This highly attractive-looking CD turns out to be a big disappointment. The “Spellbound” Concerto is an adaptation for piano and orchestra of music from the eponymous film, made at the request of Miklós Rózsa’s publisher who was looking for another hit along the lines of the Warsaw Concerto. It’s good movie music. The Ben Hur suite needs no introduction, being one of the greatest works in the history of film; it’s a crime that the music isn’t performed regularly at “serious” concerts. Rózsa’s single Piano Concerto is a tough, exciting piece with more than a touch of Bartók in its aggressive writing for both solo and orchestra. It also deserves more frequent exposure. But none of this matters because these performances are limp, boring, indifferently played, and diffusely recorded. The Piano Concerto is much better served by a performance on Koch International Classics, and Ben Hur is available any number of ways conducted by the composer himself, from the complete original soundtrack (which sounds splendid) to various suites and excerpts on specialty film labels. Tempting, perhaps, but a temptation well worth resisting.
