Sodom And Gomorrah

As the 50s rolled into the 60s, Miklós Rózsa stood tall as one of Hollywood's go-to composers. One of a number of large-scale scores he wrote during this period - Ben-Hur and King Of Kings among them - Rózsa's Sodom And Gomorrah soundtrack captured all the high-stakes drama of the blockbuster 1963 movie it was created for. With a main overture that swells with strings, horns and a phalanx of doom-laden drums, and further cues that both match the film's luxurious stage sets and conjure life in the ancient Middle East, Rózsa's score stands as one of the greatest, most varied achievements of his long-running career. As if acknowledging that he had taken his work for historical epics as far as he could go, he left Sodom And Gomorrah as his final soundtrack of it's type, later turning to domestic dramas (The V.I.P.s), sci-fi thrillers (The Power) and fantasy adventures (The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad). Listened to today, this score remains a standout achievement from one of the true maestros of mid-20th-century cinema.