The conductor John Wilson though comparatively young has had a distinguished career conducting many orchestras. He has conducted classical repertoire on many occasions, but his speciality is very much in the sphere of musicals, film music and British light music. He last appeared as conductor at the BBC Proms in August 2023 with his orchestra the "Sinfonia of London" playing music by Lili Boulanger, Rachmaninov and Walton. The name "Sinfonia of London" has long been associated with Film Music, though this is now the 3rd orchestra to carry the name, and it too is comparatively young. It was founded by Wilson in 2018, and made up of carefully selected musicians from other orchestras and groups. Although they play the occasional concert, such as the Prom concert mentioned, the Sinfonia is primarily a recording orchestra making albums with Wilson for the Chandos label. This latest album called "Hollywood Soundstage" has music from the Golden Age of Cinema covering films from the the 1930s through to 1965, and the CD booklet has some period photos of film recording sessions.
You've got to admire the dogged attention to detail when the booklet follows classical programme note practice of including the tempo indications of movements, even though that can mean 30 or more tempo changes (or metronome markings) in the case of film music suites! However it is good to see that the attention to detail carries throughout the production, including naming the orchestrators (with luminaries such as Hugo Friedhofer and Alexander Courage) who helped to create the original scores. The album's first track is the overture from 1939's "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex" where Bette Davis plays Elizabeth I and Errol Flynn her amour the Earl of Essex. The composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold is as highly regarded for his classical music as his film music, and he was among several European composers who were enticed to come to Hollywood by the burgeoning film industry. The Overture puts together a range of music from the film, from fanfares and marches to the expansive love theme. This Mahlerian style of music from the late Romantic era was a perfect fit for this type of grand passionate movie, and largely cemented the sound of Golden Age cinema.
David Raksin was another major player from the early days of film music, indeed he assisted Charlie Chaplin with his music for "Modern Times". In later years he passed on his experience when he taught his craft to student film composers. The album's 2nd track track is Raksin's theme from "Laura" which is one of his best-loved scores. The theme is part mystery and part love-theme as befits a film noir, and permeates the movie in various guises like an obsession. With lyrics by Johnny Mercer the theme was later turned into a highly-successful song. "The Wizard of Oz" needs no introduction, though here we focus on the orchestral score by Herbert Stothart based in part on the well-known songs by composer Harold Arlen and Edgar Y. Harburg. The music is cartoonish as you would expect, but covers a lot of ground in a wonderfully entertaining way. The 4th track comes from the musical "My Fair Lady" and includes "Transylvanian March" and "Embassy Waltz" by Frederick Lowe. The March serves as a brief introduction to the Waltz which is very much in the Viennese tradition of the Strauss family. The CD booklet recounts how Julie Andrews made a major success in the central part for the stage musical, but was dropped from the film and replaced by Audrey Hepburn, before getting her revenge when her role in "Mary Poppins" enabled her to beat her replacement to the Best Actress awards at both the Oscars and the Golden Globes.
We then have a Suite from Max Steiner's "Now, Voyager" score, the album's longest track. Steiner was another European schooled composer who moved to Hollywood, and his prolific output includes iconic films such as "King Kong" and "Casablanca". "Now, Voyager" starring Bette Davis has a complex plot and this is reflected in the moods and swings of the music. There is a main theme albeit not overly used and some passionate full-on orchestral scoring, though much of the music is quite light and delicate showing off Steiner's orchestration skills. The composer even presents some latin-inspired source music. "The Sandpiper" (starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton) is represented by Johnny Mandel's Main Title which became something of a standard especially on trumpet, the composer's own instrument. The theme's gentle jazz was later turned into the song "The Shadow of Your Smile".
With "Rebecca" Franz Waxman (yet another European composer tempted by the prospect of Hollywood) shows off his grand dramatic chops, as he follows the complex plot twists and turns while the heroine played by Joan Fontaine is put through the emotional wringer. Being based on a Daphne du Maurier story, things are not as straightforward as they initially seem. Waxman's score is sometimes tender but there is the occasional eerieness of 2 electronic "novachords" representing a continuing ghostly presence. With dramatic climaxes the music reaches emotional peaks verging on horror. The album's final track is rightly by Alfred Newman. He was the supremo of the music department at 20th Century Fox who wrote the fanfare you will hear on the studio's films, and he also hired and encouraged lots of composers in the film industry. The track is a Suite from a 1931 film called "Street Scene" and its confident sometimes jazzy Gershwinisms will feel strangely familiar. Newman used and adapted this music in a number of his film scores, a practice followed by several film composers at the time.
It's impossible to summarise the music of the Golden Age of Cinema, but this album as a whole comes close to achieving that impossible task. It is wonderfully realised by John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London, and covers a diverse range of some of the industry's key composers at that time. Wilson's intention is not so much to provide a historical record, but to entertain his audience whether film music aficionados or complete soundtrack novices. The album is available from these links at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com. The Hybrid SA-CD format gives enhanced sound quality if you have the right kit, but in my experience plays fine in a normal CD player.
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