Customer Reviews

Death of a Salesman/Rashomon

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a tough CD review to write. It is thoroughly commendable of Kritzerland to resurrect these long forgotten or obscure scores and restore them for limited release. It is disheartening when, as in this case, one of the scores truly suffers from having very poor elements to work from.

Another basic limitation of this offering is that the scores are vastly different in tone, mood and are from different composers. While I am a fan of both Rosenthal as well as North, pairing the incidental music to a stage version of "Rashomon" (which seems to have been a misfire on stage, starring Rod Steiger and Claire Bloom!) with that for "Death of a Salesman" (the classic Lee J. Cobb starrer) seems an odd couple to say the least.

The Rosenthal score for "Rashomon" is well preserved, and is nicely done with traditional Japanese instruments, and what appears to be beautiful instrumentation almost minimalist in nature. Certainly, it is convincing, and many of the melodies are haunting. I believe to this day that Rosenthal is a very underrated composer, and this is a prime example of his talent.

But the North score for "Salesman" truly suffers from having such poor elements to work from. To call it archival quality, as to Kritzerland's credit they do disclose, is still a compliment. They also offered the CD at much lower prices than usual when it was first issued. Still, the transfers are from 78 RPM acetates and the music comes off as small and tinny, and it's tough to enjoy it in this manner.

Kritzerland has done such a great job with so many scores that deserve to be restored. They tried admirably with this one, but in the case of the North score, I don't feel the end justifies the means. Still, 5 stars for effort, certainly.