One of the many highly successful war films from the 1960s was Battle of the Bulge (1965), an expensive, star-packed reconstruction of the Second World War’s largest land campaign. Presented on the huge Cinerama screen and embellished with a stunning six-track stereophonic soundtrack, it enabled Frankel to round off his significant, and significantly underrated, film career in spectacular style.
He obviously relished working on such a broad canvas, and his muscular, brilliantly orchestrated score, featuring some notable writing for brass and high strings, vividly conveys the sound and fury of the battlefield. Liberated from the contribution of a busy sound effects department, these lengthy and consistently dynamic action sequences can now be fully appreciated, and anyone put off by the terse, often uncompromising atonality of the composer’s symphonies should find this vibrant music far more accessible. While certainly not the archetypal generic score that Ron Goodwin or Elmer Bernstein would have provided (patrons at the time were unlikely to have left the cinema whistling this film’s theme tune), Frankel does employ a number of recognisable motifs (including ironic references to the original ‘Panzerlied’ of 1936) and develops them with characteristic vigour and imagination. The striking ‘Main Title’ is a prime example, with four major ideas introduced in three compelling minutes of orchestral virtuosity.
Throughout this excellently documented CD (which presents the score in its entirety and is double the length of the rare, long-deleted soundtrack album), Albert and the Queensland orchestra tackle the complexities of Frankel’s scoring with tremendous verve and conviction, and are supported by a solid, crisply detailed recording. Highly recommended.'