Interesting... the score for "Two-Face Part 2" includes the 30-second cue that was routinely used for the recap segments in B:TAS two-parters, even though that cue is actually an excerpt from the score to "The Forgotten." I guess they included it there because it's the only 2-parter in the album.
Overall, I think the "Two-Face" score was, if not the best B:TAS score Walker ever did, certainly very close to the top. It's the best one in this collection, to be sure. She was really firing on all cylinders here. Of course, it's a very poignant story that gave her a lot to work with. Meanwhile, I sometimes forget just how good the score in the last act of "Pretty Poison" is.
The "Music of the Bat 101" segment was described in liner notes as an interview, but it's just Walker talking and playing a piano, and from the acoustics and her delivery, it sounds like maybe she was giving a lecture or demonstration in an auditorium. I wonder what the source of this is. Anyway, it's interesting to hear her dissect and explain her Batman theme, and to hear her perform it in bare-bones form on the piano.
All in all, this is a great collection to have. Of course I can pop in my DVDs and watch the episodes anytime, but it's great to be able to hear the music in the clear and pick up on details I never noticed before. For instance, I never realized the bass line in the Two-Face theme is on a bass clarinet, which has a really great, disturbing sound to it.
But I do have a few regrets. I wish the overture hadn't included so many segments that are also featured elsewhere on the CD; they could've devoted that time to longer cues from "Heart of Ice" and "Feat of Clay," and maybe a bit from some other episodes too. Also, I don't think we needed three Joker episodes on one disk. "Joker's Favor" is a classic, but I would've gladly lost either of the other two in favor of something different. (I guess the one I'd ditch is "Christmas With the Joker." Although the hip-hop drumbeat cue on "The Last Laugh" is off-putting to me, the episode's score is actually pretty good overall, I have to admit.)
Of course, I assume that some scores or overture cues were left out for legal/financial reasons, in that the producers were only willing or able to dish out royalties to so many composers. For instance, nothing of Harvey Cohen's is represented here, nor anything from other composers like Stu Balcomb. And maybe the brevity of the "Heart of Ice" segment on the overture is because Todd Hayen did most (?) of that score. It's a long shot, but I'm hoping this CD's sales were good enough that they do another, hopefully focusing strongly on Cohen's work (particularly "A Bullet for Bullock").
