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Kritzerland is proud to present a special Encore Edition limited edition release for the holidays – two great Bernard Herrmann scores on one CD:
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
and
A CHILD IS BORN
Composed and Conducted by Bernard Herrmann
On a very special evening in 1954, Shower of Stars, an anthology show on CBS, had their very special Christmas special that aired on December 23rd – an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ beloved tale, A Christmas Carol, starring Fredric March and Basil Rathbone (as Scrooge and Marley). It was truly a spectacular – shot on film and broadcast in color – although the majority of viewers saw it in black-and-white, as few people had the ability to watch color back in those days. The adaptation was by Maxwell Anderson, who also wrote the lyrics for the songs, and the score was by film composer Bernard Herrmann. Weekly Variety called it “superlative TV.” They called Anderson’s lyrics “poetic” and his adaptation “stunning.” Best of all, the reviewer called Herrmann’s score “majestic.” Herrmann’s music is indeed wonderful. His underscoring is in the classic Herrmann mode, and his songs are quite delightful and infectiously melodic.
One year after A Christmas Carol, Herrmann was back writing another Christmas special, this time for CBS’ anthology series, The General Electric Theater, which was hosted future President-to-be, Ronald Reagan. A Child Is Born was an adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benet’s blank-verse play, and featured two stars of the Metropolitan Opera, Nadine Conner and Theodor Uppman, along with the wonderful actor, Victor Jory. The show was broadcast “live” on December 25, 1955. This time, Herrmann received over the title billing (“A musical adaptation by Bernard Herrmann of A Child Is Born”). The Herrmann score has beautiful sung passages, and his underscoring, as always, is masterful and typically Herrmannesque.
A Christmas Carol/A Child is Born was previously released by Kritzerland in 2008 and sold out instantly. We’ve received a lot of requests to rerelease it over the years. The two scores were mastered from the best sources available. No known master tapes survive on either title. A Child Is Born had a promotional 10-inch record issued, and an excellent copy of it was used for mastering. A Christmas Carol was mastered from a 15IPS tape made from what was probably the only surviving set of acetates for the show. While the sound is archival in nature, mastering engineer James Nelson has done a great job of making it sound as good as it ever will.
A Christmas Carol/A Child is Born is limited to 1000 copies only and we are pleased to present it at a special Christmas price of $14.98, plus shipping.
While it is the busiest time of year, the hope is that CDs will ship no later than the last week of December, but hopefully earlier than that. To place an order, see the cover, or hear audio samples, just visit www.kritzerland.com.
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And just a head's up that there's our second annual Christmas sale up now - sixteen great titles at half price - if you missed any of these now would be a good time to grab them.
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There have been a slew (a sleigh?) of great releases announced in the past couple of weeks, but these three today from Kritzerland were the ones that caught my fancy and were an immediate buy.
Plus some great stuff on sale - Dead of Winter is a must have in my book.
Well done!
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There have been a slew (a sleigh?) of great releases announced in the past couple of weeks, but these three today from Kritzerland were the ones that caught my fancy and were an immediate buy.
Plus some great stuff on sale - Dead of Winter is a must have in my book.
Well done!
Always fun to choose the sale titles and then see what people go after. So far, I think Another Man, Another Chance is right up front in orders - a wonderful Francis Lai CD.
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I am surprised this score doesn't get much attention here. It's so charming and tender, not to mention full of memorable melodies.
I'm glad I grabbed my copy when this came out.
Alex
Yes, "A Very Merry Christmas" is a true show-stopper.
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Posted: |
Nov 22, 2020 - 2:14 PM
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By: |
.
(Member)
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FYI, "archival" quality means pristine, good enough to archive, not ancient, poor or primitive sound.
"Archival" means being part of an archive, like a collection of old film, old newspapers, old audio etc.
Archival material might be in any range of condition. "Archival" material requires housing in environments or storage materials which protect the condition of the material, whatever that condition might be.
"Conservation" is the process of repairing damaged archival material or restoring it to its original condition. The material is still "archival" whether before or after conservation.
The worth of archival material is based on the importance of an item or collection to an historical record, the importance of the material being determined by the information it provides about a person, community or event.
:-)
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With all due respect to Herrmann, I personally feel that later musicalizations of the story did a better job of integrating the songs into the story. “Darkest Day of Winter” and “Very Merry Christmas” are both very good, but the rest of the songs stick out like a sore thumb and advance the story in no way at all (with Scrooge’s lost love, I personally feel a lament works better for that bit as in the Magoo and Muppet adaptations, even though the latter technically had it’s song cut on initial release, though Bricusse did write a decent song for her in Scrooge). Of course, it doesn’t help that Herrmann was scoring a very badly rushed adaptation (how could you leave out the bulk of Christmas Yet to Come? Though it was interesting seeing Mary Costa before she became the voice of Princess Aurora in one of the commercials). All that said, I think Herrmann did a decent job given what he had to work with.
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I could not figure out why we were suddenly getting a lot of orders for this over the last few days - NOW I understand 
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