OST - The Wizard of Oz - The Deluxe Edition (1939/1995) (@256)

I was thinking to have an upload about the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, but there isn't much to upload after the recent glorious 6-cd release from Rhino. And although Woodstock's anniversary had all the tributes it deserved, I think that the 70th anniversary (on August 12) of the first screening of the Wizard of Oz has somehow been neglected. Someone could argue that both the movie and the soundtrack are a little bit dated, but then I don't think that there are many movies with such enormous impact on pop culture. The same applies to the soundtrack. The music of Harold Arlen (a mysteriously underrated composer as compared to Gershwin, Berlin, Rodgers/Hammerstein-Hart or Hoagy Carmichael) and the lyrics of E.Y. Harburg, offered not only the legendary Over The Rainbow for which they won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, but also a bunch of great songs such as Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead, You're Off To See The Wizard, If I Only Had A Brain, among others.
The merits of (again) Rhino's deluxe edition of 1995, which is uploaded here, are explained by Bruce Eder in allmusic: "There were at least two versions of The Wizard of Oz on compact disc before Rhino issued this double-CD deluxe version. Those earlier CDs had been mastered, respectively, from the original LP master created by MGM Records in the mid-'50s, or used a restored version of the finished film as the source for most of its content. But this set represents the first occasion on which the original unedited studio recordings of the score — derived from the "angles" captured by various microphones used in the recording process — have been assembled for commercial release; and, indeed, the first time these uncut recordings, of the music as it was conceived and written, before being edited to fit the final release cut of the movie, have been heard since 1939. The results are astounding, to say the least — in addition to giving us a full account of the underscore for the movie in all of its finest nuances so that one can appreciate the action on the instruments and the fine details of the orchestration, it also reveals a wealth of subliminal detail in the music writing, a match in its depth and range for the finest operas of Verdi and Puccini. In fact, hearing the complete first disc and the first half of the second, which together comprise the soundtrack of the movie, is the equivalent of finding a new way to absorb the movie, regardless of how well one has known it up to this point: on that basis alone, fans of the movie will find this set essential. Additionally, the second CD contains alternate versions of portions of the score, and unused portions of the score that will be a revelation to anyone who enjoys the movie."

download link (part1 - the soundtrack): here
download link (part2 - supplemental material): here

P.S.1 For those seeking for more Judy Garland, an older post with her legendary 1961 performance at Carnegie Hall can be found here.
P.S.2 Thers is also the original cast of The Wiz here.