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Let's not forget that this Chandos Rozsa is also available as downloads (complete or separate tracks of one's choice) at The Classical Shop, in lossless CD quality AND as high res 24/96 files: http://www.theclassicalshop.net/Details.aspx?CatalogueNumber=CHAN%2010806 Exactly. Pay the $4.00 for the highest quality SAHARA suite, and skip buying any duplicate material. I love the logic.... ONE RECORDING ONLY.. All other are without merit and should not exist. Wow, The Thinking of close minded fanboys.. I have four recordings of ALEXANDER NEVSKY, all of them performed by Different Orchestra's and Conductors. All of them are different and look at the work in a very different light. I think Rozsa deserves the same treatment. Ford A. Thaxton
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I think Rozsa deserves the same treatment. Ford A. Thaxton Amen.
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Posted: |
Feb 25, 2014 - 10:18 PM
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By: |
PFK
(Member)
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Exactly. Pay the $4.00 for the highest quality SAHARA suite, and skip buying any duplicate material. I love the logic.... ONE RECORDING ONLY.. All other are without merit and should not exist. Wow, The Thinking of close minded fanboys.. I have four recordings of ALEXANDER NEVSKY, all of them performed by Different Orchestra's and Conductors. All of them are different and look at the work in a very different light. I think Rozsa deserves the same treatment. Ford A. Thaxton Logic? There are over 60 recordings of Alexander Nevsky available on Amazon. Why stop at four? Are all the others without merit and should not exist? Why not five? Or ten? Or just one? If people decide they don't need another version of a Rozsa piece they already have, why does that make them a "closed-minded fanboy"? A mere four versions of Alexander Nevsky hardly compares with a "fanboy" who has a dozen or more different recordings of Ben-Hur. I have at least that many, by different orchestras and conductors. All of them are different and look at the work in a different light. Should I get a thirteenth? Or maybe it would be a fifteenth? I can't see that you having four Nevskys will play any part in anyone's decision. Least of all me, because I already have six Nevskys. I agree with your comments Basil. You can't compare Rozsa with famous classical composers. Film scores have a much smaller audience. This well could be the last newly recorded Rozsa CD of his film scores we will ever see. So, no Desert Fury, no Four Feathers, no Five Graves to Cairo, no Criss Cross, no Secret Beyond the Door etc. etc. We get yet another Ben Hur, Jungle Book, same suite from Thief of Bagdad. If it were not for the 7 (!) minutes from Sahara I would probably skip this CD. For those who are so enthusiastic about this CD, I guess you would freak out on this CD: Chandos Miklos Rozsa Volume 2: 73 minutes from Quo Vadis, El Cid, Spellbound ..... and 7 minutes from Five Graves to Cairo.
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Posted: |
Feb 25, 2014 - 11:32 PM
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By: |
SchiffyM
(Member)
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You can't compare Rozsa with famous classical composers. Film scores have a much smaller audience. This well could be the last newly recorded Rozsa CD of his film scores we will ever see. So, no Desert Fury, no Four Feathers, no Five Graves to Cairo, no Criss Cross, no Secret Beyond the Door etc. etc. PFK, you seem to be willfully ignoring what has been pointed out repeatedly in this thread. This is not -- that's the crucial word, so I will bold it and repeat it: not -- being marketed primarily to the film score audience. Sure, they'll be happy to take our money. But they are a classical label. Their film score releases began with European classical composers who happened to write some film scores: Walton, Shostakovich, Bliss, Vaughan Willams, Bax, etc. As those wells dried up, they expanded into composers who wrote primarily for film. But even so, their target audience is the classical aficionado. They're not looking to please what you grant is our smaller audience of obsessive film score fans. Their larger classical base does not already own these scores, but is (they hope) open to giving them a listen, based on the reputation of the label but also on some name brand recognition of the films involved. You can bemoan that, but I really don't see how in the world you can be unaware of it, or doubt that it's at least a reasonable strategy. All of this has nothing to do with the quality of performance and recording, which I'm hearing is excellent. I also have to say you're being rather melodramatic when you say that this "well could be the last newly recorded Rozsa CD of his film scores we will ever see." On what do you base this theory? Two full Rózsa score rerecordings came out less than a year and a half ago. Sure, these will never be huge sellers, so I wouldn't expect new Rózsa recordings every year. But the last ever? Why? I think the best way to assure they'd be the last ever would be to try to sell unknown scores to a classical audience. And do you really think it would be in Chandos' interest to record obscure scores for our sake?
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Posted: |
Feb 26, 2014 - 1:20 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Their film score releases began with European classical composers who happened to write some film scores: Walton, Shostakovich, Bliss, Vaughan Willams, Bax, etc. As those wells dried up, they expanded into composers who wrote primarily for film. But even so, their target audience is the classical aficionado. They're not looking to please what you grant is our smaller audience of obsessive film score fans. Their larger classical base does not already own these scores, but is (they hope) open to giving them a listen, based on the reputation of the label but also on some name brand recognition of the films involved. The above pretty much sums its up. And it has worked in the same way with me. I have purchased many of the Chandos CDs in order to sample the film music of Bliss, Bax, Vaughan, et al. From these samplings, I might well be willing to purchase full score recordings from these composers, either original or re-recordings, if they existed. But in most cases they don't. That's not the case with Rozsa. If Chandos customers were really interested in seeking out Rozsa, they wouldn't have much trouble. FSM alone has issued 15 separate Rozsa releases (not to mention a 15-CD Rozsa box set). Yet I daresay that most Chandos customers don't own a one of them. If by purchasing this new Chandos CD someone is prompted to seek out more Rozsa, that can't be anything but good.
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For goodness' sake. 1. This is the BEST recording for ages, the sonics arfe perfect. Every instrument is as clear as a bell, and the sound is exquisitely mixed. 2. Chandos are a classical music label. They don't release specialist soundtracks to the afficionados, they release representative film score suites for the general recording, broadcasting and classical music audience, of composers whose work is worthy. 3. The 'Thief' 'dupe' is not a dupe. There is an extra track, the 'Sultan's Toys'. 4. How the hell is it all 'unnecessary'? The recording and performances and sound are vastly superior to all before it. If someone released another set of Brandenburg Concertos or 1812 Overture, would anyone think it 'unnecessary'? There's room for 1,000 of each, and this plants Rozsa's film and concert music right up there in the regular repertoire realm. That's going to do more good for his legacy than 100 small releases by fringe interest companies. Could yeez all just step outside the tiny soundtrack fetish club for an instant and think strategically and sensibly. So one day you all want all your so-called 'grails' on your shelves. Is that the height of it? Does that matter to anyone but yourselves? LISTEN TO THE BLOODY THING! The samples are available online, enlist with Chandos, and incidentally, the BBC Radio 3 classical station are broadcasting each suite this week. They used to attack Chandos for their sonics. Now that the sonics are excellent, they find something else. Come to think on it, they used to attack 'Concorde' for its sonic boom. No-one attacked the Boeing SST for its sonic boom because there was never any money to build the damned thing. It's a Transatlantic world. Is there a lesson I wonder?
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For anyone in the UK, here are repeat listenings of the Radio 3 broadcasts this week, with the timings for individual suites given in the notes underneath: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03w0j2v http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03w0f43 The above are 'Ben-Hur' and 'Sahara' but follow the links and hear the 'Thief of Baghdad' suite also, whose illumination of the orchestration far supercedes previous releases.
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Posted: |
Feb 26, 2014 - 3:08 PM
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By: |
Dadid L
(Member)
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I really don't understand what is the proplem here. Ok, the Ben Hur concert suite is already avaible, BUT both The thief of Bagdad and Jungle book orchestral suites are not, except for collectors like us... Only old recordings with narration, and only one stereo recording (without narr.). So, thanks to Chandos, we now can listen to a state of the art recording, played by a great orchestra under the usually masterfull baton of Gamba. Just for these two suites, this new Rozsa album must be considered. Such efforts from major classical labels like Chandos are a gift, so my advice is : take it.
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One point not made yet: Only two of these films are well known, and that only among the shrinking number of people who care about older films. My guess is that Jungle Book is just as obscure as Sahara. So no matter how you slice it, this is hardly a greatest-hits album. And, even though I've been in this game for 40 plus years, and have dozens and dozens of Miklos Rozsa albums, I don't have the earlier suite releases of Thief and Jungle Book - so this is a great album for this long-time film score lover. The oddest thing about materialist culture is that the more we get, the more people tend to grouse about getting more.
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