Sir Richard Rodney BENNETT (b. 1936)
Film Music: Murder on the Orient Express; Far from the Madding Crowd;
Tender is the Night; Four Weddings and a Funeral; Enchanted April; Lady Caroline
Lamb
Rumon Gamba conducting the
BBC Philharmonic
CHANDOS CHAN 9867
[69:45]
Crotchet
It is amazing to think that Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, knighted in 1998
for his services to music has written so much music: orchestral works, quartets,
concertos, symphonies, operas, ballets, songs, madrigals, jazz pieces and
much more - all totalling over 600 items! He has scored over 50 films (including
some documentaries in the earlier part of his career). This album comprises
a fair cross-section.
Usually we only hear Bennett's celebrated waltz from Murder on the Orient
Express so the eleven-minute suite from the 1974 Academy Award nominated
score is most welcome. Gamba, aided by Chandos's superbly dynamic and detailed
sound, gives a thrilling reading of this glittering, sophisticated music
for the smart set travelling on a mission to kill, on Europe's premier train.
The music reflects the styles of that hedonistic era between the two world
wars: waltzes, tangos and music played in the salon style. There is, as to
be expected, an element of murky mystery and swift violence; but there is
appealing elegiac material too. But overall, there is the glamour and urgency
of the great powerful train itself.
From international sophistication, the prograame turns to a smaller world
of rural romantic tragedy and to John Schlesinger's 1967 film of Thomas Hardy's
Far From the Madding Crowd starring Julie Christie, Peter Finch, Alan
Bates and Terence Stamp. Although the film had mixed reviews, Bennett's score
was Oscar-nominated. Bennett wrote some beguiling pastoral themes, notably
the poignant Bathsheba love theme. Opposed to this delicacy, is some very
astringent, harsh, dissonant folk-like material that underlies the cruel
reality of rural life like the loss of the shepherd's (Bates) flock of sheep
(they throw themselves over the edge of a cliff) leaving him penniless and
unable to pursue his love, Bathsheba. There is also bravado music for the
proud, womanising soldier (Stamp), counterbalanced with elegiac material
and music that, in its sense of chill isolation, recalls Holst's Egdon
Heath.
Bennett has arranged his music for the 1972 film Lady Caroline Lamb
as an elegy for orchestra and that Cinderella of the orchestra, the viola.
His music for this film, which was about Lady Caroline Lamb's disastrous
obsessive love for the poet Lord Byron, is distinguished by a very appealing
tender romantic melody that is redolent of the Lady's yearning. The work
is presented in two movements. Before the love theme is stated in the first
of these, there is headlong skittish, neurotic music portraying the rash,
foolish woman. Afterwards comes some comically ironical military music of
some pomposity which includes (Lady Lamb's?) sighs before the mood darkens
- perhaps signifying Lady Lamb's encroaching madness. The second movement
reprises the love music, which becomes the theme for a set of variations:
some dreamily nocturnal, some passionate, some troubled. Philip Dukes is
a sensitive and refined soloist.
Cynthia Miller adds an ethereal touch, playing her ondes martenot for Bennett's
Enchanted April score. This 1991 Merchant Ivory production dealt with
the lives and loves of a handful of English ladies spending an idyllic month
in an Italian villa. Accordingly, Bennett responded with a mellow nostalgic
score, in which the ondes martenot transports the characters, and us, away
from the ordinary, everyday world - to somewhere that is extraordinary and
enchanted. His music is very delicate, atmospheric and impressionistic; and
very reminiscent of both Debussy and Ravel (Ravel in Chinoiserie mode). At
one point this delicate fantasy is grounded by the strains of Elgar's
Chanson de matin played on a cor anglais but the peaceful idyllic
mood is soon reinstated. A lovely work that perhaps is too fragile for its
19-minute length.
The concert is completed by two shorter works: the Nicole's haunting theme
from the 1985 TV production, Tender is the Night, although I would
argue that this is not its premiere recording for I remember hearing it the
soundtrack recording I purchased at that time. I would also argue that Nicole
was rehabilitated by the man she married and it was the strain of that work
which caused his destruction! The concluding item is the touching
and plaintive love theme for Four Weddings and a Funeral that tended
to be overshadowed by more familiar pop source music.
Gamba leads the BBC Philharmonic in committed, romantic performances. A
delightful album and strongly recommended.
Ian Lace
