The Film Music of Brian Easdale

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this excellent CD puts [Easdale] back where he belongs, in the top rank of film composers...The young voices of the BBC National Chorus of Wales add a vivid and dynamic dimension to both of these... — Gramophone Magazine More…

Release Date: 31st Jan 2011
Catalogue No: CHAN10636
Label: Chandos
Series: Movies
Length: 76 minutes

Gramophone Magazine

May 2011

Editor's Choice

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Easdale: The Red Shoes. Ballet

Work length15:44

$8.00

$10.40

Rumon Gamba, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Cynthia Millar

I. Allegro vivace

Track length2:37

$1.00

$1.30

II. Allegro moderato e molto ritmico

Track length1:21

$1.00

$1.30

III. Poco più mosso

Track length1:35

$1.00

$1.30

IV. Lento tranquillo

Track length0:53

$1.00

$1.30

V. Largo

Track length1:49

$1.00

$1.30

VI. Presto, quasi cadenza

Track length2:31

$1.00

$1.30

VII. Allegro assai

Track length2:24

$1.00

$1.30

VIII. Sostenuto

Track length2:34

$1.00

$1.30

Easdale: Kew Gardens Suite

Work length6:54

$4.00

$5.20

Rumon Gamba, BBC National Orchestra of Wales

I. Introduction and Allegretto

Track length1:53

$1.00

$1.30

II. Spring Flowers

Track length0:53

$1.00

$1.30

III. Summer Sequence

Track length2:28

$1.00

$1.30

IV. Finale

Track length1:40

$1.00

$1.30

Easdale: Black Narcissus Suite

Work length14:02

$5.00

$6.50

Rumon Gamba, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC National Chorus of Wales, Adrian Partington

I. Main Titles and the Palace of Mopu

Track length5:34

$1.00

$1.30

II. Irish Song

Track length2:54

$1.00

$1.30

III. Sister Ruth and Mr Dean

Track length1:52

$1.00

$1.30

IV. Hunting Song

Track length1:54

$1.00

$1.30

V. Death of Sister Ruth

Track length1:48

$1.00

$1.30

Easdale: The Battle of the River Plate

Work length5:51

$2.00

$2.60

Rumon Gamba, BBC National Orchestra of Wales

I. Prelude

Track length3:19

$1.00

$1.30

II. March

Track length2:32

$1.00

$1.30

Easdale: Adventure On! Suite

Work length19:08

$5.00

$6.50

Rumon Gamba, BBC National Orchestra of Wales

I. Prelude and Pastorale

Track length5:42

$1.00

$1.30

II. Intermezzo and Dance (Africa)

Track length2:28

$1.00

$1.30

III. Barcarolle and Sultan's Fanfare (Aden)

Track length3:03

$1.00

$1.30

IV. Pastorale and Lullaby (India)

Track length3:50

$1.00

$1.30

V. Finale Progress (Malaya to Fiji)

Track length4:05

$1.00

$1.30

Easdale: Gone to Earth Suite

Work length14:48

$7.00

$9.10

Rumon Gamba, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC National Chorus of Wales, Adrian Partington

I. Titles

Track length1:33

$1.00

$1.30

II. The Hunt of the Death Pack

Track length1:41

$1.00

$1.30

III. The Prayer

Track length1:10

$1.00

$1.30

IV. The Shropshire County Fair

Track length1:47

$1.00

$1.30

V. Hunter's Spinney

Track length3:03

$1.00

$1.30

VI. Undern Morning

Track length2:18

$1.00

$1.30

VII. Finale

Track length3:16

$1.00

$1.30

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About

Brian Easdale was a prolific composer whose extensive output covered most genres, from orchestral pieces, concertos, and choral works, including a mass for the new Coventry Cathedral, to chamber compositions.

Part of Chandos’ film music series with Rumon Gamba, the works on this release showcase Easdale’s career in film with music from, among others, The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, and The Battle of the River Plate.

In his youth, Easdale attended the Royal College of Music, where he studied composition with such prominent figures as Cecil Armstrong Gibbs and Gordon Jacob, conducting with Malcolm Sargent, and organ with Arnold Goldsborough. As a jobbing musician he undertook arranging projects, working most notably on such scores by Benjamin Britten as the Soirées musicales and the Piano Concerto. He also orchestrated Britten’s On the Frontier for a production at the Arts Theatre in Cambridge in 1939, before spending much of the war in Ceylon and India working on documentaries for their governments’ film units. Returning to Britain in 1946, he was invited by British film-makers, The Archers, to write an exotic dance for Jean Simmons to perform in their forthcoming film, Black Narcissus, and ended up composing the whole score. The film is a veritable masterpiece of melodrama with highly dramatic music to match.

The involvement of Easdale in Black Narcissus effectively launched his career in film music and led him to other projects, most notably The Red Shoes (1948) for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Music Score. This is one of the most iconoclastic films in the Pantheon of British Cinema. Given a highly atmospheric score, the film concerns a travelling ballet company and tells the story of a young hopeful ballerina, catapulted into stardom and wrestling with her love for a composer and the pull of her career. In the end it becomes too much of a fight and while on tour with the company in Monte Carlo, she leaps to her death.

The Battle of the River Plate (1956) is also worth a separate mention. A semi-documentary account of the trapping of the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee in Montevideo harbour, and her subsequent scuttling, the film was commercially very successful. The two movements recorded here are the Prelude (heard over the main titles and opening scene with narration) and a March, the concert version of which was created by Easdale after the film’s release.

Reviews

this excellent CD puts [Easdale] back where he belongs, in the top rank of film composers...The young voices of the BBC National Chorus of Wales add a vivid and dynamic dimension to both of these scores. Rumon Gamba conducts Easdale's music with a blazing conviction that entices the listener back to the films themselves.

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