Miklos Rozsa, 'Ivanhoe' (1952)

[silverwhistle]

Obscure question for any fellow Early Music geeks:



I have this soundtrack CD, as I recognised a couple of 12C tunes I know being used in it: Richard I's own Ja nuls om pres, and Guiraut de Bornelh's alba, Reis glorios, verais lums e clartatz (although Rozsa clearly hadn't read the whole lyric of the latter if he thought, as quoted in the sleeve notes, that it was a "Latin hymn", not a secular Occitan alba!). What I would like to know is if anyone has identified the trouvère melody used for the Lady Rowena love theme? According to the sleeve notes, Rozsa found it in the Bibliothèque Royale in Brussels:

The love theme for Ivanhoe and Rowena is a free adaptation of an old popular song from the north of France. The manuscript of this I found in a collection of songs in the Royal Library of Brussels. It's a lovely melody, …and I gave it modal harmonizations.

I'm assuming it's one of the fairly well-known collections of trouvère songs, and was wondering who the composer is. You can hear samples of the album here. The melody in question is most prominent in tracks 5 and 22. Has Rozsa mentioned it further in any published writings?

[Steve Crook]

I don't know that Miklós Rózsa has many published writings. But there's a Miklós Rózsa Society and a forum where someone might know something



Steve

[silverwhistle]

Thanks! I may sign up to ask them!