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“I LOVED YOU AS I LOVED THE STEPPES.”
Kritzerland is proud to present its newest limited edition soundtrack.
TARAS BULBA
Music Composed and Conducted by Franz Waxman.
Released in 1962 a week after Lawrence Of Arabia, Taras Bulba, was not a thinking man’s epic like Lawrence or any of the other epics of the time, such as Ben-Hur, Spartacus, El Cid, King Of Kings – it was more of a grand adventure yarn and critics and audiences of the time were just not that interested, despite the film having two big stars in Yul Brynner and Tony Curtis, and a director, J. Lee Thompson, who’d just come off a huge smash hit with The Guns Of Navarone. What Taras Bulba did have was an absolutely brilliant score by the great Franz Waxman, the composer who also gave us such classics as The Bride Of Frankenstein, Sunset Blvd., A Place In The Sun, Sayonara, Peyton Place, Prince Valiant, Rear Window, Crime In The Streets, Spirit Of St. Louis, The Nun’s Story, and many others.
From the rousing main title, to the astonishing almost twelve-minute finale, Waxman’s Taras Bulba is filled with one glorious cue after another, and features one of his most beautiful and incandescent melodies in “The Wishing Star” – every time that theme makes an appearance in the score is utterly magical.
The original LP release was a re-recording, as was the fashion in those days. The sound on that release was dry and shrill, and the sonics were further compromised because for an LP release, it was longer than usual. A CD was issued on Ryko back in 1998 (long out-of-print) – that CD was mastered from the original album masters and, while well produced, still had dry and shrill sound. For this brand-new edition, we were lucky to uncover the original three-track session master of the album takes – in other words, the first generation tapes. While still dry and shrill, the tapes were in perfect condition and the clarity was astonishing. For the first time, we’ve added some subtle and necessary room ambience, so that the instruments don’t sound like they were recorded in a tiny closet with no air around them, and we’ve added the missing low-end, which basically alleviated the shrillness without losing any of the punch or the bite of the incredible-sounding brass. We hope you’ll agree, that this is Taras Bulba sounding better than it ever has.
Also found on the three-track master was the instrumental-only track to “The Wishing Star” and a female-only chorus version of the song (on the album it’s male and female). We’ve included these as bonus tracks.
The great Bernard Herrmann called Taras Bulba “The score of a lifetime.” And indeed it is – one of the greatest action/adventure scores ever written by one of the greatest film composers who ever lived.
This release is limited to 1000 copies only. The price is $19.98 plus shipping.
CDs will ship by the third week of October – however, preorders placed directly through Kritzerland usually ship one to five weeks earlier (we’ve been averaging four weeks early). To place an order, see the cover, or hear audio samples, just visit www.kritzerland.com.
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Wow - thanks a lot for this one, Bruce!
Just listening to the samples now, and there certainly is a noticeable difference compared to the Ryko. A much more meatier sound.
I'm sure I'm not the only person in Brisbane who's gonna be happy about this one...
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I cannot tell you how pleased I am about this release - it really meant a lot to me to be able to do it and especially discovering the original three-track tapes - amazing.
And in the "finally" department, Gaily, Gaily/The Night They Raided Minsky's is now sold out at Kritzerland.
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Wonderful! Ordered!
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And a full color booklet to boot - lots of great photos and art.
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I'm sure I'm not the only person in Brisbane who's gonna be happy about this one...
Correct. As we're not likely to see a release of the original score as recorded for the film (I've resigned myself to the fact that the tapes are long gone), this restoration of the re-recording will do nicely. At least until a proper re-recording is done (not to discredit the version being put out by Kritzerland, but it does feature a somewhat reduced orchestra; a score like this deserves nothing less than to be heard in its fully orchestrated glory).
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And a full color booklet to boot - lots of great photos and art.
WOOOOAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! great thank you very much for this "trouvaille"
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Ordered. Usually Kritzerland releases are scores that I've never heard of and therefore have an opportunity to discover, but this is my favorite Franz Waxman score, so I'm pretty excited to have this performance in better sound, and the bonus tracks look to be rather cool to have.
Thanks once again, Bruce!
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The original LP release was a re-recording, as was the fashion in those days. The sound on that release was dry and shrill, and the sonics were further compromised because for an LP release, it was longer than usual. A CD was issued on Ryko back in 1998 (long out-of-print) – that CD was mastered from the original album masters and, while well produced, still had dry and shrill sound. For this brand-new edition, we were lucky to uncover the original three-track session master of the album takes – in other words, the first generation tapes. While still dry and shrill, the tapes were in perfect condition and the clarity was astonishing. For the first time, we’ve added some subtle and necessary room ambience, so that the instruments don’t sound like they were recorded in a tiny closet with no air around them, and we’ve added the missing low-end, which basically alleviated the shrillness without losing any of the punch or the bite of the incredible-sounding brass. We hope you’ll agree, that this is Taras Bulba sounding better than it ever has.
I guess you might call this a request, but have you ever thought if there is room on a release (and it doesn't
cost anymore) to include a few cues before to have added the "subtle and necessary room ambiance?"
For those of us who do not own the LP or previous CD, we have no idea what it sounded like before, so that
way we can hear the before and after?
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