Search - Henry Mancini :: Breakfast at Tiffany's: Score

Differences Explained (better late than never)

MacGuffin | New York City | 01/01/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Having noticed that a previous reviewer is unfamiliar with JVC's xrcd2 releases of classic RCA titles, I'll attempt to offer an explanation.

These are audiophile-quality disks, aimed at a somewhat more sonically savvy consumer who doesn't mind shelling out a lot more money for titles that are available for much less as standard CD's. JVC's releases are beautifully packaged (they're basically duplicates in miniature of the original LP's) and include all original liner notes in addition to an explanation of the remastering/manufacturing processes that makes these disks so special and are responsible for their high price tags (and which I'm not going to try to explain here). I own a number of audiophile releases in addition to this one (several studios produce them, each with its own trade secrets), and most sound fantastic--they're stellar representations of some of the best audio technology available...or were until recently.

RCA recently began remastering its Living Stereo catalog for hybrid SACD release and, having heard side-by-side comparisons with the JVC's (as well as with the commercial CD releases), I have to say that the new SACD's sonically blow the JVC's right out of the water, include more material, and are WAY less expensive. Granted, soundtrack releases such as this one aren't yet affected (not being part of the LS series), but you might want to keep this in mind for the future; audio technology improves SO quickly and RCA is definitely interested in consumer response to the new format.

This is probably the best-sounding release of BaT to date, but it shares the limitation of its less-expensive CD counterpart: the amount of material included. JVC only contracted to remaster and release the original LP's, which, of course, were limited as to the amount of data that could be contained. In addition, Mancini's practice was to stipulate the exact tracks he wanted included on soundtrack LP's, often to the detriment of the release as a whole, e.g., the exclusion of Audrey Hepburn's vocal rendition of "Moon River" from this film and Fran Jeffries' of "Meglio Stasera" from The Pink Panther. The cheaper release contains extra tracks, but they're from the movie Arabesque (advances in technology enable the inclusion of more data/disk), so the BaT material is identical in either case. My recommendation is to go with the cheaper release and hope that RCA at some point does right by BaT and gives us a remastered release containing ALL the significant portions of the soundtrack.

BTW, "score" (or "filmscore" ) is often used in cases of different recorded performances than those used in specific films (Naxos/Marco Polo have quite a few such titles in their catalog). Many of these are wonderful recordings (sometimes conducted by the composer) that often include more actual music--possibly "enhanced," i.e., arranged for fuller orchestration--than the original soundtrack recording; they often sound better than the original, too. They make enjoyable additions to a collection but mustn't be confused with "ORIGINAL (emphasis mine) soundtrack recordings"; this term always refers to the actual music used in the film itself. If what you want is what you heard onscreen, nothing else will do. However, because of the age of some of these recordings, the audio level is often not up to par with that of the more recent "score" recordings (audiophile releases excepted).

Rest assured that this disk and its aforementioned RCA counterpart are original (if incomplete) soundtrack recordings."

A Tale of Two Discs? Rats and Super Rats! I Need help . . .

MacGuffin | 04/20/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Okay. So I need some help from all you Fred-Baby's out there. Love the movie, so, naturally, I want to [finally!]own the soundtrack. [I know i rated it even though I do not yet own it, but, i couldn't post this until selected a rating]. Anyway. I'm puzzled because there seems to be two versions available--and this is where i need help from anyone out there who knows the difference. The "score" version has twelve tracks that, based on their titles, can easily be identified as characters/scenes correlative to the film ("Latin Golightly," "Sally's Tomato," "Something for Cat"). But, the "music from the motion picture" version available on here offers Twenty-Four(!) tracks with titles like "Something for Sophia," "We've Loved Before-Yasmin's Theme [Vocal Version]" "Arabesque," and "Shower of Paradise/The Zoo Chase". What the...? Now i've seen "Breakfast at Tiffany's" plenty o'times, and uh, I don't remember any Sophia's, or Zoo chases. What gives? Are these Mancini tunes from other soundtracks to other films? Are these allusions to characters found in Capote's book? Or is this just some online mistake viewed by only myself on my screen...Anyone...?"