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..... which added a wonderful and unique aspect to the score, especially since Klauspeter Seibel had earlier recorded a thirty-minute suite at Nürnberg "straight"


Surely the Seibel suite was recorded a decade LATER? Rozsa himself had recorded the piece for the Frankenland in the 50s. I agree the chorus works there.


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As for IVANHOE, thanks to Danny Robbins's reconstructed orchestrations, the Broughton-conducted sessions were about as faithful to the original MGM sessions as possible. I don't think that either reconstructor or conductor sought to "improve" what Rózsa originally wrought in 1952


There are many improvements. In the OST, there are places where the percussion is not very prominent, not just in performance but left out in orchestration. The Intrada people added a lot of percussion underlinings to many pieces. (Consider 'The Challenge'.) In a score like 'Ivanhoe', there's so much blood and thunder going on in the FX track and in the battles etc., that a lot of percussion is superfluous. On a separate CD performance some of this needs put back in the form of drum rolls etc. to give atmosphere and non-visual dramatic punctuations. I think they did very well, and it works.