Search - Neville Marriner, Ian Watson, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields :: Walton: Richard III, Macbeth

William Walton created a smashing series of soundtracks for Sir Lawrence Olivier's famous films of Shakespeare plays. As with most film music, the score consists of a few pieces of continuous music, tiny fragments (fanfares, ominous chords, and so forth), and melodramas (music under spoken words). Many of the original scores are lost or in need or reconstruction from existing parts--or sometimes the parts need to be newly produced from the full scores. But whichever way you slice it, it's a lot of work. So Chandos deserves full credit for recording these enterprising and successful extended excerpts, with no less the Sir John Gielgud taking over the speaking part. Great stuff. --David Hurwitz