I've just been listening to a splendid CD of the complete music that Vaughan Williams composed for the film Scott of the Antarctic. There have been selections from the film issued before, including all the music on the soundtrack conducted by Robert Irving, but Martin Yates has gone back to the original manuscripts and done a full reconstruction.
I'm usually a bit wary of film music compilations, often finding them scrappy and inadequate without the screen images, but not so here. There's 80 minute's worth of music, about half of which was used in the final film.VW actually wrote the complete score some time before he had seen any rushes, with just a copy of The Worst Journey in the World and a script synopsis, but nearly all of it proved ideal!
In performance the work is an extended symphonic poem, with perhaps the slight feel of the Alpensinfonie about it. The performance by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra sounds great, and the recording under Yates is superb> I do miss a couple of things which appeared later in the Sinfonia Antartica, notably the wonderful tam tam crash and the entry of the full organ, but you can't have everything!
I have to declare an interest here. I carried memories of this music in my head on two visits to the Antarctic, once on a converted Russian research vessel, and once on an icebreaker the Khapitan Klebnikov. These trips were wonderful examples of international collaboration, with a Russian crew and American technical advisors and guides. We were able to go ashore at South Georgia, visit Shackleton's grave and stand on a plain with 200,000 pairs of King penguins before
voyaging down the Peninsula.
My second trip was from New Zealand right down to the Ross Sea, visiting Scott's hut and seeing numerous whales. In fact we travelled further south than Amundsen did in the Fram, because the ice has retreated since he was first at the Pole.
Would I go again? Yes,if at all possible. It was a life changing experience, meanwhile there's the music to invoke memories, plus almost too many photos!
I strongly recommend this CD it's on Dutton Epoch, they don't seem to be reviewed very often for some reason.
I'm usually a bit wary of film music compilations, often finding them scrappy and inadequate without the screen images, but not so here. There's 80 minute's worth of music, about half of which was used in the final film.VW actually wrote the complete score some time before he had seen any rushes, with just a copy of The Worst Journey in the World and a script synopsis, but nearly all of it proved ideal!
In performance the work is an extended symphonic poem, with perhaps the slight feel of the Alpensinfonie about it. The performance by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra sounds great, and the recording under Yates is superb> I do miss a couple of things which appeared later in the Sinfonia Antartica, notably the wonderful tam tam crash and the entry of the full organ, but you can't have everything!
I have to declare an interest here. I carried memories of this music in my head on two visits to the Antarctic, once on a converted Russian research vessel, and once on an icebreaker the Khapitan Klebnikov. These trips were wonderful examples of international collaboration, with a Russian crew and American technical advisors and guides. We were able to go ashore at South Georgia, visit Shackleton's grave and stand on a plain with 200,000 pairs of King penguins before
voyaging down the Peninsula.
My second trip was from New Zealand right down to the Ross Sea, visiting Scott's hut and seeing numerous whales. In fact we travelled further south than Amundsen did in the Fram, because the ice has retreated since he was first at the Pole.
Would I go again? Yes,if at all possible. It was a life changing experience, meanwhile there's the music to invoke memories, plus almost too many photos!
I strongly recommend this CD it's on Dutton Epoch, they don't seem to be reviewed very often for some reason.
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