TRACK LISTING

SIDE ONE

1. Warsaw Concerto
 

2. Rachmaninov:
Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini
 

3. Spellbound
 

4. Tchaikovsky:
Piano Concerto No. 1
 

SIDE TWO

1. Cornish Rhapsody
 

2. Dream of Olwen
 

3. Legend of the Glass Mountain
 

4. The Way to the Stars
 

5. Grieg Piano Concerto

Produced by Norman Newell

Strangely enough, when one initially recalls serious music within the framework of movies, one pictures a legion of sombre pianists. Most memorable is Anton Walbrook in the person of Polish musician Stefan Radetzky who plays Richard Addinsel’s Warsaw Concerto amidst ruins during a bombing raid; the picture was DANGEROUS MOONLIGHT and its emergence in 1940 resulted in the aforementioned Concerto becoming one of the wartime smash hits.

Thirty years on and Ken Russell was preparing his biographical screen tribute to Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky and the only sequence in which we see Richard Chamberlain (as Tchaikovsky) playing in concert is at the inaugural performance of the First Piano Concerto, Whilst you may in passing remember momentarily Cornel Wilde as Chopin and more recently, Dirk Bogarde portraying Franz Liszt, we take you to an even newer memory of that sumptuous and successful (yet critically unacclaimed) portrait of Edvard Grieg, namely SONG OF NORWAY, represented here by the legendary Piano Concerto.

In this collection you will find Nino Rota’s theme from THE GLASS MOUNTAIN plus Nicholas Brodzsky’s title melody from that masterful tribute to the RAF, THE WAY TO THE STARS: it is often not remembered that Charles Williams’ composition Dream Of Olwen originally emanated from the film WHILE I LIVE and that the evergreen Cornish Rhapsody formed the major part of Hubert Bath’s score for a 1944 British picture, LOVE

Yet with all our recollections of pianists unlimited and other integrations and creations of memorable melodies, the triumph of the ‘forties was Miklos Rozsa’s superb, haunting score written in 1945 for Alfred Hitchcock’s psychological thriller SPELLBOUND. From this picture came the famous Spellbound Concerto which has since been a part of so many pianists’ repertoire.

Contemporary composer Maurice Jarre believes that were Mozart and Beethoven alive today, they would be writing for the screen. Food indeed for thought, but in the meantime enjoy this selection of offerings from the past.

Alan Warner.

Big Concerto Movie Themes
Played By Geoff Love And His Orchestra
12" Vinyl, 1972
Music For Pleasure, MFP 5261