INTRADA Announces:
A RAISIN IN THE SUN/REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT
Composed and Conducted by LAURENCE ROSENTHAL
INTRADA Special Collection Volume 148
The early '60s saw the emergence of one of Hollywood's most talented, yet underrated film composers. This release in the Intrada Special Collection highlights two of the early dramatic works from composer Laurence Rosenthal. The first is the complete score to the 1961 Columbia film A Raisin in the Sun. Laurence Rosenthal gave the story a lyrical main theme with ascending phrases and stylistic gestures drawn from Negro spirituals. While this theme bookends the film, for most of the film Walter (Sidney Poitier) receives an agitated four-note motif—heard first in a jazz setting, but also darkening the orchestra in later cues, where it intercepts the main theme. Angular and modern, Walter’s music clashes with that of his formidable mother, whose opening soliloquy introduces a third theme: a gentle, empathic melody, most often conveying wisdom and solace…but which Rosenthal twists into anguish for moments of despair and disappointment.
The films focuses on Walter Younger, a chauffeur with frustrated business ambitions; his long suffering wife Ruth (Ruby Dee), who aches to quit their rat-hole apartment; his firebrand sister Beneatha (Diana Sands), who plans to become a doctor; and his iron-willed mother Lena (Claudia McNeil), who prays for a better life for the family. The family’s destiny ultimately hinges on a single choice: to accept a buyout from the racist “welcoming committee” who does not want them to move into their neighborhood or to assert their dignity and gamble on the dream of a fresh start.
Rosenthal’s jazz-rooted score for the 1962 Columbia film Requiem for a Heavyweight highlights mixed-meter writing and close-spaced harmonies, tapping into New York’s grimy underbelly with rumbling piano, percussion, stinging brass and solo reeds. The main theme, with its bluesy rhythms and rising lines, is essentially major, but is constrained in the “Main Title” by dissonant minor chords and the “fight bell” clang of pounding chimes. It conveys both the swagger of a man who knows he was “almost heavyweight champion of the world,” and the existential tragedy of a man awakening to the terrible realization that he has somehow died—yet must go on living. Balancing the darkness is Rosenthal’s charming waltz theme, for his blossoming, tender relationship with Grace.
The Rod Serling tale starts with Mountain learning that his 17-year boxing career has been ended by too many tissue-damaging blows to the head. This spells doom for his manager Maish, who has lost everything—and then some—to the crime boss “Ma” Greeny. Desperate, Maish hatches a self-serving plan to reinvent Mountain as a costumed wrestler … a clownish mockery of his former self.
Both scores are presented in pristine mono from the composer's own personal copies of the score, which is all that remains of these two early Rosenthal classics. While REQUIEM is a brief score, not all of it has survived, but this 14-minute suite captures nearly all of the main set pieces from the film, and features a similar, but alternate version of the main title.
This release is limited to 1500 units.
INTRADA Special Collection Vol. 148
Retail Price: $19.99
AVAILABLE NOW
For track listing and sound samples, please visit
http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.6805/.f
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