SUMMER OF '42 / PICASSO SUMMER (2CD)

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CD 1 Summer of ’42 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) 01. Summer Of ’42 – Part 1 (5:17) 02. Summer Of ’42 – Part 2 (0:52) 03. Summer Of ’42 – Parts 3 & 4 (1:39) 04. Summer Of ’42 – Parts 5 & 6 (2:10) 05. Theme From Summer Of ’42 (3:57) 06. The Summer Knows (End Title) Theme From Summer Of ’42 (1:49) 07. Summer Of ’42 (0:56)      Total Time: 16:55 The Picasso Summer (The Picasso Suite) 08. Summer Song (4:21) 09. The Bacchanal (1:47) 10. Lonely Two (2:04) 11. The Dancer (2:15) 12. Montage: But Not Picasso – Full Awakening (3:32) 13. High I.Q. (2:12) 14. The Entrance To Reality (3:06) 15. La Guerre (3:15) 16. Los Manos De Muerto (3:28) 17. Awakening Awareness (2:26) 18. And All The Time (1:41)      Total Time: 30:34      CD 1 Total Time: 47:34

CD 2 The Picasso Summer (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) 01. Summer Song (4:21) 02. High I.Q. (2:41) 03. Revellusion (4:57) 04. Chemin De Fer (1:15) 05. The Road To Vallauris (1:49) 06. La Paix (2:36) 07. La Guerre (3:15) 08. Guernica (1:46) 09. Petanque (1:09) 10. To The Gates (2:13) 11. The Preface (2:32) 12. Nymph & Satyr (1:08) 13. The Bacchanal (1:47) 14. The Climax (0:41) 15. Lonely Two (2:04) 16. Apart (3:08) 17. Los Manos De Muerto (3:28) 18. The Before Time (1:09) 19. The Cape & The Gore (2:00) 20. The Dancer (2:14) 21. The Entrance To Reality (Revised Coda) (2:19) 22. Not Picasso (1:12) 23. Head For Home (3:21)      CD 2 Total Time: 54:45

Tech Talk From The Co-Producer…

Among the most nostalgic and wistful film scores of all time, Michel Legrand’s beautiful music for Summer of ’42 captured the hearts of moviegoers in 1971 as well as members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, who honored it with the 1971 Academy Award for “Best Original Score.” Testifying to its melodic staying power, Warner Bros. Records issued a bestselling soundtrack album for the movie, ironically including just two cues totaling five minutes from the admittedly brief but still richly moving 17-minute original score. To fill out their record, Warner Bros. turned to Legrand’s magnificent music for the rarely screened 1969 film The Picasso Summer. In this instance, they had the composer edit his 55-minute score down to a 30-minute “Picasso Suite.” The album packaging noted that the score required considerable orchestration and described it as quite possibly Legrand’s finest work.

To ready both of these scores for their first-ever complete presentations, we were given access to the session masters for both films, recorded respectively in 1971 and 1969 on 1″ 15 ips eight-channel tape.

For Summer of ’42, Legrand wrote an unusually flexible theme that played both in melancholy- flavored minor keys as well as sunnier major keys. Sometimes mistakenly identified as a “theme and variations” score, it can be more accurately described as a monothematic score that gains variety through shadings in the solo colors or changes from minor to major rather than true variations on the theme itself. Scored for strings, woodwinds, two pianos, two French horns and harp (plus—in the opening sequence—a warm solo harmonica), the music remains transparent throughout, even when played by the entire ensemble. The omission of the opening music from the 1971 soundtrack album remains probably the most baffling anomaly of that recording, for it is with the gentle harmonica, heard only during this cue, that Legrand manages his most Americana-flavored sound, a timbre so integral to the film itself.

The original 1969 recording of “The Picasso Suite,” recorded in France and premiered on the same 1971 LP with the two tracks from Summer of ’42, had somewhat thin sound and utilized a significant amount of reverb as compensation. The album’s mix favored a wash of strings across the sound field, sacrificing certain details in Legrand’s complex orchestration and losing not only separation between the violins, violas and cellos but also details in the solo woodwinds, piano, harp, percussion and other colors.

We followed the bulk of Legrand’s own creative mixing decisions, such as assigning the low brass either to the customary right or to the less-customary left depending on his needs, and panning the flamenco percussion hard left with guitars panned hard right—again depending on his requirements. But where certain instruments begged for more attention, we were accommodating—although since our goal was to retain the orchestral layout preferred by Legrand, most of these differences are subtle. While we retained some of his reverb, liberal doses of it were no longer necessary because we were able to provide more detail in the strings. In short, we preserved as much of Legrand’s “sound” as was practical yet still brought extra clarity to certain orchestral colors present on the eight-channel masters but not evident in the earlier two-track LP mixes.

Those familiar with this magnificent score only through the “The Picasso Suite” will delight in finding out how different the listening experience is when the score plays for nearly twice the length and unfolds in the original sequence of the film. The music’s architecture becomes totally different, following the movie’s San Francisco couple on their quest through Europe to find Picasso, at one point even being illuminated by Picasso’s paintings come to animated life. The couple’s pursuit dwells for some time in France and climaxes at length in Spain, in the bullring no less! Legrand is right there in the ring with them, trumpets olé! When the journey ends, Legrand ushers the pair home with a reprise of his main theme and a spectacular, resounding major-key coda.

Yes, indeed, this may be the composer’s finest hour. The score is a masterful musical odyssey that travels with the couple, with nods to Milhaud and Stravinsky along the way yet steeply voiced in the unique language that belongs to Michel Legrand alone. It is powerful music, pretty, melodically rich and always magnificent.

—Douglass Fake