@patmos.beje
A very fine post but I should correct you about the sad state of Rozsa's scores. From Jon Burlingame who is a film music historian, reporter, author, and teacher on film music history:
No, in fact, all of the Rozsa MGM scores were tossed. Some of his sketches may have survived (I recall they're at Eastman) but none of the full orchestrations. Anyone doing those now would have to rebuild them from piano conductor scores or transcriptions. (Bernard) Herrmann's slightly different because he orchestrated everything himself and much (but not all) of that has survived. Virtually none of the Korngold sketches exist; but the orchestrations done for the Warner Brothers pictures survive because they saved everything, or nearly everything, and they're at the WB archive that USC administers.
My commentary: I think in those days these magnum opus (opi?) were considered work and not art so once the task was completed, they no longer held value and were discarded since the gig was completed. I recall while in music school going to a recording venue to record my own work. Sitting in piles everywhere were the scores of Danny Elfman of a score I had no attachment to since the film didn't yet exist. Those were all tossed. Of course now we are in the digital age where they survive digitally and can be reproduced but in the 1950's, all was on paper and pencil and I could just imagine that under the duress of the day, the completed projects were no longer valued and discarded without a way to reproduce them. In retrospect we treasure it all but that doesn't reflect the atmosphere of their origin. Hence we have bits and peaces and must re-create it to be able to treasure it and preserve it for posterity. This is most likely a very respectable and carefully executed reconstruction of the original which is the best we have available. In fact the credits state this: New Score & Orchestration Reconstructed by Rózsa Expert Leigh Phillips
Thanks for the above information and correction which is very interesting. Indeed, the worth and excellence of some of the scores of many composers were unlikely to have been appreciated by the Hollywood studios.
Whilst many of Rózsa's scores will be lost, certain Hollywood Studios have somewhat redeemed their predecessors by co-operating with specialist film score lables (e.g. Film Score Monthly, Intrada, Kritzerland) in locating and licensing the release of the original soundtracks. MGM have been fantastic with FSM. Paramount with Kritzerland and especially Intrada. Paramount, for example, have relatively recently located from their archives virtually complete original soundtracks of, for example,
Double Indemnity,
Five Graves to Cairo and
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, scores that, I understand, no one thought existed anymore. Indeed, it seems that Paramount and MGM have made available all of what is available in their vaults. If only Universal would follow. Apart from
The Killers and
Brute Force, available in a pretty poor sounding bootleg CD in Europe (illegal to sell in the USA) and, among specialists, in acetates, none of Rózsa's Universal scores have received an official release.
Although I am not a big fan of Max Steiner, there is apparently 'big' Max Steiner news about to be announced. This, I am speculating, might be that Warner Brothers are going to open up their archives to soundtracks that have been thought to be lost. Perhaps I am wrong. Major Korngold Warner Brothers' soundtracks apparently no longer exist. However, Korngold has fared very well in excellent reconstructions.
Happily, Rózsa also has done very well in terms of excellent reconstructions by Tadlow and Tadlow for Prometheus. Intrada has also released excellent reconstructions of
Spellbound and
The Red House for which original soundtracks don't exist.
The new Tadlow
Ben-Hur has 5 cues that have never previously been recorded. I guess Leigh Phillips orchestrated them from Rózsa's short score.
