Bronislaw Kaper Conducted By A - The Way West - Original Soundt

Bruce Eder writes: Bronislaw Kaper's music for The Way West (1967) was just about the last classic Western movie score ever written that was done in a broad, epic style without any sense of irony until John Barry's music for Dances with Wolves appeared two decades later. But Kaper's music comes from an even older tradition, dating to Dimitri Tiomkin's score for Red River (1948) and, in its use of choral music and folk melodies, to a theatrical tradition decades older than that, and the influence of such figures as Aaron Copland and Roy Harris. The Polish-born Kaper had scored a handful of Westerns in the previous decade and, perhaps recognizing the nature of time, mortality, and public taste, understood that The Way West might well be his last chance to deal with the American West in musical terms. As the composer had no training at the podium, the score is conducted by Andr� Previn, in one of his very last appearances as a Hollywood conductor before he moved permanently into the concert hall. The Serendipity Singers' other contribution, Mercy McBee, is more in the tradition of their standard folk-pop sound, without the sheer power of the title track but with an engaging lyricism and delicacy (in the movie the song comes out appropriately rougher).