Only wish Jerry was around to see how beautifully the people at Tadlow performed and celebrated his great music from THE SALAMANDER in their Exquisite Re-Recording. TOP DRAW ALL AROUND to All involved. Just Amazing! I can watch this video on an Endless Loop. A true testament to Goldsmith's Greatness! Thanks again Tadlow Team and Nic and Orchestra! BRAVISSIMO!!! I must hope and Believe our dear Maestro is smiling down from up above!
This thing's been getting a lot of plays over here of late.
I think it's almost neck-and-neck for me as Goldsmith's finest action/thriller score of this era, bested only slightly by CAPRICORN ONE because I love Kay's Theme from that one so much.
Great orchestration (love the harpsichord), powerful action writing, a very fine love theme (what a treatment it gets over the end title cue!) and that chorale cue is one for the books; I love how he gradually builds from the Mozart interpolation to his own original motif, with those religious-sounding key changes at 1:45 onward especially awe-inspiring and almost reaching the fever pitch of FINAL CONFLICT's best moments.
Enough good things can't be said about the raw power of this recording, too. The COPP is absolutely on fire here. I can only imagine what a headache it was to transcribe the score while simply listening to the score in the film's context, but the effort has paid off artistically in spades. Superb work all around here!
I adore this score. Personally, I listen to it more than Capricorn One because I prefer the love theme in The Salamander! I really play this score quite often, and I think it's generally an underrated effort. Near five stars for me, honestly.
I agree that Tadlow's recording is superb and a godsend. I would still be ecstatic if the original recording was discovered in Europe at some point and released, as certain instruments like the piano in the main title were more prominent and I'd like to hear it as Jerry recorded it.
Isn't it amazing that a politically-oriented thriller like this used to have music that sounded like... Well, real music?
This, CAPRICORN ONE as well as gems like Bill Conti's THE FORMULA and Laurence Goldenthal's BRASS TARGETS are such satisfying, melodic, interesting scores that now seems like reliquaries of far more than a mere 40 years ago...
Probably THE obscure and lost to oblivion score that has been saved by rerecording. Never would have dreamed it. Even more than BLACK PATCH. Great work!
Indeed. At least people were familiar with the greatness of Hour of the Gun and QBVII from the previous album recordings, even if the full film recordings were lost. But The Salamander was a more obscure film by far, and the score was completely unreleased. One of the most surprising, and most important, re-recording projects of all time from that perspective. And it helps that the music is great!
Hopefully Black Patch will be a reality a year or two from now...
What I am holding out hope for is a complete re-recording of RANSOM. As they performed a suite from the score on THE SALAMANDER, I'm praying and wishing for a complete release. Just for the track QUEEN'S MESSENGER, which is one of my favorite Goldsmith cues. What, do you think, are the odds?
I really play this score quite often, and I think it's generally an underrated effort. Near five stars for me, honestly.
