In the 25 years since 1978, Varese Sarabande Records has released well over 1000 albums. Of those, nearly 900 are film scores. Averaging over fifty new soundtrack releases a year, Varese Sarabande's catalog features virtually every great name in film music: Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams, Elmer Bernstein, John Barry, Thomas Newman, Alan Silvestri, Howard Shore, Randy Newman, Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, James Newton Howard, Mark Isham, Graeme Revell, Trevor Rabin, Georges Delerue, Henry Mancini, Patrick Doyle, James Horner, Carter Burwell, Rachel Portman, Randy Edelman and Marc Shaiman along with countless others and all the legendary composers of Hollywood's Golden Age. This four CD set features a total of five hours of music and becomes the biggest compilation we've ever assembled.

In the 25 years since 1978, Varese Sarabande Records has released well over 1000 albums. Of those, nearly 900 are film scores. Averaging over fifty new soundtrack releases a year, Varese Sarabande's catalog features virtually every great name in film music: Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams, Elmer Bernstein, John Barry, Thomas Newman, Alan Silvestri, Howard Shore, Randy Newman, Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, James Newton Howard, Mark Isham, Graeme Revell, Trevor Rabin, Georges Delerue, Henry Mancini, Patrick Doyle, James Horner, Carter Burwell, Rachel Portman, Randy Edelman and Marc Shaiman along with countless others and all the legendary composers of Hollywood's Golden Age. There are far too many titles to assemble any compilation even remotely comprehensive, but we did want to pause in our release schedule to take a moment to remember just a few of our favorites. This four CD set features a total of five hours of music and becomes the biggest compilation we've ever assembled.

'Night After Night: Music from the Movies of M. Night Shyamalan' celebrates one of the richest collaborations between a contemporary film director and a composer - an all-new recording of music for M. Night Shyamalan's most acclaimed films by the Emmy®- and Grammy®-winning composer and nine-time Oscar® nominee James Newton Howard. Included in 'Night After Night' are highlights from Howard's haunting scores that became part of the identity of eight of Shyamalan's eerie, mind-bending thrillers - 'The Sixth Sense' (1999), 'Unbreakable' (2000), 'Signs' (2002), 'The Village' (2004), 'Lady in the Water' (2006), 'The Happening' (2008), 'The Last Airbender' (2010) and 'After Earth' (2013). For this album, James Newton Howard created eight suites that are piano-centric and include new and original material. Featured soloists are violinist Hilary Hahn, cellist Maya Beiser and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet.

At long last! World premiere release of oft-requested James Newton Howard score to Joel Schumacher's Falling Down. Dark, violent urban thriller stars Michael Douglas as tragic protagonist on rampage, heading inexorably towards final showdown with retiring cop Robert DuVall. As confrontations grow in intensity, Douglas becomes increasingly unhinged. Howard follows in tow, with initially sparse score growing increasingly dense, clustered as film progresses. Dark ideas, intense action all have their say. Highlights are many, including riveting chase cues, pulsating conflict music, but one standout motif deserves spotlight: Howard writes moving minor-key trumpet solo that plays just once during "not economically viable" scene ("Miracle Mile"), then disappears completely until conclusion ("Falling Down"), where composer now brings film and score together in brilliant, powerful fashion. Sensational writing! Also worthy of attention: haunting series of string chords shifting between minor, major, playing for estranged relationship between everyman Douglas and wife Barbara Hershey. Howard even quotes nursery rhyme "London Bridge", which subtly relates to cop Duvall's own wife Tuesday Weld, who needs the tune to help calm her troubled nerves. It is difficult to overstate dramatic complexities and thematic subtleties of this important music.

James Newton Howard makes a rare but welcome foray into the horror genre with The Devil's Advocate, a chilling but majestic work highlighted by its stunning choral passages. While Howard's signature fusion of symphonics and electronics is the score's backbone, his use of the human voice most effectively communicates the evil lurking within lead Al Pacino, and his decision to avoid thematic consistency is another clever tool for keeping the listener off balance, with strange, ominous noises lurking in the background to further underscore the dark forces at work. Spooky, compelling stuff.

Presenting the 2-CD expanded archival edition of composer James Newton Howard’s (DAVE, FLATLINERS, THE SIXTH SENSE, KING KONG ’05) Oscar-nominated score to the 1993 Warner Bros. blockbuster THE FUGITIVE, starring Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones and Julianne Moore and directed by Andrew Davis. James Newton Howard’s powerhouse orchestral score anchors all of the film’s action, drama and suspense, while never losing sight of the lead characters’ underlying humanity. It’s a modern-day classic action score that still retains its vitality. Produced by MV Gerhard and Dan Goldwasser and remastered by James Nelson from WB vault elements, this deluxe 2-Disc release features over an hour of previously unreleased music and finally corrects a major error on the original 1993 soundtrack release, (the right and left channels were mistakenly reversed). Bonus tracks include cuts from the original soundtrack release and alternate cues.

James Newton Howard was well-established as a keyboardist, songwriter, producer, and arranger in the realm of soft rock before he cemented his legacy as an A-list film and television composer during the '90s. Highlights of his rock resumé in the '70s and '80s had included touring and recording with Elton John and working on albums with the likes of Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson, and Toto. After earning his first composing credit on the 1985 comedy Head Office, his first Academy Award nomination came with the 1991 drama The Prince of Tides. Known for delivering wistful chamber music, playful comedic fare, or alternatively ominous or high-octane orchestral music as called for, Howard became more and more in demand for the latter during the 2000s, due in part to his frequent collaborations with director M. Night Shyamalan.

James Newton Howard is a highly-regarded composer for film and television, with credits that include Prince of Tides, Alive, Dave, Grand Canyon, Promised Land, Wyatt Earp, The Dark Knight. He was joined on this project by members of the legendary rock super-group, Toto, which featured the unequalled brilliance of Jeff Porcaro on drums, and a dazzling display of three virtuoso keyboard artists on nine Yamaha synthesizers.

This is the 1974 eponymous album by James Newton Howard. A nice blend of progressive/art rock, this was released on the Kama Sutra label and is a vinyl rip.

The soundtrack to Maleficent, a reimagining of Disney's Sleeping Beauty from the villain's perspective, puts the focus on James Newton Howard's foreboding yet witty score. Stormy brass and percussion duke it out with sparkling strings and woodwinds on pieces that range from the tumultuous ("Maleficent Suite," "Battle of the Moors," "Path of Destruction") to the light-hearted ("Welcome to the Moors," "Aurora and the Fawn"). Lana Del Rey rounds out the album with an equally eerie and alluring version of "Once Upon a Dream," which serves as a reminder as to why she's become one of the most in-demand soundtrack contributors of the 2010s.

Even high-budget Hollywood movies generally get by with one A-list composer, but the renewed Batman series that kicked off with Batman Begins under the direction of Christopher Nolan in 2005 used two, Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, both of whom return for the second installment, The Dark Knight. Although Zimmer and Howard are co-credited with each of the cues (with Lorne Balfe given a credit for unspecified "additional music"), their styles are sufficiently distinct that their individual contributions don't seem hard to delineate. The highly percussive synthesized music, much of it seemingly already mixed in with sound effects, sounds like Zimmer; the more conventional orchestral passages, sometimes giving way to solo piano, sound like Howard (who is, in fact, credited with playing piano on the soundtrack)…