Little can be say nowadays which wasn't already said about Gone With The Wind (1939), one of the greatest and more important films of the still brief Movie History, about its elaborate and turbulent shooting, its Stars, its Directors, or its Music with the instantly famous Tara theme as a reference along this century; and all that which may remained to be known is available on the excellent booklet, written by the specialist Rudy Behlmer, which comes with the spectacular, complete and, from now on, compulsory edition which Rhino Movie Music has issued of the capital Max Steiner score.Absent on its times by obvious matters -simply there wasn't yet record editions of film music-, the very long and carefully worked Steiner's music had to wait till 1967 to see that the first record edition of part of its original recording, under the baton of the own composer, was available (recording later expanded in 1983 up to 44 minutes on the Polydor label edition); to it joins, in 1973, the still reference version in matters of sound quality, the one conducted by Charles Gerhardt for the basic Classic Film Scores collection, as well some different recordings of the Suite which Steiner maked on the fifties decade. On any case, the amount of music still left to be edited on record was around 100 minutes and, due its historic and musical significance, it becomes specially grievous. This new Rhino edition delivers the practical totality of the score arranged on temporary order, as it is located on the film, including the source music fragments; thus, along the Stephen Foster themes used by Steiner as ambiance basis on many moments of the film, the mentioned Behlmer booklet points and identify the brief cues which Franz Waxman, William Axt, Hugo Friedhofer and other composed or arranged for the film. The restoration of the original recordings which Steiner conducted between November and December of 1939 is terrific, at the level of the rest of the presentation, going up to any of the previous, and more resumed, editions. Of course, the sound is monoaural, although this loose its importance as the Selznick International Theme which opens the movie and the record begings (by the way, it was written by Alfred Newman). As a curiosity, we must to point that the only cue not available with regard of any of the records mentioned underneath is the Intermezzo (1'26") included on the 1983 Polydor edition, performed at the organ, and which corresponds to the one used at the Atlanta film premiere, on December the 15th 1939.
