The
Chandos
label has issued some fine recordings of classic film music, and this release featuring scores by
Miklos Rozsa
is especially nice. The
BBC Philharmonic
under
Rumon Gamba
outdoes itself; the
MediaCity
sound is superb; and the notes by
Andrew Knowles
are unusually detailed. But the real attraction is the music of
Rozsa
himself, which is well represented by these four scores that cover a two-decade period. What's striking is how timeless his scores seem. The earliest of the four, The Thief of Baghdad, was finished in 1940 but has any number of features that, with very slight tweaking, would make it suitable for a film released today.
combined percussion-heavy sounds influenced by
Bartok
and
Stravinsky
with expansive pure Romantic melodies for the scenes of love and sentiment, a combination unlike anything being done in concert music at the time. The mix had unusual flexibility, enabling
to evoke the swashbuckling Thief of Baghdad, the still more exotic Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, the dramatic adventure of Sahara, and the epic Ben Hur, a film that truly would not be imaginable without its score, all without having to depart from his basic idea. It is not formulaic but rather original enough to encompass many strands of film in the middle 20th century, and there's a great deal of satisfying listening to be had here for film music fans. ~ James Manheim