Benjamin Frankel - Curse of the Werewolf & other film music (Carl Davis)

Information

Composer: Benjamin Frankel

• (01) Curse of the Werewolf
• (13) So Long at the Fair
• (14) The Net: Love Theme
• (15) The Prisoner

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

Carl Davis, conductor

Date: 2006

Label: Naxos

https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.557850

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Review

More to werewolves than howling at the moon

This well planned CD is a welcome reminder of a once familiar occurrence when composers switched at the flick of a wrist between symphonic writing and composing for the big screen. In the two major scores here, Curse of the Werewolf and The Prisoner, we find Benjamin Frankel marrying 12-tone serialism – without abandoning tonality – to the often brief and fragmentary nature of film music with great panache. The shifting perspective of the medium is allied to an iron grip on the musical structure in each episode. If the punchy, grinding dissonances of the Prelude to Werewolf repel, listen on to ‘The Beggar’ when, with a shake of the tambourine, Frankel introduces an oriental note in this light-hearted character portrait.

In The Prisoner one is more aware of serial techniques, particularly in the metamorphosis of the string themes. In this story of a priest (Alec Guinness) who is arrested on trumped-up charges of treason, the orchestra imitates a bell pealing in thirds, which acts as a recurring motif throughout the score. Musical ideas are fecund and tracks are often a unit in their own right, as with ‘Civil Unrest’, where a brusque march prefaces and closes the cue. In the often frenetic world of film composition, there’s strong evidence here of a composer thinking afresh without resorting to cliché.

On a lighter note, So Long at the Fair introduces one of Frankel’s best known cinematic pieces, ‘Carriage and Pair’, and the equally charming ‘Long Forgotten Melody’.

The Love Theme from The Net is an understated and wistful melody, free of any sentimentality. Carl Davis secures good playing from the RLPO, though as an ensemble they are not as polished as their neighbours the BBC Philharmonic in the Chandos film music series.

-- Adrian Edwards, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/n/nxs57850a.php

http://www.musicweb-international.com/film/2006/dec06/curse_werewolf.html

https://www.naxos.com/reviews/reviewslist.asp?catalogueid=8.557850&languageid=EN

https://www.amazon.com/Curse-Werewolf-FRANKEL/dp/B000F6YWU8

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Benjamin Frankel (31 January 1906 – 12 February 1973) was a British composer. His best known pieces include a cycle of 5 string quartets, 8 symphonies, and concertos for violin and viola. He was also notable for writing over 100 film scores and working as a big band arranger in the 1930s. During the last 15 years of his life, Frankel also developed his own style of 12-note composition which retained contact with tonality. In the years following his death, Frankel's works were almost completely neglected, until Thea King's landmark recording of the Clarinet Quintet was published, follow by his complete oeuvre on CPO.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Frankel

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Carl Davis (born October 28, 1936 in New York City) is an American-born conductor and composer who has made his home in the United Kingdom since 1961. He studied composition with Paul Nordoff and Hugo Kauder, and subsequently with Per Nørgaard in Copenhagen. Davis has written music for more than 100 television programmes and a number of film scores, but is best known for creating new scores to accompany silent films. He is a conductor and composer of symphonic works, as well as a notable writer for the ballet. Davis also collaborated with Paul McCartney in the creation of the Liverpool Oratorio.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Davis

https://carldaviscollection.com/

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