1996 digital recordings with Richard Kaufman conducting the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Youth Choir. Reissue with new packaging. Notes by Tony Thomas and package design by Jim Titus. 500 edition.

A valuable and much needed CD that brings back into a wider awareness six dazzling displays of musical virtuosity from the pen of Alfred Newman. Golden music from the Golden Age of movie making with suites from WUTHERING HEIGHTS (’39), PRINCE OF FOXES (’49), PRISONER OF ZENDA (’37), and DRAGONWYCK (’46), along with the love theme from DAVID AND BATHSHEBA (’51) and a symphonic march drawn from BRIGHAM YOUNG (’40). This is music of such power and strength that to have heard it is to remain forever marked by it.

There’s an old musical joke about a conductor addressing an orchestra thus: "Gentleman, today we are not only going to play Tchaikovsky but we’re going to beat him too!" I’ve always thought of Newman when hearing that. Positively tigerish in his orchestral demands ("Little Caesar with a baton," was one apt description), Newman was as exacting a leader as ever was — and no one played Newman like Newman, his accelerated pacings are the stuff of Hollywood folklore. It follows then that few contemporary conductors can ever hope to match Newman’s masterful evocations of his own scoring. In this instance, Richard Kaufman does a workmanlike job.

You might recall that when the same Kaufman led the Brandenburg Philharmonic on two Marco Polo releases (CAPTAIN BLOOD and HISTORICAL ROMANCES) a few years back, the performance level erred toward the staid side. Nicely done, but no distinguishing excitement. Contrast the same orchestra under the leadership of William Stromberg in the BMG/RCA Victor issue of suites from Steiner’s THE ADVENTURES OF MARK TWAIN and Korngold’s THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER (arguably the best "reconstruction" to date, and the difference in orchestra handling is instantly apparent.

Getting back to a breakdown of what’s on tap here, though — it opens with a 12 minute Fred Steiner-arranged suite from WUTHERING HEIGHTS, a bit over-crowded perhaps, the themes jostling for breathing space, but very accomplished for all that; an 8 minute DRAGONWYCK suite features a sharp-edged main theme that’s taken through various stages of development, getting more stronger as it goes, to reach a shattering all-out climax (so much so that a late introduced theme for the film’s semi-hopeful ending gets flattened in the process); the Christopher Palmer-arranged PRISONER OF ZENDA, sweetly subtitled "A Ruritanian Rhapsody for Orchestra," is all that one might wish for, capturing the film’s romantic derring-do in a briskly-paced 7 minute valentine that gets right at the heart of it all, and the BRIGHAM YOUNG 5 minute symphonic march (the work of the erstwhile Fred Steiner again) is not without its moments. Newman was so taken with this theme that he used it over and over. Nothing was so guaranteed to capture the attention in a hurry. It was the musical equivalent of a shot of adrenaline kicking in; a bravura piece of pounding externalism.

Of the two remaining selections — the love theme from DAVID AND BATHSHEBA and the PRINCE OF FOXES suite — the pride of place goes to the FOXES presentation. At 13 minutes odd, it’s the longest and most substantial piece on offer and, despite its lame-fingered editing it’s by far the most overall exciting. Newman had a feeling for costumed drama assignments (think back on CAPTAIN FROM CASTILLE, THE BLACK SWAN and THE MARK OF ZORRO) and the stunning ingenuity of his work in this field is both unequaled and unparalleled.

There’s something wonderfully American about Newman’s music, a quality of clean-cut clearness, and even when called to work on material that taxed his sources of reference, the finished result rang clear with his own lyric zest. The man didn’t have a dull note in him.

On film in PRINCE OF FOXES, Newman introduces the sublime "Camillia" theme by having it sung by an anonymous Venetian gondolier across a mist-shrouded lagoon, using it thereafter to underscore the Wanda Hendrix heroine. On the CD it only comes in a series of orchestral variations, but the lilting ache of the ever-flowering melody gets to you just as effectively, lingering on in one’s recall of it long after the CD has run its course and has been put away. FOXES is a score on which Newman spread himself wide in a furioso main-title, then a scherzo for a garden fete (reprised, in part, from his earlier HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME) and a jubilant hymn of spring celebration (not featured, alas, here) as well as two superbly contrasting martial marches (one, yet another HUNCHBACK borrowing, later to do service again in THE ROBE). It’s a film that’s alive with music. What I wouldn’t have given to have been there on the soundstage, hearing it all for the first time, when Newman put it to film.

01 Wuthering Heights: Twin Motives / Cathy's Theme / The Moors -theme / Heathcliff Motive 12:40
02 Prince Of Foxes: Suite 13:19
03 David And Bathsheba: Love Theme 3:44
04 Dragonwyck: Suite 8:43
05 Prisoner Of Zenda: A Ruritanian Rhapsody For Orchestra 7:01
06 Brigham Young: A Symphonic March 5:18