
Andy Dursin
Debel (my hero) found this at filmscoremonthly.com
Sony Classical's THE MASK OF ZORRO makes for an ideal soundtrack album,
running 74:40, as seemingly all of James Horner's recent film scores have
on CD. Again, this is a gorgeous work, and only the staunchest of
film-music plagiarism curmudgeons are going to carp about such-and-such
passage of ALIENS being rehashed here and there (ok, and maybe Khan's theme
is there, too, but I could really care less about this
exhausted-beyond-belief debate). One intriguing note about the film's song,
"I Want to Spend My Lifetime Loving You"--there's a beautiful orchestral
introduction to the song in the movie print, and there seemed to be more
prominent strings in the film version mix as well. The album's version is
pretty much identical after that intro, where a more commercial "pop"
opening is included, obviously to appeal to radio listeners and station
managers. Jim Steinman, he of Meatloaf "Bat Out of Hell" fame, produced the
ballad, and it's a terrific tune (if nothing else, at least we've finally
arrived at a point where a lot of movie songs are now love themes
originating from the actual orchestral scores. Beats the old "drag in
Giorgio Moroder to pen the pop single" mentality). But it's Horner's score
that listeners should eat up, and it's one of his best.
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