Customer Reviews

The Thief of Bagdad / The Jungle Book: Original Motion Picture Scores

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

 

 

Despite the obviously unintentionally misleading info to the contrary on this amazon.com page, this CD recording is NOT from the original soundtrack of the 1940 film, The Thief of Bagdad, but a re-recording in stereo of selected parts of the score, played by the Nurnburger Symphoniker in Germany in 1983. Oddly, although both the CD insert and the CD label correctly credit Miklos Roszsa as the composer, they also state that the music is conducted by both Miklos Rozsa and Klauspeter Seibel. Well, whoever did the conducting in 1983, don't let that put you off buying this superb CD. It's marvellously and spectaculary arranged and performed, with Rozsa's love theme, here entitled Eternal Love, filling your room (or your headphones) with what many consider to be Rozsa's most beautiful melody of all his many compositions. The original soundtrack version can, of course, be heard on the VHS video of the film, or on the recently released DVD. Five Stars for this VD version of parts of the score. David Rayner in Stoke on Trent, England, UK.

I'd like to second everything said by Mr. Rayner in his review. This is a 1981 re-recording and it's a beautifully mastered disc with very clear and clean sound. I also feel the same way as he about "Eternal Love" from THE THIEF OF BAGDAD. There aren't many tunes as sweet as that one. (Alfred Newman's "Kathy's Theme" from WUTHERING HEIGHTS comes to mind.)

THE JUNGLE BOOK was Rozsa's answer to Prokofiev's PETER AND THE WOLF. This nearly 30-minute suite is really properly performed with the orchestra illustrating a narration read aloud, but for obvious reasons it's sometimes nice to be able to hear the music alone and uncluttered with talk. This recording is without narrator. All of the principal characters in the story, including the animals, are marked by some particular melody, and all the animals' voices/personalities are represented by specific instruments or instrument combinations. For instance (according to Tony Thomas in the disc's insert booklet):

Mowgli - a folk song
Mother - a lullaby
the tiger "Shere Khan" - muted trombones
the cobra - "hissing" brass
monkeys - woodwinds
elephants - trombones and tubas
wolves - horn glissandi
the bear - contra-bassoons
the crocodile - muted brass
the black panther - shimmering strings
python - contra-bassoon
the hyena - alto saxaphone

This is great musical storytelling and it's also just very very good music - one of 5-6 Rozsa works that I'd call essential for collectors.