Search - Erich Wolfgang Korngold, James Sedares, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra :: Tribute to E.W. Korngold

A "must" for EWK enthusiasts; a "maybe" for others.

William F. Flanigan Jr. | North Potomac, MD USA | 01/30/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This much delayed (it was recorded in March of 1997!) and slimmed-down (originally to have four rather than 2.2 film "suites") CD is of the goldilocks genre--not great, but not bad either. Going to the numbers: four (out of five stars) for orchestral performances; three for sound quality; five for choice of selections (except for Elizabeth and Essex which barely rates a "one") and the proper ordering thereof; and two for the CD booklet "liner notes"--more on this later. The miking/recording/mixing suffers greatly from the coal-mine cavern syndrome (CMCS) which, sadly, is all too common in modern recordings of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's (EWK) film symphonies. Listeners are confined to the cheap seat at the rear of the hall rather than being intimately surrounded by the orchestra. The Juarez tracks comprise the most extensive of all extant modern recordings of this film symphony--it's almost half an hour long. Unfortunately, more is not necessarily better; tracks sound like a rough sampling (emphasis on the "rough") of the film symphony and often lack inter-track suite cohesiveness (rather inexcusable for an abridgment of the full film symphony). Transitions between tracks usually sound like film jump-cut editing looks. Elizabeth and Essex (the film is also known as "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex") is pleasant, but out classed by several other modern recording (the listener will probably be left with questions like "With a duration of only six minutes, why bother?" and "What's the point?" Beats me!). As for The Sea Wolf, it too is the most extensive of modern recordings released to date of this film symphony--also almost half an hour long--and the real "star of the show." Although the CMCS distracts, the orchestration and performance is flat-out riveting ("wow" seems to be the operative word here). A nonacoustic disappointment is the CD booklet. Nothing new or particularly interesting is presented about EWK, but way, way too much is written about a whole bunch of other folks. This is especially surprising, since Mr. Brendan Carroll (the author of the recent, definitive biography of EWK) is a contributor (albeit a secondary one) to the "liner notes.""