Here are the official blurbs:
Kritzerland is proud to present a new limited edition world premiere Oscar-nominated soundtrack to the hugely popular and beloved film:
BREAKING AWAY
Music Adapted by Patrick Williams
Conducted by Lionel Newman
Breaking Away, a wonderful coming-of-age story, took critics and audiences completely by surprise in 1979 and the film was an instant box-office and critical success. Steve Tesich’s warm, wise and wonderful screenplay touched a nerve in audiences and Peter Yates, the director, did a masterful job telling its quintessentially American story. The cast was filled with up-and-coming young actors like Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern and Jackie Earle Haley, as well as seasoned actors like Barbara Barrie and Paul Dooley.
Director Yates temp-tracked Breaking Away with classical music while he and his editor were working on the film. Then he brought composer Patrick Williams on board. Williams saw the film with the temp track and told Yates that if that was what he wanted that it was okay with him and Williams would just adapt that music. But Yates, instead, told him to do his thing and perhaps adapt some of the classical bits but also write an original score around them. And that is what Williams did, creating some wonderful dramatic cues in the process. After the film previewed, Yates ultimately made the decision to go with almost all of his temp track, save for a small amount of the original Williams music. And so, Williams and conductor Lionel Newman convened for a second recording session to record more of his adaptations, and that was that. In the end the score was comprised mostly of music by Gioacchino Rossini, Felix Mendelssohn and Friedrich von Flowtow. After the heartbreak of having to replace his original dramatic cues, the irony was, of course, that Williams received an Oscar nomination for Best Music – Original Score and Its Adaptation or Best Adaptation Score.
For this world premiere CD release, we give you all of the classical pieces that Williams adapted (and adapted superbly), as well as his original score cues, both used and unused. For listening purposes, we’ve taken the liberty of inserting a handful of Williams’ unused cues into the score presentation, because they work so beautifully there. The rest are included in the bonus section.
Breaking Away is limited to 1000 copies only and priced at $19.98, plus shipping. CDs will ship by the second week of February. However, on average we usually ship two to four weeks ahead of the official ship date. To place an order, see the cover, or hear audio samples, just visit
www.kritzerland.com.
and
Kritzerland is proud to present a new limited edition musical theater-related release:
CLASSICAL BROADWAY
Music by Cy Coleman, John Kander, Harvey Schmidt and Charles Strouse
Classical Broadway is a wonderful and fascinating journey into concert hall works by four of Broadway’s most tuneful composers. For Cy Coleman, we have New York Sketches, three delightful Gershwinesque preludes for piano. For John Kander we have his beautiful and moving settings of Three Poems by Lucile Adler. For Harvey Schmidt we have the delectable Monteargentario: Seven Dances for Solo Piano, and for Charles Strouse we have his marvelous String Quartet No. 1 and Sonata for Two Pianos. While not theater music, these selections are suffused with each of their musical sensibilities and melodic invention. The album is a must for any fan of these four amazing Broadway composers.
Classical Broadway was originally released on Bay Cities in 1992 and has been out of print for over twenty years now. At the time of the recording, all these pieces were world premiere recordings and they remain the only commercial recordings of these pieces. For this long overdue reissue we have done a new and fresh mastering.
Featuring soprano Carol Vaness, pianists Seth Rudetsky, Scot Woolley, Emily Witt, Warren Jones and Harvey Schmidt, and the Korngold Quartet. Produced by Bruce Kimmel, with liner notes by award-winning journalist Jon Burlingame.
Classical Broadway is limited to 1000 copies only and priced at $19.98, plus shipping. CDs will ship by the second week of February. However, on average we usually ship two to four weeks ahead of the official ship date. To place an order, see the cover, or hear audio samples, just visit
www.kritzerland.com.
