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Rozsa's Young Bess As A Trilogy

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Author	Topic: Rozsa's Young Bess As A Trilogy

Graham Watt Oscar® Winner	One of the Spanish radio stations was playing Miklos Rozsa's Young Bess the other day, about 45 minutes of it uninterrupted. What a great score. Did Elmer Bernstein do a recording of that? Anyway, it made me think of a couple more similar scores from the maestro, which would make a nice trilogy along with that, namely Lady Hamilton (That Hamilton Woman) and Diane. I've got excerpts both those latter scores on a splendid Rozsa LP from donkey's years ago. Diane in particular has one of the most heartbreaking finales I've ever heard. What am I saying here? I don't know, except that Miklos is great, and that those three scores make a nice trilogy. So there!
posted 09-30-2001 04:35 PM PT (US)

Graham Watt Oscar® Winner	Spanish radio also played about 50 minutes of Plymouth Adventure recently. This was really interesting, because, without a pause, they played what seemed to be multiple alternate endings: endings with choir, endings without a choir, endings with half a choir...Is all this on CD or LP? Miklos, he was one of the best.
posted 09-30-2001 04:40 PM PT (US)

Timmer Oscar® Winner	Smidgen (aka Jonathan Axworthy...I'm sure you know him from LEGEND Graham) is THE man to ask here!
posted 09-30-2001 05:51 PM PT (US)

Soundtracker Oscar® Winner	Dr. Rozsa was a genius. He's my best score composer. Young Bess and Diane are wonderfull scores. Plymouth Adventure is also great. All this stuff is available on CD. Young Bess is a Prometheus release; Plymouth Adventure is a TickerTape release; Diane, Seventh Sin, Sodom and Gomorrah are non legit releases on CD-Rs and poor inlays. Anyway this is better than nothing... You will find most of them on ebay but you will spend lots of money to buy it and trading will be much more cheaper. Sorry about Lady Hamilton, I've never listened it...
posted 09-30-2001 07:52 PM PT (US)

Graham Watt Oscar® Winner	Thanks, guys!
posted 10-01-2001 04:33 AM PT (US)

Soundtracker Oscar® Winner	Graham, Let us know a little about this Rozsa LP you have...
posted 10-01-2001 08:23 PM PT (US)

John C Winfrey Oscar® Winner	Graham, all those are on various LPs too. Great stuff. The FMC collection has Young Bess and its excellent. Plymouth Adventure is on the old LP and also a suite on the Varese CD that Bernstein did around 1987 in tribute to Rozsa's 80th birthday. All great stuff, just as you said. I also like the variation he did of it on the all wind orchestra LP and CD of the Fantasy on Young Bess themes. Really powerful with that organ and orchestra. The last part is really good. Extremely powerful conclusion. John.
posted 10-02-2001 11:10 AM PT (US)

Graham Watt Oscar® Winner	Soundtracker, this will sound terrible, but I can't REMEMBER! I've been working away from "home" for a number of years now, and I'd to leave all my old collection back there under the watchful eye of my film-musicky brother. Let's see if I can remember: Some of the first LPs I ever bought were Rozsa compilations. I'm sure John Winfrey or someone else can help us out with the titles and contents...As far as I can remember, these were all Rozsa-conducted pieces, and he arranged them into suites. I think I've got three of those LPs, and over the three of them I particularly remember the aforementioned finale from Diane, the Lady Hamilton love theme, Young Bess, The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes, Julius Caesar, Brute Force, The Naked City, Lust For Life...the list goes on and on. I think one sleeve had a kind of photo montage effect of Rozsa conducting, another had just a close-up colour photo of the composer looking elderly and urbane, and maybe one had a Van Gogh cover (didn't know he did record sleeves...) But YOU tell ME! Now feel sad. Now going home. Now want to hug old LPs.
posted 10-02-2001 02:17 PM PT (US)

John C Winfrey Oscar® Winner	I think the three that Graham is talking about are Vol 1, 2 and 3 of Rozsa Conducts on DG, Polydor. Vol. 1 has Knights of Round Table, Lost Weekend, Killers, Double Life, Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Young Bess etc. Vol 2 and 3 have Diane, Men of Fighting Lady, Lust for Life, Tribute to a Bad Man, Red Danube, Moonfleet and lots more. Vol. 1 is my favorite of the three but I love the Men of the Fighting Lady suite, even though it is much different than the Blind Flight sequence in the film. The brass on these LPs is excellent. The Knights finale with the heavy percussion is super. John.
posted 10-02-2001 04:09 PM PT (US)

Soundtracker Oscar® Winner	Graham, Thanks for your efforts. I can only say you are very lucky! In Rio de Janeiro, where I live, there's only a classical radio and they don't play Rozsa. Have a nice listen, your LPs are a treasure!! Greetings. ************************ John, I'm not sure about it but there's a 3 LP collection in which Rozsa conducts his first (master)works, now it was relesed on 2 CDs by a bootleg label called Soundstage: Miklos Rozsa - A Musical Autobiography. All cues are rerecorded suites but in good sound and orchestration. The very first piece is Knight without Armor. Sadly those bootlegs don't provide inlays with rich information (except for the wonderful TickerTape releases). Best. [Message edited by Soundtracker on 10-02-2001]
posted 10-02-2001 08:44 PM PT (US)

John C Winfrey Oscar® Winner	Yes, that is the same set of LPs I am talking about. Knight without Armor is one of those on there. Very good. John.
posted 10-02-2001 08:56 PM PT (US)

Graham Watt Oscar® Winner	Those could be the ones I have, John, though I'm still not absolutely sure. I didn't think they were all part of the same series, and I don't remember Tribute To A Badman or Men Of The Fighting Lady...but memory plays funny tricks sometimes. So, Soundtracker, you are up against the same problem as many of us here: crappy shops! I get most of the things I really want by mail order/ net, and I imagine you do too. By the way, speaking of Dr Rozsa, that 2-CD set from a few years back, "Miklos Rozsa At MGM" I think, sounds a real gem. It's been hanging around near the top of my wants list since ever it came out, but keeps geting displaced.
posted 10-03-2001 11:44 AM PT (US)

Graham Watt Oscar® Winner	Sorry, Soundtracker, I don't know where I got the impression that you were talking about "crappy shops". It was crappy radio, wasn't it? Spain seems to have quite a healthy regard for film music, with several soundtrack publications, stores, and coverage on TV and radio. I know that Cataluña radio devoted MONTHS to trying to play ALL recorded Rozsa works! Maybe they're still doing it (Unfortunately, I'm outside their range and can't tune in).
posted 10-03-2001 11:58 AM PT (US)

John C Winfrey Oscar® Winner	Graham, besides those three in that series, I have several others on him also with various themes. You probably have some of those if not the DG and Polydor set. The set I mentioned has those pictures you mentioned of him and Van Gogh's painting on one. I have about 20 others on him with classical works and or themes collections. One of my favorites on him is the Varese LP with the classical works from which parts were used in the old Superman series. Scenes where George Reeves is bending steel and so on. Its the "accelerato" piece near the end of the LP. John.
posted 10-04-2001 07:38 PM PT (US)

Soundtracker Oscar® Winner	Graham, actually we have both: lots of crappy shops and crappy radios. It's very hard to find Rozsa's CDs or LPs. Most of them seems to be out of print. The others are expensive bootlegs you will never see on amazon.com or cdnow. Anyway, bootlegs and CDRs appears to be the only way to get those wonderfull scores composed by Dr. Rozsa. Sad but true, few labels are interested in this stuff: possibly we will never see the Superman (George Reeves TV series score) vol. II and III. It would contain Rozsa material, exactly the same Mr. Winfrey have in vynil. Varese gave up it! Fortunately, Mr. Feltenstein, who is the Rhino head, is rescuing Rozsa and soon we will get a never seen King of Kings and Mutiny in Bounty. LONG LIVE ROZSA!!!!
posted 10-05-2001 08:17 PM PT (US)

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