MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

Availability
CD: Virtuosa Records

Laura ROSSI
The Battle of the Somme (2008)
Philharmonia Orchestra/Nic Raine
rec. All Saints Church, London, 2008
VIRTUOSA RECORDS VRCD001 [67:27]
Experience Classicsonline

The Battle of the Somme by Laura Rossi is a new score to one of the most successful forgotten films ever made. The original feature-length documentary film, an account of the titular battle using frontline footage, is estimated to have been seen by over half the population of Britain. A success which surely makes the film the greatest hit ever released in UK cinemas, dwarfing Gone With The Wind, The Sound of Music and Star Wars. Yet today the film is virtually unknown, even among aficionados.
 
To mark the 90th anniversary of the battle the Imperial War Museum set about restoring The Battle of the Somme, and that restoration included commissioning a new score by composer Laura Rossi.
 
Should the composer’s name be an unfamiliar name, one can do no better than to quote her website:

Laura Rossi grew up in Devon where she enjoyed a varied musical childhood playing piano, bass, violin and singing in Jazz, Pop and Classical ensembles. She then went on to study composition at Liverpool University and completed her Masters at the London College of Music. She now lives in London where she composes music for film and concert works.
 
She has written scores for many films including the critically acclaimed 'London to Brighton’ and ‘The Cottage’ directed by Paul Andrew Williams, also the award winning 'Shooting Shona'  directed by Abner and Kamma Pastoll.  Laura has recently scored ‘Broken Lines’ directed by Sallie Aprahamian starring Paul Bettany.  She has also written music for television documentaries including 'Marking Time' for ITV, ‘The Cotswold Canals’ presented by Lloyd Grossman for HTV, ‘Forgotten Pilots’ and 'The Real Sir Francis Drake' for Carlton TV.  In addition, Laura has worked for 'The Music Gallery', composing music for adverts ... (more). Laura was also commissioned by the Imperial War Museum to write an orchestral score for 'The Battle of the Ancre' an important historical film from the 1st World War which was performed live with film at the museum. She was subsequently commissioned to write a score for the famous 1916 film 'The Battle of the Somme' which was premiered at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and was recorded and performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra and received a five star review in the Times.

As part of her preparation for composing the score Rossi visited the Somme battlefields, and also discovered that her great uncle, Fred Ainge, was a stretcher-bearer attached to the 29th Division of the British Army on July 1st 1916. Some of his diary notes are included in the accompanying CD booklet, and can also be seen with letters, postcards and photos at her website.
 
Regarding the score Rossi writes:

The Imperial War Museum asked me to write the music for the Battle of the Ancre in 2002 and subsequently commissioned me to write the music for the Battle of the Somme to commemorate the 90th anniversary in 2006.  It was a very exciting prospect to write the music for such an important film, half the British population watched it when it came out in 1916 and there's some amazing footage.  It was only when I was researching about the Battle and decided to visit the Somme battlefields that I found out that my great-uncle Fred was in the 1st World War.
 
My aunt gave me his diaries to read and it turned out he was positioned right by where we were staying in the Somme. He was a stretcher-bearer and attended the 29th division (who appear in the film) on July 1st 1916, so it's possible he could even be in the film. All this really made it all come to life (especially as I knew him – he survived the war) and helped me get the right tone when writing the music. 
 
I was particularly interested in the soldiers’ point of view and doing all this research helped me to write the music from this angle.  Finding out all about Fred and his diaries has been very important to me so I wanted to transcribe them for others to read and also put up his pictures and letters as I think finding out about someone who was actually in the battle makes it so much more moving to watch the film and brings it all to life.

Music plays almost continuously in the 80 minute film. As a ‘silent’ film music has a much more prominent role than in most dialogue driven cinema. The CD presents 67 minutes of the score in five un-named parts, such that it unfolds in a rather more organic and symphonic way than do the majority of soundtrack recordings. In the booklet Rossi says that the structure of the film is quite loose, ‘with some very contrasting scenes juxtaposed’. One would not know this from the album, as far from a ‘Mickey Mouse’ style of scoring individual shots, the music takes the broad view, capturing the overall mood of extended sequences.
 
Part 1 is itself divided into two clearly distinct sections. The opening paints a rather jolly feeling of summer and expectant adventure, though there is an underlying emotion of foreboding, the sensibility in-line with Adrian Johnson’s fine scores for such dramas as Shackleton and The Lost Prince. Then at 8.51 the mood abruptly changes. Menacing tympani introduce the battlefront and any good humour is banished as storm clouds gather.
Blessedly Rossi ensues any thought of inappropriate modernisms, so often employed in misguided attempts to make music ‘accessible’ to contemporary audiences. Absent are the anachronistic electronic atmospherics familiar from too many television documentaries, likewise there is no trace of that documentary favourite, the endlessly recycled sub-Nyman string drone. Instead Rossi does the eminently sensible but all to rare thing and adopts an appropriate early 20th Century English concert hall idiom with elements of Vaughan Williams, Elgar and Bax discernable, but all woven into a style of her own. 
 
Given the subject matter much of the writing is bleak and solemn, with Part 3 particularly building to an anguished yet resigned and tender string lament which may remind audiences of the music of Gerald Finzi. There are moments of light in a generally dark, but always varied and developing musical landscape. The whole is as serious as film music gets. The whole is a hugely impressive piece of work -  if more contemporary films were scored with this clarity of purpose and integrity of musical vision cinema would be in a far more healthy state. Indeed, with more music of this calibre contemporary classical music might regain some of its lost audience. 
 
The Battle of the Somme has recently been premiered in its restored version with Rossi’s score performed live to considerable acclaim. The CD version, impeccably performed by the Philharmonia and conducted by Nic Raine, is one of those few film music releases each year which also has considerable appeal to the classical music collector who wouldn’t normally consider buying a soundtrack album. For film music buffs, who tend to be far less snobbish about such things, and know that Nic Raine’s name is a seal of quality, they can purchase without hesitation.
 
Gary Dalkin
 



 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.