El Cid / Ben Hur / King Of Kings: Suites From The Epic Films For Orchestra, Chorus And Organ [Soundtrack]

Hamburg Concert Orchestra, Richard Muller-Lampertz, Miklos Rozsa | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 1, 1991)
• Original Release Date: December 14, 1961
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack
• Label: Varese Sarabande
• ASIN: B000001543
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #268,427 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Overture

2. Palace Music

3. Legend and Epilogue

4. Prelude

5. Love Theme

6. Victory Parade

7. Miracle and Finale

8. Main Title

9. Nativity

10. Miracles of Christ

11. Salome's Dance

12. Way of the Cross

13. Resurrection and Finale

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Just terrible performances, September 17, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: El Cid / Ben Hur / King Of Kings: Suites From The Epic Films For Orchestra, Chorus And Organ (Audio CD)

This music is given turgid performances below professional standards. You cannot hear the words of the out of tune choruses. Just terrible.

The recording engineering is among the worst also...very muddy recording.

Please...someone find the DG Rosza tributes and release them at once!

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Epic Music for Epic Films, March 16, 2000

By 

James D. Eret (San Diego) - See all my reviews

This review is from: El Cid / Ben Hur / King Of Kings: Suites From The Epic Films For Orchestra, Chorus And Organ (Audio CD)

Miklos Rozsa had a long career in scoring film music. In this CD, there are samplings from three of his most well known scores. Ben-Hur won him a deserved Academy Award, one of twelve the film won. El Cid is a monumental score as is King of Kings. Rozsa had a minor fault that many of his themes sounded the same and the miltary marches in one film sounds the same from film to film.But this is a minor complaint. He writes such beautiful main themes that stay with you for days. He can write rousing battle and march music, as evidenced on some of the cuts on this CD. Yet this CD is just a small part of Rozsa's work. I have the complete Ben-Hur score and it is a masterpiece. I recommend trying to get all these scores in their entire glory. El Cid is a glorious score, with passionate Spanish themes of love and patriotism and nobility. Rozsa weaves Yiddish folk themes into his King of Kings score, most of theme beautiful, but none more beautiful than his love theme for Ben-Hur, one of my all time favorites. Rozsa, with a few other composers, wrote for the broad canvas, but he also could write music for intimate moments in historical epics. This CD is fine but if you like film music and Miklos Rozsa, go out and seek his full, rich scores for all three of these epics, and add otheres like The Thief of Bagdad, one of my favorites of his, an early score from this great master film composer.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A mixed [and small] Bag, May 12, 2006

By 

R. V. Wendel (NYC, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: El Cid / Ben Hur / King Of Kings: Suites From The Epic Films For Orchestra, Chorus And Organ (Audio CD)

This CD is truly a mixed bag. It is a re-release of a "Somerset Stereo" 99 cent bin record of the early 60's... I know, I grew up with the vinyl! There is some interesting and sometimes "muscular" playing that has something going for it, and the music is treated purely on its own, thus played often slower than the soundtrack, and sometimes actually differing greatly from the soundtrack. The playing is good, but not great, the chorus is very "wobbly" in their vibrato and tone, and the engineering: above-average 60's analog stereo, but far short of Mercury Living Presence or RCA's Living Stereo. If you're a fan of epic soundtracks, this could be an interesting addition to your collection, but I do question why a $.99 bargain LP from 1962 with less then 45 minutes of music should now cost $17??? With superb alternatives now available from Kunzel on Telarc and others, this is definitely a "curiousity" rather than a must have.