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First, the good points.John Barry's amazing music - which is hard to mess up.The music choices are excellent - rather than the obvious main themes, sometimes the far more expressive and moving minor moments from soundtracks are chosen, giving the collection more of a sense of continuity and making it very moving.But there are bad points too.Sadly - this orchestra are not up to playing the music very well. It often sounds like they are just reading the music and rehearsing, rather than really feeling it and blending instruments like on the originals. It feels a little cheaply-made and amateur in places - although it does improve as the CDs move towards Barry's later work.Overall, I am sad to say that I think this collection does a disservice to Barry's amazing work, by making it sound plodding and pedestrian in places, when the originals were anything but.
great cd and it makes a great gift for those who can appreciate his james bond themed music
I got this album for my wife as a Yule present. I got the idea from one particular tune, Walt Disney's The Black Hole Theme. She has played the tunes and liked it a lot, especially since many of these are themes of films that were not familiar to her and so represented something different from what she had been used to.
The rest of the music on all the CDs is fantastic. Granted, they only need it for one composition (the last one, "The James Bond Theme") but still, without the guitar it's just not the same. Barry didn't compose this one so I suppose it was a bonus and I shouldn't complain, really. Some of the stuff I had heard before without realizing who had composed it. Very enjoyable, to say the least.
Buy it for the Persuaders theme, probably the best TV theme song ever written.
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