Leonard Rosenman has written many notable film and television scores since the mid-'50s, but the two for which he is best remembered are his earliest ventures into movie music, for Elia Kazan's East of Eden and Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause. The two scores are represented here in new recordings by John Adams conducting
the London Sinfonietta. These are idealized presentations of a pair of brilliant though highly contrasting scores, the first restrained to the point of almost minimalism by Hollywood standards, and the second rather densely written and overscored, but still displaying exquisite musical sensibilities. It's strange to hear parts of the East of Eden score, such as "Cal and Aron Visit Mother," all fully exposed in this setting, and pick up musical elements that
Rosenman later utilized to equally good effect in episodes of The Twilight Zone and movies such as Beneath the Planet of the Apes. The recording is state-of-the-art and one of the best modern movie music re-recordings. ~ Bruce Eder