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Released by Special Arrangement with Turner Classic Movies Music.
FSM's first release by Miklós Rózsa is a colorful masterpiece from the composer's long tenure at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer: Lust for Life (1956), the acclaimed biopic starring Kirk Douglas as Vincent van Gogh. The film is a top-notch production which reached new heights in historical accuracy and in honest treatment of its subject, a wildly talented but emotionally tortured artist.
Central to the film's power is the exuberant and melodic score by Rózsa. The composer not only had to underscore the film's drama—a skill at which he excelled, having written such probing psychological scores as Spellbound and The Lost Weekend—but find an appropriate voice for some of the most revered works of the art world. He eschewed the late romantic music Van Gogh himself would have known in favor of the impressionist styles of Debussy and Ravel which followed Van Gogh historically, but most appropriately evoke his dynamic paintings. Rózsa's music for Van Gogh's art is not only great film scoring, but a fitting tribute from one artist to another.
Lust for Life is also the story of a man and Rózsa's score features several fully fleshed-out melodies. Vincent himself receives a questing theme of yearning and achievement, with a dark variant as the painter is gripped by loneliness and depression. His brother Theo is underscored by a compassionate, calmer theme; his prostitute lover Sien an equally soothing one of longing; and his friend and fellow artist Gauguin receives a theme of stolid determination. Even the jovial postman Roulin is given a comical theme for bassoon.
Rózsa was greatly fond of his score for Lust for Life and recorded a short concert suite of it for Decca, released on CD by Varese Sarabande. FSM's CD is the premiere release of the complete original soundtrack as recorded for the film, newly remixed from the original three-track stereo masters. Alternate takes and source cues are included as bonus tracks, and the entire package is given FSM's deluxe treatment, with liner notes by Jeff Bond and Lukas Kendall, and art direction by Joe Sikoryak.
