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The latest offering from La-La Land Records may be among the oldest music we’ve ever covered for the site! The label is releasing a new recording of J.S. Zamencik’s score to Wings, a 1927 silent picture forever noted by trivia buffs as the first film to take home an Academy Award for Best Picture (or as it was known then, Most Outstanding Production).

Wings, which starred Charles “Buddy” Rogers and Richard Arlen as rival pilots in World War I and Clara Bow as the small-town girl in love with one of them, capitalized on the country’s fascination with flight – owing in no small part to Charles Lindbergh’s recent Transatlantic journey – to become one of the first major recognized successes by the fledgling Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, earning the award for Most Outstanding Production in 1929. (It was only one of two silent films to earn the award; the last was The Artist, released in 2011!)

The score was composed by J.S. Zamecnik, a composer largely forgotten to history but notable for composing the “photoplay” scores to many silent pictures of the era. As such, there was no “original” soundtrack, as the music was played live to picture, usually by an organist in the theater. For Paramount Pictures’ 100th anniversary – an occasion which saw the film restored and released on DVD and Blu-Ray earlier this year – the studio commissioned a new recording of Zamecnik’s music, orchestrated by Dominik Hauser (who’s done scores for Daredevil, Freddy vs. Jason and The Chronicles of Riddick, among many others). This 2,000-unit release marks the first time any Zamecnik score has been released as a full album.

Your chance to own a piece of film score history is after the jump.

J.S. Zamecnik, Wings: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (La-La Land Records LLLCD 1208, 2012 – original film released 1927)

1. Overture; Main Title; Love Theme Wings; Knights and Ladies
2. A Small Town; Mary Preston Had Always; Mary Raises Finger
3. Sylvia and Dave in the Swing; Bon Vivant; Close Up of Mary
4. Youth Laughed
5. In Military Camp; Put Your Moniker
6. Ode to Spring; She’s My Girl; If You’d Seen His Look
7. The Revolving Machine; Comedian Taken Out
8. Hurry #2; You’re Game
9. Intermezzo; Chanson; Intermezzo; Aviator White; Air Flight
10. Change of Scene; Comedian Seen; Crusaders
11. Allegro Furioso
12. Count Von Kellermann; L’istesso Tempo; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Second Airplane on Fire; Air Flight
13. Storm; English Trenches
14. Giant Gotha; Grandioso; Soldiers Marching; Escorted By; Over There; Darktown Strutters’ Ball
15. Close Up of Mary; Germans Seen
16. Storm; Incidental Symphonies #3; Running Out of Gas
17. Right after Crash; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Say That’s the Shooting Star
18. French General Kisses
19. Cabaret Capers; I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles; Cabaret Capers
20. Mary Walks to the Table; No War Drinking Song; When Yankee Doodle Learned to Parlez-Vous; Mary Enters; I Understand; They Turn Away; Dress to Impress
21. The Cobbler and the Fairy; Another Close Up of Mary
22. It’s Sylvia I Love; Jack Stoops Down
23. Incidental Symphonies #5
24. Behind the Enemy; Daybreak; Battle Music
25. Airplanes Start
26. Les Preludes
27. The Tempest; Sicilian Vespers; Battle Music; Far in the Enemy; Dave Crawls on Ground; Storm; Soldiers Run
28. One Plane; Jack! Jack!; Jack Shooting
29. After Crash; Change of Scene; Disperazione; Don’t Go; My Buddy
30. The Flying Ace
31. Romanza Senza Parole; Mother Close Up; Mary Seen at Fence
32. Jack’s Theme

All tracks arranged and conducted by Dominik Hauser