Sebastian

For the 1968 film Sebastian, composer Jerry Goldsmith wrote one of his most charming and distinctive scores. Goldsmith was perhaps less known for comedies and while he had scored numerous films with romantic elements, Sebastian may have been his first out-and-out romance.

Goldsmith responded to the challenge by creating a score that not only fully embraced the style of late 1960s pop music, but also reflected the mathematical sophistication of the character of Sebastian and his code-breaking work. Goldsmith took some inspiration from J.S. Bach and the Baroque musical era, an approach that was a perfect analogue to the intellectual exercise of translating coded language. As the film moves towards its suspense-driven climax, Goldsmith's score leaves the romantic theme behind for moodier, more dramatic passages.

For 45 years the Dot Records LP has been the only way to hear this music. Although once thought lost, a lengthy search yielded the original three-and four-track session masters for the record album, which had been assembled in Hollywood in January 1968. While the Dot album was a brief 25 minutes in length, album producer Tom Mack managed to encapsulate all of Goldsmith's thematic material.

For this CD, a brand new two-track stereo mix was made, and the original album now appears complete—presented in crisp, beautiful audio (tracks 1–10). Premiering as tracks 11–32 is a program of Goldsmith's chronological score as heard in the film itself, restored by from the monaural music stem. The last 12 tracks of this album present the entire 18-plus minutes of variations of Tristram Cary's Sputnik Code material that he created using different mixes and recording speeds.