El Cid | Soundtrack Suite (Miklós Rózsa) 

My grandparents were from the Santander area, but I have never been to Spain, and I am ashamed I did not learn the beautiful language of Espana. But I did look up my family surname in Tel Aviv, and found that it is of Sephardic, as well as Christian origin.

@@yaffayafo82 of course shepardic jew do u speak latino? The old castilian. R u from israel? If u r I would like to meet u. As soon this corona shit is over I want to travel. Dying to go to Israel tell Aviv Aviv Haifa eilat Jerusalem keep in touch I am from the canary islands

Sorry ladino

No wait

Spain was a country that was a mixture of cultures and a land at constant warfare among many factions and one religion against another. Castillian Spain was named Castille because of the sheer amounts of castles built to defend against the Muslim Taifas and also against other Christian factions like Aragon and Navarre. Some of the greatest dark age to medieval battles were in Spain, in a 700 year long "reconquista". The Spanish were already fighting the crusades long before the Franco Norman crusde of 1099 launched by the Pope. El Cid was this giant of a figure that stood out amongst the martial nations of Spain. He was not a sovereign. But he was this master tactician, courageous and highly skilled mounted knight that no one could defeat in battle. His name is even more famous and more prestigious than the kings of Castille and Leon, and the Kings of Aragon, Kings of Asturias and the Kings of Navarre. Goes to show how much of a legend he was in combat and his great popularity. I would even go on to say that he is the best European knight of all time since the dark ages to the end of the medieval period. His track record, the validation given to him by both his allies and enemies as El "Campeador", single handedly besting the Kingdom of Aragon's best knight in single combat at the Battle of Graus 1063 AD seals it.

Sophia loren

When the gates of Valencia open and the the organ music plays as El Cid rides out, always made my hair on my neck stand!

This wonderful movie and soundtrack dealt with the struggle of the Spanish to repel Islamic aggression. This music serves to remind us that the Muslim hordes are again at the gates of Europe. Where is El Cid now, when we need him most?

captebbtide he is dormant within esch of us. Look into yourself and you will hear his voice calling you to defend our Europe from the unvasion.

Absolutely amazing performance and beautiful music and movie, ever since I saw the film it has been with me as long as I have lived and I'll be 74 soon.

@@josephcavaliere9772 same here and I will be 66 in a few months

If only we had a glassfull of his courage to quell the evil that is around us today ...... thank you Don Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar..... El Cid for your bravado when it was needed the most during Spain's historic stand vs the Moors .....God bless his memory

no body does historical symphony.

whether it has plummeted or risen is purely an individual point of view. Time space continuum ultimately dictates the taste and the trend.

@@prasannakumar7394 The time-space continuum condemns your statement as garbage.

what about John Williams?

@@nstix2009xitsn indeed it does!

Couldn't agree more with you..Happy memories from my childhood..And of course Ben Hur..

If you have the opportunity, visit the Silos Monastery (Burgos) will transport you to the Middle Ages, with the chants of the cirterciences monks.

How sad, how true. We have composers (?) who can't even read music [HZ, for example]. All they can do is produce noise in e-minor.

Even John Williams ? Ennio ?

@@takedatsubasa227 Williams is the exception, why? 'Cause he was Rozsa's pupil

Every generation has its own definitive composers. No doubt in my mind the generation of Stravinsky, Rossini, and Ravel would not have enjoyed the upstart Korngold, Steiner, Newman and Rozas as they did their own. The next generation will have their own too, and on it goes. Just sit back and enjoy and stop comparing.

@@garymussell6543 Excellent Comment but I won't be around for the next generation of Film Composers and neither will you I suppose. I can't enjoy a bunch of hacks led by Hans Zimmer and enjoy that crap which they compose for music.. I'll stick with the old masters of film music and let you enjoy the new sound of crap music coming out of Hollywood. Thanks much for your very enlighting comment. Out.

You nailed it. In some ways, it was one of the greatest movies ever made.

I agree with u, this movie was a great experience to watch and learn about the past history of Spain and the music is wonderful and I listen to the music all the time.

Totally agree

Johnny Guitar

I sure hope Bernard Herrmann at least gets a special mention in your list. Truly soulful and adventurous music here in EL CID. Check Rozsa's early masterpieces, too: SPELLBOUND, JUNGLE BOOK, and THIEF OF BAGDAD.

@@shoegeezr I think Bernard Herrmann was the absolute best movie score composer. His Vertigo score was spellbinding.

@@melaniebruno4632 Nice pun! Any composer who starts his film credits with CITIZEN KANE and ends with TAXI DRIVER has my vote for the pantheon. Under pressure from Universal, HItchcock rejected Herrmann's TORN CURTAIN score. Not wise for a genius to reject a fellow genius.

Greatest spiritual realm of life it portrays, a great jousting fight for all us to c. Beautifully crafted and done right.

The Cid! What every man should aspire to be.

Good analogy for what its worth, can u visualize that we r a rare exception for not having any more wars. That we are equal together as of one.

Walter Sperr Very eloquent

+Walter Sperr Mr. Sperr, " El Cid" was nominated for 3 Oscars in 1962. As you may recall, '61 was totally dominated by " West Side Story", & " Judgment At Nuremburg". Miklos R. should have won the Oscar for his stirring score,& that was an Academy error. My own take is that by this time his grand , Ultra-Operatic approach to scoring was seen as dated & predictable. I disagree, but I do see how that conclusion could have been reached. Recall, in the '62 Oscars, " Days Of Wine & Roses' won best song. At least The Academy did right in THAT category. Wolfsky9

Mr. Sperr : Allow sir, another observation re : this obvious error on the part of the " Academy " : Dr. Rozsa had by this time, already won 3 Oscars in this category, so , being the political organization it is, the bar for victory went up to an impossibly high standard for this great composer ! --Now for me, he STILL should have won, hands-down, but that's how standards go for " The Oscars", as opposed to " The Golden Globes" ! -----------Wolfsky9, 70 y/o

The Oscar year was 1962 (for films of 1961) ... the winner was Henry Mancini for Breakfast at Tiffany's ... other nominees included Dimitri Tiomkin for The Guns of Navarone and Elmer Bernstein for Summer and Smoke. I have been collecting recordings of Rozsa films since the 50's and personally believe El Cid was his finest score.

I wouldn't put Bernstein - if you mean Leonard Bernstein - in the same category as Mancini and Rozsa. Now if you meant Elmer Bernstein then I would.

Yes.Rosa was great.I think it is past time that all of these "movie music" composers take their place alongside the "classical masters".I for one feel fortunate to have lived at the time of Steiner,Tiomikin,Friedhoffer,Williams,Horner,Polidaris,Morricone...and the list goes on.These people made great music.

Me too! It is very hard to find, being out of print and all, but at least RU-vid gives us some excerpts! 👍

Nice. Charlton Heston, Anthony Mann, Sophia Loren and yes Miklos Rossa.

With out the film no music. Without the cid this wouldn't have happened. So to the the people who made it happen thanx

Yo Tambien!!

Seul commentaire que je trouve en français 😄

Tienes razon. Peliculas asi. Ya no se hacen. Y no por falta de dinero. Ahora hacen otro tipo de cine pir desgracia.

Por desgracia

You stupid it has all the sounds of Spain.

The orchestra you mentioned is known today as the Munich Symphony Orchestra. Its original name (Symphonie-Orchester Graunke in German) was for its founder, Kurt Graunke.

You can blame the AFM for this. Outrageous 're-use' fees for soundtracks released in any commercial format. Later, after Max Herman, their president, retired, the new leadership at Local 47 realised the potential of royalties from soundtrack re-issues in limited editions, thus paving the way for small, independent record labels to take the initiative.

Correct. Thanks for pointing this out.

i believe it is Gerard Schwartz and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra on the Delos label, i had it once, before losing all of my stuff in a storage unit decades ago. 😥

He never did. 20 minutes of Rozsa's score was cut without his knowledge.

@cyrusavesta223; Correction; Miklos Rozsa was hungarian...