Beauty And The Beast (Complete 1946 Film Score) - Moscow Symphony Orchestra

Advantages: John Williams' score, great performance by the LSO
Disadvantages: Tracks don't follow the film's action

...Over the past 28 years, composer/conductor John Williams has collaborated with Star Wars' creator, writer/director/executive producer George Lucas, providing the six Episode saga about the Skywalker family and its pivotal role in the history of "a galaxy far, far away" with a symphonic score that not only provides the films' characters, settings and situations with much needed emotional depth and weight, but also stands alone as beautiful orchestral music. Starting with the phenomenal best-selling two-record album of music from 1977's Star Wars (a.k.a. Episode IV: A New Hope), Williams' then-daring use of 19th Century Romantic era symphonic styles not only introduced a generation to instrumental music that wasn't rock or disco, but also reinvigorated the moribund art of film scoring and inspired many new composers -- Michael Kamen, Joel... Read review

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Advantages: The most powerful Batman score ever composed; an Elfman classic all the way
Disadvantages: So what if it isn't the most sophisticated score in the world?

...of the basic characteristics that define his music, namely quirky rhythms, diverse percussion, and simply out-of-the-wall weirdness. Many other contemporary composers were baffled at exactly how to react to the highly original man, with admiration or digust? In 1989 however, the perception of Elfman changed drastically. Batman was the most ambitious project Elfman had ever embarked upon and he took full advantage of the opportunity. The musical duties were divided between Elfman, whose score would fill about 80% of the film, and Prince, who wrote a number of songs to be used at various points in the film as background music or more prominently during few sequences (like the art museum scene and the money-parade scene). With Prince taking care of the song-part of the movie, Elfman would employ the use of a large symphony orchestra of gothic... Read review

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Advantages: A new way to hear Beethoven
Disadvantages: Surpassed by some later period cycles

...was the first to take Beethoven's symphonies under close scrutiny and performed the first period accounts of all the symphonies between 1987 and 1988 for EMI with The London Classical Players. Norrington's approach was to take Beethoven's symphonies in the manner of the 18th Century by way of reinventing their expressive gestures, their tempos, and the use of the orchestra. The final result was something completely different that was embraced with admiration by others and hated by the rest. The soundworld and general performance was so different that people used to the tradition of the past 200 years were unprepared to these innovations and responded rather coldly. But the ice was broken. Soon period performances of Beethoven's works as well as the works of other composers started cropping up all over. Beethoven's cycle of symphonies have since been... Read review

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