Chris Webber replies to me:

>>...movie music, like any incidental music, translated "straight" to a
>>concert setting is always unsatisfactory.  Some work must be done to join
>>the fragments - the normal "units" of incidental music - into a convincing
>>whole.  Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream, Grieg's Peer Gynt, Copland's
>>Red Pony and Our Town, and Walton's Shakespeare scores all had to be
>>substantially recast, fortunately by the genius composers themselves,
>>before they became convincing concert pieces.
>
>Steve's point is pretty well true - though, incidentally, I believe most of
>the recasting of Walton's Shakespeare scores into concert suites was done
>by Muir Matheson, who conducts the soundtracks.

Right again.  It was Matheson.

>And if the Mendelssohn "Midsummer Night's Dream" music was a recasting,
>does anyone know of a warts-and-all version of all the bits and pieces?

Fruehbeck de Burgos had one on Decca.  A fine recording, although I don't
know whether it was transferred to CD.

Steve Schwartz