Steiner’s flair for weaving traditional melodies and snatches of period songs onto the larger canvas of his own music, as in Gone With The Wind, made him the ideal composer for a screen biography of one of America’s most beloved authors.

The lay-out of his score follows a symphonic pattern of exposition, see-saw of scherzo and slow movement followed by a grand finale introduced by the cue ‘World Tour Begins’. The score is dominated by a rhythmic figure (0'13" in on track 1) representing the Mississippi, one of many themes portraying characters and situations. Twain’s adventures are all scored with Steiner’s customary melodic profusion – there are encounters with pirates (a jocular scherzo with plunking banjo), the riverboat steamers, the frog jumping competitions, led by a bassoon recitative, and the gold rush – where My Darling Clementine makes a spectacular entry.

Some of the episodes are more reflective, like his affectionate theme for Livy, the woman with whom Twain falls in love and the tune of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot sung at her death on the soundtrack by Frederic March but here substituted with cor anglais by the score’s editor John Morgan. There’s further diversity in the Toy Shop scene with mechanical clocks ticking way and a pretty entr’acte for a Theatre Scene. For the finale Steiner pulls out all the stops for the ‘World Tour’ which includes a rousing version of Rule Britannia! Steiner wasn’t the only Hollywood composer with a fondness for that tune – Captain Bligh sailed from Portsmouth to its refrain in Bronislau Kaper’s score for the 1962 remake of Mutiny on the Bounty. Once again, the Moscow Philharmonic are more than a match for this music even if their conductor could impart a greater drive to some passages, for example at 2'13" in the Main Title. So thanks to them and to Naxos for letting us hear the full measure of a film that was overshadowed by world events at the time of its release in the summer of 1944.