Hooray For Hollywood

The title of this BBC Music mag disk is The Golden Age Of Hollywood, with music performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under their then chief conductor Leonard Slatkin who has a Hollywood pedigree himself via his parents. Most of the works are classic thirties and forties romantic extravaganzas in a line down from Rachmaninov. There are three of these pieces, all by composers seeking refuge from Hitler in one way or another. Korngold's Cello Concerto with soloist Frederick Slotkin isn't a full blown concerto but is an extract that was used for a concert performance by the lead character in the movie Deception. Miklos Rozsa's Spellbound Concerto features pianist Simon Mulligan and is again not so much a concerto as a short concert piece compiled from the film music. Spellbound was a typically suspenseful Hitchcock movie and it also uses the weird sound of the theremin. Franz Waxman wrote the Tristan and Isolde Fantasy for the film Humoresque, another script with a musician as a leading character, this time a violinist. There are solo contributions here from Stephen Bryant on violin and Simon Mulligan on piano once more. There is a short Broadway style number from Gershwin, Walking The Dog ( I'd prefer Rufus Thomas ) and the odd one out, since it dates from much later in the fifties, is the Symphonic Suite that Bernstein put together from his music to the tough brando movie On The Waterfront. Jazz elements surround a more menacing and violent feel overall.