Goldsmith Conducts Goldsmith

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This 71 minute CD, a High-Definition digital remastering of a late 1980's release, offers Jerry Goldsmith conducting the London-based Philharmonia Orchestra in a series of suites, medleys, and excerpts from some of hi best known film and television scores, drawn from across his entire career. While the sound is very good -- with bass response that is almost certain to annoy neighbors in most apartment buildings -- the selection of material is too broad to be totally satisfying. This recording was derived from the first complete public concert of his screen-related music that Goldsmith had ever given, and in the process of preparing a program that represented the breadth of his career, he may have aimed a little too wide for a CD release -- no one would want to tell an artist of Goldsmith's stature how best to present his work, but someone might've hinted to him that his main theme from the ABC mini-series Masada was hardly in the same league with his music from A Patch of Blue, Poltergeist, Chinatown, The Sand Pebbles, or The Blue Max, all of which are represented here -- the presence of his pleasant but rather slight title theme from the series Room 222 in a medley of television themes (alongside The Waltons, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and Dr. Kildare) can be forgiven; and the pop-oriented suite from Gremlins is pleasant enough, though it's a difficult fit against the more formal orchestral pieces surrounding it. Still, one can hardly dispute the details of the interpretations, for Goldsmith was clearly prepared to exploit the unique forces available to him for this concert, bringing his music, from whatever large- or small-screen source of inspiration, to life in vibrant, exalted form. The 2002 reissue includes as a bonus track a short selection of the music from Goldsmith's score for Legend, which was only used in the European release of the movie.

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