Although it may sound incredible, there was a moment when Warner Bros, by some room troubles, decided to get rid of their sound archives and dump all the recordings and scores of their huge stores. The promptness of the late George Korngold allow him to recover the recordings which his father, the great Erich Wolfgang (whose significance and genius need no talk), has been recorded along his years as a Warner composer. This original recordings are, properly restored and improved with the actual techniques, the used by producers Tony Thomas and Marilee Bradford on this double CD, achieving a good quality of sound which, logically, is getting better as nearer the original recording year. Presented on chronological order, these selections of the original scores allow us not only to be able to listen some unpublished on record pieces (like the two cues of The Green Pastures -besides the only ones composed by Korngold for this film-, or the splendid themes for The Sea Wolf, one of his best and less heared works, but to know the performing style of the composer himself, getting right and balancing the continuing changes of binaries/ternaries rhythms or the chromatic color of his music. And with the exception of Another Dawn (1937), of which there are no surviving original materials, Hearts Divided (1936), his two arrangements of Mendelssohn [A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935)] and Wagner [Magic Fire (1956)], and his collaborations for Columbia Pictures in 1936 (Give Us This Night and Rose of the Rancho), it represents a curious and compulsory approach to the whole of the scarce and inspired scores for the movies of a composer which centenary next year we'll celebrate as deserved. Special mention, once more time on a Rhino record, to the excellent design of the CD as well to the complete and interesting notes of Tony Thomas. M.A.F.

Captain Blood (1935) - 7:57
The Green Pastures (1936) - 4:09
Anthony Adverse (1936) - 8:00
The Prince and the Pauper (1937) - 8:52
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) - 8:58
Juarez (1939) - 7:47
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) - 5:58
The Sea Hawk (1940) - 9:49
The Sea Wolf (1941) - 6:32
Kings Row (1942) - 11:39
The Constant Nymph (1943) - 7:23
Devotion (1943) - 3:50
Between Two Worlds (1944> - 5:50
Of Human Bondage (1946) - 9:31
Escape Me Never (1947) - 6:10
Deception (1946) - 3:24
/ RHINO MOVIE MUSIC R272243 / 117'