Composer
Maurice Jarre
's majestic score for
David Lean
's
Lawrence of Arabia
is as epic and grand as the 1962 Oscar-winning movie itself. Bombastic and hypnotic, balancing sweeping strings and brass with violent percussion,
Jarre
(who also conducts) holds back nothing, relying on the film's desert vistas to guide his soaring, Middle Eastern-inspired cues into the listener's head like a cannonball. While the
Tony Bremner
-conducted re-recording that appeared a few years later is of excellent quality, there is no matching the power and cinematic scope of the original. ~ James Christopher Monger