How The West Was Won: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Includes score (including several extended versions), source music, outtakes, demo.

The meat of this 2 CD set is the score itself, which is fabulous. I got this in April and have probably listened to it 50 times since then.

The accompanying brochure, which describes the history of the movie, the music, the composers(Alfred Newman with assistance from several prominent lyrists and arrangers), is also very informative.

While the movie itself is very entertaining, it is not great (but is significant - see Cinerama). If you want to see it in Cinerama, you'll have to go to Dayton.

Hopefully they'll remaster the video for DVD and include the entire screen. The widescreen video is from the 70 mm print made from the Cinerama prints, but actually does not include the entire screen width.

As a longtime devotee of Alfred Newman's genius as a composer and conductor, I highly recommend to everyone Rhino's 2-CD album of the complete score to MGM's 1963 film, "How the West Was Won."

In a perfect world, it would not have taken 34 years (from 1963 release date of film to 1997 release date of 2-CD soundtrack) for this music to have been revealed in such awesome, stunning splendor. It's reasonable to reflect, however, that technology has evolved during those three decades to the point where such a recording is not only possible, but affordable.

Perhaps Voltaire's satiric maxim, "All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds" (Dr. Pangloss -- "Candide"), can occasionally ring true.

For me, the revelations of the complete score are not the long-coveted magnificent cues (which remain breathtaking and heart-stopping) of the complete "Cheyennes/Indian Attack" and "Finale/Finale Ultimo," but such tracks as "Lincoln," "Zeb...Read more

The main theme as well as the entire score for HOW THE WEST WAS WON is (in my opinion, of course) every bit as good if not better than any of the musical scores of movies which are so often thought to be the greatest ever such as LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, CHARIOTS OF FIRE, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, STAR WARS, THE GODFATHER, E.T., GONE WITH THE WIND, THE STING...etc, etc.

I'm not saying these aren't great, and I'm not saying HWWW is better than all of these. But it seems that whenever most people discuss great soundtracks, this one never comes up. Don't think that this is merely great Western music (although it is certainly that). This is a wonderful film score that boasts of a power and beauty all its own.

And at the same time, some that is not its own. For Alfred Newman, in a creative fit of musical genius, arranged one of the two main themes for this film to be the old gospel hymn "Bound For the Promised Land". This along with...Read more