Play it Again: The Classic Sound of Hollywood

The first disc restores long-unavailable recordings made for the acclaimed Classic Film Scores series, recorded for RCA Red Seal in the early 1970s by conductor Charles Gerhardt and London's National Philharmonic Orchestra. It includes two grand suites from scores by Erich Wolfgang Korngold – Of Human Bondage and The Sea Hawk, both re-edited by Gerhardt – that have been unavailable for decades. These sweeping works make clear what lovers of classic film scores have always known: Not only is movie music essential to Hollywood's classic films, the best of it can also stand on its own. The disc also features music from Salome, Peyton Place and The Thing (from Another World).

The second disc samples definitive moments from the greatest of all movie scores, from Casablanca to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and from Gone with the Wind to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. The savage drama of Steiner's King Kong, one of the first profound movie scores, is here, but so is the cool, wistful longing of Mancini's 'Moon River' from the title sequence of Breakfast at Tiffany's. Rounding out the disc are selections from Lawrence of Arabia, Ben-Hur, Vertigo, and many more iconic films.