but there may be one. Did a group of Barry fans mobilize to stuff the ballot box? If so please let me know -- it's perfectly OK, I just want to make sure our poll feature works all right.

(And if you guys are well organized, just have ONE person write me... do not send me your poll choice again, I'll go nuts if my email inbox overflows with this stuff! I'm not kidding!!)

A couple of nice letters we received:

From: "ggreg perry" <ggreg0@hotmail.com>

First of all, thanks for the quick delivery of my order!

But more importantly, thanks for all the great soundtrack releases.

I am particularly indebted to you for your PLANET OF THE APES releases.

I had spent over 2 decades looking for the BENEATH soundtrack LP (and never finding it, AND learning along the way that it wasn't actually the Original soundtrack, but I still wanted it for my collection).

And then, not only do you release the LP on CD, but, more importantly, release the Original soundtrack as well and even on the same disc!!

You guys are just amazing, and i send everyone I know on the web and in real
life to you.

Here's to much success in your future.

From: "Michael A. Morrison" <morrison@mail.nhn.ou.edu>

Congratulations all around! You guys have really outdone yourselves with your release of Herrmann's magnitificent score to Beneath the 12 Mile Reef. Most of the cues on this CD are a revelation to those of us who know the score only from the suite on Gerhardt's Classic Film Music "Citizen Kane" CD. And I am amazed at the quality of the sound, considering that you were working with master tapes from 1953! Truly, this is a magnificent CD, one I'll enjoy for years to come. Please, give us more unreleased Herrmann!

Scifi.com has posted a cool review by Jeff Berkwits of our Omega Man CD, still on sale: http://www.scifi.com/sfw/current/sound.html.

It's only been 11 months but our Omega Man CD is two-thirds sold out -- less than 1,000 copies of the 3,000 run remain. Keep that in mind if you've been considering whether or not to buy this CD.

We'll release our newest Golden Age Classics CD next week.

Have a great weekend!

MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com