First question on the music from The Cardinal. In my mind I hear lyrics to this tune.
Was the main theme ever released as a song?

Other pieces on the CD that I really enjoy are The Jayhawkers, Proud Rebel and two
tracks from Seven Wonders of the World. Jayhawkers capitalizes upon his style from
The Big Country which was written a year before Jayhawkers. Proud Rebel is more
subdued. Seven Wonders is melodic and captures the ethnicity of Greece and Jerusalem.

The liner notes by James Fitzpatrick reveal some interesting aspects about this fine
composer’s life. (I would still like to know more about him.) He became friends with
Herrmann in high school, and Herrmann conducted his first composition. He composed
concert pieces in New York throughout the 30’s including the ballet The Notorious Life
of Frankie and Johnny. He went to Hollywood in l939 because he wasn’t earning enough
money as a serious composer in N.Y. He worked in Hollywood for a decade as an
orchestrator. He worked with famous composers on movies like Our Town, Best Years
of Our Lives, Joan of Arc, etc., and wrote an original ballet for the movie Hans Christian
Anderson. Early in the 50’s he composed original music for a few low budget films, but
he always preferred theater pieces. He would move back to N.Y. to compose concerts
and then return to Hollywood when he needed money to tide him over until he could
return to N.Y. In l958 he wrote the seminal score The Big Country, which lost a deserved
Oscar to Timokin’s Old Man and the Sea. He said he was never comfortable in
Hollywood and preferred the cultural world of N.Y. Some of his other movie scores
were Sharkfighters, Huckleberry Finn, Valley of Gwangi, and War Lord. During the
70’s he wrote only concertos, sonatas and a one act opera, Sorry, Wrong Number.

Have any of you ever heard his concert pieces? Any recommendations?

wow, just checked my little CD database (if you can call it that) and I neglected to type in any of the Moross works I have, and I don't have any of my Moross CDs with me here in Vegas.

however, IIRC, the New Zealand SO recorded a couple CDs on the Koch label.

I think there's a symphony, a ballet, something "Symphonic Variations"

good schtuff well worth checking out

How odd! I've been listening to the Warlord on my drive into work for the past couple of days. My favorite is the theme for the Warlord fighting -- unfortunately it only takes up about 20 bars of the whole score that's recorded on the CD.

Whenever I start playing it, I'm always reminded of The Valley of Gwangi" (the only other Moross score I'm familiar with). Gwangi, by the way, is very popular with my kids. Can't miss with dinosaurs and cowboys in the same movie!

Thanks JJH for your recommendations and scanned pictures. I shall try to track down some of his concert pieces.

Koch has its two CDs of Moross concert works, there are also The Flute Concerto, the songs from Underworld, The Golden Apple musical, the Sonatas for Divers Instruments and others have have been recorded at one time or another.

Still, the film music seems, as it does in the case of composers who worked both in film and for the hall, to be the most inspired.

In May, TCM will be showing Robert Wise's Captive City with a Moross score.

I would advise picking up the original Cardinal soundtrack on CD if you haven't already.

I'm slightly less pleased with the Silva CD as I was when I first heard it--I can hear the small little glitches that I couldn't the first time around. Although Susan Moross is happy with it, this probably could have been a bit better. It's still the best thing I've heard from Silva though.

Recently I picked up Silva's "Classic Film Music of Jerome Moross" and I'm very impressed with the music. There really isn't a bum minute on the album. It's all very beautiful and very "big" music. The suites from Close-Up and The Captive City are great. Highlights on the second disc include the waltz and quickstep from The Cardinal.

The music is presented on two CDs, since Silva found out they had recorded 85 minutes of music after editing was done. Producer Fitzpatrick didn't want to cut any of it, so the music is presented on two well balanced CDs. I agree with this decision, as I can't imagine what they could have cut out.

The sound isn't quite as good as other fairly recent Silva releases. The recording sounds slightly too distant and muddy. The performance of the Prague Philharmonic is sufficient for the most part, but the trumpet section seems like they could have used some more restraint. They consistently play too loud and it really ends up sounding amateurish in places.

But these are minor issues. The music is fantastic and this 2-CD set is a very worthy addition to any film score collection. I'm certainly going to seek out the RCA Spain issue of The Cardinal and Silva's Big Country re-recording, wallet permitting.

I wonder if any of the original tapes from 'Gwangi' still exist? This has always been another of my 'holy grail' must have film scores, for now I can only make do with Silva's release