BY DARREN ALLISON
Is
Paris Burning? Composed by Maurice Jarre, The 50th Anniversary Recording of the
Complete Score. A Special Collectors 2 CD Edition featuring a brand new
recording by The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra Conducted by Nic Raine.
Released by Tadlow Music, Price: £16.95 TADLOW023, Date: August 25th 2016 Anniversary
of the Liberation of Paris.
It’s always exciting to receive the latest release from
Tadlow music. When award winning producer James Fitzpatrick and respected
conductor Nic Raine join forces and combine their talents, you know the result
is always going to be good. Maurice Jarre’s music is, of course, nothing new to
the long standing partnership. Together in recent years, they have overseen triumphant
new recordings of Jarre’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Villa Rides (1968).
Is Paris Burning? (1966) is their latest collaboration
and features the complete 69 minute film score including previously unrecorded
cues. A great deal of Jarre’s patriotic score is heavily militaristic, with defiant
marches that reflect the repetitive beat of German foot soldiers. Jarre chose
to use ascending pianos to achieve this ‘strange and disturbing sound’, twelve
pianos in fact, and drew upon his childhood memories of living in Paris. It’s a
very methodical score, almost industrial in its strokes and leaves very little
room for lush or sweeping melodies. However, this wasn’t the case with Jarre’s
original soundtrack album where the composer took a more logical musical
approach as opposed to a filmic approach. Naturally perhaps, this is the more familiar
arrangement that we have become more accustomed to, and where Tadlow again go
the extra mile. Never a company to cut corners, Tadlow have also included a
complete reworking of Jarre’s album version which was originally released over
two suites. In fact, the second CD in this collection is a joyous collage of
Jarre delights.
Aside from the original album version of Is Paris
Burning? Tadlow’s second disc (running a generous 73 minutes) contains a
wonderful selection of concert suites comprised of Jarre’s similar period assignments.
Here you will find music from The Night of the Generals (1967), The Train (1964),
Weekend at Dunkirk (1964) and The Damned (1969). As an extra bonus, Tadlow has
also added two new vocal versions of “Paris En Colere†performed by The City of
Prague Philharmonic chorus conducted by Miriam Nemcova and a solo vocal version
by new French singing discovery, Melinda Million, both of which rounds off this
collection rather nicely.
As
with all of Tadlow’s releases, the audio (recorded in dynamic 24Bit/96kHz
digital sound) is quite stunning and provides an entirely new clarity to such
familiar themes. Nic Raine conducts the reconstructed score from the original orchestrations
by Leo Arnauxd, and in return extracts a powerhouse performance from the
acclaimed 100 piece City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. Tadlow’s packaging
includes a handsomely produced 24-page booklet with informative liner notes by
Frank K DeWald and producer James Fitzpatrick.
At
over 140 minutes of music, Tadlow always maintain the ability to deliver
quantity as well as quality. Reliability is something of a rare factor in the
soundtrack market. Fortunately, with the arrival of a Tadlow release, you can
always guarantee it’s going to be right on the money, before you’ve even hit
the play button.
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