Though already exist two previous record editions of this Elmer Bernstein's masterpiece (the original recording, that years later was reissued by Mainstream Records [MDCD-602], and the 1976 re-recording accomplished by the own Bernstein for his stupendous and regrettably disappeared Film Music Collection [FMC-7]), the present version can be considered almost as definitive, not only by the superb quality of the recording and interpretation, but by the fact of including the whole of cues composed for the film -some of them in extended version, as is the case of the wonderful Main Title-, included the rejected ones in the final editing -as the music that was accompanying the confrontation in Lynch Mob, or the whole Ewell Regret It-. About Bernstein's score little more than to say that may not have been said of one of the best works of the sixties, unless to emphasize its peculiar impressionist tone (very nearby, in some moments, to certain works of Claude Debussy), and its portentous orchestration, with the piano as protagonist in many moments, but with an elegiac use of the winds. Exemplary issue by Várese in their new collection, with a succeeded and complete analysis of the work by Kevin Mulhall, and the exquisite drawings of Matthew Joseph Peak. Absolutely obligatory.

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962) - 41:53
Royal Scottish National Orchestra - Conductor: Elmer Bernstein
VARESE SARABANDE VSD-5754 / 42'

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