Georges Auric - Film Music (Rumon Gamba)

Information

Composer: Georges Auric

• Suite from 'Caesar and Cleopatra'
• Suite from 'The Titfield Thunderbolt'
• Suite from 'Dead of Night'
• Suite from 'Passport to Pimlico'
• Suite from 'The Innocents'
• Suite from 'The Lavender Hill Mob'
• Suite from 'Moulin Rouge'
• Suite from 'Father Brown'
• Suite from 'It Always Rains on Sunday'
• Overture from 'Hue and Cry'

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Rumon Gamba, conductor

Date: 1999

Label: Chandos

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Review

This disc takes us through one aspect of Auric's film music. He wrote only 30 scores for British films. There are 100 or so other continental scores including Rififi (1954) and La Belle et la Bête (1946). As one of the group of French composers known as 'Les Six' he has a reputation as a joker and a bit of a flâneur. This disc shows that he has a wider span of accomplishment.

The Cleopatra music is richly impressionistic and impassioned with a hint of Irishry at least once - a tribute to G.B. Shaw perhaps? The Titfield Thunderbolt score starts jokily but the middle section (Triumph) has a few memories of Honegger's Pacific 231 and indeed I am sure I caught a hint of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik as well. The title bars for Dead of Night are out of the same book as Mossolov's Zavod. This is fearsome music of machines - wild and imposingly tempestuous with perhaps a presence from the Valkyries. Passport to Pimlico echoes with memories of rural France and one can speculate that this brightness which I also associate with Canteloube's orchestral Auvergne arrangements had its impact on the young Malcolm Arnold. Respighi's Pines and Mossolov's music of machines meet in the exuberant finale.

The ethereal riches of Anthea Kempston's soprano chimes across the music in The Innocents, catching the slightly boomy effect of a boy alto. The nerviness of machine music is also there in the Coach Ride plus the gracious dip and bow of Ben Frankel's Carriage and Pair. Both machine rhythms and Respighian excess hit you between the eyes (ears?) in The Lavender Hill Mob. To this is added an English pastoralism and the rush and scramble of the chase scenes at the Eiffel Tower. The end-titles have a baroque trumpetry grandeur.

Moulin Rouge's minatory storminess soon departs in favour of a sweet tune. This melts into the Belle Epoque celebration and flouncy petticoats which returns in the final Quadrille. Mary Carewe's Waltz Song is sweetly sung and fortunately escapes the operatic style which would have killed this song stone dead. Whoever was responsible for selecting Mary Carewe should take a bow. This is touchingly done. An instant hit and must son catch the attention of Classic FM as should all of the tracks on this collection.

Father Brown's music is dashing - catching the spirit of Dickensian London (yes, I know the novelist is G.K. Chesterton). The Train Journey (interesting that trains played a part in Auric's life rather like Goossens and Moeran) and the finale are much affected by railway beats and machine rhythms.

There is a substantial suite from It Always Rains On Sunday initially rosily sentimental but this soon fades into a mechanistic nightmare like a great steam engine with pistons out of control and the governor broken. The overture (all the other films are represented by suites) from Hue and Cry is a champagne gambol through the alleys of London. From the music the locale could just as easily have been Paris. In this mood Satie (Parade), Milhaud (Boeuf sur le Toit) and Ibert all jostle each other.

I was not surprised to see that this collection had been restored by the redoubtable and heroic Philip Lane who had the full cooperation of Mme Michèle Auric.

This is a comprehensively enjoyable collection and will appeal, given half a chance, well beyond the confines of the film score enthusiasts. Do please get it. The collection has a generous playing time and recording quality of the finest.

-- Rob Barnett

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Georges Auric (15 February 1899 – 23 July 1983) was a French composer. He studied music at the Paris Conservatoire, as well as with Vincent d'Indy at the Schola Cantorum de Paris and Albert Roussel. A member of Les Six and a protégé of Erik Satie, Auric was a significant contributor of avant-garde music in Paris during the 1910s and 20s. Auric's works are characterized by a type of musical irony, mingling popular tunes with sophisticated harmony. His most notable compositions are the ballet Les Matelots, as well as film scores À nous la liberté! and Moulin Rouge. His other works include songs, chamber and ballet music.

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Rumon Gamba (born 24 November 1972) is a British conductor. He studied music at Durham University, and then went to the Royal Academy of Music in London. In 1998, he joined the BBC Philharmonic as its Assistant Conductor, and later became Associate Conductor. He left the orchestra in 2002. Gamba was Chief Conductor and Music Director of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra from 2002 to 2010, and chief conductor of the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra from 2011 to 2015. In January 2022, Gamba became chief conductor of the Oulu Symphony Orchestra. He has made over 50 CDs of for the Chandos Records label.

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