Sounds of Hollywood Vol. 2

1. Mission Impossible (2:59)
2. The Typewriter (1:49)
3. Doctor Zhivago (3:35)
4. The Dark Knight (7:19)
5. Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix (3:58)
6. Trojan (4:58)
7. A Tribute to John Williams (4:58)
8. Tango (3:56)
9. The Last Samurai (7:47)
10. Ben Hur (3:57)
11. Spider Man (4:42)
12. The Mission (4:04)
13. The Pink Panther (2:57)
14. Pirates of the Caribbean (5:12)

Sounds of Hollywood vol. 2 offers another varied selection of mater although I do take exception to the arrangements such as Ben Hur which lacked the emotion necessary to such a powerful score, perhaps the best work that Rozsa ever did. The orchestra seemed to go through the motions and the result is quite evident. On the other hand one of the real treats of this CD is the playing of the John Williams Tango. The violin is superb, the tempo nicely done. One can close your eyes and see two performers dancing the night away. I’ll give a passing mark to The Pink Panther theme although if you listen to the Boston Pops version with John Williams conducting you’ll find it a lot jazzier and a much stronger sax solo. When I was studying music (arrangements) in college I orchestrated this piece and it came out fine. Light and airy describes the Leroy Anderson tune The Typewriter and is a fun piece to listen to although I miss the use of an actual typewriter which was used in the original.  Gabriel’s Oboe a tur Oscar winner for Morricone that never happened is again on the weak side when one compares it to the original soundtrack. The Dark Knight version of the Hans Zimmer composition to the film is a strong 7 minute version filled with all the emotions you’d expect to hear. We canput this one in the plus column.

As was the case with volume one of the sounds of hollywood volume 2 adheres to the wrong track listing. The one I provided in my review is correct. Pehaps we’ll see in the future a three volume set of these recordings at a special price.