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News at SoundtrackCollector
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Volume II has arrived!
29-Jul-2003 - Varèse Sarabande surprises us again with a special celebration CD box, Varèse Sarabande
A 25th Anniversary Celebration, Volume 2. 4 CD's with over 4 hours of music from all their remarkable releases from the last 25 years. Rather than being limited to a certain number, this special 4-CD set will be available only through the end of the year. No orders will be accepted after December 31, 2003.
Why such a gigantic production so shortly after the first volume? Read what producer Robert Townson has to say about it...
"First, a confession: this Volume Two to the Varèse Sarabande 25th Anniversary CD is much less about continuing to celebrate Varèse’s anniversary and is more directed to taking advantage of Varèse’s anniversary in order to present a selection of music that explores our archives even more deeply. While pouring through the volumes of scores to select the eighty-four tracks that would make up our official anniversary celebration, I found myself having to leave off some of my favorite cues from many of my favorite scores. To make the cut of the first set, a great or successful score generally required the accompaniment of a great or particularly successful film. After all, celebrating our history by compiling themes from a bunch of films that no one has ever heard of (regardless of how wonderful the music may be) wouldn’t exactly show either ourselves or the composers in the best light. I certainly made a few exceptions … bent the rules here and there, but, by and large, the anniversary set featured an extraordinary number of great scores from extremely successful films. And it was an absolute joy to put it together, looking back on all of those productions and, in some cases, listening to music that I hadn’t heard in many years.
At any rate, after completing the first set I knew that I couldn’t stop there. There was just too much good music. So, here we are again … the continuing voyage, so to speak! Here’s the big difference between the sets: when selecting music to fill these four CDs I gave absolutely zero consideration to either the quality or the popularity of the films for which it was written. That’s not to say that there aren’t some great films represented here, but it wasn’t a requirement. And what a liberating experience that was! All of a sudden, Elmer Bernstein’s wonderful score for Amazing Grace and Chuck, which didn’t even make the cut for the Elmer Bernstein CD in our Great Composers series, was fair game. So was the remarkable End Title from Alex North’s final film score, The Last Butterfly. From Cliff Eidelman’s Free Willy 3, to Basil Poledouris’ It’s My Party, from Christopher Gordon’s On the Beach, to David Shire’s Bed and Breakfast, the one thing that ties all of these scores together is that they all deserve more attention and deserve to be heard again. For all but the most die hard film and film music fans, I think there are bound to be a great number of films represented here that most people have never even heard of. There is certain to be a musical discovery contained herein for just about everyone.
Together, the two volumes of our 25th anniversary CDs present over ten hours of music. While I could certainly fill another four CDs, and then another four after that and still not come anywhere near a shortage of material, I think we’ll stop here. Once again, it was, amidst all the work, a whole lot of fun compiling this music and I am very excited about the prospect of introducing these scores to anyone who may discover among them some of the best film music they’ve never heard."
Robert Townson
For more info and ordering, visit Varèse Sarabande.
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