Varèse Sarabande release a special collection featuring music from Krakow Film Music Festival 2016. The Krakow Film Music Festival is now the biggest film music festival in the world, celebrating its ninth edition between 24-30 May 2016. The album features over 75 minutes of music by the composers who were part of this year's concerts, representing an eclectic sample of film music's incredible variety in 2016...

I'm not sure how this album was produced, but as it was available the day before the festival opened, I'm assuming that the producers either had access to the entries recordings of the pieces they were intending to perform at the festival, or specially made the effort to visit and record them all specially for this album.

You'd think, being a Film Music Festival, that this would feature only film music. However, this is not the case as a number of TV entries make an appearance on this album. For me, this is a bonus, as there's some beautiful work that currently comes out of compositions for TV series.

I was also genuinely shocked to discover there's a track from The Smurfs 2 included. As I was listening to the album I thought: "Hmm, that sounds like a subtle reference to the animated Smurfs cartoon's main theme". But I wasn't expecting it to be from the Smurfs movie. It's brief, but interesting.

The album contains tracks 18 (1 hr, 16 min, 39 sec) and represents a nice mix between older scores and more modern releases. There are a number of tracks on here which I will now be seeking out the original albums, so impressive were some of the themes.

The Raiders of the Lost Ark music has an unfortunate squeal (check out 3 min, 20 sec into the track) which sounds like a school kid with a recorder is just blowing without any idea what they're doing - but then John Williams's original album had a brief segment with a wind instrument squeak too.

An interesting and worthwhile addition to any film score fan's collection.

Track listing:

01. The Ghost Writer - 'The Ghost Writer' (Alexandre Desplat)
02. Tess - 'Tess' (Philippe Sarde)
03. Chinatown - 'Love Theme from Chinatown' (Jerry Goldsmith)
04. A Letter to Mr. Desplat (Aleksander Dębicz)
05. Pocahontas - 'Colors Of The Wind' (Alan Menken) (Performed by Earl Rose)
06. Ice Age 2: The Meltdown - 'The Meltdown' (John Powell)
07. The Smurfs 2 - 'Smurfette’s Creation' (Heitor Pereira)
08. How to Train Your Dragon - 'This Is Berk / Romantic Flight' (John Powell)
09. Rise of the Guardians - 'Still Dream' (Performed by Renée Fleming) / Calling All Guardians (Alexandre Desplat)
10. Shrek - 'Transformation / The End' (Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell)
11. Superman: The Animated Series - Suite (Lolita Ritmanis, Kristopher Carter and Michael McCuistion)
12. Sicario - 'Desert Music' (Jóhann Jóhannsson)
13. Allegiant - 'Suite' (Joseph Trapanese)
14. Drive - 'Bride Of Deluxe' (Cliff Martinez)
15. Pakt - 'Into The Pact' (Łukasz Targosz)
16. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - 'Lullaby Of Woe / Eredin, King Of The Hunt' (Marcin Przybylowicz)
17. Mutiny on the Bounty - 'Overture' (Bronislau Kaper) (Cliff Eidelman, Seattle Symphony Orchestra)
18. Raiders of the Lost Ark - 'March and Love Theme' (John Williams) (Richard Kaufman, Nurnberg Symphony)

10

Darren Rea