Customer Reviews

The Epic Film Music of Miklos Rozsa

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"The Epic Film Music of Miklos Rozsa" contains recordings of excerpts from several of Rozsa's scores, spanning the years 1949 to 1973. The music is performed with vigor by the City of Prague Philharmonic, conducted by Kenneth Alwyn.

Rosza was one of the great masters of film scoring, and this anthology disc is a real treat. Rozsa was equally adept at action and romance, at Eastern exoticism and European traditionalism. And he set a standard for scoring the big historical epic.

The selections on this disc include an exciting suite from "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad," the majestic Overture to "Sodom and Gomorrah," and the delightfully romantic waltz from "Madame Bovary." Selections from the score to "Quo Vadis" include "Arabesque," which has a nice ethnic flavor, and "Ave Caesar," whose stirring bombast is nicely offset by a hint of playfulness. There's a lot more, including two versions of the Prelude to "King of Kings" (one with chorus, and one instrumental). And there are three pieces from "Ben-Hur" score, surely one of Rozsa's greatest achievements.

If you love beautiful orchestral music, or if you are a fan of the art of film scoring, I highly recommend this wonderful CD.

As a fan of biblical/epic movies, I have heard over the years many of the beautiful scores by this composer. I wanted to experience the music by itself, not just as background for scenes, disrupted by dialoge. The sound quality is superb, the music is monumental, heroic, sweeping, even uplifting and moving. Individuals interested in powerful and dramatic orchestration should listen to a few track on this CD. It's worth the time, at least in my opinion.

There seems to be an amazing amount of film soundrack recordings done by second rate Euro orchestras of late. None of which seem to match the original soundtrack versions. This so called Epic recording is a prime example. Quickly and cheaply recorded-lacking understanding and soul of the originals--and more important because of time limitations--no rehearsal time with instruments being out of tune. . .this recording is another attempt to cash in on the nostalgia wave of collectors. It fails miserably. Listen to the originals and match them to this out of tune, out of phase recording and mourn the loss of any record company doing justice to the originals. This is a cheap cash in on the nostalgia craze and anyone who has a reverence to Varese, EMI, Chandos, Southern Cross or other labels that might still attempt to preserve original film musics (there are still several)--should try and revert to the originals. This is horrific stuff. Order at will.

The Allwyn conducted Rozsa has much to offer in giving a cursory but nicely sequenced choice of Rozsa's epic scores.The cuts from El Cid,'Brummel,and Sinbad are of particular excellence.The love theme from Cid is nicely played without milking the inherent sentiment.It is really nice to hear what Sinbad would have sounded like had the original recordings been true to Rozsa's intentions. And the "Bovary waltz is a beautiful coda to the proceedings.The copy I heard was in mint condition.

This brilliant music will make you long for the complete soundtracks of all the films on the disc -- especially the Golden Voyage of Sinbad. Let's hope that someone reissues many of Rozsa's soundtracks in the future. Until then, this is a great place to start!

It's a pity that the choir in the "King of Kings" theme sing so bad. Also there is a very clear fail in the performance of the orchestra at the begining of this theme.