Can't wait for this. May 29th release date in the UK, some sound clips at screenarchives.com 
Bought this one last week. I already got all the other re-recordings of selections from "The Sea Hawk", by
Charles Gerhardt,
Varujan Koijan,
James de Preist (8 minutes only) and
André Previn, respectively, and sadly I must report that while the new version is welcome for being complete, it is all too obviously the weakest in terms of both performance and recorded sound.
The trouble begins with the dullest recording of the Main Titles imaginable. Stromberg's reading here lacks any of the "schwung" this fanfare demands and that is best captured by Kojian as part of his 45-min Utah Symphony recording. The brass from Moscow sound limp and defensive not just here, but in many places. Things improve after that, with some sensitive playing especially in the lyrical or atmospheric (Panama) sequences. However, the Moscow forces cannot swash nor buckle with the best orchestras from England or the US.
Why Stromberg/Morgan chose to hire a Russian soprano (Irina Romishevskaya) for the short but beautiful Dona Maria's song, other than because of easy availability, is a mystery. She sings the ballad with the most inappropriate Russian accent, and with none of the required sensitivity. Even in comparison to Carol Wetzel's small-voiced but sweet and sensitive take on this song in the Kojian recording, Romishevskaya is totally unacceptable. Mind though, we're talking here of just under a minute of Naxos' 115minute reading of The Sea Hawk.
The Moscow Chorus do better in "Strike for the Shores of Dover", but again are no match for the London singers in Gerhardt's recording or the Utah Symphony Chorus (for reasons unknown, Previn chose to replace the chorus with a brass section carrying the theme in his LSO recording).
A word on sound: The Prelude alarmed me because of a rather cavernous and mushy sound that cannot be the state of the art today even in Moscow, but it gets better from track 2 on. However, solo instruments are frequently spotlighted in the way movie soundtracks are being recorded, which is true to these producers' expressed aim to make film music sound as intended and not as "ersatz symphonic music" - resulting in a balance that is clear but never natural. While this policy made a lot of sense in many of Morgan/Stromberg's earlier recordings, like the film music of Roy Webb, Hans Salter etc., it is highly questionable here. Erich Wolfgang Korngold made no distinction between concert and film music, and his orchestration here (except compromises with regard to the size of the Warner Bros Orchestra) does not differ from his concert music. It should IMHO be recorded ike concert music.
The notes on the scores are, predictably, splendid, and with one exception Brendan Carroll (the president of the Korngold Society) this time refrains from hyperbole when referring to Korngold's importance in the history of film music - in his notes for the Previn Sea Hawk CD he erroneously credited Korngold having singlehandedly reinvented Hollywood film music.
A slightly disappointing release then as far as The Sea Hawk is concerned (the twofer also contains a 30-minute suite of Korngold's Deception score, including the shorter film version of the Cello Concerto, which also gets a rather pedestrian treatment by soloist Alexander Zagorinsky), which is valuable for its completeness, but falls short occasionally in the "perfomance department". If you want a CD of most of the substantial music from THE SEA HAWK, go with
Varese Sarabande's clearly superior Utah Symphony Orchestra version of 1987. If you need the highlights only, but shown to the greatest possible advantage, try and hunt down the RCA suites conducted by
Charles Gerhardt and recorded by the best classical recording engineer of them all, Decca's Ken J. Wilkinson.
Thomas
