Déjà Review: this review was first published in October 2003 and the recording is still available.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957)
The Adventures of Robin Hood – film score (1938, restoration by John Morgan)
Moscow Symphony Orchestra/William Stromberg
rec. 2003, Mosfilm Studio, Moscow
Originally issued on Marco Polo 8.225268
Naxos 8.573369 [78]
If you are looking for a CD of this classic cinema score then there truly is no contest. Genadiy Papin of the Mosfilm Studios has produced a gripping sound-image with tactful emphasis given to solos and colour-points such as the celesta, saxophone and piano. As for the tumultuous music, written despite doubts and under the pressure of the sickening situation in his native Austria, this is a confident, voluptuously plumped-up score, drawing in part on ideas from his symphonic study Sursum Corda (recorded on ASV) and on the contemporaneous opera Die Kathrin (recorded on CPO). The latter was moving towards production with Jarmila Novotná and Richard Tauber in Vienna as the film score was being written. While there is much ‘echt Wien’ here (tr.11, 3.10, Gold where the plumply smiling face of the composer seems to beam down in knowing mastery) there are some affectingly English pastoral touches as in The Jail (tr.15, 2.11). The Love Scene (tr.17 – the longest continuous episode) melts between Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn’s Hebrides and Ravel’s Daphnis. It is a score that, from one point of view, is disorientating. Its unresolved contrasts include some intensely dark music juxtaposed with Chocolate Soldier Vienna, super-Elgarian triumph (tr.23, 5.10), a jackanapes march and child’s play battles where seemingly no-one comes in harm’s way.
The only substantial competition is by no means an exact match. The closest, and that pretty distant, is That’s Entertainment Digital’s CD TER 1066 (also on Varese-Sarabande). This had the advantage of George Korngold as producer and Maurice Abravanel’s one-time band, the Utah Symphony conducted by Varujan Kojian. This was made in Salt Lake City in May and June 1983. It was issued the same year – the very dawn of the CD but the timing is sheer LP mindset as you will see. That TER disc played for only 43 minutes across sixteen tracks. The Marco Polo disc is the most complete recording so far running to almost eighty minutes across 25 tracks. Even this is misleading because with a handful of exceptions the TER tracks are not an exact match for the Marco Polo’s. Parts of the Morgan tracks appear in isolation in the TER and vice versa. More practically, as far as I can tell, the TER disc has long ago been deleted.
As for documentation the Marco Polo obliterates the TER. TER offered a single fold of stiff card, albeit by George Korngold, but reflected with basic factual material the need to counter the slight level of knowledge of Korngold. This was all of twenty years ago long before the efforts of CPO, Chandos, Carroll and Jessica Duchen (I am sorry that she is not mentioned more often). Marco Polo has a 28 page booklet printed with gratifying legibility and making optimum use of space. It is no longer necessary to set out the main incidents of Korngold’s life so the booklet is given over to an account of the making of the film and the score with recording sessions (stills from which grace the centre pages, courtesy of the authoritative Mr Carroll). I am delighted that the role of Hugo Friedhofer as principal orchestrator is mentioned. This he did under Korngold’s direction and with assistance from Milan Roder and copyists Art Grier and Albert Glasser. There is also a pretty full synopsis with tracks keyed into incidents as well as an account by the redoubtable John Morgan of the trials and tribulations … and victories … of restoring the score. This is, by the way, John Morgan’s and William Stromberg’s thirtieth CD in the Marco Polo series.
This is the most thorough restoration of the score. It is performed with ‘great-hearted’ elan and is thumpingly well recorded. An extremely compelling disc. It deserves to do well alongside the Robin Hood 2 DVD package being issued by Warner Bros on the 65th anniversary of the picture. There is no competition.
Rob Barnett
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