Steve reviewed:

>[Read online: http://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/n/nxs70110a.php ]
>
>Erich Wolfgang Korngold
>Complete Film Scores
>
>*  The Sea Hawk
>*  Deception
>
>Irina Ronishevskaya, soprano
>Alexander Zagorinsky, cello
>Moscow Symphony Orchestra & Chorus/William Stromberg
>Naxos 8.570110-11 Total Time: 144:50 (2 CDs)

As a great Korngold fan, I'll make a few comments on a review that doesn't
really need them.

Try to find the complete recording of King's Row.  The movie comes off
a pot-boiler, torrid novel, and is somewhat over the top with small town
emotions.  Bob CUmmings is a bit out of place, but you do find out where
Reagan's "Where's the rest of me?" came from.  If memory serves, the
story is that when Korngold began his work, he knew only the title, hence
the heroic fanfare opening that would inspire John Williams forever.  As
it turned out, King's Row was a town or a neighborhood, I forget which.
Oh well.  it's a great score, as operatic as anything Korngold wrote,
very much as Steve described his style.

Carroll's biography is fine reading. I don't know the one from
Phaidon by Jessica Duchen.

The issue Steve reviewed is terrific, but I have to confess that the
Naxos Sea Hawk gets a little long after a while. Some may prefer what I
believe is the complete score without all the extra cues (which can get
repetitious) on Varese Sarabande (if you can find it) produced by George
Korngold, conducted by Varujan Kojian.  I haven't heard it in years, but
I don't recall being disappointed in it.  I forget if the aforementioned
"extra cues" on the Naxos are extra, or whether reptition is eliminated
or what, but the Varese seemed more cohesive and less discursive.

I too loved the Gerhardt recordings. Some of the best sound
ever--they'll never be obsolete for me.

Check out the operas and string quartets.

Roger Hecht

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