No film won more Academy Awards than MGM's remake of Ben-Hur. A great contribution to its success was provided by the fine symphonic score by Miklós Rózsa, at the height of his powers. He had already developed a Roman/Christian style for an earlier film, Quo Vadis, which he used to fine effect here. The entire score, including various versions of the preludes and overtures as used in road show and standard releases, and some other alternate versions, contains over two hours of music. Rózsa's practice in preparing sound track albums was to make symphonically coherent movements from the soundtrack score, then conduct them specifically for record release, so for that reason also there are variant versions. The entirety is a treasure trove of marches, love music which often has a modal flavor suggesting Jewish or Middle Eastern music, music evoking Christ, and action music (notably the naval battle scene—the famous chariot race did not have music, being underscored only by crowd noises and beautifully controlled horses' hooves effects). From it conductors can make excellent selections of concert suites. Overall, the music translates very well as a classical music experience.

© Joseph Stevenson, Rovi