It is commonly accepted wisdom that one of the greatest film scores in all of Hollywood history is composer
Erich Wolfgang Korngold' Oscar™ winning music for Warner Bros.' 1938 Technicolor spectacle The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn.
Korngold prepared a symphonic suite from The Adventures of Robin Hood for use in concert that lasts about 25 minutes, but as in the case of many scores dating from the "Golden Age" of Hollywood, the original complete soundtrack music was discarded not long after the track was recorded. The music to The Adventures of Robin Hood and its film are accessible as separate entities; on a recent DVD release of The Adventures of Robin Hood, one can watch the film with the music only and no dialogue. Issues of the complete original soundtrack, as conducted by
Korngold himself, have occurred on CD and LP several times in both authorized and unauthorized versions.
To date, anyone desiring to hear this music in modern sound has had to settle for excerpts. In the 1980s redoubtable conductor
Varujan Kojian came closest to the "complete" ideal with a recording of The Adventures of Robin Hood for Varèse Sarabande lasting 42 minutes. This recording from Marco Polo, featuring the "usual suspect" team of conductor
William Stromberg, the
Moscow Symphony Orchestra, and film score doctor John Morgan nearly doubles that span of time. There is very little, if any, repetition of cues in John Morgan's reconstruction, and listening to this performance can reinvigorate old brain cells in a way few other soundtrack albums would do, as
Korngold's music for Robin Hood is so deeply ingrained in our collective subconscious.
Stromberg and the
Moscow Symphony Orchestra are excellent, and the appeal of Marco Polo's The Adventures of Robin Hood should be broad, as it represents the music of a film virtually everyone has seen. Nonetheless, if you are a collector who specializes in classic film soundtracks, Marco Polo's The Adventures of Robin Hood is an issue for which one will absolutely have to make room on the record shelf.