A Russian comes to America and makes it his own. Having been raised with many of his scores the ones that stay with me are HIGH NOON, THE GUNS OF NAVARONE, THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY, CYRANO DEBERGERAC, RETURN TO PARADISE and DUEL IN THE SUN. Also one of his latter scores, the low key 36 HOURS, seemed almost a distillation of his techniques without the massive orchestra and I have returned to it the most.
Over nearly 50 years of buying and listening to soundtracks, I have probably listened to THE ALAMO more often than any other single recording I own.
The Alamo was the first score in my consciousness because my dad bought the LP and played it frequently throughout my early childhood. It was quickly joined by You Only Live Twice and OHMSS but The Alamo has a large place in my affections. My older brother used to both disgust and thrill me by saying that every bit of red on the lurid LP cover was blood.
It’s an important score to me and may have been responsible for my fascination with film scores.
One can't let this pass without mention of his 'signature' braying and snarling brass fanfares and exclamations. I particularly like examples in The War Wagon, The Alamo and Fall of the Roman Empire.
