Search - Benjamin Frankel, Werner Andreas Albert, Queensland Symphony Orchestra Brisbane :: The Battle of the Bulge [Original Score]

Almost the Original Soundtrack

Kevin R. Austra | Delaware Valley, USA | 08/11/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The original score to the 1965 movie THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE is very difficult to find. The current release is about as close as you are currently going to get to the original film music. This version was recorded by the Queensland Symphony in Australia in the late 1990's and mastered as a CD in Germany. The original soundtrack was first released as a double album and later pared down to a single album. Until the mid 1980's, the original soundtrack was available only as a Warner Brothers Japanese import. The problem was that it was missing half of the movie music. The current CD solves this and includes all of the tracks in their entirety in chronological order of the movie. The music was produced to sound very close to the arrangement on the movie soundtrack, though a avid fan of the film will be able to detect subtle differences. The chorus singing PANZER LEID is similar to the overdubbed Panzertruppen from the movie. Some of the arrangements do sound as if somebody attempted to improve upon the original, but overall the recording is almost identical. Even the CD cover bears a lobbycard image from the movie. The quality of the recording is superb. Until the original movie soundtrack surfaces again, this CD is a fitting replacement."

One of the great orchestral film scores

Call Me Ludwig | San Diego, CA United States | 07/03/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Frankel's music for The Battle of the Bulge has always impressed me, even when I was much younger (back in the 1970s I even paid the then-outrageous price of $20 to get a copy of the original soundtrack on LP--the only film music for which I would have attempted such financial lunacy).



There is no doubt that the rousing Panzerlied is, as one reviewed called it, the "guilty pleasure" of the movie (and the one melody not written by Frankel), but the music goes much deeper and wider. In particular, the Prelude, with its setting of Panzerlied leading to the Victory Theme is a striking work; the Prelude is recapitulated in part by the final movement, "The Panzermen abandon their tanks: Victory and Postlude." Those familar with Shostokovich's Fifth Symphony can hear the direct influence of the closing of that symphony on the Victory Theme, but that in no way diminishes the emotive power of Frankel's work. I have often imagined that the final movement, in the hands of a gifted arranger, could be expanded a little and turned into a most fitting tribute to those who sacrificed their lives in the Second World War, so compelling are its musical ideas (the all-too-brief transition from the panzerlied theme to the Victory Theme is especially moving).



The Queensland Symphony plays this music with verve, though there are a few points at which the music is so "busy," it seems the snare drum is following one beat and the members of the orchestra another. Still, the Orchestra is to be commended for a fine performance, made all the more remarkable given the inherent contradictions: Australia was not a part of the Battle of the Bulge, and the tropical heat of Brisbane is a long way from the Ardennes during what was the coldest winter of the century.



Some film music--some very fine film music--falls apart when removed from the movie for which it was written. Frankel's work absolutely informs the film (take, for instance, the scene where Colonel Hessler inspects his new tanks, or when we first see the Allied headquarters in Ambleve), but also stands on its own two feet. Elegiac, marshal, emotionally touching and...dare I say it...even rising at moments to greatness, this music deserves a wider audience. Perhaps someone will arrange a suite drawing on this music so that it may be incoporated more broadly into the orchestral canon, where it could then be enjoyed (and it WOULD be enjoyed) by audiences far and wide."

A VERY EXCITING SOUNDTRACK

RAUL RUZ DITTUS | SANTIAGO DE CHILE, CHILE | 12/24/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"LATER OF MANY YEARS, WE CAN FIND THIS RARE SOUNDTRACK OF THE MOVIE "THE BATTLE OF BULGE", ABOUT THE LAST GERMAN COUNTRE-OFFENSIVE IN THE WEST SIDE. WE CAN LISTEN THE FAMOUS AND EXITING "PANZER-LIED", TANK'S UNIT MARCH."