Miklós Rózsa (1907-1995):
The King’s Thief 1955 Reconstructed by Christopher Palmer
Victor Young (1900-1956):
Scaramouche 1952 Reconstructed by William Stromberg
Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957):
Captain Blood 1935 Reconstructed by John Morgan
Max Steiner (1888-1971)
The Three Musketeers 1935 Arranged by John Morgan
Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland went from bit players to overnight megastars in this 1935 pirate caper.
This recording, by the Brandenburg Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Richard Kaufman, includes almost 20 minutes of thrilling music from the film by Austrian composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
You can almost feel the swish of cutlass and roar of ship's cannon in the fine score.
The 65-minute CD also includes music from three other costume capers: The King's Thief (Miklos Rozsa), Scaramouche (Victor Young) and The Three Musketeers (Max Steiner).
A Note on Reconstruction
Most of the music in this album was reconstructed from piano/conductor scores especially for this recording. The sad fact is many of our classic American film scores no longer exist in their fully orchestrated, original versions. Luckily, multiple copies of the original piano reductions were made for purposes of conducting, copyright and timing considerations. At best, however, these piano scores (on three or four line staves) are only an approximation of the full scores. Wrong notes and missing harmonic and melodic material abound. It is an extremely tedious task to re-orchestrate this music and, with the audio of the original soundtrack as a guide, come as close as possible to the composer’s original intentions. In some cases the ‘conductor score’ consisted merely of a violin part! It is our sincere aim to present this music as authentically as possible. (John Morgan)
Released 1995.