"RUSSIAN NIGHTS"
GLINKA: Russlan and Ludmilla Overture. IPPOLITOV-IVANOV: Procession of the Sardar. PROKOFIEV: March from The Love for Three Oranges. BORODIN: Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor. RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Capriccio Espagnol, Op. 34. LIADOV: The Enchanted Lake, Op. 62. The Music Box, Op. 32. KHACHATURIAN: Spartacus Love Theme. TCHAIKOVSKY: Russian Dance from The Nutcracker. Hungarian Dance from Swan Lake. MOUSSORGSKY: Polonaise from Boris Godunov.
Cincinnati Pops Orch/Erich Kunzel, cond.
TELARC SACD 60657 TT: 66:31
BUY NOW FROM AMAZON

"MEGA MOVIES"
Music from the films The Mummy, The Mask of Zorro, Air Force One, The Rock, Contact, Mighty Joe Young, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace; L.A. Confidential; The Prince of Egypt; The X-Files; A Bug's Life;Elizabeth; Godzilla; Shakespeare in Love, Titantic, and Armageddon.
Cincinnati Pops Orch/Erich Kunzel, cond.
TELARC SACD 60535 TT: 73:44
BUY NOW FROM AMAZON

"THE NEVER ENDING WALTZ"
Cincinnati Pops Orch/Erich Kunzel, cond.
TELARC SACD 60668 TT: 56:15
BUY NOW FROM AMAZON

Three SACDs featuring Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. "Russian Nights" is a collection of Russian orchestral showpieces all recorded April 11, 2005 in Cincinnati's Music Hall. Telarc's sound is what we have come to expect from the label, but these performances sound as if the Cincinnati orchestra was a bit understaffed. "The Never Ending Waltz" also was recorded on a single day—February 20, 2006—in the same venue. Here we have almost an hour of waltzes featuring excerpts from no less than 45 famous waltzes, primarily works of Johann Strauss, all blending one into another: there's not a break, even between tracks. Great elevator music for sure, but I found most of it rather boring...one, two, three....one, two, three....one, two, three.....for almost an hour is a bit too much for serious listening.

"Mega Movies" was issued in 2000, and now we have the same recording augmented by a half-dozen tracks of appropriate sound effects. The cover of the SACD states: Warning! Mega Sound Effects. These are really quite short, and in the CD notes recording engineer Michael Bishop explains how they were made. Indeed, these sounds are impressive, particularly the track for Godzilla which surely will give your subwoofers a workout. Kunzel's performances are rather low-key; original sound tracks for these movies have more zip—but many collectors will enjoy the special effects.

R.E.B. (February 2007)

(NEXT SURROUND SOUND REVIEW)