Silva Screen Records reissue Robert Mellin and Gian-Piero Reverberi's score for the 1964 French-German children's television drama The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. The reissue includes the music material discovered in 1997 and new packaging, featuring never seen before cover and pictures as well as a definitive history of the music and series written by Stephen Brown and Lynn Simpson...

For a TV series that originally aired in 1964 the audio, which has been digitally cleaned by BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s producer-composer Mark Ayres, is unsurprisingly of its time. While the themes themselves are engaging and especially impressive for a kid's show, the original recording has quite a subtle mix which leaves it sounding more like a mono recording than it does a stereo one.

Now, for those who look back fondly on the show, this isn't a major issue. However, when compared to modern soundtracks it feels very dated... even a little twee.

I have a very distant memory of watching this as a youngster - I was born in 1970 so I'm guessing it was repeated on a Saturday/Sunday morning at some point. I can't really remember whether it was any good... so sadly the soundtrack is lost on me. I do remember the main theme quite vividly, but other than that I have no real recollection of the score.

It's definitely a product of its time, but in all honestly it feels more like a feature score from the '60s than it does a TV soundtrack. The themes are engaging and well crafted and if you're a collector of classic scores you'll get a huge kick out of this.

7

Darren Rea