steviefromalaska
05-28-2015, 06:56 AM
Eighteen years after he composed his most famous score for GONE WITH THE WIND, Max Steiner again revisited the American South with his score for the 1957 Warner Bros. production, BAND OF ANGELS. Based on a novel by Robert Penn Warren, the film starred Clark Gable as a pre-Civil War plantation owner who rescues a mixed race woman (Yvonne DeCarlo) from slavery. The film was a complete failure, both critically and commercially, but Steiner's score was highly praised as one of the film's few assets. It is indeed a lovely, majestic score that stands up admirably when compared to Steiner's earlier GONE WITH THE WIND. Included as bonus tracks with this download is Max Steiner's first recording of his 30 minute concert suite from GONE WITH THE WIND, recorded by RCA in 1954 and released on 10 inch LP & 45 EP. Charles Gerhardt would record an expanded version of this suite in 1974 as part of his Classic Film Score series. Even though the sound quality is not nearly as good as Gerhardt's, the earlier composer conducted suite is significant in that it was the first time any music from GONE WITH THE WIND beyond "Tara's Theme" had ever been made available to the music buying public. Steiner's tempos are much faster and more urgent than the film soundtrack performance (which was not commercially available until the late 1960s) but that may have been dictated by the running time limit per side of early 10 inch LPs.
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