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The Film Music of Brian Easdale


I just got my CD of The Film Music of Brian Easdale, as recorded by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales with the BBC National Chorus of Wales, and very good it is too
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004HEDG9W/papas-21

1. Ballet from "The Red Shoes (1948)"
Cynthia Millar on Ondes Martenot

2. Suite from "Kew Gardens (1936)"
For Chamber Orchestra

3. Suite from "Black Narcissus (1947)"
For Chorus and Orchestra
3.1 Main Titles and the Palace of Mopu
3.2 Irish Song
3.3 Sister Ruth and Mr Dean
3.4 Hunting Song
3.5 Death of Sister Ruth

4. Prelude and March from "The Battle of the River Plate (1956)"
For Orchestra
4.1 Prelude
4.2 March

5. Suite from "Adventure On! (1957)"
For Orchestra

6. Suite from "Gone to Earth (1950)"
For Chorus and Orchestra
6.1 Titles
6.2 The Hunt of the Death Pack
6.3 The Prayer
6.4 The Shropshire County Fair
6.5 Hunter's Spinney
6.6 Undern Morning
6.7 Finale

The ballet music from The Red Shoes isn't performed exactly the same as it is on the film, but it is from the original score. The differences are very minor and are just in a particular phrase here and there. They seem to have moved Cynthia and the Ondes more to the front than the Ondes was in the version recorded for the film. But that's all to the good as the version in the film doesn't make it obvious how much it's used.

There's a good booklet to go with it explaining (in English, German & French) about each film and giving a potted biography of Brian. It mentions quite a few of the other pieces he wrote that weren't included on the CD. Not just other film music like the soundtrack to Peeping Tom but also his chamber music and his opera.

Steve

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I assume that the original soundtrack recordings to many if not all of the P/P films are lost. If this is true (and is it?) this is a great loss. Of course, re-recordings by others can always be made, but there's nothing like having the actual music heard in the films. I'd especially like to have the original soundtracks of 49th Parallel, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, I Know Where I'm Going, A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes and The Battle of the River Plate.

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Most of them never existed as separate recordings, only ever as a soundtrack on the films. The only ones released as separate recordings at the time when the films were released are the soundtracks from the 3 "high art" films, The Red Shoes, The Tales of Hoffmann and Oh... Rosalinda!!. Of these, only The Red Shoes had original music by Brian Easdale.

See http://www.powell-pressburger.org/FAQ/FAQ28.html for all known details of separate recordings

Steve

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Interesting, though not really surprising. So no spearate recordings were made onto records at the studio sessions -- the music was simply recorded directly onto the films? I suppose then there'd be no separate music tracks. The three soundtracks that were released are from films which were all specifically concerned with music, of course, which makes their releases understandable.

Thank you, Steve.

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I'm in contact with Brian's family and they now have his scores. He did some other film music, some chamber music and an opera. We managed to get the ballet music from The Red Shoes played from the original scores at the BBC Proms in 2007. See http://www.powell-pressburger.org/Reviews/Easdale/Proms.html and then the CD by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales with the BBC National Chorus of Wales http://www.powell-pressburger.org/FAQ/FAQ28.html#BrianEasdale

We still hope to get some of his other work recorded and made publicly available. He deserves to be better known

Steve

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Interesting that most of his film scoring was for Powell. Did he not wish to concentrate primarily on film music, doing so only out of regard for Powell, or was Powell the only producer who really wanted to hire him? When Powell's film career wound down, so did Easdale's. Easdale was good enough that I'd have thought he could have had many more movie assignments than he had, for many other filmmakers, especially in the British film industry of the 40s and 50s, so I assume the relative paucity of film scores in his credits was mostly a matter of his personal choice.

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To be honest, I don't know - and it's not often I say that. Especially with regard to anything about Powell & Pressburger. But Brian's a bit of a mystery. I am hoping to find out more about him from his widow & son

Steve

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Steve, I'm amazed I got a "first" out of you! But please keep us apprised of anything you learn. The evidence would seem to indicate he preferred just working with P&P. He was good enough that it just doesn't seem logical he'd have received almost no other film commissions. Let us know.

You never know what complications will ensue when you start a thread on IMDb, do you?

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I think you'll find that the score for "The Battle of the River Plate" would have been recorded on magnetic tape on the music stage at Pinewood Studios, after which it would have been dubbed onto the film soundtrack along with the dialogue and sound effects to make what was known in the trade as a married print. So a separate music track would have existed at one time, but was probably junked decades ago, leaving the only recording of the music existing on the married print soundtrack, which now, of course, cannot be played separately from the dialogue and sound effects on the film soundtrack.

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Yes, I'm sure you're right. From researching film scores it's pretty clear that all the original music soundtracks for British-made films were destroyed decades ago, as none recorded prior to the 1960s seems to survive. Hence, the great number of new recordings of British film music now available, none of which can match the originals, I'm afraid.

By contrast, a great many OSTs from Hollywood films, some as far back as the 30s, survive and are available. Many are lost, of course, but it's surprising how many do remain.

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Yes, the Americans have generally been far better than us British at preserving their original film score recordings. I'm afraid that in this country, there is too much of a 'chuck it all in the skip' mentality, which has proved to be very short sighted. However, although some soundtrack scores, released on LP's from the same recordings used on the actual film soundtracks, have been preserved on vinyl, such as Malcolm Arnold's scores for such films as "The Bridge on the River Kwai"; "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" and "The Lion", other soundtrack recordings of his scores for "Whistle Down the Wind" and "The Inspector", to name but two, only exist on the 'married print' release versions of those films. Nevertheless, some of the modern re-recordings of scores such as "The Battle of the River Plate", played from the still existing orchestral score sheets, are about the best that we are going to get in the absence of the original recordings.

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We Americans may have been better at preserving things, but we tossed out a lot too, and one feels much of what was preserved was saved accidentally. Still, the Hollywood studios were halfway decent about storing much of their output.

I've bought a couple of CDs featuring recent re-recordings of some classic British film scores, by people like William Alwyn and Ralph Vaughan Williams. They're fair-to-good, but if only we had the real thing!

Maybe someday computer wizards will devise a way of separating the music track from the others and restore them to their pristine, individual glory. Not that I'm holding my breath awaiting that technical advance, but it might keep the geeks away from doing any more colorizing!

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Yes, I also have the CDs containing new recordings of selected extracts from the scores of William Alwyn, including "Odd Man Out"; "The Fallen Idol" and "The Rocking Horse Winner" and they are as near to the original soundtrack recordings as possible and, of course, they are in stereo when the originals, because they were done in the late 1940s, were recorded in mono. So that is an added advantage.

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I recently got a Richard Addinsell CD with new recordings of selections from (not the complete scores of) Scrooge, The Black Rose a several others, and two Vaughan Williams discs, featuring 49th Parallel, Scott of the Antarctic and others. Good, and in stereo, but believe me, if the originals were around, I'd be on them in a minute -- mono or not!

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It's too bad we never got a separate soundtrack released for this film, because it's one of the things I find most memorable about it. I usually find 50s scores to be overly bombastic, but here it's used properly. For example, I love the foreboding music as Captain Dove and the other prisoners are being taken to the Graf Spee. It made the Graf Spee much more intimidating, as if they were about to be swallowed by a giant steel beast. I also remember, watching this as a young lad, the heroic-sounding score making me cheer at the intro of the Ajax, Achilles and Exeter.

I suppose if we wanted to just listen to the score, we could just rip the audio from the DVD into separate tracks.

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