Conductor: Michael Seal
Our affable host for the evening, Tommy Pearson, announces that we comprise the largest audience that the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) has played for in over two years and there’s a palpable sigh from the crowded auditorium as the audience prepares to leave its worries outside and enjoy an 
escapist evening of music. And it certainly looks as if the entirety of the CBSO is present on a packed stage before us under the baton of conductor Michael Seal.
Many dismissed films with synchronised sound as a fad when Al Jolson memorably announced, ‘You ain’t heard nothing yet!’ in The Jazz Singer. But soon the stars of the silent screen would find they had to put up or, literally, shut up. The Talkies took over and it was quickly apparent that, as the silent accompanists always knew, the right music could enhance a scene and help to tell the story. This evening, the CBSO plays film music from most decades since, from Arthur Bliss’ march from Alexander Korda’s Things to Come in 1936 up to The La La Land suite by Justin Hurwitz from 2016. And while fashions in movie music might come and go, this evening certainly proves that a well-orchestrated score from a top orchestra is hard to beat.
It’s hard not to sing along to the over-the-top Twentieth Century Fox Fanfare that is, surely, the only choice to start such an evening. It’s quickly followed by the majestic Star Wars main theme from John Williams. This piece allows the CBSO to really show off their musicianship with its depth of sound and the balance between the strident horns of the martial march and the more gentle flowing strings. Of course, the matchless acoustics of Birmingham’s Symphony Hall help here and throughout the evening enabling all, wherever they may be seated, to clearly hear even the quietest note from the orchestra.
After most pieces, Pearson appears to offer titbits about the music and its place in movie history. He also invites the audience to tweet him with their reasons to be present this evening and there’s quite the mix of the heartwarming – for one toddler, it’s his first-ever concert – and the amusing – one teen was expecting a quite different gig for her birthday, it seems. What’s clear is that this entire audience is delighting in the comradeship with each other and the CBSO.
So by turns, we are transported to the rolling landscapes in John Barry’s Out of Africa main theme, Elmer Bernstein’s theme for The Magnificent Seven or Maurice Jarre’s Lawrence of Arabia theme; we find ourselves unbalanced by the indefinable creepiness of the jarring sequences of Bernard Herrman’s Vertigo: Prelude and stirred by the marches from Things To Come, The Dam Busters and Patrick Doyle’s St Crispin’s Day from Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V (to date the only film soundtrack recorded by the CBSO, back in 1989). In between, we are moved by Jonathan Martindale’s delicate violin playing of John Williams’ Schindler’s List theme as well as Emmet Byrne’s lilting oboe in Gabriel’s Oboe from The Mission by Ennio Morricone and John Williams’ Flying Theme from ET. And, of course, no celebration of film music would be complete without the classic James Bond theme from Monty Norman with its sweeping strings and electric guitar riff.
Throughout, Seal conducts sympathetically with quiet authority so that in a number of pieces, the orchestra is so unified that it feels like a single instrument under his expert hands. It’s a masterfully chosen programme, showing off the ability of the orchestra to manipulate emotions, which, let’s face it, is what film music is all about.
Reviewed on 25 February 2022
The Reviews Hub Score
Masterful
