Varèse Sarabande release a special collection featuring music from the 2017 edition of the Krakow Film Music Festival. Festiwal Muzyki Filmowej W Krakowie is now the biggest film music festival in the world and in 2017 celebrated its 10th anniversary. Continuing their association with this remarkable event, Varèse Sarabande has again produced the official Krakow Film Music Festival CD 2017. Featuring over 75 minutes of music by the composers who were a part of this year's concerts, the album is an eclectic sample of film music's incredible variety...

In the past we've reviewed the official album's for Krakow Film Music Festival 2015 and 2016. Both of which were enjoyable. The strange thing about this festival is that you never know what you're going to get - not to mention that these highlights are someone else's choices, you may have picked other moments. The Festival has an odd and varied collection of pieces, which is a major plus point for me.

While I originally bought and still love the music for The Neverending Story (1984), I was surprised to see two tracks from that movie included on this album. As wonderfully close to the original as both are (I played the originals to death as a teenager) we could probably have done without the main theme. We get Klaus Doldinger's 'Bastian's Happy Flight' as well as pretty faithful cover of Giorgio Moroder's 'The Neverending Story' (which once again is performed by Limahl).

I'm not sure where these recordings are taken from, because if it's from the live event then the producers have done an excellent job of taking out any audience noise. There's no coughing nor applause. The tracks sound very much like controlled studio recordings. 2017's event took place between 17-23 May... and as this album was released on 22 May there's very little chance that everything was recorded, edited and made available for purchase (not forgetting the fact that the events from the 22 and 23 May would not have been recorded. No, I'm assuming that these are "dress rehearsal" recordings.

I was also confused by the inclusion of music from Emerald City and Penny Dreadful. While the music for both is impressive, the last time I checked they're not films.

For me the addition of Legends of the Fall was this album's main interest. This is one of James Horner's score's I've never managed to get around to picking up. But hearing it here was all the incentive I needed to ensure I ordered a copy.

It's an interesting collection that should whet your appetite to pick up full albums of score's you may have overlooked. I could probably do without yet another version of the Star Wars theme, but I'm just being picky for the sake of it now.

Track listing:

01 - The NeverEnding Story - Never Ending Story - Giorgio Moroder, Keith Forsey Performed by Limahl
02 - The NeverEnding Story - Bastian’s Happy Flight - Klaus Doldinger
03 - Midnight Express - Chase - Giorgio Moroder
04 - The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift - Symphonic Touge - Brian Tyler
05 - 24 – Theme - Sean Callery
06 - Fargo - Bemidji, MN - Jeff Russo Performed by The Prague FILMharmonic Orchestra, Conducted by Adam Klemens
07 - Emerald City - The Beast Forever Approaches - Trevor Morris
08 - Penny Dreadful - Be True - Abel Korzeniowski
09 - Escape From Tomorrow - The Grand Finale - Abel Korzeniowski
10 - Legends Of The Fall - James Horner - Sara Andon, flute Jean-Michel Bernard, piano
11 - Finding Neverland - Neverland Piano Variation In Blue - Jan A.P. Kaczmarek, Leszek Możdżer, piano
12 - The Science of Sleep - Golden The Pony Boy - Jean-Michel, Bernard Kimiko Ono, vocal
13 - The Lord of The Rings - One Ring To Rule Them All - Howard Shore
14 - Star Wars - Star Wars Main Title - John Williams, Varujan Kojian, Utah Symphony Orchestra
15 - Titanic - Distant Memories / Southampton / Rose / Take Her To Sea, Mr. Murdoch - James Horner, John Debney, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Chorus

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Darren Rea