Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Charles Gerhardt Redux (1972/2010)


I’m sure I don’t have to tell most of you that the entire Charles Gerhardt RCA recordings were re-mastered and re-released over the last couple of years. As someone who owns the entire collection on CD, it’s difficult for me to know where to begin in terms of a recommendation on the new series. As you well know, one of the downsides of the digital era has been the incessant repackaging of existing media, if not to a different format to a newly “re-mastered” presentation, the addition of bonus tracks, or anything else that justifies reselling the same material over and over again--usually to the same customers.

In the end I’d have to say my decision would be not to update my current discs. I decided to purchase the Bogart and Flynn sets, as those are my two favorites, just to see how much of a difference there is. To my ears it wasn’t enough. In the first place, anyone who has the sets knows the superior quality of the Gerhardt recordings from the outset. You just have to listen to the only other recording of the Casablanca suite from The Longest Day compilation by Silva Screen to understand how impeccable those early recordings were and, in my opinion, have yet to be surpassed. And . . . although I know this has nothing to do with the music, the new packaging by Sony is pretty lame.

Back in 1972, the first album recorded by Gerhardt and the National Philharmonic Orchestra was The Sea Hawk: The Classic Film Scores of Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Now, there were two different versions of this LP, one with extended versions of some suites and the elimination of some of the shorter tracks, like the main title to Captain Blood. What I’ve done below is to list the rest of the re-releases with a link to the original CD versions directly after. For those of you who haven’t experienced Gerhard’s work, these are must have discs, the cornerstone to any serious film score collection:

The Sea Hawk – The Classic Film Scores of Erich Wolfgang Korngold (Remastered)
The Sea Hawk – Original Version
The Sea Hawk – Extended Version

Gone With the Wind – Max Steiner (Remastered)
Gone With the Wind – Original Version

Captain from Castile – The Classic Film Scores of Alfred Newman (Remastered)
Captain from Castile – Original Version

Casablanca – Classic Film Scores for Humphrey Bogart (Remastered)
Casablanca – Original Version

Lost Horizon – The Classic Film Scores of Dimitri Tiomkin (Remastered)
Lost Horizon – Original Version

Captain Blood – Classic Film Scores for Errol Flynn (Remastered)
Captain Blood – Original Version

Citizen Kane - The Classic Film Scores of Bernard Herrmann (Remastered)
Citizen Kane – Original Version

Sunset Boulevard - The Classic Film Scores of Franz Waxman (Remastered)
Sunset Boulevard – Original Version

Elizabeth and Essex - The Classic Film Scores of Erich Wolfgang Korngold (Remastered)
Elizabeth and Essex – Original Version

Spellbound - The Classic Film Scores of Miklos Rozsa (Remastered)
Spellbound – Original Version

Now, Voyager - The Classic Film Scores of Max Steiner (Remastered)
Now, Voyager – Original Version

Classic Film Scores for Bette Davis (Remastered)
Classic Film Scores for Bette Davis – Original Version

Laura - David Raksin Conducts His Great Film Scores (Remastered)
Laura – David Raksin, Original Version

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