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SHÉHÉRAZADE
Music Composed by André Hossein
Disques Cinémusique - Limited Edition of 300 copies
Availability date: 01/22/2018
https://www.musicbox-records.com/en/cd-soundtracks/5535-sheherazade.html
https://www.disquescinemusique.com/copie-de-dcm-360
01 Prégénérique Shéhérazade 1:21
02 Générique 2:27
03 Bataille de Zaccar 2:58
04 Chant des Cavaliers Francs - Thème de Renaud 2:30
05 Sonnerie d'olifant – Arrivée des barques 2:02
06 Ballet 1:33
07 Fête dans les rues de Bagdad 1:02
08 Ballet des jeunes filles 1:19
09 Danse de Shéhérazade 2:33
10 Chant des cavaliers Francs 1:57
11 Olifant pour la sentence de mort - Fuite dans le désert - Renaud à bout de forces 4:53
12 Shéhérazade part vers Bagdad 1:37
13 Départ de Renaud 1:06
14 Caravane des Francs 1:20
15 Tempête de sable 2:25
16 Bataille 3:13
17 Finale 3:41
Persian born composer André Hossein (1905-1983) belatedly entered into French film scoring thanks to his son Robert, who facilitated both his assignment to the films in which he held an important role and the many others that he directed himself in the1950s and 1960s.
André Hossein favored small jazz ensembles for his movie scores, as much to meet the demands of the films that were entrusted to him as for budgetary reasons. However, Pierre Gaspard-Huit's Shéhérazade (1963) provided Hossein with a golden opportunity to demonstrate the scope of his film composing talent under ideal conditions: a large budget to work with and in a musical style that allowed him to reconnect with his cultural roots.
Co-produced by France, Italy and Spain, shot in glorious 70mm, Shéhérazade is a popular drama which takes place in a colorful, exotic setting inspired by the book The Thousand and One Nights (The Arabian Nights). The story is centered on the forbidden love of Princess Shéhérazade (Anna Karina) for the Knight Renaud (Gérard Barray), who will be persecuted by both the jealous Caliph of Bagdad and his disloyal Grand Vizier.
The symphonic score by André Hossein remains one of the major assets of Shéhérazade. The French record company Barclay released excerpts from Shéhérazade's score at the time on a 45rpm EP, a usual practice, and, a much rarer occurrence, an almost complete version on 33rpm LP. As was done for the music of George Garvarentz for Le rat d’Amérique, produced the same year, Barclay pressed a small number of copies of Shéhérazade's album in true stereo.
In 2015 Disques Cinémusique reissued on CD the rare stereo album of the soundtrack to Le rat d'Amérique. We do the same with Shéhérazade, and for the same reason: this is an enchanting score by an underrated composer which, after over 50 years since it was written, deserves, to be better known by all film music fans.
This lmited edition of 350 copies has a 16-page color booklet with liner notes by producer Clément Fontaine.
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Whoa! I want this...wonder if SAE or Intrada will get any in.
Yavar
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Well, this is one i've been waiting for many years. The LP is nearly impossible to be found in decent condition and in an affordable price...music is stunning!
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Whoa! I want this...wonder if SAE or Intrada will get any in.
Just an additional info: If you want a new recording of the more or less complete SHEHERAZADE soundtrack by Hossein, you can also buy this CD from 2006 played by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo and conducted by Thomas Sondergard:
https://www.amazon.fr/Ben-Hur-Plus-Grand-L%C3%A9gende/dp/B000FOR9X2
As background music for this extravagant French sound and light spectacle of BEN HUR the director (and famous actor) Robert Hossein - who was André Hossein´s son - chose to re-use the almost complete old SHEHERAZADE film score without mentioning this in the CD booklet at all. Very funny of course for all those few collectors here in Europe who already knew the old Barclay LP of Hossein´s SHEHERAZADE for a long time prior to 2006.
This new recording has the advantage that it is much longer than the old LP version (for example with additional arias at the beginning and at the end of the CD), has of course even better sound quality and you really get all of the main themes and almost all of the pieces which were also on that original soundtrack LP from 1963 (so for example the "Ouverture" on that BEN HUR CD corresponds with the "Générique" on the Barclay LP/Disques Cinémusique CD of SHEHERAZADE etc.).
On the other hand, I would say that the original recording is sometimes played more dramatically and powerfully, also harp passages are much more accentuated than in the new recording from 2006. But nevertheless the new recording is also a quite good one.
Therefore I would recommend to buy both CDs if you really like the music!
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Wasn't this the score that his son used in the original 'Ben-Hur Live' stage show, before Stewart Copeland took over?
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As far as I know, that BEN HUR live spectacle directed by Robert Hossein was only staged in France:
http://www.peplums.info/pep49.htm
André Hossein had originally written a symphony in 1946, the "Symphonie des sables", which he then adapted into his SHEHERAZADE film score in 1963. For the BEN HUR spectacle in 2006 Robert Hossein made recourse to this symphony of which the apparently lost original manuscript had been found again.
Funnily, as can be heard if you listen to that French BEN HUR CD, the complete music from this symphony (which had never been recorded before) therefore seems to be more or less identical with the SHEHERAZADE film score. Of course, sometimes there are a few slight variants and alterations in a few tracks when comparing BEN HUR CD and SHEHERAZADE LP, but not that much.
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Good to know. No mention of English subtitles however.
Yes, of course this French DVD has no English subtitles. Also not subtitles for any other European country. Unfortunately, this is most often the case with French DVDs of such older films. It is common practice there that they release only those French movies which are also very popular outside of France with subtitles of another language, but not at all most of the other ones of which they know that they will almost only be sold within France anyway.
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Whoa! I want this...wonder if SAE or Intrada will get any in.
Just an additional info: If you want a new recording of the more or less complete SHEHERAZADE soundtrack by Hossein, you can also buy this CD from 2006 played by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo and conducted by Thomas Sondergard:
https://www.amazon.fr/Ben-Hur-Plus-Grand-L%C3%A9gende/dp/B000FOR9X2
As background music for this extravagant French sound and light spectacle of BEN HUR the director (and famous actor) Robert Hossein - who was André Hossein´s son - chose to re-use the almost complete old SHEHERAZADE film score without mentioning this in the CD booklet at all. Very funny of course for all those few collectors here in Europe who already knew the old Barclay LP of Hossein´s SHEHERAZADE for a long time prior to 2006.
This new recording has the advantage that it is much longer than the old LP version (for example with additional arias at the beginning and at the end of the CD), has of course even better sound quality and you really get all of the main themes and almost all of the pieces which were also on that original soundtrack LP from 1963 (so for example the "Ouverture" on that BEN HUR CD corresponds with the "Générique" on the Barclay LP/Disques Cinémusique CD of SHEHERAZADE etc.).
On the other hand, I would say that the original recording is sometimes played more dramatically and powerfully, also harp passages are much more accentuated than in the new recording from 2006. But nevertheless the new recording is also a quite good one.
Therefore I would recommend to buy both CDs if you really like the music!
Funny, I got that French BEN-HUR some years ago. I’ll give it another listen before I get this SHEHERAZADE. Thanks for the tip!
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I really appreciate that Ciné Musique is now releasing again CD's. Regarding the other title, LE GRAND MEAULNES, I've seen the movie once and wish that the origial score will be issued someday because the music is absolutely superb. A Bourtayre CD gathering this score and a few others of his would be just perfect.
I have the Philips EP of LE GRAND MEAULNES from 1967 with 6 tracks - about 11 minutes of original music whereas the Philips LP which had also been released in 1967 had almost only dialogue passages taken directly from the film itself and unfortunately very little music - and can confirm that this is a lovely and exquisite lyrical score with wonderful themes which I like very much. I think that Jean-Claude Petit was not only a routine orchestrator on this score, but also some kind of co-composer. It is certainly no coincidence that he even got a big credit on the EP cover as orchestrator which was quite unusual at that time.
I would also love to get the original score on a CD, but has it been preserved throughout all these years? Maybe the master with the 6 EP tracks may still exist somewhere, but the complete score?
The music editor in France nowadays is Durand-Salabert which is part of Universal Music Publishing. But the French Universal label will certainly not release this music on CD - even though it were available. This is probably also the reason why Clément Fontaine chose to do now a digitally sampled Robert Lafond recording of this score. It is better than nothing, but the original recording would of course be the much better choice.
Lafond has at least used a few acoustic instruments in this new recording as can be heard in the sound clips and the tracks where soloistic passages prevail do come indeed very close to the original recording - the ones where guitar, harpsichord or cymbalom come to the fore. I think that Lafond has done the best what he could do with the means he had at his disposal, but it is still a pity that the string section sounds synthetic. But I think the mixing of digital sampling with some acoustic instruments is a bit more convincing here than on his former Delerue efforts. Also the two arias at the end of the CD seem to be very beautiful and are a nice idea.
And the 20 page booklet of the CD which can be seen on the Disques Cinémusique website as pdf file in my opinion is really superb and an eyecatcher. I am not at all a friend of digital sampling, but in this case - and because I think this music won´t get released otherwise anymore - I am also interested in this CD.
Anyway, DCM could have at least included the 6 original tracks from the EP. But of course then Clément Fontaine would have had to pay licensing fees to either Durand-Salabert or to Universal Music which would have been probably much too expensive for this CD project. The fact is that he can only produce these CDs if the production costs are not too high.
SHEHERAZADE on the other hand profits from the public domain rule in Europe and Canada - as it is a score from 1963 - and so he could just use a transfer of a stereo LP in very good condition without paying too much money to the French music editor.
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