Jerry Goldsmith London Symphony Orchestra – The Film Music of Jerry Goldsmith [SACD] (2001)

 

Goldsmith is really on the mark in these pieces. I threw away another collections CD of Goldsmith conducting Goldsmith after hearing this one. The hall sounds as if it’s about 50 meters deep & twice as wide, & the 5 mics capture everything I need to hear. As is usual with the London orchestras, the bass drum is huge & pitched about a half-octave lower than those used by American orchestras; I love its sound, especially the texture of the bass rolling thru the hall. Philips’ Polyhymnia (sp?) recorded it for Telarc, as they did the string-suites Telarc disc by the Rotterdam Chamber Orchestra (#SACD-60623). All that bass energy is in the 5 channels; the LFE channel is not used. 

 

The orchestral playing is uniformly excellent; this is the LSO at its best. I often find its violins a little thin sounding, but they’re not thin here.

 

My favorite selections are the 1st & the last–a suite from ‘Star Trek’ opens the disc, & ‘The Generals’, an arrangement of music from ‘Patton’ & MacArthur’, closes it. Also excellent is several minutes of music from ‘Air Force One’ included in ‘Motion Picture Medley’. Of course, being Goldsmith’s best, ALL of it is excellent. If ever you want a demonstration of just how flat & small sounding the music recorded FOR movies is, listen to the music in the movie ‘Air force One’–it’s dismal compared with the sound of this Telarc release. I love this one so much I bought another copy.

 

In the music itself, in the conducting and orchestral playing, and in spaciousness and naturalness of the multichannel sound, this disc is the best I’ve heard.

 

RIP, Mr. Goldsmith; we’ll miss you.