Hollywood Dreams (1991)

Before a single member had been recruited, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic's new pops orchestra, assembled this year from studio-free-lancers, had already pulled down a five-year Philips recording contract. And before its final roster had been set, the orchestra was already busy on this, its first recording. That's not as bad as it sounds, given the high quality of the Los Angeles free-lance pool. Here on Hollywood Dreams, the players are on familiar turf, with a collection of vintage Hollywood film scores in their original orchestrations (Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, the Errol Flynn Robin Hood, E.T., et al.), dashingly led by the excellent John Mauceri. Incongruities include a chunk out of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite (on the pretext that the composer made his 1945 reorchestration while living in Hollywood). More interesting is an 85-second ''Fanfare for a Bowl Concert'' by the formidable Arnold Schoenberg, the composer's sole capitulation to the culture of his adopted hometown. B