Orchestral Works Vol 1 (Incls 'Hungarian Serenade, Op. 25')

"A lovely disc lovingly and thoroughly written up by Andrew Knowles. More please and soon."
(MusicWeb April 2009)

Miklós Rózsa is one of the giants of the film world with scores for Hollywood films such as Ben Hur, Quo Vadis, and El Cid. Once settled in Hollywood, Rózsa was able to negotiate a beneficial contract which allowed him to spend the summer months at his Italian retreat writing his concert music, while during the winter months composing music for films in Hollywood. The conductor Rumon Gamba comments, 'Having made many discs of film music by composers whose concert works are well known, such as Malcolm Arnold and Vaughan Williams, I thought it would be interesting to turn to a very well-known film music composer and profile his concert works, which have perhaps been overshadowed by his big screen successes'. The film music of Miklós Rózsa is extremely exciting, passionate and intoxicating, and deserves to be better known. Gamba conducts the BBC Philharmonic in four works, all influenced in some way by Rózsa's Hungarian roots.