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Album Title: Vintage Cinema (various) Performers: Erich Kunzel / Cincinnati Pops Orchestra Label and #: Telarc, SACD 60708 Running time: 53'13" Recorded: February 2008 For the 87th time, Erich Kunzel directs the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra for Telarc but there's no Ravel Bolero here, no Tchaikovsky Nutcracker, no Strauss or Russian delight. Kunzel leaves all the Pops favorites far behind. Instead, he takes us on a journey through musical scores of famous movies from the 30s to 60s. |
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As usual, the Cincinnati Pops under Kunzel's baton are exquisite of precision and oh-so-smooth. Not a note is out of order and all the pyrotechnics and Technicolor one has come to expect from a well-run Pops | ||||||||||
are on massive display. Except here, Kunzel surprises not just with his musical choices but also by loosening his neck tie a fraction of an inch to let the orchestra charge forth into some exciting tempi. Mister Countenance & Control himself goes wild for a minute as in Rozsa's overture to El Cid, a welcome change. |
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The disc follows a chronological progression starting with Max Steiner's 1933 score to King Kong, a monumental affair with deep and powerful bass that will challenge any room that is not well damped. Kunzel's selection aptly demonstrates how from 1933 to 1962, film scores always incorporated the latest development in musical styles throughout this rich period of growth and transformation which then informed the cinematographic arts. |
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From Miklos Rozsa's 1945 introduction of electronic sounds adding to the Hitchcock classic Spellbound its surreal character to the Jazz inspirations for the sultry atmosphere of Elia Kazan's Streetcar Named Desire; from Aaron Copland's inimitable Americana voice in 1949's Red Pony to his student Leonard |
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Bernstein bringing contemporary concert music to On the Waterfront; the selections on this disc take us through three decades, almost three ages, of movies and the scores that so brilliantly enhanced their dramatic intensity. |
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