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Reading it now. Thanks!
Yavar
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I assume everything from the first season of BTAS (episodes 1-65) is on Vols 1-4 and that nothing was missed.
There's a gym music source cue from "Moon of the Wolf" missing from Vol. 4. It sounds like it was created for the show just like all the other source cues that have been included, but who knows. Maybe it was a licensing matter, maybe there just wasn't room for it, maybe the recording was missing or damaged, maybe it was just overlooked. Anyway, as you say, would be great to have it included at the end of "Batman & Robin." As a completist, I loved having all those archival cues on Vol. 4.
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There's a gym music source cue from "Moon of the Wolf" missing from Vol. 4. It sounds like it was created for the show just like all the other source cues that have been included, but who knows.
This wasn't overlooked. It appears to have been one of a handful of source cues (like the opera music in "Birds of a Feather") that was licensed for use in the show rather than written for the show.
Good to know, thanks!
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I recently picked up Batman TAS Vol. 4, and wanted to chime in with my own strong recommendation of it to everyone. There is no drop in quality or interest from previous volumes, and this release absolutely does NOT feel like "the leftovers"...with the possible exception of the Arkham's Archive tracks which were left off of previous releases. Those don't play great on their own, but I found when I integrated them in their proper place, more often than not they improved the flow and development of the previously-released scores, particularly for Pretty Poison and Two-Face, Parts I & II:
http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=55355&forumID=1&archive=0&pageID=7&r=592#bottom
Since I already discussed the Archive tracks in the Vol. 1 thread above (the few remaining source tracks and alternates I will discuss later when I post my overviews of Vols. 2 & 3), here I will only comment on the rest of the set.
(50) Off Balance: A superb score which serves as a wonderful prequel to the Demon's Quest two-parter. I love Michael McCuistion's pitch-bending Vertigo material, and I also love Mark Koval's mysterious writing for Talia as well as his exciting snare-driven action cue "Attack of the Shadow Men". It all comes together quite wonderfully and culminates in the introduction of Walker's Ra's Al Ghul's theme in the final cue. A perfect start to this set.
(40) Joker's Wild: Very fun (and sometimes quite exciting) music by Todd Hayen. Purely as music I actually much prefer this Joker score to Walker's The Last Laugh, which made the cut to be included on Vol. 1! I love the "Joker's Grand Opening" source cue. Hayen's own original Joker material is delightful, and blends perfectly with Walker's theme.
(31) The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy: A very good (if perhaps a bit less memorable) score for a fun episode. Beth Ertz only had two cues survive in the finished episode, which ended up being mostly Mark Koval. It was interesting to compare her unused alternate versions of three sequences. While not bad music, they clearly do not match the sound of the show quite as well as Koval's work...her stuff is more dissonant, even sounding a bit like Leonard Rosenman in places. The liner notes give some interesting quotes from her but nothing addressing why the majority of her work went unused.
(54) Zatanna: Extremely enjoyable score all the way through. For years people had been commenting that the only particularly necessary highlight was the opening cue for the magic show, but I think it's all wonderful. It's lighter but still exciting. Though Tomashek's stuff including that opening cue (and his Zatanna theme) is very good, I want to especially single out Nerida Tyson-Chew's contribution, which displays her very distinctive compositional style but still fits well with the show.
(42) Moon of the Wolf: This score by Richard Bronskill is very different, undoubtedly. The electric guitar is weird at times, perhaps -- but that makes it distinctive. I'm rather surprised that parts of this score ended up being approved for the show since they're such a different sound world, but I'm with ShadowStar in being surprised how much I ended up enjoying it. I wonder if this score was a crucial step in eventually moving towards the Batman Beyond sound...
(55) The Mechanic: Really solid Penguin score by Peter Tomashek and John Tatgenhorst, opening with a really exciting cue by Tomashek utilizing his theme in particularly strong fashion (this was Tomashek's first work on the series). Tatgenhorst, in his sold Batman TAS contribution, does an excellent job of matching the style of the show's scoring, and his work melds very well with Tomashek's. In addition to the cues ShadowStar highlighted, I especially like his brief heroic theme in "Challenge of a Lifetime" and "Penguin Goes Joyriding" is also really, really good.
(65) The Worry Men: I ADORE the jungle drums. Just fantastic and unique action material by Lolita Ritmanis in this score, as well as good use of the Mad Hatter's theme. I don't know what more to say except this is one of the highlights of this set, for me.
(24) Fear of Victory: Lisa Bloom's two action cues (her only contribution to the series) are good, Carlos Rodriguez's brief cues are good, and of course Walker's Arkham Asylum cue is...good. But this, the only partial score written for the series, really lacks its own personal identity and even though it's nice to have, it is probably the disappointment of the set, for me. Not the composer's fault as producers were experimenting with corner-cutting here.
(60) His Silicon Soul: A wonderful score on which to end. I rather wish it had been included on Volume 3 after Heart of Steel, because it develops so well from Heart of Steel Part II. (For that matter, I would've sequenced Off Balance before Demon's Quest on Volume 2...but I guess at the time LLL wasn't planning on a Volume 4 and they wanted to give space to different storylines.) Carl Johnson is just a great composer, and I'm glad he got his big break on this series which led to his doing the equally great music for Disney's Gargoyles, very dark and Batman-influenced. His HARDAC theme is wonderful and mixes well with Walker's Batman theme. I also applaud co-composer Harvey Cohen for using and further developing Johnson's thematic material.
I'll also note that Shirley Walker's unused Warner Bros. logo bumpers are neat extras (I prefer version B of the two).
I highly recommend that anyone who's been holding off on this volume because they assume it'll be "the inferior one": don't. It's great, with plenty of variety and unique scores. I listened to it straight through right after re-listening to Vol. 1 (with the Arkham Archives cues inserted into their respective scores, noticeably improving the listening experience for at least four of them) and I noticed no drop in quality *at all*. The scores for this series were just that consistently good. I can't wait for The Adventures of Batman and Robin next!
Yavar
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