My first Phase 4 album was Stokowski’s Scheherazade which was also my introduction to that piece. I was probably just in high school and I was very taken by it, but when I acquired the miniature score and attempted to reconcile what I was hearing with what was on the page, I was flummoxed in regard to a few things he had done with the orchestration. All I can remember of that now was possibly a passage with xylophones, which may or may not be correct.
It wasn’t till several years later that I had my second Phase 4, the Herrmann/Hitchcock thrillers. I played that to death, as I did the later release with Citizen Kane, etc., and the even later one with Herrmann’s fantasy scores. I know I’m forgetting a few others, but that was about it for me, Phase 4-wise, till present day when I much better appreciate what they were doing with that technology. There’s fun music to be had there.
