CHAN 9867 Front.qxd 31/8/07 11:22 am Page 1 CHAN 9867 CHANDOS MOVIES CHAN 9867 BOOK.qxd 31/8/07 11:25 am Page 2 The Film Music of Sir Richard Rodney Bennett (b. 1936) 1 Murder on the Orient Express 11:18 2 Far from the Madding Crowd 15:28 Lady Caroline Lamb* 17:43 Elegy for Viola and Orchestra Katie Dyck van 3 I Molto vivo – Lento – Alla marcia – Lento 8:03 4 II Maestoso – Andante con moto – Poco agitato – Alla breve 9:39 premiere recording 5 Nicole’s Theme from ‘Tender is the Night’ 2:04 6 Enchanted April 19:20 Cynthia Millar ondes martenot 7 Love Scene from ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ 3:27 Sir Richard Rodney Bennett TT 69:45 Philip Dukes viola* BBC Philharmonic Yuri Torchinsky leader Rumon Gamba 3 CHAN 9867 BOOK.qxd 31/8/07 11:25 am Page 4 The Film Music of Sir Richard Rodney Bennett A quick browse through the British Library’s in his early teens, he won a scholarship to National Sound Archive database will lead you London’s Royal Academy of Music in 1953 to some 658 items relating to Richard Rodney where he studied under Lennox Berkeley and © Canal+ Image UK © Canal+ Image Bennett. Amongst this outrageously large Howard Ferguson. While in the midst of his number of entries you will find original studies he was spotted by film conductor John compositions including orchestral works, Hollingsworth who invited him to try his hand quartets, concertos, symphonies, operas, at film soundtracks. Initially he worked on small- ballets, songs, madrigals, jazz pieces and much scale scores for industrial documentary films, more. Among the performances you will find dealing with such inspiring topics as insurance, Bennett as soloist in piano concertos, classical engine lubrication and vehicle suspension! recitals, renditions of popular standards (by the A French government grant in 1958 led to likes of Gershwin, Kern and Irving Berlin) and two years’ intensive study under Pierre Boulez as accompanist to a dazzling array of jazz and and Olivier Messiaen. Amazingly, between cabaret artists. Add to this a selection of radio studying, writing and establishing himself as appearances and interviews on all aspects of an accomplished jazz pianist, he found time to popular and classical music, plus numerous cut his teeth on feature films. His early scores talks on the arts of composing and performing, provided accompaniment to a variety of thick- and you begin to get an idea of the scope of eared thrillers that were popular in the late this composer who has straddled practically all fifties and early sixties, but soon music for areas of the British music scene for nearly half films such as Blind Date (with its lighter, jazzy a century, and is represented on this recording quality) and The Man Who Could Cheat Death with a few choice items selected out of more (a spiky, percussive horror score) was leading than fifty film scores. to his acceptance as an innovative and Sir Richard Rodney Bennett (born in versatile film composer. Broadstairs, Kent, 1936) was encouraged in his An unprecedented period of activity musical interests by his mother (a former followed as three parallel careers, in jazz, student of Holst’s) who began teaching him concert works and film music, flowed together, piano from the age of five. Already composing seemingly without effort. In 1964 he was Albert Finney (centre) as Hercule Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express 5 CHAN 9867 BOOK.qxd 31/8/07 11:25 am Page 6 awarded the Arnold Bax Society prize but you can feel that it was made with love’, and in 1965 he became the Ralph Vaughan although all were agreed about ‘Nicholas Williams Composer of the Year. Over the next Roeg’s… seductive camerawork’. Bennett’s few years his classical works would include score was also rated highly enough to warrant The Mines of Sulphur (opera, 1963), Piano a nomination for Best Original Score in the Concerto (1968), Sonnets to Orpheus (1979), Academy Awards of 1967. Symphony No. 3 (1987) and Concerto for Stan Lady Caroline Lamb (1972) was another Getz (for saxophone and orchestra, 1990). period piece, dealing with the twitchy wife In the field of film music he tackled a wide (Sarah Miles) of an aristocrat, who falls variety of subjects and styles, including obsessively (and of course disastrously) for comedies such as Peter Sellers’s Only Two Can the charms of poet Lord Byron (Richard Play and The Wrong Arm of the Law, Satan Chamberlain). The film received a certain Never Sleeps (a period melodrama set in a critical drubbing – ‘…pale and disappointing besieged Chinese mission!), Hammer’s historical faction’ and ‘Robert Bolt [director] The Nanny (a small-scale psychological chiller) tries for romantic excess, but can’t get and The Witches (a sturdy Satanic romp); anything warmed up’ – and many would argue Michael Caine’s chilly Billion Dollar Brain was that Bennett’s score, subsequently adapted particularly well received with its spare score into the suite Lady Caroline Lamb (Elegy for for theremin and orchestra. Having worked for Viola and Orchestra), exhibits a depth and John Schlesinger in 1965 on Billy Liar, he sincerity for which the film itself may have returned to score the director’s Far from the striven but which it never quite achieved. Madding Crowd (1967), an elegiac evocation Murder on the Orient Express in 1974 of Thomas Hardy’s Wessex of the 1870s. was the first in an apparently inexhaustible run American advertising described it as the story of all-star Agatha Christie murder mysteries. of ‘a wilful, passionate girl and the three men Despite the substantial talents of Sean who want her’, but it did not fare particularly Connery, Ingrid Bergman, Anthony Perkins, well at the box office despite Bennett’s Lauren Bacall, Richard Widmark, Albert Finney delicate pastoral themes, punctuated by et al., many still believe the real stars of the authentic period folksongs and including the movie were the SNCF class 230 G-353 steam- haunting Bathsheba love theme given to Julie train and the equally spectacular Orient Christie. Critical opinion on the film itself was Express themes, for which Bennett again mixed: Pauline Kael described it as ‘a botch, received an Oscar nomination (for Best Sarah Miles in Lady Caroline Lamb 6 CHAN 9867 BOOK.qxd 31/8/07 11:25 am Page 8 Original Score) and won the British Academy’s Philip Dukes studied in London and New York Musicians ’98 Conductors Workshop. He the BBC Philharmonic at the Newbury, Anthony Asquith Award for Music (1974). with Mark Knight, Yfrah Neaman and Michael studied at Durham University, and at the Lichfield and Chester Festivals. His guest The ambitious television adaptation of Tree, and since completing his studies he has Royal Academy of Music with Colin Metters, conducting engagements have included Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night (1985) won a succession of awards, scholarships and Sir Colin Davis and George Hurst where he the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the starred Mary Steenburgen as the neurotic and competitions. He has appeared at several was the first conducting student to receive Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the vulnerable Nicole. Her theme skillfully reflects major festivals in England and has performed the DipRAM. Prizes to his credit include BBC Concert Orchestra, the Manchester her growing emotional strength even as it with many of the country’s leading orchestras. the Henry Wood Scholarship and the Bob Camerata, the London Mozart Players, the threatens to crush her unlikeable husband. In addition to his solo commitments Philip Harding bursary. Rumon Gamba has worked Royal Scottish National Orchestra and The In 1991 the Merchant/Ivory team turned to Dukes is Principal Viola with the London in Poland and Russia and has conducted Hallé Orchestra. the novel Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Mozart Players and the BT Scottish Ensemble. Arnim and, in their unmistakable way, produced another nostalgically mellow work The BBC Philharmonic is based in Manchester dealing with the lives and loves of a handful and performs regularly at the Bridgewater Hall of English ladies spending an idyllic month in as well as making many of its programmes for an Italian villa. Radio 3 in the BBC’s Studio 7 Concert Hall. Four Weddings and a Funeral was one of Under Yan Pascal Tortelier, its Principal Britain’s most successful movies of 1994, Conductor, it has built a formidable reputation marred for some by an almost relentless for outstanding quality and committed UK © Canal+ Image pop-music score. Happily a handful of the performances over an immensely wide-ranging more tender moments were rewarded with the repertoire. Vassily Sinaisky is Principal Guest unmistakable Bennett touch. Conductor and Sir Edward Downes is Throughout the 1990s Bennett still toured as Conductor Emeritus. James MacMillan a solo performer and accompanied singers like has recently been appointed as Jane Manning, Sandra King and, most famously, Composer/Conductor in succession to Marian Montgomery. He has also continued to Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. Over recent years the involve himself in occasional but selective film BBC Philharmonic has become one of the and television projects, most recently the BBC’s world’s most recorded orchestras under its Gormenghast epic (with John Tavener). In 1998 exclusive contract with Chandos. he was knighted for his services to music. Congratulations Sir Richard Rodney Bennett! Rumon Gamba was appointed the BBC Philharmonic Assistant Conductor as a result © 2000 Alexander Gleason of winning the Lloyds Bank BBC Young Julie Christie in Far from the Madding Crowd 8 CHAN 9867 BOOK.qxd 31/8/07 11:25 am Page 10 schlagzeugintensiver Grusel) Anerkennung als (Herrin von Thornhill, 1967), einer elegischen Die Filmmusik von Sir Richard Rodney Bennett innovativer, vielseitiger Filmkomponist.