Miklós Rózsa: A Centenary Celebration [Box set]

Miklos Rozsa | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 17, 2007)
• Original Release Date: 2007
• Number of Discs: 3
• Format: Box set
• Note on Boxed Sets: During shipping, discs in boxed sets occasionally become dislodged without damage. Please examine and play these discs. If you are not completely satisfied, we'll refund or replace your purchase.
• Label: Varese Sarabande
• ASIN: B000O5900W
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #243,662 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #48 in Music > World Music > Europe > Eastern Europe > Hungary

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. OVERTURE

2. PALACE MUSIC

3. LEGEND AND EPILOGUE - The Thief of Bagdad * Miklós Rózsa, Nürnberg Symphony Orchestra

4. THE KING'S FANFARE / THE HARBOR OF BAGHDAD

5. ETERNAL LOVE

6. GALLOP OF THE FLYING HORSES

See all 21 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. OVERTURE

2. NEW ENGLAND CONCERTO - Elmer Bernstein, Utah Symphony Orchestra, Joshua Pierce and Dorothy Jonas, Duo -- Pianists Because Of Him * Elmer Bernstein, Utah Symphony Orchestra

3. OVERTURE

4. SPELLBOUND CONCERTO - Elmer Bernstein, Utah Symphony Orchestra, Joshua Pierce and Dorothy Jonas, Duo -- Pianists Fedora * Miklss Rszsa, Symphonie-Orchester Graunke

5. PRELUDE AND FEDORA APPEARS

6. SOUVENIR DE CORFU

See all 13 tracks on this disc

Disc: 3

1. PRELUDE

2. LOVE THEME

3. VICTORY PARADE

4. MIRACLE AND FINALE - El Cid * Elmer Bernstein, N|rnberg Symphony Orchestra

5. EL CID

6. THE CORONATION - The Story of Three Loves * Elmer Bernstein, N|rnberg Symphony Orchestra

See all 14 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A generous collection in outstanding sound that often lacks the composer's drive and spirit, May 24, 2008

By 

Larry VanDeSande - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Miklós Rózsa: A Centenary Celebration (Audio CD)

This 2007 product, a collection of overtures, bleeding chunks, and suites from Miklos Rozsa (1907-95) film scores, was presented as a centennial for the composer. Indeed, it is called "Miklos Rozsa A Centenary Collection." It contains three CDs of film music that span the entire length of the composer's career in the genre, from his 1930s efforts for "Thief of Baghdad" and "The Jungle Book" to his latest music from 1982's "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid."

The three CDs all have at least 75 minutes of music, making this among the most generous of all Rozsa film music offers. As nearly as I can tell, all the music has been released before, either in complete film track scores or in other collections. It includes a couple full length concertos -- the New England Concerto and Spellbound Concerto. The notes suggest the composer wrote these for the players involved.

The music is dutifully played by a range of pianists, conductors and orchestras and everything is recorded in wide ranging stereo. Aside from the music that typically adorns these collections -- "King of Kings," "Spellbound," "Ben-Hur" -- the best here by my reckoning is the composer's suite to the 1981 mystery "Eye of the Needle." The five part suite begins with a trenchant prelude leading to a rhapsodic "English wedding", then to an elegaic "Passion" that includes mystery and motion, then onto "The fight" and, finally, closing mysteriously in the finale with transcendent romantic sweep. Another fine suite in the collection is from "Last Embrace", a 1979 Hitchcockian thriller. These are played authoritatively by the composer and the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra.

it is a bit ironic that this points out the major shortcomings of this set -- most of the music is not conducted by the composer and none of the other conductors seems to understand it takes an all out attack to make Rozsa's flourish and to keep it in the memory. Too often, conductors settle for little more than agitated lyricism, as Richard Muller-Lampertz does in the opening sequence from "El Cid," one of Rozsa's most incendiary scores. Elmer Bernstein and the Utah Symphony Orchestra do some of the music and they come closer to the spirit of the composer's own work, but still they fall short of the standard he sets for his own music in his many collections.

There are other elements of this production that bother me, as well. One is the everpresent use of including only an overture from a film and nothing more. What I found most troublesome was the music for "Ben Hur", "El Cid" and "King of Kings" -- three of the composer's greatest scores -- were split between two conductors and orchestras...and placed on two different CDs! For instance, CD 1 opens with Muller-Lampertz delivering the Overture, Palace music and Legend and epilogue from "El Cid." Meanwhile, Bernstein does two sections on CD 3 called El Cid and the coronation. It's hard for me to imagine what the producers of this set were trying to achieve doing this since these scores would have been much better played inclusively.

If you are not distressed by any of this, and if you require sumptuous modern sound to fully appreciate such outstanding music (some of the composer's best CDs are recorded in mono), then you will greatly enjoy this collection. It comes with a 12-page booklet called "ROZSA 100" that inlcudes a little text about everything that's played and biographical information on the composer, who was also a successful "classical" music composer, having composed an outstanding violin concerto championed by Jascha Heifitz, the greatest player of the 20th century.

To me, Miklos Rozsa's film music is very much like the technicolor orchestral music of the Armenian-born Soviet composer Aram Khachaturian. Both composers rely on grand, sweeping gestures and wonderfully orchestrated titanic arcs of sound in their romantic landscapes. And both conductors were full throttle interpreters of their own music. Khachaturian always played his music faster and louder than other conductors, and Rozsa conducted his film scores with full throated verve that is not often apparent in this production when one of the other conductors is at the helm. Still, this is a keepsake for lovers of the composer or film music and a fantatic introduction to the music of Miklos Rozsa for any neophyte, especially one that wants to hear the music in good modern sound.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't buy this set, February 24, 2010

By 

BarneyBM "BarneyBM" (Briarcliff Manor, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Miklós Rózsa: A Centenary Celebration (Audio CD)

I am a real fan of Miklos Rozsa. If you love his music too, don't buy this set. Most of the performances are boring and without energy. There are versions of all this music with Dr Rozsa himself conducting. If you compare his own performances with these entirely lackluster versions, you would scarcely believe it is the same music. These are not different "interpretations." These are just bad. Save yourself the disappointments.

2.0 out of 5 stars I must say that I was severely disappointed by the majority, August 14, 2011

By 

Lou B. - See all my reviews

This review is from: Miklós Rózsa: A Centenary Celebration (Audio CD)

of listless performances of Rozsa's film music on this celebration of the composer's 100th birthday. Varese Sarabande really dropped the ball on this one. What they should have done was stick to the same format that they accomplished with the 3 disc Franz Waxman centennial in which they packaged three re-recordings of scores (Rebecca,
Sunset Boulevard and Peyton Place) in what was a great set.
The performance of the El Cid music on disc one is atrocious. It has no life or passion and is sloppily orchestrated and performed; same goes for the King of Kings music. The saving grace on this one was the inclusion of
several cues from the soundtrack recording of Eye of the Needle conducted by the composer himself. Disc 2 is better with the inclusion of the two piano concertos and another suite from the soundtrack albums of Fedora and The Last
Embrace. Why didn't Varese package these two albums (and their album of Knights of the Round Table) as the centennial set. What's more, there is absolutely no music from Rozsa's film noir scores (I don't count Lost Weekend)
represented at all. Varese could have packaged their Lust for Life/Background to Violence Suites as part of the set as well.
Disc 3 is essentially the Elmer Bernstein conducted "Hollywood Legend" and its missing the Ben-Hur suite (replaced here by a suite performed----badly----by another orchestra) and is probably the best disc here. The Bernstein perf-
ormances and those conducted by Rozsa himself (and the Joel McNeely conducted "Lady Hamilton") are the only real high points of this set but at least it came with a nice booklet.
My advice is to seek out the score albums or any conducted by Rozsa himself. This lame set gets the two stars because of the scarcity of musicianship, not the quality of the music. A real disappointment.