Now on Naxos, here is Waxman’s splendid music for Raoul Walsh’s 1945 World War II epic Objective Burma, a film that starred Erroll Flynn. John Morgan painstakingly restored sequences that were either cut from the final print or for which no full scores survive. The music cues add up to a 71-minute suite that’s played in sequence, without interruption. Hearing these cues minus their visual context allows us to fully focus on Waxman’s resourceful orchestral palate and sweeping melodies that never cloy. Even Waxman’s mandatory Orientalisms are cliché-resistant, and are scored with tasteful restraint. Waxman’s jaunty main title theme emerges time and again in various shapes and emotional guises, amid more foreboding sequences like “At Night”, with its serpentine bass clarinet, spooky muted trombones, and eerie string harmonics. Notable too is Waxman’s haunting use of eight solo cellos during the cue “Jacob’s Death”. William Stromberg leads the Moscow Symphony Orchestra with his usual enthusiasm and loving care. Buy this disc, read the synopsis, sit back, listen, and allow the music to create a movie in your mind.
