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Doug Raynes posted of Face Book that, "he was somewhere in Prague at the moment" but he wasn't allowed to comment further.
He appeared to be in a recording studio with a rather large orchestra.
Exciting days for all Rozsa fans.
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Awesome, that's the only word for it.
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That piece has of course only ever been recorded once before, for the Rome LP 'Great Movie Themes Composed by Miklos Rozsa' now included in the FSM Treasury Box.
The use of the horns to introduce the love theme, and the generally stately way the piece develops is actually more evocative than the OST variations, which each leap right in with the strings. This puts it in BIBLICAL territory. The Shuah love theme is there too, in an edited version of he Intermezzo treatment. And of course that ominous statement of the film's main motif, right at the start.
One of Rozsa's scores of scores, just such a pity it wasn't stuck on a better film.
This is what one might call a 'Dan Hobgood' score, in that no less than three of the main themes, the main love theme, the Hebrew march theme, and the longer treatment of the main theme in the Intermezzo ALL use the same central trio 'B' section, a great economy of composition, very inter-related.
Rozsa's epic scores didn't deteriorate after 'Ben-Hur', in many ways they got better, but the films didn't, and sometimes the editing of the films led to choices in transitions between themes that a concert goer might find quixotic, but the scores were still as good and ever, and indeed improving.
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I hope you fellas are appreciative of the great sacrifice James is making on this: England are in Test with the West Indies at the moment, and he's in Prague.
The man's going through fire and brimstone just to make it sound authentic.
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I hope you fellas are appreciative of the great sacrifice James is making on this: England are in Test with the West Indies at the moment, and he's in Prague.
The man's going through fire and brimstone just to make it sound authentic.
Especially upset to miss James Anderson (my hero as he comes from by home town of Burnley, Lancashire) play in his 100th test match and become England's greatest ever wicket taker! Plus I just love Antigua. ....the things I have to give up in the name of film music restoration!
We really appreciate the sacrifices you make on our behalf James.
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Posted: |
Apr 30, 2015 - 6:52 PM
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By: |
pp312
(Member)
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"S & G" is the answer to a dream
Isn't "Answer to a Dream" the title of one of the tracks?
I'm also checking the forum anxiously each day. I'm even checking James's Facebook page, and I hate Facebook (especially when they keep sending emails urging me to log on).
I remember finally getting hold of the LP in the early 80s and being as thrilled with the music as I was disappointed with the sound (where did they record some of those 60s soundtracks anyway--Fingal's Cave?). I kind of thought that with the popularity of Rozsa's other epic scores S & G was a surety to get a re...er, to get a new recording, but the years went by...pages of the calender peeled off and blew away...I got uglier and more wrinkled, and now here we are in 2015, with half the original fans of the score having passed away in the meantime, and finally here it is, or nearly is.
The thing about S & G is that it has a sort of barbaric wildness about it not to be found in the other epics. It's as if Rozsa let his hair down (something that often happened literally when he was conducting) and just thought, 'Dammit, this is the last of these things I'll ever do so I'm going for broke. They might pour excrement on the picture, but not on the music, not when I'm finished."
It's a very generous score. He could have got away with a couple of themes and variations, but it's as if he had a drawerful of leftover ideas and decided to blow them all on this one score. I mean we get two love themes, both terrific! A theme for Sodom (if they'd showed Gomorrah--where did that get to anyway?--we might have got a theme for that too), a theme for the Hebrews, a theme for the Hebrew's marching, a theme for the Elamites, a theme for the cleaning lady....it just goes on, a real hit for theme junkies like yours truly. In short, if ever a score deserved not to be collecting dust in some manuscript library it's S & G.
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Isn't the theme for the cleaning lady from DEAD MEN DON'T WEAR PLAID?  Otherwise a pretty good rundown of the themes, pp!
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