The Stories of Movie Music with Mark Kermode – Symphony Hall, Birmingham

Conductor: Robert Ziegler

Usually, when you go to an evening of music billed as ‘Movie Music’, you pretty much know what to expect – crowd‑pleasing tunes that we can all hum along to, the likes of Hedwig’s Theme or Star Wars’ Imperial March, with a well‑known TV personality providing the links. The Stories of Movie Music is quite different in its curation. It’s based on a book: Mark Kermode’s Surround Sound: The Stories of Movie Music, and its co‑authors, Kermode and radio producer Jenny Nelson, are here to guide us through the programme. It feels a little bit like an illustrated lecture on film music – especially given the well‑attended pre‑concert talk from Kermode and Nelson – but the evening works, and we end up both entertained and informed. And it does include works by John Williams and Hans Zimmer and at least one, according to Kermode, “bangin’ tune”.

Conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) tonight is Robert Ziegler, who has plenty of experience in film music and joins in the dialogue with Kermode and Nelson, discussing, for example, the unusual time signature of the theme to Mission: Impossible.

After Zimmer’s Gladiator Suite, a piece full of atmosphere and mood swings and played superbly by the CBSO, Kermode muses on the beginnings of film music – even silent films had a musical accompaniment, after all – and we’re introduced to Introduction and Premier Tableau from L’Assassinat du Duc de Guise, the very first, it would seem, bespoke piece of film music which was written by Camille Saint‑Saëns for the 1908 film and which, according to his biographer, he “worked out scene‑by‑scene before the screen”. It has an atmospheric beginning, followed by changes of mood, including stirring use of brass and percussion and some repeated themes, though one doesn’t quite get a cinematic feel – but perhaps we can forgive Saint‑Saëns that.

Another classic of the silent era follows: the Gold Rush Overture, written by Max Terr for the 1942 re‑release of Charlie Chaplin’s 1925 silent film. There’s an interesting anecdote from Kermode here on the only competitive Oscar won by Chaplin, awarded in 1971 for the music from Limelight, which was actually made in 1951.

This is an evening that delights in firsts: Nelson tells us that the first woman to be credited with scoring a film’s music was Doreen Carwithen, and we are treated to her overture from The Men of Sherwood Forest (1947), which is unmistakably English in feel, with a gentle pastoral start. What is surprising, though one might plausibly argue not at all surprising, is that the first female Oscar winner for a film score wasn’t until 50 years later – Rachel Portman for Emma – and we are treated to her end‑titles piece with its almost dance‑like feeling. What is equally (un)surprising is that since 1997, only two further women have won the Oscar for Original Score: Anne Dudley for Elle and Hildur Guðnadóttir for Joker, and we hear pieces from both prizewinning scores

Guðnadóttir’s Suite from Joker is really quite disturbing – and just one of the pieces this evening to include a moving cello solo from Miwa Rosso. Another first that we hear comes from Pinar Toprak, the first woman to score a superhero movie, with her Captain Marvel theme.

That’s not to say that the evening is a dry academic exercise – the “banger” alluded to is none other than the Mission: Impossible theme, to which it’s almost impossible to sit still, and we also have themes from The Lord of the Rings, ET  and Jaws. Kermode and Zeigler share an anecdote about how, despite the pretty much perfect match of sound to visuals, Maurice Jarre was not the first choice to score Lawrence of Arabia. Nor the second. And not even the third. The CBSO goes on to show how serendipitous it was that David Lean finally listened to Jarre’s offering and gave him the job.

A lesser‑known score is perhaps Jonny Greenwood’s for There Will Be Blood; it certainly doesn’t match the sweeping orchestration we might expect, with violas played rhythmically with guitar plectrums and the strings on the double bass struck flat‑handed. It nevertheless drives tension in a similar way to the screeching strings of Psycho, scored by Bernard Herrmann, which follows it in tonight’s programme.

The evening ends with The Name’s Bond… James Bond from Casino Royale, a reworking by David Arnold of Monty Norman’s theme, in which the electric guitar riff, while present, is largely buried in the whole. It’s not clear, at least to this reviewer, whether that was a rare mis‑step in an otherwise triumphant evening or a positive decision by Arnold.

Overall, a fine evening’s music played, as always, impeccably by the CBSO – a mix of the familiar and the less well‑known – but one that leaves us with lots to think about as we depart.

Reviewed on 7 February 2026