Disney's 'Sleeping Beauty: The Legacy Collection' gives a nearly perfect peek at iconic music

The third edition of Walt Disney Records’ The Legacy Collection series focuses on the 1959 classic Sleeping Beauty. Released earlier this month, it isn’t as exciting as the first release in the series, but the bonus material is enough to make any Disney fan smile.

While The Lion King release was a major event, since it was the first time that film’s full score was released on CD, Sleeping Beauty isn’t that big a deal. Like many of the Walt-era classics, its full soundtrack has been available on CD since the mid-’90s.

That means that disc one in this set is a retread for many Disney fans. Of course, that’s not a bad thing. It sounds truly incredible, making it obvious that the stylization of Sleeping Beauty was not limited to its look. Every element of Sleeping Beauty was made to feel like a moving, flat storybook and its Tchaikovsky inspired score only adds to that. It’s hard to hear the words “I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream,” without humming the tune from Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty ballet.

The second disc is split into two parts. First, there’s the “Lost Chords” section, which presents demos during the production of the film and new recordings of these deleted songs. Thankfully Disney went with Tchaikovsky, because the work of Sammy Fain and Jack Lawrence leaves much to be desired. There’s also a bizarre song called “Evil-Evil,” which features a George Bruns tune that made it into the movie, but lyrics that thankfully didn’t. Can you imagine Maleficent and her goons singing a song? Didn’t think so.

In the second half, we get some really unique arrangements of themes from the film by Tutti Camarata, which were released on The Parent Trap soundtrack in the early 1960s for some reason.

While it’s sad that two deleted songs from the 2008 DVD/Blu-ray release of Sleeping Beauty didn’t make it, it’s hard not to recommend this package. Like The Lion King, it comes in a really cool hardcover book with new illustrations. The book also includes some Eyvind Earle background paintings and in-depth liner notes.