Where can I hear a better recording of the theme song?
It was a good theme, but the audio quality was... lacking. I've heard you can hear better versions of it around the net. Anybody know where?
Thanks.
Mark it zero!
...ANYWHERE but in the film itself!
I cannot agree with you more!
This is one of the most atrociously recorded movies of all time! There is not even the excuse frequently given to older films that "sound recording techniques were in their infancy," because this was 1938 and sound had been around long enough for sound engineers to know what they were doing.
The fault here lies squarely with the technicians AND Prokofiev himself because he inexplicably decided that he, too, wanted to play Leopold Stokowski's game of becoming a sound engineer and muddled with the recording process. One account has him telling the sound engineers to insert the microphones directly into the bell of the horns for certain passages; another tells of Prokofiev demanding the engineers to deliberately distort certain passages to reflect the "distortion" of the enemy.
What Prokofiev failed to take into account was that Stokowski had been working with Bell Telephone sound laboratories since at least 1930 to devise ways to improve sound recording/transmission techniques -and knew what he was doing.
Stokowski's hi-fidelity, wide-range and STEREO recordings from 1931-32 provide jaw-dropping examples of just how far sound recording had advanced and were advancing.
True, Hollywood lagged behind the recording industry in some respects, but by 1938 there was absolutely no excuse for the NEVSKY soundtrack to sound so abominable.
But to answer your question, there are dozens of fine, very well-done recordings of the score, including a magnificent digital re-recording of the score which is likely to be the first one that pops up under any search you do.
The Chicago Symphony/Fritz Reiner recording is also noteworthy if you want an English language performance. Some consider it sacrilige, but it really is an excellent performance.
"If you don't know the answer -change the question."
Actually, nearly all of the recording out there are NOT of the Nevsky score but of the cantata written by Prokofiev and based on his score. It contains additional music that doesn't appear in the film, and likewise omits some of the music that does.
In 1996, producer John Goberman and orchestrator William Brohn put together a recording of the complete soundtrack, the way it appears in the film, with nothing added or omitted. They did this precisely because the film is so poorly recorded and no original soundtrack recording ever existed before this one.
You can find it on amazon.com and other online sources. It's the recording featuring the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, with Yuri Termikanov conducting and it's extremely well-done.
Frankly, I prefer the cantata, which was written for public performance. But this is an important recording for anyone who loves the film.
This isn't a hollywood movie, it was made in the soviet union. Back in the day they didn't allow any western film technology into the country to prevent western influence,, so all their gear was like 10 years behind modern technology. Also, the music was really just a rough cut recorded during practice, and they wanted to do it again, but stalin watched it and said it was good. So he didn't let them make any changes and that was that.
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