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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
There is firm enjoyment from start to finish on The Film Music of Malcolm Arnold. With the exception of just two items, arrangement and reconstruction duties are shared between the indefatigable Philip Lane and much-missed Christopher Palmer. Rest assured, the results are as idiomatic as can be imagined and there are plenty of gems awaiting discovery; the exuberant, ear-ticklingly colourful suite from Trapeze (1956), an unashamedly rhetorical Ballade for piano and orchestra from the 1952 Hammer production, Stolen Face (with Phillip Dyson a stylish soloist) and the swaggering overture to John Huston's The Roots of Heaven that producer Darryl F Zanuck specially commissioned for that film's glitzy 1958 New York premiere. Elsewhere, the outrageous comedy suite from The Belles of St Trinian's (1954) serves up plenty of laughs, while the engaging suite from David Copperfield (1969) is as good a place as any to sample the powerful expressive scope of Arnold's writing for the big screen. As on previous offerings on the Chandos Movies label, the BBC Philharmonic responds with irrepressible spirit and dazzling polish under Rumon Gamba's dedicated lead. Striking artwork and spectacularly realistic sound cap a terrific release. --Andrew Achenbach
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I've never had so much fun with a film music compilation as with this cd. The second one could be Chandos's first release years ago of Arnold's film music which has got a new booklet (with Bridge on the River Kwai on it).
Why Arnold is so funny to me is even not quiet clear to myself, I think it's because he has the right blend of nostalgia, very good tunes, Englishness and dry humor.
The recording is a little bit on the dry and reverbarent side, but don't bother. The performances are very, very good.
I didn't know the BBC Phil could play film music with the same conviction as Boulanger or Dutillieux.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
What a natural and great professional film composer Malcolm Arnold was. Able to write, apparently, easily in any style to suit the occasion with catchy melodies and dazzling orchestration. What a feel for drama and a wicked sense of humour! All superbly captured by Rumon Gamba and the BBC Philharmonic in excellent sound by Chandos.
The arrangements and suites may not amount to high art but the same talents inform his more weighty symphonic works too. Even in these most populist pieces I can hear his admiration of Shostakovich who would surely have admired these: he was not averse to writing Jazz Suites and Film music in similar vein. The big difference is that Arnold was freer to indulge his audiences with more Hollywood schmaltz when asked for - needless to say he carries it off with a flourish every time.
My favourite here is the wickedly fun, caricature style of "The Belles of St Trinians", reputedly Arnold's favourite film. I remember laughing, when watching the film, at each entrance by "Flash Harry" because the music captured the character so perfectly (funnier than the actors lines). If I've any cmplaint it is that this performance picks through his comically shifty theme rather too deliberately and slowly. Of the rest there is much to enjoy in the "Trapeze" Suite, "Music of Machines" and other smaller gems :"The Captain's Paradise", "No Love for Johnnie" and the "Scherzetto for Clarient and Orchestra" to name a few. OK, the Fantasy on Christmas Carols maybe takes schmaltz a step further than most could stomach now but that's hardly a criticism of what was originally asked for - Arnold delivered as always.
In short: you can let your hair down and enjoy all of this without reservation and wonder why Malcolm Arnold's music, and not just the lighter stuff, doesn't get performed more often. What isn't there to like in this recording: Highly recommended.
The arrangements and suites may not amount to high art but the same talents inform his more weighty symphonic works too. Even in these most populist pieces I can hear his admiration of Shostakovich who would surely have admired these: he was not averse to writing Jazz Suites and Film music in similar vein. The big difference is that Arnold was freer to indulge his audiences with more Hollywood schmaltz when asked for - needless to say he carries it off with a flourish every time.
My favourite here is the wickedly fun, caricature style of "The Belles of St Trinians", reputedly Arnold's favourite film. I remember laughing, when watching the film, at each entrance by "Flash Harry" because the music captured the character so perfectly (funnier than the actors lines). If I've any cmplaint it is that this performance picks through his comically shifty theme rather too deliberately and slowly. Of the rest there is much to enjoy in the "Trapeze" Suite, "Music of Machines" and other smaller gems :"The Captain's Paradise", "No Love for Johnnie" and the "Scherzetto for Clarient and Orchestra" to name a few. OK, the Fantasy on Christmas Carols maybe takes schmaltz a step further than most could stomach now but that's hardly a criticism of what was originally asked for - Arnold delivered as always.
In short: you can let your hair down and enjoy all of this without reservation and wonder why Malcolm Arnold's music, and not just the lighter stuff, doesn't get performed more often. What isn't there to like in this recording: Highly recommended.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Remarkably moving music
16 Nov 2001
Format:Audio CD
I had no idea what I was getting when I bought this CD; it has become one of my most listened-to albums. Arnold had a genius for romantic melody that moves the soul. I believe his fame will grow in the 21st century as the silliness of modern atonal music is forgotten and the eternal values of melody and beauty regain their place in western culture.
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