Steven Schwartz writes:

>...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.

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? It
would make interesting listening (as does Korngold's deliriously over the
top, Wagnerian reworking for Reinhardt's film, recently and splendidly
issued by CPO in Europe).

I would differ with Steve, though, about "Peer Gynt".  The various concert
suites perhaps give an impression of soft-centred romanticism which neuters
Ibsen's play.  A hearing of the complete, unedited score (I have the fine
old CD set conducted by Per Dreier on Unicorn, without dialogue) reveals
something tougher, bleaker and craggily impressive.  The rough sound of the
Hardanger Fiddle, the eerie unaccompanied chorus for the Boyg - more like
Shostakovich than anything else - and the visceral choral version of the
"Hall of the Mountain King" are unforgettable.

Piecemeal though it is compared to the suites, this complete score is the
summit of Grieg's achievement, and a most powerful listening experience.

Christopher Webber,  Blackheath, London,  UK.
http://www.nashwan.demon.co.uk/zarzuela.htm
"ZARZUELA!"