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The Ladykillers

Alan Cuckston

Label: Silva Screen
Catalogue No: FILMCD 177

Release Date: 1997

Total Duration: 60:36

Royal Ballet Sinfonia cunducted by Kenneth Alwyn

The Ladykillers - Music from Those Glorious Ealing Films


The recordings of the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, conducted by Kenneth Alwyn, playing music from a dozen Ealing films made between 1946 and 1956, feature three scores by Alan Rawsthorne — The Captive Heart (1946), Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948), and The Cruel Sea (1952). These are interspersed between other works by Frankel, Auric, Schurmann, Ireland, Tristram Cary and Ernest Irving. Another important name in the project is Philip Lane, who not only acted as Producer for the recording sessions, but, owing to the destruction of much of the original material, scored up the pieces from sound tracks by ear, or from a few surviving sketches. The results make 'The Ladykillers' a most attractive and enjoyable CD, all the music, except the John Ireland, receiving its premiere in this format.


Our principal focus of interest in this journal is the three short extracts of Rawsthorne's work. They must serve as a taster for what I hope will one day be an entire record selected from his film scores, about whose quality such a distinguished authority as Hans Keller has left us in no doubt, and upon which wider subject you will find another article in this issue of The Creel, from the pen of John Belcher.


Of the three Ealing pictures featured on this CD, the earliest is The Captive Heart. The composer himself made a version of The Prisoners' March, as here played. There had apparently been plans for Decca to issue a recording of it, under Muir Matheson, in the late 'forties, but this came to nothing. It is a locus classicus of all that we identify in the composer's style at this time: the lean two-part textures with their melo/bass tension, the Hindmithian neo-baroque use of trills in the principle line, the rather melancholy minor key tendency, the orchestral means economic and effective (this 'March' drawing to a close with a solo clarinet and solitary drum). The original movie is spoken of as the finest POW film ever made. Certainly, Rawsthorne's contributions are most distinguished, and help to provide the atmosphere so well summarised in David Wishart's sleeve notes. (He sums up each plot, and every musical excerpt, most succinctly) — "there is a solemn ennobling here — symphonic laurels for the valiantly defeated."


Responsibility for the arranging and orchestration of the Saraband for Dead Lovers track here belongs to Rawsthorne's pupil, Gerard Schurmann. The composer took, as the principal musical inspiration for a picture set in the court of the Elector of Hanover in the late 17th century, the popular Renaissance ground-bass known as 'La Follia', which attracted composers from Corelli to Rachmaninov. The connection of Corelli with the Hanovarian court has been questioned. But the Sarabande rhythm favoured by Rawsthorne here was much employed by Handel, whose relationship with the elector is well-known. Indeed, Rawsthorne's evocation of the Baroque concentrates on aspects other than the bass: the altering major and minor 7th of B minor are sounded over a pedal-point whilst melodic motifs echo Corelli's Violin Sonata. (La Follia's chord sequences are heard in a vocal version in the course of the film score). (1) (Schurmann's own score for The Man in the Sky also features on this disc. Rawsthorne 'flavours' surface here and there, as in the reflective intermezzo, and his decorative baroque-style virtuoso `Divisions' for trumpet "heralding the sheer exuberance of flying" are reminiscent of those in Saraband for Dead Lovers).


It is difficult to understand Ealing's choice of this tale involving the dynastic aspirations and machinations of a German prince, other than as a romantic vehicle for Joan Greenwood and Stewart Granger, who enact an illicit relationship. Certainly it would have served to remind us how German history intertwined with our own.


One of its most memorable juxtapositions of music and cinematic image occurs in the selection here recorded. For Greenwood to keep her tryst with Granger she must run the gauntlet of a street carnival. It is a kind of nightmarish Freudian masquerade, a rapid succession of conjurers, fire-eaters, grotesques and circus freaks in orgiastic colours (this was Ealing's first Technicolor venture). There is rhythmic asymmetry, and much percussion, which culminates in her hysterical pounding on his door. Curiously, this new performance, for all its pristine clarity, does not seem to have, in my memory, quite the exciting edge of the original track, where it was conducted by Ernest Irving.


The Rawsthorne idiom was an inspired choice for underlining the fate of these doomed lovers, and generally works well in brief phrases. Occasionally, a little meanly truncated in the cutting, they are sometimes terminated in the original score, let it be said, with a rather mannered cliché.


By contrast, the dynamism of his highly energised rhythmic writing, as in the Carnival episode, is extremely exciting. A similar moment occurs in The Captive Heart, as the prisoners greet the arrival of their Red Cross parcels. There are even episodes of piano playing mimed by the actor Derek Bond, both in the domestic drawing-room and in the prisoners' camp hut, which seem to bring us most personally in touch with AR himself. Suddenly one is aware of an almost tangible presence, as if he sits improvising at the keyboard in his most inimitable style. (The player was actually Irene Kohler).


With The Cruel Sea we reach the latest of the films on this disc to feature a Rawsthorne score, and presumably one of the last conducted by Ernest Irving (1878-1953). There can be no underestimating of the importance of Irving in the history of British film music. He it was who encouraged Georges Auric, the only French composer heard on this record, to go in for film composition. I imagine he brought in his own contemporary, John Ireland, too, from whose Overlanders music we also hear an excerpt (Alan Rawsthorne also assisted in this score). Irving gave commissions to the youngest heard here, Tristram Cary, (b.1925), whose Ladykillers music is presented with its original jubilant finale restored. Irving's own score for Whisky Galore reveals an infectious rhythmic propulsion in the Scottish taste; for Kind Hearts and Coronets he borrows from Mozart (as does Auric, but comically, in The Titfield Thunderbolt).


It is not surprising to learn that The Cruel Sea, from its repeated TV screenings around the world, is Rawsthorne's biggest earner in terms of royalties. The story of the corvette Compass Rose in wartime convoy has something of an epic Greek quality. Its concentration on an almost sacred all-male world, with the David and Jonathan relationship of Captain and 'No.1', Jack Hawkins and Donald Sinden, seems also quintessentially British.


Rawsthorne's musical contributions are spare and always telling. One would love to know precisely what his brief was. Was he a free agent, judging the exact moment where his own work was needed? Or was it so many guineas a minute?


Philip Lane's selection of The Cruel Sea music presents Rawsthorne's admirably fashioned two principal subjects (indeed, they could almost be a symphony's first and second themes). These may be taken to represent the stoicism of the men 'doing their duty' in time of war, and in the face of the enemy, by contrast with their more tender humanity, their concern for their mates.


The fanfare-like opening motif, outlining the B flat minor triad in dotted rhythm, recurs at various points in the picture in several transpositions and transformations. The orchestration ranges from full orchestral brass, with prominent tuba, and harp glissandi, down to the characteristic solo woodwind voices of oboe and bassoon. Open fifths from the strings float out some reminiscence of a Debussy 'Nocturne', or La Mer. (What an influence on subsequent sea music that has been! — it can be heard too in Clifton Parker's fine score for Western Approaches, some years earlier than The Cruel Sea, though Parker does not have anything like Rawsthorne's individual sound).


Apart from the fascination of these Rawsthorne excerpts, the record also offers such delights as another remarkable musical invocation of a steam train to add to those of Villa-Lobos, Britten, Vivien Ellis, et. al., in the shape of Georges Auric's Titfield Thunderbolt. The delicious instrumentation and Gallic wit of the same composer's Passport to Pimlico, with its strutting quotations of French melody (Pimlico, is, after all, historically part of Burgundy!) reveal tinges of Poulenc, Auric's own exact contemporary.


Ben Frankel's The Man in a White Suit reminds us of yet another fine composer of Rawsthorne's generation. His modern mechanistic rhythms communicate the clacking of the looms in Scottish textile factories with a telling clarity. My only slight cavil in listening to these film scores concerns certain sections of The Ladykillers, where the music seems too literally to mimic the screen action, cartoon-like. This becomes slightly tiresome.


Alan Cuckston was born near Leeds and read Music at King's College, Cambridge, where he was a pupil of Thurston Dart. He successfully auditioned for the BBC as a keyboard soloist and joined the staff of the Music Department at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts at the University of Birmingham.

For the past twenty five years he has been a freelance player, with some specialisation in early keyboard instruments - harpsichord, organ and fortepiano. He has given concerts in many parts of Europe and North America and has toured as harpsichordist with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and as organist with Pro Cantione Antigua.

Alan Cuckston has made recordings of an extensive repertoire of music, ranging from the middle ages to the present day. In recent years he has released harpsichord music by Handel, Rameau and Couperin on Naxos and the complete piano music of Alan Rawsthorne (also the complete music for violin and piano and a selection of songs) on Swinsty Records.


Notes


  1. Alan Cuckston accompanies Sandra Dugdale in a recording of this, 'Saraband', on Swinsty FEW 120 (Piano Music & Songs by Rawsthorne).

Publication: The Creel, Volume 3, Number 5, Issue Number 12, Spring I998

Publisher: Alan Rawsthorne Society and The Rawsthorne Trust

Copyright © 1998, by The Rawsthorne Trust. All rights reserved.

Text reproduced by kind permission of the Rawsthorne Trust

by Pascal Dupont 10 May, 2024
Charles Allan Gerhardt English version adapted by Doug Raynes - FRENCH VERSION AND COLLECTION had a reputation as a great conductor, record producer and musical arranger. His major work at RCA on the Classic Film Scores series earned him recognition from film music devotees of Hollywood’s Golden Age, as well as other renowned conductors of his day. Born on February 6, 1927 in Detroit, Michigan, Charles Gerhardt developed a passion for music and percussion instruments from an early age. At the age of five, he took piano lessons, and by the age of nine, had established a solid reputation as an orchestrator and composer. He spent his early school years in Little Rock, Arkansas, then after 10 years, having completed his schooling, moved with his family to Illinois for his military duties, he served in the U.S. Navy during World War II as a chaplain's aide in the Aleutian Islands, then became an active member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He went on to study at the University of Illinois, at the College of William and Mary, and later at the University of Southern California. Throughout his time at school Gerhardt was attracted not only to music, but also to the sciences. Passionate about the art of recording, he joined Westminster Records for five years, until the company ceased operations, and then joined Bell Sound. One day, he received a phone call from George Marek to meet with the heads of Reader's Digest, to discuss producing recordings for their mail-order record business; a contact that was to secure his musical future and a rich career spanning more than 30 years. Gerhardt's first job for Reader's Digest was to produce a record; “A Festival of Light Classical Music”; a 12 LP box set that he produced in full. One of Gerhardt's finest projects was the production of another 12 LP box set, “Les Trésores de la Grande Musique (Treasury of Great Music)”, featuring the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by some of the leading figures of the day: Charles Munch to Bizet and Tchaikovsky, Rudolf Kempe to Strauss and Respighi, Josef Krips to Mozart and Haydn, Antal Dorati to Strauss and Berlioz, Brahms 4th Symphony by Fritz Reiner and Sibelius’ 2nd Symphony by Sir John Barbirolli. In the 1950s he conducted works by Vladimir Horowitz, Wanda Landowska, Kirsten Flagstad and William Kapeli. In the early 1960s, Gerhardt lived in England, where he made most of his recordings, but kept a foothold in the United States, mainly in New York. Often, when he went to the United States after a period of recording sessions, he would stop off in Baltimore and spend some time listening to cassettes of his new recordings. Gerhardt loved percussion instruments, especially tam-tams. One of his favorite recordings was the Columbia mono disc of Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy, with Dimitri Mitropoulos and the New York Philharmonic. He had great admiration and respect for the many conductors he worked with, starting with Arturo Toscanini, with whom he worked for several years before the Maestro's death. It was Toscanini who suggested that Gerhardt become a conductor, which he did! His career as an orchestra director began when he had to replace a conductor who failed to show up for rehearsals. It was a position he would later occupy for various recording sessions and occasional concerts. His classical recordings include works by Richard Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Ravel, Debussy, Walton and Howard Hanson. Hired by RCA Records, he transferred 78 rpm recordings of Enrico Caruso and other artists to 33 rpm. He took part in recordings by soprano singer Kirsten Flagstad and pianist Vladimir Horowitz. He worked with renowned conductors such as Fritz Reiner, Leopold Stokowski and Charles Munch, from whom he learned the tricks of the trade. Still at RCA, he assisted Arturo Toscanini, with whom he perfected his conducting skills. Then, in 1960, he produced recordings for RCA and Reader’s Digest in London, and joined forces with sound engineer Kenneth Wilkinson of Decca Records (RCA's European subsidiary), The two men got on very well and shared a passion for recording and sound quality, making an incredible number of recordings over a 30-year period. Also in 1960, RCA and Reader's Digest entrusted him with the production of a 12-disc LP box set entitled “ Lumière du Classique (A Festival of Light Classical Music) ”, sold exclusively by mail order. With a budget of $250,000, Gerhardt assumed total control of the project: repertoire, choice of orchestras and production. He recorded in London, Vienna and Paris, and hired such top names as Sir Adrian Boult, Massimo Freccia, Sir Alexander Gibson and René Leibowitz. The success of this project, in terms of both musical quality and sound, earned him recognition from his employers. Other projects of similar scope followed… A boxed set of Beethoven's symphonic works with René Leibowitz and The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. A boxed set of Rachmaninoff's works for piano and orchestra with Earl Wild, Jascha Horenstein and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the above mentioned 12 LP disc set “Trésor de la Grande Musique (Treasury of Great Music)” with the Royal Philharmonic conducted by some of the greatest directors of the time: Fritz Reiner, Charles Munch, Rudolf Kempe, Sir John Barbirolli, Sir Malcolm Sargent, Antal Dorati and Jascha Horenstein, with whom Gerhardt had sympathized. In January 1964 in London, Gerhardt joined forces with Sidney Sax, instrumentalist and conductor, to form a freelance orchestra. This successful group went on to join the National Philharmonic Orchestra of London, an impressive line-up that would later become Jerry Goldsmith's orchestra of choice. With Peter Munves, head of RCA's classical division, he conceived the idea of recording an album devoted exclusively to the film music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, one of his favorite composers. Enthusiastic about the project, Munves gave Gerhardt carte blanche, and was offered a helping hand by George Korngold, producer and son of the famous Viennese composer, who owned all the copies of his father's scores. The Adventure Began : The Sea Hawk: Classic Film Scores of Erich Wolfgang Korngold. For this first disc, Gerhardt selected 10 scores by Korngold, which he recorded in the Kingsway Hall Studio in London, renowned for its excellent acoustics. The disc thus benefits from optimal recording conditions, favoring at the same time the performances of the National Philharmonic (and its leader, Sidney Sax), a formidable orchestra made up of London's finest musicians and freelance soloists. Each album was recorded in the same studio, with Kenneth Wilkinson as sound engineer and George Korngold as consultant/producer. As soon as it was released, the album's success received strong acclaim in classical music circles and received a feature in Billboard No. 37, a first in this category in December 1972. It took no less than a year to sell the first 10,000 copies in all the specialist record suppliers and the album went on to sell over 38,000 copies, making it the fifth best-selling album in the “classical” category in 1973. On the strength of this success, Peter Munves and RCA entrusted Charles Gerhardt with the production of further discs devoted to other world-renowned composers of Hollywood music. The program includes several albums dedicated to Max Steiner and Erich Wolfgang Korngold plus one each to Miklos Rozsa, Franz Waxman, Dimitri Tiomkin and Bernard Herrmann, followed by 3 volumes associated with specific film stars such as Bette Davis, Errol Flynn and Humphrey Bogart. Then, a disc devoted to Alfred Newman, a composer who was a pillar of the famous Hollywood sound, who Gerhardt admired and had met: “Newman was a charming man, full of good humor. He was friendly, fun and always had a joke. With his eternal black cigar in hand, he was a composer by trade, down-to-earth, discussed little about himself but was a first-rate advisor in my life. “ Gerhardt would consult certain composers in advance about how to recreate suites from their works, or when this wasn't possible, he would rearrange the suites himself and submit them to the composers for approval. "Some critics complained that my suites were too short, but my aim in the case of each album was to present a well-split 'portrait' of the composer, highlighting his many creative facets". Although Korngold, Newman and Steiner were no longer around to lend their support, Gerhardt was lucky enough to still work with Herrmann, Rózsa and Tiomkin as consultants who turned up at the recording studio to lend a hand. Gerhardt also had the idea of creating albums focusing on a single film star. Three specific volumes were devoted to music from the films of Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn and Bette Davis. Although these albums suffer from too great a diversity of genres, they still offer the chance to hear and discover rare and previously unpublished compositions. The best conceived album was arguably the one devoted to Bette Davis. Conscious of the important role played by music in her films, the legendary actress took part in the conception of the album, knowing that it favored scores by Max Steiner designed for Warner Bros. The Collection Begins ! Gerhardt's passion for certain composers knows no bounds, but he soon envisages a disc devoted to Miklos Rozsa, including suites for “Spellbound” and “The Red House”, one of his favorite scores, which he will exhume to create one of the longest suites in the series. At the same time, he received various fan wish lists and films to watch, such as “The Four Feathers”, which he had never seen and which gave him the opportunity to discover a splendid score by Miklos Rozsa that he had never heard before. He was disappointed, however, not to be able to conceive a longer “Spellbound” sequel for rights reasons. Despite RCA's full approval, Gerhardt realized that it was not easy to record film music in its original form, as few were ever edited, played and made available for rental. For The Sea Hawks album, things were simpler, as Georges Korngold had copies of his father's scores, and Warner Bros had also archived material in good condition. From the outset, Gerhardt encountered other major problems in the search for and discovery of scores hidden away in other studios, often with the unpleasant surprise of discovering missing or incomplete conductors, or others heavily modified by orchestrators during recording sessions, or the surprise of discovering, in certain cases, instrumentation information noted in shorthand on the edges of the conductor score. For the disc dedicated to Max Steiner, for example, the conductor score for “King Kong” had disappeared from the RKO archives, having been shipped in 1950 to poorly maintained warehouses in Los Angeles where it had become totally degraded and illegible. With the help of Georges Korngold, Gerhardt was able to reconstruct a substantial suite from the piano models left by Steiner at the time. This experience was repeated when the conductor score for Dimitri Tiomkin's “The Thing” was discovered in the same warehouse, in an advanced state of disintegration. Fortunately for Gerhardt, Tiomkin, who was still alive, had been able to provide precise piano maquettes with orchestration information in shorthand, revealing a complex and highly innovative style of writing. Tiomkin always composed at the piano, inscribing very specific information and signs on the edges of the scores in pencil, an ingenious system of his own invention that was difficult to decipher. “Revisiting the score of ‘The Thing from Another World’ was a complex task, involving experimental passages and an unorthodox orchestra. You can understand that I had a huge job on my hands. When I approached the recording sessions, it was not without some trepidation. However, the composer present made no criticism or comment on my work, and was delighted. He was delighted.” For “Gone With The Wind”, Steiner was against the idea of remaking a complete soundtrack, as he felt that too many passages were repeated. It was an opportunity for him to revisit his own score, integrating his favorite melodies. This synthesis gave him the opportunity to revitalize his music by eliminating the least interesting parts of the score. Conceived as long suites or isolated themes, the discs reflect the essence of the composers' work. The “Classic Film Scores” series by Franz Waxman, Bernard Herrmann and Miklos Rozsa etc will become a big hit with collectors. For Gerhardt, this will be an opportunity to unearth forgotten or rare scores such as Herrmann's “The White Witch” and “On a Dangerous Ground”, Hugo Friedhofer's “The Sun Also Rises” and early recordings for Waxman's “Prince Valliant” and Rozsa's “The Red House”, all with new, impeccable acoustics. For “Elisabeth and Essex”, Erich Korngold had already prepared a suite in the form of an Overture, which was given its world premiere in a theater. The suite for “The Adventures of Robin Hood” also pre-existed. Franz Waxman created his own suite for “A Place in the Sun”, which was also performed in concert. Dimitri Tiomkin, Miklos Rozsa and Bernard Herrmann acted as consultants and contributed arrangements to their scores. For the continuation of “White Witch Doctor”, Bernard Herrman added percussion to link the different musical tableaux. He did the same for the different parts of “Citizen Kane”. Miklos Rozsa saw an opportunity to add a male choir to the suite from “The Jungle Book”, based on an idea by Charles Gerhardt. For the record dedicated to Errol Flynn, Gerhardt re-orchestrated the theme “The Lights of Paris” from Hugo Friedhofer's “The Sun also Rises”, as the original was no longer available. “I wanted to go back to that time and systematically explore the very substance of the great film scores of the late 30s and 40s, sending them back directly to their images as dramatic entities. The desire to rediscover tunes we know and to take into account the contexts in which they were originally used. I decided to recreate these scores with their original orchestrations, and this could only be done by returning to the ultimate sources, as the composers had originally conceived them.” Keen to open up the collection to other genres, such as science fiction, Gerhardt dedicated two further albums to the series in 1992. The first featured contemporary sequels to “Star Wars” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, promoting the work of John Williams, a leading composer of new film music. Then another called “The Spectacular World of Classic Film Scores”, presenting a disappointing compilation of scores that had already been recorded, except for the creation of a sequel to Dimitri Tiomkin's “The Thing From Another World” and Daniele Amfitheatrof's rarely heard theme “Dance of the Seven Voiles” from Salome. In 1978, the collection was published in Spain by RCA Cinema Treasures. In the USA and Europe, the Classic Film Scores LP series was reissued in the early 80s with a black art deco cover and colored star index. All Volumes in the First Series Were Reissued : By the end of the '80s, the series was running out of steam, and Charles Gerhardt planned to relaunch his collection with albums dedicated to famous American actresses, a new volume for Max Steiner and the Western, a volume reconstructing the score of Waxman's “The Bride of Frankenstein”, followed by volumes devoted to Alex North, Hugo Friedhofer, Victor Young and Elmer Bernstein... But RCA would not support Gerhardt in these projects, preferring to release the collection on CD for the first time. In early 1990, RCA asked Gerhardt to supervise and co-produce the collection, which he saw as an opportunity to revisit some of the volumes, inserting tracks that had not appeared on the LPs or extending certain suites. The volume devoted to Franz Waxman, “Sunset Boulevard”, was the first to be released. The CD did not benefit from any particular promotion, but sold very well, as did the other CDs that followed... A collection marked by a new design in silver pantone. The CDs series was reissued in 2010, still under the RCA Red Seal label, but distributed by Sony Music Entertainment. RCA Victor's Classic Films Scores series represents a unique collection in the history of film music recordings. 14 recordings of rare quality, produced by Georges Korngold and Charles Gerhardt to become one of the revelations of the reissue phenomenon. Other Concepts... Later, Gerhardt spent most of his time in London, continuing to make recordings. After retiring from RCA in 1986, he returned to independent work for Readers Digest and other record labels, a position he held in production and musical supervision until 1997. Since 1991 he had lived in Redding, California. In later years, he did not appear professionally, refusing all public invitations because of his desire to remain discreet. In his entourage he was close to three cousins, Lenore L Engel and Elizabeth Anne Schuetze, both living in San Antonio, and cousin Steven W Gerhardt of St. Pete Beach, Florida. In late November 1998 Charles Gerhardt was diagnosed with brain cancer and died of complications following surgery on February 22, 1999. He was 72 years old. Thus ends this tribute to Charles Gerhardt and the most famous collection of film music records: The Classic Film Scores series.
by Doug Raynes 24 Jan, 2024
Following on from Tadlow’s epic recording of El Cid, the same team – Nic Raine conducting and James Fitzpatrick producing – have turned their attention to a completely different type of epic film for the definitive recording of Ernest Gold’s Academy Award winning score for Otto Preminger’s Exodus (1960). The score is something of a revelation because aside from the main theme, the music has received little attention through recordings. Additionally the sound quality of the original soundtrack LP was disappointing and much music was deleted or cut from the film.
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