Jerry Goldsmith: 40 Years of Film Music

As with most recent Silva America releases, this combines newly recorded tracks with music already in the Silva Screen back catalogue. This is the most comprehensive collection of music by Jerry Goldsmith ever released. In addition, it includes all the tracks from "Goldsmith conducts Goldsmith" and most of the tracks from "Omen: Essential Goldsmith". It more or less makes those CDs obsolete. Just skip those and get this one. If you already have those, this cD does have some newly recorded tracks just for this release. They are: QBVII, The Wind and the Lion, Airforce One, LA Confidential and The Sum of All Fears

Also the liner notes are excellent and informative. The City of Prague Philharmonic conducted by Nic Raine, James Fitzpatrick and Paul Bateman as well the Philharmonia and National Philharmonic conducted by Mr. Goldsmith himself bring one of the best compilations ever produced. period. I only wish they had included some music from Planet of the Apes and...Read more

Much like the John Barry, Dimitri Tiomkin and John Williams Collection, this latest release from Silva America " Jerry Goldsmith: 40 Years of Film Music", a four compact disc collection is a film collectors dream...Goldsmith creates visual moods for each film he scores...unmistakable arrangements overlay each cue in his distinctive style...Goldsmith's musical movements fit the story and must resolve rather quickly as each cue of the film passes quickly, as in "THE BLUE MAX"..."CHINATOWN"..."FIRST BLOOD"..."FIRST KNIGHT"..."THE HAUNTING"..."L.A. CONFIDENTIAL"..."MACARTHUR"..."MEDICINE MAN"..."THE MUMMY"..."THE OMEN"..."PATTON"..."POLTERGEIST"..."RUSSIA HOUSE"..."SANDPEBBLES"..."THE SHADOW"..."STAR TREK: MOTION PICTURE"..."TORA, TORA, TORA"..."TOTAL RECALL"..."UNDER FIRE"..."WILD ROVERS" and who could forget the magnificent themes from "THE WIND AND THE LION", which is one of my favorite all time Goldsmith scores featuring Sean Connery and Candice Bergen...Jerry has the ability to place...Read more

Okay, this is a CD review, so the focus is on music, but I've got to say this first: this has got to be a contender for the ugliest cover art ever. I mean, come on...instead of a tribute to the composer, the cover looks like someone spilled a glass of merlot over a NASA photo.

Fortunately, bad cover art will not ruin good music. And I'd say about 75 percent of the music is good....which means this 4 cd set combines quality and quantity. Like other Silva compilations, the strength of this compilation is the variety. There are selections from the big releases (Star Trek, Omen, Rambo), but there is also a healthy dose of tracks from the smaller releases(Under Fire, Lionheart, The Swarm).

Two examples come to mind. Capricorn One and The Great Train Robbery are two movies that are not exactly household names today, but are dominated by two of Goldmith's finest main themes. The City of Prague Philharmonic come through with terrific renditions. And there are...Read more