Christopher Gunning - The Film & TV Music (Rumon Gamba)

Information

Composer: Christopher Gunning

1. Poirot Variants
2. La Môme Piaf (La vie en rose)
3. Under Suspicion
4. Cold Lazarus
5. The Rosemary and Thyme Caprice
6. Rebecca
7. Pollyanna
8. Firelight
9. When the Whales Came
10. The Hollow
11. Five Little Pigs
12. Lighthouse Hill

Nicole Tibbels, soprano

Craig Ogden, guitar

Martin Robertson, saxophone

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Rumon Gamba, conductor

Date: 2010

Label: Chandos

https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%2010625

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Review

Revealing Christopher Gunning’s music for the large and small screen

Whether imaginary or drawn from life, composer Christopher Gunning has an uncanny knack of unlocking character, time and place in his film and TV scores. Poirot, Piaf, Pollyanna and Rebecca are just a handful of titles over the years which he’s arranged for this CD, understandably selecting some of his bigger scores, given the expertise of this orchestra.

Poirot is, of course, Gunning’s invitation card. The sinuous saxophone theme is synonymous with David Suchet’s definitive portrayal of the Belgian detective on the small screen. Beginning in a suitably stealthy manner, segments of the theme are interwoven with music from some of the 40 episodes, including an Argentinian tango, a waltz with saxophone and trumpet intertwining on the dance floor (Martin Robertson, the nimble saxophonist, evidently having a ball, too), before a full statement of the main theme at the end. Two further Poirot tales are illustrated: The Hollow and Five Little Pigs, where leader Yuri Torchinsky spins a plaintive melody over a slight accompaniment. Other lighter numbers include Gunning’s music for those gardening sleuths Felicity Kendal and Pam Ferris as Rosemary and Thyme, evoking the English pastoral scene through the folksong “Scarborough Fair”, and for Pollyanna, where the wider-open spaces of the American plains are suggested in the scoring. The film La vie en rose, which enshrined Marion Cottilard’s compelling performance as Edith Piaf, contains a waltz with trumpet and solo soprano adding chiaroscuro to the melody.

Rebecca is a good example of Gunning’s imaginative musical drawing of character and place, letting lighter orchestral textures illuminate the forbidding house of Mandalay and its watery surround. Cold Lazarus, the final work of Dennis Potter, is tinged by the anxiety of the author’s black futuristic vision; When the Whales Came brings shades of Vaughan Williams’s Sinfonia Antartica; and the thriller Under Suspicion develops into a movement of substantial dramatic power from an initial eight-note motif. Sometimes the simplicity of the musical invention can sound bland, as in the closing Lighthouse Hill, but with the BBC Philharmonic on board under Rumon Gamba’s direction, the performances are immaculate and idiomatic.

-- Adrian Edwards, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2010/Nov10/Gunning_Film_TV_CHAN10625.htm

https://www.amazon.com/Film-TV-Music-Christopher-Gunning/dp/B0044FEZDK

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Christopher Gunning (born 5 August 1944) is an English composer of concert works and music for films and television. Gunning was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, and studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where his tutors included Edmund Rubbra and Richard Rodney Bennett. His film and TV compositions have received many awards, including the 2007 BAFTA Award for Best Film Music for La Vie en Rose. He also composed the music for nearly all of the Poirot TV films starring David Suchet. In addition to television and film scores, Gunning has now completed 12 symphonies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Gunning

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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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