I shudder to think what Webster's lyrics were.


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Strange this one got the treatment, but Spartacus did not (except for the Love Theme)!


There 's music that is 'deemed' suitable for piano and music not. To some extent this is valid: a flute sonata wouldn't go well on piano, but in Hollywood terms it would be more conservative: the music would be predictable and lyrical. That's not necessarily a criticism because this stuff wasn't meant to be virtuoso but for the average player, and for kiddies learning piano.

North's 'Spartacus' though was quite dissonant in places and with complex intervals, so some might've thought it inappropriate, but I think a lot of little boys would've wanted to play just this kind of thing. They might've practised more! But piano music wants to be fluid, and some of the brass Roman stuff would sound a bit bizarre on a keyboard. I find I have all of North's 'Cleo' scanned to hard-drive, and some of that too is quite 'progressive' though. I once picked up an EP 12" of jazz arrangements of four sections of this score by one Russ Case, and it does transfer well to small ensemble, which 'Spartacus' never could. And of course there's Elmer Bernstein's 'light' version of the barge music on the 'Walk on the Wild Side' CD.