Varese Sarabande: A 35th Anniversary Celebration

I highly recommend this album - its high quality music in a nice 4-CD set.This album includes the best movie music released by Varese Sarabande in recent years. This is a follow up to a previous soundtrack release:  Varèse Sarabande - A 30th Anniversary Celebration . This 35th Anniversary set picks up where that previous album left off and features music from the last 5 years (2008-2012) since its release.There are 84 tracks included on the album - mostly music from films, but a few TV series like Mildred Pierce & True Blood are also here - represented over 4 Discs, totaling nearly 5 hours of music. It's important to note that you are not getting the entire albums, but rather one track/selection from each film.Some of the great films of the last few years are represented here. My favorites scores included on the album are "Speed Racer", "Real Steel", "Star Trek", "Game of Thrones", "Super 8", "The Ides of March", and "The Ghost Writer".The list of composers whose work is featured on the album is quite impressive: Alexandre Desplat, Danny Elfman, Michael Giacchino, Hans Zimmer, Ramin Djawadi, Patrick Doyle, Thomas Newman, and many others.Overall, the album has a large variety of musical styles and tones. Being a fan of film music, I was familiar many of these tracks previously - but as expected I was also introduced to a lot of great new music that I had never heard before. I recommend this album because it provides the single best/most memorable pieces of score from many good films.

Let's face it, very few people have the money to buy every single movie score that they'd like to. Collectors of film scores typically have hundreds of scores but there are always good scores that they don't acquire simply due to the number of scores out there. This Varese Sarabande 35th Anniversary Celebration allows film score buffs like me to sample many, many scores for a very low price. $15 dollars for hours and hours of music. There are 4 discs in this collection and the movies represented here range from popular blockbusters to lesser-known films, and thus, lesser-known composers. Sometimes these more obscure snippets from smaller films are the real gems. I can't help but recommend with enthusiasm this collection and I regret not picking up the previous releases.

Packed with Varese Sarabande film score samples of films released on their prolific label between 2008-2013. Someone did take the time to select the best tracks to represent each score and it's an inexpensive way to sample recent film music. The price is very reasonable and as they've done every 5 yrs since their 25th we get to sample highlights at an affordable price. Varese is one of the strongest soundtrack labels to support not only current scores but has issued majestic, beautifully recorded new recordings of older scores and scores that were formerly unavailable.

This is the 4th compilation of movie music on the Varese Sarabande label. It is a tribute to the talent of various composers with different styles, and moods. If one listens to the music a few times,we have a deeper appreciation of the talent and skill these composers possess. I thank Varese Sarabande, as well as Robert Townson (producer) for putting together this series. The music often expresses the sign of the times, stimulates our memories of movies seen, or movies just imagined.

It is always great to listen to a collection of cues taken from great movie scores, but it is even better when they come from lesser-known movies that you might not have heard of. Many of the composers represented on this album are well known to fans of movie soundtracks, but this 4-CD pack mainly consists in underrated gems in their respective repertoires. It is cheap and it is very good music; what else can you say?

One standout track from each of Varese Sarabande's releases in the past 5 years, packed into four CDs and sold for the price of one. A brilliant showcase of film scoring that I haven't been able to put down since it arrived on my doorstep and a great way to catch up on any scores you might have missed over the years.

This selection of music allows me to explore the variety of film scores from one of the most prolific and eclectic libraries of film music. VS has always been a leader in great music and quality. It also makes one think of how to spend my extra money for more. I look forward to their releases all the time.

This is a fantastic FOUR CD collection well chosen from great movie soundtracks! I have loved Varese Sarabande for the soundtrack records and CD's they've been publishing since the early 1980's. This set is such a bargain for the amount of quality music from many beloved composers. Thank You, I wish you another glorious 35 years of success!

I bought this set because I hoped it would be good bang for the buck.The production values are good on all tracks.However, the music itself is mediocre at best.I was hoping to find some new examples of stiring and moving film score tracks. The tracks on this collection, however, are less then memorable.What has happened to film scores?In the past, good film scores used to be easily recognizable because of their original melody lines and lush composition.Good film scores used to be able to stand out on their own, apart from the film.Although, their are some rare exceptions, for the most part, film music today, in my opinion has lost its lustre...Look to other compilations for more enjoyable listening..

I enjoyed listening to the varied soundtrack music, and loading them onto my Android for playing during workouts. Varase Sarabande continues to provide high-quality soundtracks.

Love this Various Selection album, Just wish it would release on VINYL

As a devotee of film scoring, I love that Varese Sarabande regularly release a taster set of some of the best and most interesting music at the cinema every five years. It's a brilliant idea and should be done by other labels, not just to raise awareness of the varieties of scoring out there, but to get some of the smaller composers more exposure.The tracks are arranged in such a way that there is a watered down 'theme' to each CD, CD1 being the animation/kid's films/comedies. CD2 being the more worthy dramatic pieces, CD3 being the epic horror and action stuff and CD4 being a mix of sci-fi, romance and ethnic. This is just a loose description as the track listing isn't rigidly divided into genre.I find it alot of fun to discover new composers or play 'guess the composer' through style and flourish, but once you have listened to this set you'll be coming back time and again for some of the gems hidden in there.

It's rare to have a such a diverse film composers in one place like this, so is very nice surprise to listen and find lot of original stuff.Especially, I'm interested in combination of special instruments, voices and ethnic style and here I'm find few artists and music which I'm looking for. Also Varese offer so called classic film music, and this is obvious that majority of this 4 cd issues base on common orchestra scope like, traditional film composers Tiomkin, Rozsa, Hermmann, ect... so this kind of traditional sound continue... Composers like Marko Beltrami, John Debney, Gabriel Yared, Ramin Djawadi, Steve Jablonsky, Atli Orvasson are my favorites and here they confirm great talent and originality. So compliments for Varese Sarabande and Robert Townson, producer, and hope to continue with Celebration for many many years to come.