MIKLOS RÓZSA: THE THIEF OF BAGDAD City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra & Chorus, Nick Raine/Prometheus XPCD179
Certain now-esteemed film composers were clearly finding their feet in their early scores (example, Elmer Bernstein and Jerry Goldsmith) before settling on the particular orchestral acumen which became their trademark. Not so the Hungarian composer Miklos Rózsa, whose astonishingly varied and endlessly inventive early score for Alexander Korda’s The Thief of Bagdad remains one of his greatest achievements. And the level of that achievement has never been more clear than in this extremely generous complete recording of the score, on two discs both of which run to nearly 80 minutes. And as so often in the past, film music aficionados have reason to be grateful to the enterprising producer James Fitzpatrick, whose labour of love this was (it’s surprising, however, for those of us who grew up with the classic film, to realise –as he tells us in the notes — that Fitzpatrick only saw the complete film for the first time in 2012. He was, however, already an admirer of the music).
The Thief of Bagdad score has appeared over the years in a variety of iterations, but Rózsa enthusiasts had practically given up on the notion of hearing it complete – and now, finally, we have it, played with tremendous panache by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra under the expert baton of Nick Raine, a specialist in this material (as he proved recently with another recording for Tadlow/Prometheus Franz Waxman’s complete score for Taras Bulba — even more impressive, if possible, than this latest issue). As befits the colourful Korda film, partly directed by the great Michael Powell, the score is very much a portmanteau affair, with songs and choral pieces accompanying the scintillating orchestral music. It is the latter, fully formed even in this early period of the composer’s career, which exhilarates here as never before in previous recordings of the score. If there is a caveat – a small one – it the idea of giving one 8-minute track an intermittent narration interspersed with the orchestral sections, which will hardly repay continued listening interest. That’s a small criticism, however, and Rózsa admirers need not hesitate. It would appear that the company’s commitment to Blu-ray audio (which had such spectacular results in their recent Bernard Herrmann recording) has been abandoned, but the sound quality here is non-pareil, with the score miked in the fashion of film soundtrack LPs rather than with a concert hall ambience (James Fitzpatrick has suggested the orchestra be augmented to spectacular effect). Another winner for producer, conductor and the Prometheus label.
ózsa
