Press Release from Quartet:
Quartet Records, in collaboration with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, presents the premiere release of Elmer Bernstein’s charming score for the bittersweet high-school comedy CLASS (1983), directed by Lewis John Carlino and starring Jacqueline Bisset, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, John Cusack and Cliff Robertson.
The film is about Jonathan (McCarthy) who goes to college and befriends Skip (Lowe), his roommate. The relationship with Skip proves very useful in matters of love, an area where the young student is lacking. His first attempts are a resounding failure, but then he meets Ellen (Bisset), a woman twenty years his senior. At first everything goes very well, but one day she disappears. When he finds her again, he discovers that she’s Skip’s mom.
Elmer Bernstein was no stranger to student comedies in the early 1980s, thanks to his collaborations with John Landis and Ivan Reitman, although CLASS is, rather, a romantic comedy. His score is a sheer delight, providing a sophisticated component to the film. The music is descriptive, romantic and funny, with a powerful main theme that is pure Bernstein.
With the elements long gone, assembling this album was a challenge, but working from recently located original mono ¼” tapes and an incomplete set of 24 multi-track stereo elements, the music is finally being released—forty-two years after its recording. The CD contains the main score presentation and additional source music and alternates, all from surviving stereo and mono tracks. This collection has been produced, mixed and mastered by Chris Malone. The full color package includes an essay by film music writer Jeff Bond.
