The Egyptian (1954) is the one of the all-time legendary film scores -- an historical epic jointly scored by Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Newman. The two composers did not just paste in their own music but actually shared themes, planned their narrative approach and merged their styles to the point of truly collaborating. Together they produced a lengthy score in the best biblical-epic tradition, depicting religious awakening, tragic love and ancient civilization with the formidable techniques of each composer —from Newman's grasp of heartbreaking devotion to Herrmann's colorful setpieces of violence and obsession. (For the sake of comparison, this would be as if John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith today scored a new science fiction movie, or Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer scored a summer action film.)

The legend of The Egyptian has continued in that it is a score collectors have long believed destroyed; at the onset of Twentieth Century-Fox's film music restoration efforts in 1993, The Egyptian was one of the first films looked at, and the master tapes (35mm film stems) tragically determined to have deteriorated beyond use. Nevertheless the surviving cues were transferred to 2" analogue multitrack tape and stored away for another day, with so many other projects needing attention.

To make a long story short, "another day" has come and Film Score Monthly has gone back to the 2" safety transfers to cull and remix every usable cue. To our delight, we have saved over 70 minutes of the 100+ minute score—including most of the major setpieces by both composers, such as the main and end titles, Newman's "Valley of the Kings" and Herrmann's "Chariot Ride/Pursuit" and many more. Furthermore, most of the cues that have survived are in stellar six-track stereo sound, and many others are in more than acceptable three-track stereo sound.

With the mandate of using everything that exists, we have assembled The Egyptian into a fantastic CD in chronological order that is all told longer and more comprehensive than many CDs of Golden Age scores. Although there are two existing CDs of The Egyptian, both are re-recordings: the Marco Polo CD in the late 1990s, done with a Russian orchestra and choir, and the Varese Sarabande CD (now out of print) in 1954, representing the original, mono Decca LP. This new FSM CD is the original, expanded stereo soundtrack, performed for the film under the batons of the composers in ideal studio conditions—and collectors know the immense challenge of any re-recording to surpass the OST. Here, then, lives The Egyptian in its original stereo glory, in the most complete form possible—a cornerstone of any soundtrack collection.