Murder ON The Orient Express Bennett

Kritzerland is proud to present a limited edition soundtrack release – two great scores on one great CD. The Whisperers was originally issued on a United Artists LP and had a prior CD release on Ryko. That release, as was the case with several Ryko issues, had dialogue tracks added between the score tracks, which, for most people, completely interrupted the wonderful flow of Barry's original LP sequence. For this release, we have removed the added dialogue tracks and remastered the sound. The original United Artists LP of Equus, along with its prior CD release (also on Ryko - now long out of print), interspersed five of Burton's monologues (and a scene with Firth) among the score cues. Some of the monologues retained their own track and had no underscore, and some were bookended with musical cues. The result was a very nice listen for the first couple of times - after that, one wished that the score could simply be listened to as a score, on its own. So, for this release, we've done exactly that for the first time.

The recent partnership of John Wilson and BBC SSO on record reaches this second volume in their invigorating exploration of fascinating orchestral works by Sir Richard Rodney Bennett. Less well known than his widely famous film music (Murder on the Orient Express, Four Weddings and a Funeral, etc.), the orchestral works featured here display the versatility with which Bennett contradicted the dogma of musical modernism at the time of their creation (60s-70s), as well as an evolution of his compositional style towards a musical language that spoke to audiences everywhere in the world.