The Swan
(Limited Edition CD Soundtrack)
Sound:
B Music: B-
As a way
to compete with the most lavish CinemaScope productions 20th
Century-Fox put into production, M-G-M was the number one studio and first
company to license the format, and The
Swan (1956) went all-out to be a classy product. The story of a princess having to choose
between royal duty and love offered Grace Kelly in one of her last and most
ironic roles as that princess.
While we
will reserve the film review for a DVD release, Bronislau Kaper’s excessively
romantic score is now on CD from the FSM label of Film Score Monthly Magazine
(which can be ordered exclusively at www.filmscoremonthly.com)
and it offers more “dreamy” music in about 50 minutes on one CD then you will
ever need. With that said, this is an
expanded version of the original vinyl album, which are here in their original
monophonic form. That leaves the
original movie music as used in the actual film, here in stereo from the
three-track stereo magnetic masters. The
difference in the PCM 2.0 sound between the two is noticeable, but the sound
quality difference is nominal. There is
some distortion on both types of tracks, but it does override the decent sound
quality otherwise.
Part of
the reason besides the audio transfer itself that this sounds good is that
these are tracks that have probably not been touched much, despite some damage
the tracks have had in it storage history.
We have previously reviewed Kaper’s scores for Home From The Hill, and the thing that strikes me about his work is
that it is long and detailed, yet is always done in a way to be underlining as
much as possible to the film. This
limits the music’s direct effects, but also places it in an ambient position,
maybe too much for its own good. On its
own, it is still of a higher quality, so Kaper found an interesting and large
niche for his talents and The Swan
is another equally elaborate representation.
This CD is limited to only 3,000 copies, so go to the link above and get
yours before someone else does.
- Nicholas Sheffo
