Born Alexander Paucker
to a Rumanian Jewish family, Francis Chagrin first studied engineering
in Zurich to comply with his father’s will that he later joins
the family business. A first unlucky marriage brought him to
France where he managed to enrol at the Ecole Normale, where
his teachers were Paul Dukas and Nadia Boulanger. When in Paris,
he changed his name to that of Francis Chagrin. He then wrote
some music for minor films before moving to Britain in 1936.
After some further studies with Seiber, he began to make his
way onto the musical map by writing incidental music for film,
TV series and commercials. This earned him some attention. During
World War II he founded the Committee (now Society) for the
Promotion of New Music. However, next to a large amount of incidental
music, he also composed works for the concert hall, including
two symphonies, most of which is still unheard and unrecorded.
An old LP of British music for strings included his fine Five
Aquarelles composed in 1950 [Peters PLE 054, published
1977, nla]. Chagrin is yet another composer who suffered the
same prejudice as that encountered by the likes of William Alwyn,
Malcolm Arnold, Benjamin Frankel and Rozsa, whose ‘serious’
music was long overlooked, simply because they all had made
a name for themselves by writing music for films. The time is
now ripe for a proper assessment of his concert works.
I first became aware
of his music when Lyrita released a recording of the delightful
Overture “Helter Skelter” (SRCS 95, published
1979, nla). This light-hearted overture opens the present generous
survey in high spirits. The music really lives up to its title,
its highly contrasted tunes ‘colliding’ with each other in a
most joyful and refreshing way. By the way, am I alone in hearing
echoes of Enescu’s Rumanian Rhapsodies in this piece? It does
not matter anyway, for this is a really fine concert opener
that should have become popular. It was published in 1951 and
had to wait more than twenty years for its first commercial
recording.
The music assembled
here provides a fine survey of Chagrin’s multifaceted talents,
be it in illustrating a sentimental romance (Last Holiday),
a wartime saga (The Colditz Story), some emotionally
more complex stuff (An Inspector Calls or The Intruder)
or a documentary on the aftermath of World War II in Yugoslavia
(The Bridge). He was a beautifully equipped musician
who could always find the right tone of the film he was to illustrate.
The Suite from “Last Holiday”, by far the longest
item here, is a good example of Chagrin’s versatility. It includes
serious and lyrical music (e.g. the Nocturne) but also some
purely incidental music such as the Romance (salon music played
by a piano trio) and the extrovert Samba. As Philip Lane mentions
in his excellent notes, Chagrin lavished as much care on his
incidental music as on his concert works. Some of them contain
fine music well worth rescuing. Chagrin was certainly aware
of this, for some of the scores heard here were arranged for
the concert hall by the composer himself, e.g. the overture
Helter Skelter, Four Orchestral Episodes
from “The Intruder” and Yugoslav Sketches from
“The Bridge” (Philip Lane mentions a Yugoslav
Suite No.2, also drawn from The Bridge). The
remaining pieces in this selection were carefully prepared by
Philip Lane, one of the driving forces behind Chandos’s Movies
series/ He is a fine composer in his own right who selflessly
devotes much time, skill and competence in preparing scores
for recording.
This release also
includes the outrageously funny The Hoffnung Symphony
Orchestra in which Auber, Bizet, Delibes, Grieg, Liszt,
Mozart, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Johann Strauss II and Tchaikovsky
rub shoulders in an improbable, but funny montage.
There is much fine
music here. Besides the overture, my own favourites are the
Suite from “Greyfriars Bobby”, From “Easy
Money” and the Yugoslav Sketches. The
whole is superbly played. The production is simply excellent,
with a lavish booklet adorned with stills from the films and
detailed notes by Philip Lane.
A most welcome and
timely release, since 2005 is the centenary year of Chagrin’s
birth. I hope now that Gamba might have a look at Chagrin’s
symphonies.
Hubert Culot
BBC Philharmonic/Rumon
Gamba
