Georges Auric - Film Music (Rumon Gamba)

Information

Composer: Georges Auric

• (01) Suite from 'Caesar and Cleopatra'
• (04) Suite from 'The Titfield Thunderbolt'
• (07) Suite from 'Dead of Night'
• (08) Suite from 'Passport to Pimlico'
• (11) Suite from 'The Innocents'
• (13) Suite from 'The Lavender Hill Mob'
• (17) Suite from 'Moulin Rouge'
• (21) Suite from 'Father Brown'
• (25) Suite from 'It Always Rains on Sunday'
• (28) Overture from 'Hue and Cry'

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Rumon Gamba, conductor

Date: 1999

Label: Chandos

https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%209774

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Review

A delightful collection of scores composed by a Frenchman for those quintessentially British films, the Ealing comedies

All the scores here (expertly reconstructed by Philip Lane, and including some music cues that were cut from final film versions) are from British films, for which Auric wrote some 30; but he also wrote another 100 or so for French, German, Italian and American movies - an astonishing achievement even for so fertile a mind. It was in fact by a French film - Rene Clair's delightful satire A nous la liberte - that he first won our hearts in 1932, and it wasn't until the end of the war that he was taken up by Denham and Ealing.

Having myself played in the orchestra for Caesar and Cleopatra, I can confirm the booklet-note's account of the chaos surrounding that first British venture of his: absolutely endless retakes of the big battle scene music were ordered, driving us all to desperation, because the maverick Gabriel Pascal kept changing his mind again and again. Auric, not one for the 'hit tune' score beloved by commercial exploiters, nevertheless showed in his Moulin Rouge waltz that he could command the popular style with the best. On this disc he is heard running the gamut through the grandiose or the dramatic (It always rains on a Sunday, one of his finest pieces of writing), the menacing (the unforgettably scary Dead of night) and the atmospheric ('At the Sphinx' in Caesar and Cleopatra) to the swirling gaiety of The Titfield Thunderbolt, the perky Passport to Pimlico and the ebullient high spirits of Hue and Cry. From the gusto of the playing throughout, it seems clear that the BBC Philharmonic enjoyed making this disc: understandably so.

-- Lionel Salter, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/nov99/auric.htm

https://www.amazon.com/Film-Music-Georges-Auric/dp/B00001T6KF

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Georges Auric (15 February 1899 – 23 July 1983) was a French composer. Auric studied music at the Paris Conservatoire, as well as composition with Vincent d'Indy at the Schola Cantorum de Paris and Albert Roussel. He was grouped into Les Six by music critic Henri Collet. Following his early successes as an avant-garde composer, Auric went through a transitional period during the 1930s, abandoning the elitist attitudes of his earlier years in favour of a populist approach. He composed music for a large number of films over the years, including films produced in France, England, and America.

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

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Rumon Gamba (born 24 November 1972), is an English conductor. He studied conducting with Colin Metters, George Hurst and Sir Colin Davis at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Gamba was Chief Conductor and Music Director of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra from 2002 to 2010. In October 2008, he was named the next chief conductor and music director of NorrlandsOperan. In March 2011, Gamba was named chief conductor of the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra. Gamba has conducted a number of recordings for the Chandos Records label, particularly in their Film Music series.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumon_Gamba

http://www.rumongamba.com/

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