Charles Gerhardt - Lost Horizon: The Classic Film Scores Of Dimitri Tiomkin (1976) [2017 SACD]

Dimitri Tiomkin was among the best-known soundtrack composers of his era, though his talent as a composer (as opposed to an orchestrator) was always doubted by some; & his work crossed over successfully into several different film genres, which this album made an effort to represent, not wholly successfully, back in 1976. Most of all, & beyond any question, he was a master of orchestral colour, enough to rival figures such as Tchaikovsky & Rimsky-Korsakov, & he was fortunate enough to come along just as Hollywood was discovering the importance of music in talking pictures. It took a few years for Tiomkin to make his mark as a composer, but when he did, he made it indelibly. The bulk of this CD, like the original LP from which it was derived, is filled with the music from Tiomkin’s 1st major score, for Frank Capra’s 1937 film Lost Horizon. A full-blown extension of late 19th century Russian romanticism, this score is represented here by an imposing 23-minute suite that is still glorious to hear, 70-plus years later. (Indeed, if classes in music appreciation were still taught in 21st century high schools, one could do worse in illustrating the instruments of the orchestra & their various timbres & voices than this recording). The only difficulty is that once one gets past that suite, which filled the first side of the original LP, what follows doesn’t really stand in the same league. Conductor Charles Gerhardt & the National Philarmonic Orchestra give it everything they have, & push the rousing strains of the overture from The Guns of Navarone & The Big Sky as hard as they can, but this material is still something of a letdown after what you’ve already heard. Additionally, The Big Sky formed such a small corner of Tiomkin’s output as a composer of westerns, that its presence inevitably leaves the listener who is already a fan wanting more (a project that eventually fell into several other hands, besides Gerhardt’s). Only the choral finale to Search for Paradise comes close to the Lost Horizon music, which is so imposing that it deserved a still more expansive treatment & a separate release, on its own.


Tracks:

01. Lost Horizon (1937) -Symphonic Suite (23:10)
1a Prelude
1b Foreword Card
1c Riot In Baskul
1d Mob Scene At The Refuelling Station
1e Morning After The Plane Crash
1f Arrival Of The Caravan
1g The Journey Over The Mountains
1h Entrance Into Shangri-La
1i Nocturne
1j Riding Sequence
1k The Waterfall
1l Chinese Children's Scherzo
1m Bell Sequence
1n Funeral Cortège Of The High Lama
1o Escape From Shangri-La
1p Return To Shangri-La
02. The Guns Of Navarone - Prelude 2:24
03. The Big Sky - Suite (8:10)
3a Prelude
3b The Forest At Night (Nocturne)
3c The Wide Missouri (Epilogue)
04. The Fourposter - Overture 2:37
05. Friendly Persuasion - Love Scene In The Barn 5:57
06. Search For Paradise - Choral Finale 3:31
Bonus Track
07. The Thing From Another World - Suite (10:41)
7a Prelude
7b Flying Saucer Under The Ice
7c Melting Sequence
7d The Hand
7e Plasma I
7f Plasma II
7g The Growing Plants
7h The Thing On The Walkway
7i Electrocution

Personnel:

Conductor – Charles Gerhardt
Orchestra – National Philharmonic Orchestr