Its hard to imagine that the conjunction of elements which this record presents may failed: To the unsurpassable music of the great Franz Waxman we may add the excelent conductorship of Elmer Bernstein, as well the creative and organization effort of the sadly deceased Christopher Palmer, on his last record work. The outcome is simply terrific, and it opens with a balanced six-theme suite of Taras Bulba, one of the most spectacular and well-know Waxman's scores, for which he used, incidentally, ucranian popular themes, and on which is easy to distinguish all his orchestral and melodic wisdom. From A Place in the Sun it is offered a eight-movement suite named A Symphonic Scenario, which includes the music Waxman originally wrote for the film before the Studio decided to replace it, on many passages, with another composed by Victor Young and Daniel Amfitheatrof using the themes of the german-origin composer; looking at it, its hard to understand the decision of director George Stevens and Paramount Pictures, which maybe were looking for something more conventional. Of Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man it's possible to find a more or less complete version on CD, but the four-movement suite included allow to verify the dramatic variety of Waxman's music, here faced with a story which embraces a tipically american environment, to romantic and warlike elements. For Sayonara, whose suite concludes the record, Waxman integrate the melody from Irving Berlin's song in a work which intelligently points the obvious cultural differences between Japan and the Western through a score which avoid oriental commonplaces and which, once more time, its a model of balance and orchestral color. Not to be missed. M.A.F.

Taras Bulba (1962) - 19:14
A Place in the Sun (1951) - 12:37
Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man (1962) - 14:17
Sayonara (1957) - 20:05
Arranged and Restored by Christopher Palmer, Arnold Freed and Steven R. Bernstein
Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra, Berlin - Conductor: Elmer Bernstein
/ RCA/BMG 09026-62657-2 / 66'