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How do the Mono tracks sound?
They sound fine - mono, clearly, but fine. I'm listening to the variations CD 1 now - at least half the versions included, are, of course, from other recordings - the Bill Evans, which leads off disc one is a masterpiece and thus far nothing comes within a country mile of it. As I've said many times before, it's my favorite piece of recorded music ever - a perfect track in every way.
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Mine ought to be here in a couple of hours...
Sucks to be in Canada on occasions like this...
and also in february, i presume
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Posted: |
Jul 31, 2010 - 12:52 AM
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By: |
Ed Nassour
(Member)
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I just listened to the non-album cuts on disc one...but would someone enter it into iTunes so I don't have to? Disc one seems to sound quite good!
I think everything on disc one was meant to be an album cut when the plan was a two LP set. There are some cues in this score that are so heart achingly beautiful that you just want to plotz.
They're all from what would have been a two-LP edition. Decca dubbed them off of the 35mm three-track originals onto 1/2" three-track tape. From it a two-track album master was made. The main title had about 30 seconds trimmed off the front. I can see why Decca did this since played alone it tends to sound somewhat repetitious. It was designed to play under Saul Bass's main title.
What do the notes say about the sources? I assume the mono material is from the 1/4" mono copies North had. Among the mono material, the 'Desolation Elegy' doesn't appear to have the choral overlay. On the sample I listened to, the female chorus can be heard way in the background. So Goldwyn didn't carry it over to North's copy. Plus the fact the original tracks were three-track, mixing them down to mono appears to have caused some phase distortion. I can hear it on the samples. Perhaps that's just the low sampling rate on the website and not evident on the CDs. There appears to be some added reverb.
I still believe there's the chance the original 35mm three-tracks are stored in the vault since Universal lists over 2,000 separate elements for "Spartacus." They'd be 50 years-old so God knows what condition they'd be in. Perhaps enough vinegar to go into 5,000 salads.
I haven't had a chance to get into the booklet yet - it's a commitment! I wonder about the three-track elements as well - maybe the booklet will have some information on that?
In the 1970s, the original 35mm three-tracks were still in the vault and on the lot. I know since an editor I worked for wanted to use the main title as a temp piece in a cut he was working on. So I ordered it. They got the specific roll, made the transfer, but upon hearing it, the editor realized the transfer guy had copied only one track which was mostly made up of horns and percussion so I had to reorder it and stand by as the transfer engineer (Henry Vera) copied all three tracks to single stripe 35mm.
On another occasion we got the film's 6 track M&E mix and played it to the entire film projected on the scoring stage. The sound came through the large Altec horns that were behind the screen. I don't remember the reason. Possibly to check it against a print. The sound quality was spectacular. And since the film was so lightly mixed with sound effects, the music dominated. Too bad those tracks weren't used for this new CD set. They still exist. I know since I checked.
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One of the reasons I'm a little disappointed in the prospect of a mono rerecording is that, when attending a preview of the reconstructed movie in 70mm in the early 90's, the THRILL of the start of the Overture stays with me to this day.
Those magnificent horns and brass, and the seemingly massed drums (I'm not musically knowledgable) thundering stereophonically from behind the closed curtains.
If the Overture featured on the 35mm print I first saw as a kid I didn't appreciate it.
Well, you do get the overture and seventy other minutes in stereo on CD 1. I saw the film at the Pantages during its first run, when the snails and oysters scene was still in - it remains one of my all-time favorite movie-going memories - in the days when there was showmanship and they really knew how to present a film.
If you're a fan of the score, I cannot imagine not being happy with the three discs of the score - it may not be what everyone was absolutely hoping for - but what is? What it is is Spartacus and it's just such a brilliant score.
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Posted: |
Jul 31, 2010 - 1:34 AM
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By: |
RM Eastman
(Member)
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I just listened to the non-album cuts on disc one...but would someone enter it into iTunes so I don't have to? Disc one seems to sound quite good!
I think everything on disc one was meant to be an album cut when the plan was a two LP set. There are some cues in this score that are so heart achingly beautiful that you just want to plotz.
They're all from what would have been a two-LP edition. Decca dubbed them off of the 35mm three-track originals onto 1/2" three-track tape. From it a two-track album master was made. The main title had about 30 seconds trimmed off the front. I can see why Decca did this since played alone it tends to sound somewhat repetitious. It was designed to play under Saul Bass's main title.
What do the notes say about the sources? I assume the mono material is from the 1/4" mono copies North had. Among the mono material, the 'Desolation Elegy' doesn't appear to have the choral overlay. On the sample I listened to, the female chorus can be heard way in the background. So Goldwyn didn't carry it over to North's copy. Plus the fact the original tracks were three-track, mixing them down to mono appears to have caused some phase distortion. I can hear it on the samples. Perhaps that's just the low sampling rate on the website and not evident on the CDs. There appears to be some added reverb.
I still believe there's the chance the original 35mm three-tracks are stored in the vault since Universal lists over 2,000 separate elements for "Spartacus." They'd be 50 years-old so God knows what condition they'd be in. Perhaps enough vinegar to go into 5,000 salads.
I haven't had a chance to get into the booklet yet - it's a commitment! I wonder about the three-track elements as well - maybe the booklet will have some information on that?
In the 1970s, the original 35mm three-tracks were still in the vault and on the lot. I know since an editor I worked for wanted to use the main title as a temp piece in a cut he was working on. So I ordered it. They got the specific roll, made the transfer, but upon hearing it, the editor realized the transfer guy had copied only one track which was mostly made up of horns and percussion so I had to reorder it and stand by as the transfer engineer (Henry Vera) copied all three tracks to single stripe 35mm.
On another occasion we got the film's 6 track M&E mix and played it to the entire film projected on the scoring stage. The sound came through the large Altec horns that were behind the screen. I don't remember the reason. Possibly to check it against a print. The sound quality was spectacular. And since the film was so lightly mixed with sound effects, the music dominated. Too bad those tracks weren't used for this new CD set. They still exist. I know since I checked.
Ed: I can't believe anyone would want the sound effects included no matter how light they were, are you Mad?
I have a great stereo system and I want NO SE in my music especially to ruin North's music!
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Posted: |
Jul 31, 2010 - 2:26 AM
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By: |
Jeff Bond
(Member)
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The stereo presentation is terrific and does include a lot of my favorite moments from the score: the opening and the music for Batiatus's caravan; the prelude to the fight between Spartacus and Draba and the heartbreaking aftermath of the fight; the rousing Metapontum triumph and the Vesuvius training sequence; the music for Spartacus's vigil with Verinia on the eve of the final battle and the grinding "formations" prelude to the final battle. Still there's a LOT of music that didn't make the cut in stereo that I love--the gladiator training scenes, the fanfare for Crassus and his house in Rome, the aftermath of the final battle, the love theme for Crassus and Verinia (which I actually like better than the Spartacus love theme) and the music for Spartacus and Antoninus as they wait for death and are forced to fight each other.
I'm only up to the slave revolt in the mono material but some of the biggest, most complicated stuff does seem to struggle to get heard in the mono mix. On the other hand the slave revolt cue sounds spectacular.
Without wading too much into the Cleopatra vs. Spartacus debate, I probably prefer Cleopatra as a total listening experience, but I prefer Spartacus as a film and its score's most powerful moments are still devastating to me. Cleopatra as a film aimed at the mind and fell somewhat short; Spartacus aims at the gut and the heart and at least for me, hits more than it misses. I understand why people dislike this film--it's in many ways a Hollywood product and in some ways a comic book. But just as with Spielberg's A.I., I've always found that a great deal of the film's power lies in the way Kubrick's innate impulses struggle against the conventional elements of the movie. Kubrick added a level of cruelty and intelligence that raised the stakes more than a conventional director would have, and for me he legitimizes some of the film's excesses, at least to a degree. Oddly I find Ben-Hur more distancing and cold than Spartacus, maybe because as much as I love both Heston and Douglas, Douglas seems more human, more vulnerable and fallible than Heston in a movie like this.
Spartacus still has some of the most emotionally powerful moments for me in film: the prelude to the Draba fight with Douglas and Woody Strode silently studying each other (a brilliant touch that only Kubrick would have added, focusing on fear and resolve in an intimate, human way instead of giving the audience an expected moment of spectacle); the shadow of oppression moving over each of the gladiators in their cells in the aftermath of the fight; the famed "I'm Spartacus" scene and even the final fight between Douglas and Tony Curtis. The film's ending has always been a tearjerker, moreso when the restoration put back in Verinia's plea to Spartacus to please die and end his suffering on the cross (apparently taboo to the Catholic League of Decency or something on the film's original release). After becoming a father and losing an infant son, that final shot of Verinia holding her infant son up so Spartacus can see him for the final time now effects me in a way I can't even describe. Maybe all of this is sappy and cartoonish from a modern perspective, maybe to some it was sappy and cartoonish then. But it's this emotional punch that North's music conveys most effectively. There's a circus atmosphere to the scenes of the freed slaves that does become overbearing, but it also provides delirious heights like the Vesuvius sequences. In the film the love theme just perhaps wears out its welcome a bit midway through the film in scenes that don't quite come across because they're too studio-bound. But the payoff even for the rather conventional romance is tremendous as the film and score reaches its final stages. North's handling of human anguish, death and loss and hopeless longing, is peerless. The nobility of the "I'm Spartacus!" scene, the fragility of the Crassus/Verinia music (with echoes of the Spartacus love theme haunting it from within) as Crassus woos the gladiator's wife in his house, the beautiful elegy for the slave revolt in "Afraid of Death," and North's ingenious, and heartbreaking interpolation of the love theme during the fight music for Spartacus and Antoninus, are pinnacles of film scoring as an exploration of human emotions. North could write the most elegant and intellectual music (as in Cleopatra) and he could go directly for the gut, and I have to think he preferred the latter, for all his training and sophistication. Sometimes human emotions ARE hyperbolic and larger than life, and North could tackle those moments and bring them across in purely musical ways. That's what's stayed with me about this score. That doesn't diminish Cleopatra or anything else North did. But to me Spartacus is a masterpiece of emotional film scoring.
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Posted: |
Jul 31, 2010 - 5:06 AM
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By: |
pp312
(Member)
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If you're a fan of the score, I cannot imagine not being happy with the three discs of the score - it may not be what everyone was absolutely hoping for - but what is?
Well, let's see: Ben-Hur, King of Kings, Mutiny on the Bounty, Cleopatra, The Agony & the Ecstacy--and that's just off the top of my head. (Well, perhaps not the latter so much as the stereo was only fair and not up to the standard of the others, but still acceptable).
Oh Stereo, how do I love thee,
Let me count the ways.
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I finally got a chance to listen to the first two CD's last night after the baby-sitting chores- and was knocked out by the stereo disc- it's just so great to finally have the Overture and Main Titles and the music from the mines play in succession. I was a bit disappointed that the gladiator training music wasn't there in stereo but it's all on the mono side, so I'm glad to finally hear and own those pieces which are some of my favorites from the score.
I've read about a third of the book and Mr. Townson gives the orchestra its due by naming all the luminaries who performed the score, including John Williams' dad who was part of the percussion as well as Virginia Majewski (immortalized in the Bernard Herrmann documentary) in the strings. (The entire orchestra is listed by name.)
There are even notes on the individual tracks from the Decca album. I really like what Mr. Townson says at the end of this section, "That is all the music that's ever been available from Spartacus . . .until now." Turn the page and notes from the score begin.
Hope I get a chance to watch the DVD later today. This whole package is such a gem.
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A question about the DVD: Is it a codefree DVD ?
That would be good, because not everyone who doesent live in the USA has an codefree player at home!
Thanks.
It does say "Region Free" on Varese's page.
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Without wading too much into the Cleopatra vs. Spartacus debate, I probably prefer Cleopatra as a total listening experience, but I prefer Spartacus as a film and its score's most powerful moments are still devastating to me. Cleopatra as a film aimed at the mind and fell somewhat short; Spartacus aims at the gut and the heart and at least for me, hits more than it misses. I understand why people dislike this film--it's in many ways a Hollywood product and in some ways a comic book. But just as with Spielberg's A.I., I've always found that a great deal of the film's power lies in the way Kubrick's innate impulses struggle against the conventional elements of the movie. Kubrick added a level of cruelty and intelligence that raised the stakes more than a conventional director would have, and for me he legitimizes some of the film's excesses, at least to a degree. Oddly I find Ben-Hur more distancing and cold than Spartacus, maybe because as much as I love both Heston and Douglas, Douglas seems more human, more vulnerable and fallible than Heston in a movie like this.
I find that people who saw Spartacus when it was released never had any problem with the film - it was an emotional, powerful, visceral film. Looking at it today? Well, that's a rather silly way to look at anything, IMO, from a strictly today perspective. Today is today - then was then, and context is everything. Psycho is considered "tame" and "what's all the brouhaha about" by people today. Not back then - again, context. A.I. on the other hand didn't appeal to the then contemporary audience but I believe the turnaround on that film has already begun, which I predicted and it's interesting to see. Would I love Spartacus as much if I'd seen it on home video or on re-release in the 90s for the first time? I like to think I would because I like to think I would understand the context of the era in which it was made.
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