Tadlow Music is scheduled to release a new digital recording of Dimitri Tiomkin’s score for The Guns of Navarone on compact disc in September. The 1961 film, written and produced by Carl Foreman, stars Gregory Peck, David Niven, and Anthony Quinn. Tiomkin’s score was nominated for an Academy Award® and the film received six other nominations, including best picture.

Produced by James Fitzpatrick, the CD is billed as the “world premiere recording of the complete film score.” The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and the Crouch End Festival Chorus are conducted by Nic Raine. The original orchestrators for the film included Herb Taylor, George Parrish, Michael Heindorf, Leonid Raab, and Charles Maxwell. Composer John Williams, then a television composer and session pianist, orchestrated the “Exit Music.” The song “Yassu,” with lyrics by Ned Washington, is featured. (See “Wedding Music by Dimitri Tiomkin,” the May 2005 feature story, for other films featuring Tiomkin songs related to weddings.)

Orchestrator Patrick Russ prepared the music scores for the recording sessions that took place in April. Full scores for some cues were culled from the Dimitri Tiomkin Collection at the University of Southern California (USC). Many of the large action cues, particularly in the last reels of the film, are not know to exist in full score. For these cues, Russ reconstructed the music from Tiomkin’s handwritten sketches, along with repeated listening to the film’s original sound track. Assisting Russ in the reconstruction were orchestrators Jon Kull, Warren Sherk, and Paul Henning.

“The chief musical glory of The Guns of Navarone,” orchestrator Christopher Palmer writes in his Tiomkin biography, is “its splendid main theme, whose two contrasting segments prove themselves capable of all the necessary dramatic development.” Tiomkin’s musical approach to scoring war films has its roots in his service to the United States Army Signal Corps during World War II. His experience as music director and composer for the Army orientation films and the “Why We Fight” series helped provide the foundation for his Guns score. Look for more information on the War films in future postings.

In addition to more than an hour of music from Navarone, Fitzpatrick conducts the world premiere recording of a suite from The Sundowners. The suite received its concert premiere by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra this past March. Tiomkin’s original orchestration did not require violins or violas. The ten-minute suite heard here as arranged by Patrick Russ and Jon Kull for full orchestra is in four parts, “Main Title,” “Mad Dog,” “The Fire,” and “End Credits.” (For more, see February 2005 news.)

Fitzpatrick launched Tadlow Music in 2001 for the purpose of producing and recording film scores with orchestras in London, Berlin, Prague, and Bratislava. In 2004 he produced a special limited collector’s edition of The Alamo: The Essential Dimitri Tiomkin Film Music Collection for Silva Screen Records. In addition to his commitment to Tadlow, he continues to produce for Silva Screen Records, with several tribute albums scheduled for release this year.

This limited edition CD is available via the Internet (www.tadlowmusic.com) or by mail order only. For MP3 samples of the “Prologue,” “Legend of Navarone,” and “Yassu,” go to Silva Screen Records.