Sony Masterworks to reissue Charles Gerhardt's Classic Film Score series

SONY MASTERWORKS proudly announces the reissue of Charles Gerhardt’s acclaimed Classic Film Score series. In the 1970s, the Classic Film Scores series introduced a new generation to the sumptuous sound of music in Hollywood’s “Golden Age.” The following releases will be available March 1, 2011 on CD and through major digital service providers: Citizen Kane, Sunset Boulevard, Elizabeth and Essex, Spellbound, Now, Voyager, Classic Film Scores for Bette Davis and The Film Scores of David Raksin; the first six titles were released in October 2010.

It is widely accepted that together with the 1977 film release of Star Wars, Charles Gerhardt’s Classic Film Score series re-introduced moviegoers to orchestral scores and helped usher the modern era of film music. Using the original orchestrations, heard in rich stereo sound, Gerhardt and the National Philharmonic Orchestra recreated the great moments from the legendary scores of Hollywood’s most memorable films. Re-mastered for the first time using the original analog masters and including the original LP liner notes, the Classic Film Scores are once again available for both collectors and a new generation of listeners.

In 1972 Gerhardt conducted the National Philharmonic Orchestra in the recording of RCA’s first LP in the Classic Film Score series: The Sea Hawk, featuring the music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The album, produced by Erich’s son George Korngold, became an unexpected hit for the label, receiving favorable reviews and even landed on the Billboard charts. Other albums followed -- some highlighting an individual composer (Max Steiner, Miklós Rózsa, Franz Waxman, Alfred Newman, Dimitri Tiomkin, Bernard Herrmann), some focusing on a particular actor (Errol Flynn, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart).

The late Charles Gerhardt began his career at RCA Records, transferring 78-rpm recordings to tape so they could be pressed as LPs. By the early 1960s he relocated to London to oversee RCA’s productions in England and to produce records for Reader’s Digest. Because of the need for a large orchestra to record these albums, Gerhardt and Sidney Sax formed a group comprised of London’s top musicians in 1964. In 1970, the group incorporated and became the National Philharmonic Orchestra.

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