Bernard Herrmann had an usually busy year in 1952. While he did score three films that year -- The Snows of Kilimanjaro, 5 Fingers, and On Dangerous Ground -- he also scored three films in 1953 -- Beneath the 12-Mile Reef, King of the Khyber Rifles, and White Witch Doctor -- and three more films in 1954 -- Garden of Evil, The Egyptian, and Prince of Players. Two of the 1952 scores are included in this 2008 Naxos reissue of a 2000 Marco Polo recording by
William Stromberg and the
Moscow Symphony Orchestra: a completely restored version of The Snows of Kilimanjaro, plus the premiere recording of 5 Fingers. Both movies drew typically eclectic scores from the composer. There's heroism here as well as villainy, love as well as death, ecstasy as well as agony, and numerous evocative glimpses of Paris, Spain, London, Rio, and, of course, Mount Kilimanjaro. Though they don't have the striking individuality of his earlier scores for Orson Wells or his later scores for
Alfred Hitchcock, there's still plenty of music here that recalls those greater works -- the supple shape of the love themes, the angular progression of the harmonies, the relentless drive of the tempos, and the immense power of the climaxes. As always in their film score work,
Stromberg and the Moscow musicians do a fine job of bringing the music to life even without the movies to give them a dramatic context. Recorded in plain but direct digital sound, this disc should be heard by
Herrmann fans, and by anyone interested in the state of American film music circa 1952.