Proms on Four: The Film Music Prom BBC Proms


Proms on Four: The Film Music Prom

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So, you've bought your tickets for the cinema,

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the lights have gone down, and out of the darkness comes...

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..music.

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Almost every movie starts with music which gives us a tremendous

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amount of information about the film we're going to see.

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About its actions, its moods, its characters.

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And tonight we're going to here the best of it,

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courtesy of conductor Keith Lockhart and the BBC Concert Orchestra.

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Welcome to the Film Music Prom.

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This evening the great dome of the Royal Albert Hall

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will try to contain the sounds of Britain at War

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and the wonder, horror and mystery of outer space

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as we've heard them in so many classic movie soundtracks.

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I've always loved movie music,

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and it's a special privilege to hear it like this - in concert.

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To see how the orchestra's used

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and to relive the great moments of cinema.

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Film music is a persuasive sound that speaks to everybody.

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When we hear it we immediately understand what it's telling us,

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it helps us to believe in a story we don't know,

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or a fantasy setting we haven't seen before.

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We'll be treated to some all-time classic space movie soundtracks

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from Alien to Independence Day,

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to probably the best-known piece of film music ever,

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the suite from Star Wars.

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Before that, we celebrate the great works and composers

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of wartime Britain,

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including Richard Addinsell's

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marvellous Warsaw Concerto.

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During the Second World War and beyond,

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music was supporting strongly patriotic films

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that convinced British audiences to fight on against Hitler,

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or retrospectively glorified the exploits of the winning side.

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Coming up shortly, William Walton's music for Battle of Britain,

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a 1969 film depicting the heroic events of 1940.

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It's a score that was in fact rejected

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by the United Artists studio, supposedly for being too short,

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and a replacement - an excellent one, as it happens -

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commissioned from Ron Goodwin.

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But protests by the film's star Laurence Olivier

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meant that a couple of segments did eventually make it

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into the final cut.

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But we begin tonight's Prom

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with William Alwyn's march from The True Glory,

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a documentary feature directed by the great Carol Reed amongst others,

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and released in 1945 to mark the Allies' defeat of Germany.

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I don't seem to be able to remember anything but the French people.

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People beside the road, kids we couldn't stop to give candy to,

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FFI boys bringing in the Krauts from the fields,

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and farm workers waving as we went by.

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Alwyn composed over 70 film scores during the '40s and '50s

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including Odd Man Out and Desert Victory,

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but this march is inspired by his time working -

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along with other composers including William Walton and Vaughan Williams -

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for the British Army Film Unit, composing for propaganda films.

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It's stirring stuff.

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APPLAUSE

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So, conductor Keith Lockhart joins the BBC Concert Orchestra

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to kick off tonight's Film Music Prom at the Royal Albert Hall,

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with William Alwyn's march from The True Glory.

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APPLAUSE

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William Alwyn's march from The True Glory.

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Next up, William Walton's music originally intended

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as the soundtrack to the 1969 film Battle of Britain.

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APPLAUSE

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William Walton's original score for Battle of Britain.

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And yes, you did hear a cheeky quote from Wagner in there.

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Upon hearing the decision to drop Walton,

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Director Guy Hamilton had shouted,

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"Next you'll want Frank Sinatra to sing Spitfires In The Night!"

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And now, a complete change of mood - a piece that's an oasis of calm,

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if you like, amongst the sounds of war.

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Last year the great British composer Sir Richard Rodney Bennett

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died at his home in New York at the age of 76.

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He left behind him a body of work that is the envy of any composer -

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rich, challenging concert works, superb jazz compositions

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and over 50 scores for film and TV,

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three of which were nominated for Oscars.

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His superb period music for Murder on the Orient Express

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was played at the last Film Music Prom in 2011,

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but this time we turn to a score that is full of romantic yearning

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and warm, filmic breadth.

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Lady Caroline Lamb is a 1972 film written and directed by Robert Bolt,

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concerning the life of the notorious wife

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of Prime Minister Lord Melbourne,

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who counted Lord Byron amongst her many lovers.

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Sir Richard's music was critically acclaimed

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whilst the film itself was not, to say the least.

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And here to play the Elegy for Lady Caroline

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that Sir Richard Rodney Bennett created from the themes of the film,

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is viola soloist Lawrence Power with conductor Keith Lockhart.

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ORCHESTRA TUNES INSTRUMENTS

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APPLAUSE

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Richard Rodney Bennett's Elegy for Lady Caroline Lamb.

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The viola player was Lawrence Power.

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And that's the beauty of a concert like tonight's -

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the rediscovery of a great work for viola in its own right.

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Leighton Lucas was a British composer of film and concert works

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who was much admired by Benjamin Britten.

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he scored several war movies, and tonight we will hear the march

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he adapted from his score for 1958's Ice Cold in Alex.

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APPLAUSE

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Leighton Lucas's march from the soundtrack of Ice Cold in Alex.

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The suspenseful tone of the film's score

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breaking out into raucous celebration there, as the heroes,

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including John Mills and Sylvia Sims, outwit the Afrika Corps

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and finally approach the Ice Cold lager that awaits them in Alexandria.

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And so to our final piece of the first half,

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and a score that can claim to have done more than its fair share

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of propaganda work during the Second World War.

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Dangerous Moonlight was a hugely popular 1941 romantic weepy

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about a Polish concert pianist, played by Anton Walbrook,

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who joins the RAF and is wounded in action.

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PIANO CONCERTO PLAYS

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It's not safe to be out alone when the moon is so bright.

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Can someone tell that to those Germans up there?

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They couldn't have heard you.

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Oh, them? They never fly alone.

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Come in, please. Close the door.

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What raised the film above the ordinary was the music

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the lead character played,

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a piano concerto written especially for the film

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by Richard Addinsell called the Warsaw Concerto.

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It had echoes of Rachmaninov,

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but still felt quintessentially British.

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RADIO: This is the BBC Home Service.

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Switch off the wireless. Quickly, switch it off!

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What's the matter?

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The lights, too.

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PIANO CONCERTO PLAYS

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You know what it is, that music?

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Yes, Warsaw Concerto. I've got the records.

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This may be the miracle we were talking about.

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It may.

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-I'd like to see it.

-Come on.

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The recording, by Louis Kentner,

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the off-screen pianist in the film, sold in its thousands,

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and the piece became a staple of the concert platform

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because it showed wartime Britain a picture of itself that it liked -

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determined, brave, yet warm, passionate and honourable -

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unlike the cold, robotic killers they were facing across the Channel.

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Listen.

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HE PLAYS WARSAW CONCERTO

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PLANES DRONE

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BOMB WHISTLES

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EXPLOSION

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Following the success of the film and its score,

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a whole slew of British films arrived in the late '40s

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with music at their heart.

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Love Story, featuring Hubert Bath's Cornish Rhapsody,

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The Glass Mountain, with a mini-symphony by Nino Rota...

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Over time these specially-written compositions

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were dubbed "tabloid concertos," and in the 70 years since the war,

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the Warsaw Concerto has been comprehensively dismissed

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as "light" music, a bewildering term I've never really understood.

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Tonight is only the Concerto's second Proms performance,

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and, thanks to the concert format,

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we can now judge its merits for ourselves.

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And here is tonight's soloist, Valentina Lisitsa

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and conductor Keith Lockhart.

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The BBC Concert Orchestra perform Richard Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto

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APPLAUSE

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The soloist was Valentina Lisitsa.

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Richard Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto,

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as featured throughout the film Dangerous Moonlight.

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A superb piece of music, beautifully played.

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Those themes are all earworms -

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once you hear them, they are lodged in one's memory for good.

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The lead character Stefan says to his girl in the film,

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"This music is you and me.

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"It's the story of the two of us in Warsaw, of us in America,

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"of us in... Where else, I don't know.

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"That's why I can't finish it." But finish it he does,

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and Richard Addinsell's music retains its power to this day.

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For the second half of tonight's Prom

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in the planetarium-like Royal Albert Hall,

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we move from the past into the distant future.

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Space and unknown life forms are our concern.

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Science fiction has been the basis of thousands of movies

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from Metropolis back in 1927

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right through to this summer's blockbusters,

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Pacific Rim and Iron Man 3.

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With fantasy films like these,

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the music has always had one major job to do -

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to persuade us that what we are watching is real,

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that there really are such things as aliens, space travel

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and the Death Star.

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We'll hear the world premiere concert performance

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of themes from Michael Giacchino's Star Trek - Into Darkness,

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Bond composer David Arnold's music for Independence Day

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and the great Jerry Goldsmith's chilling score for Alien -

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the first full-blooded horror film

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set in a believable alien environment.

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And, to finish the evening, a performance of a score

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that's so well known, most of us can sing along with it -

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John Williams' Star Wars suite, featuring the Imperial March,

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the jazzy Cantina band from Han Solo's first scene

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and, of course, the Main Title

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that carries with it such wonderful echoes of the swashbuckling scores

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of Steiner and Korngold,

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but ushers in a world of adventure in a galaxy far, far away.

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But first, the film that changed the world of science fiction,

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and spawned the "serious" sci-fi movie -

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Stanley Kubrick's 1968 epic, 2001 A Space Odyssey.

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Dealing with an astronaut's first contact with alien life forms

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it gave us a view of space and space travel that was more convincing

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than anything we'd seen before.

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However, the music Kubrick used

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had all existed long before the film was made.

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He wanted most scenes in the film to have no dialogue

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and so he binned the score specially written by Alex North,

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going instead with music he and we knew well.

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In one famous case, the last piece of music we would have expected.

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MUSIC: "By the Beautiful Blue Danube" by Johann Strauss

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So famous did the film and its score become

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that Richard Strauss' Sunrise from Also Sprach Zarathustra

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is for ever linked to 2001

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rather than the tone poem for which it was written.

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MUSIC: "Sunrise" by Richard Strauss

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But the composer who wrote possibly the most thrilling music

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for the film didn't even know it had been used.

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MUSIC: "Atmospheres" by Gyorgy Ligeti

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When he saw the film, Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti was astonished

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at the use of his 1961 piece Atmospheres

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to accompany astronaut Dave Bowman's hair-raising journey through time,

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as well as two other pieces he composed.

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Evidently he was not best pleased to hear his music used

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without his personal permission, nor that it was sharing a soundtrack

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with the two Strausses, whose music he detested.

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The reason for Kubrick's use of these pieces

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is that they were his temp tracks when he was making the film -

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that's the name given to pieces of existing music

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that directors and editors use to make a first cut to.

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They help to inform a scene and give some life to an early cut.

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And all too often directors fall in love with them,

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to the chagrin of so many composers.

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But in the case of 2001, you can't really argue with the final result.

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So, conductor Keith Lockhart comes back on to join

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the BBC Concert Orchestra as we venture into unknown territories

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for the second half of tonight's Film Music Prom at the Royal Albert Hall.

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APPLAUSE

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Three windows upon deep space,

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as featured in Stanley Kubrick's 2001, A Space Odyssey.

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Ligeti's eerie Atmospheres,

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sandwiched between compositions by Strausses Richard and Johann II.

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Kubrick would go on to use other Ligeti pieces in his films

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The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut.

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As we've seen, film music composers

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are sometimes casualties of the editing process,

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but often a movie director will commission from the same composer

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again and again.

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JJ Abrams' Star Trek - Into Darkness

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was one of this year's most eagerly-awaited action blockbusters.

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We're outgunned.

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Outnumbered.

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So, we come out shooting.

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-I am better.

-At what?

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Everything.

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The film is scored by Michael Giacchino,

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whom Abrams gave his first break scoring the TV series Lost,

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and the composer is best known for his work with Pixar films,

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particularly The Incredibles and Up, which won him an Oscar.

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In this piece, Giacchino provides the musical voice

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of Benedict Cumberbatch's sinister character, John Harrison.

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Although, if you've seen the film,

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you'll know that's not the name we will come to know him by.

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Evidently Giacchino wrote the music

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after seeing Benedict on set playing the part.

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Here it is, then - the world premiere of the Ode to Harrison Suite

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APPLAUSE

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Michael Giacchino's Star Trek Suite.

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Next up, Independence Day was David Arnold's second collaboration

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with director Roland Emmerich.

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His passionate score sums up both the implacable aliens

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who threaten to take over the Earth, and the spirited defence

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mounted by the likes of Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith.

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Here's the End Title Suite which includes all the film's main themes,

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from terrifying bombast to slow, lyrical passages

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reminiscent of the wartime films we heard in the first half.

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APPLAUSE

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Wow, David Arnold's Independence Day.

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Now for a change of mood - Ridley Scott's 1979 thriller Alien.

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Jerry Goldsmith's one of film's brightest musical stars,

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and he brings massive conviction to the movie

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with a spare, understated score.

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But tonight we have the End Title,

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a mournful trumpet motif grows into a huge sound

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that is still full of questions, even after this terrifying film is over.

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APPLAUSE

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Jerry Goldsmith's music from the movie Alien.

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Now for the film composer who is the bridge

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between the greats of the '30s, Max Steiner and Erich Wolfgang Korngold,

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and today's blockbuster fantasy films - John Williams.

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Throughout the 1970s, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg made movies

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that harked back to their own early movie-going days at Saturday matinees

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when they would sit in wonder watching aliens from another world

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and adventurers searching for treasure.

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So it's no surprise that in mining those genres

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for the likes of Indiana Jones and Star Wars,

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Williams went back to the music they would have heard at the time.

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Star Wars has leitmotifs, that is, themes for all the major characters -

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we recognise Luke and Obi-Wan by their themes,

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but in particular Darth Vader, whose march has become familiar to us all.

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Part of the charm of the film was in the jokey alien life forms,

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particularly the band that plays in the bar in Han Solo's first scene,

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which we will also hear tonight,

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and then there's that Main Theme,

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unforgettably blasting out as the on-screen text

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of "The Story So Far" disappeared off into deep space.

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And the franchise shows no sign of flagging.

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John Williams' great gift is for melody,

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melody that sticks in the mind and appears to sum up the whole movie

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in one musical idea - and he has done that again and again

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over the years, winning five Oscars, including for this score,

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Star Wars.

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APPLAUSE

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MUSIC: "The Imperial March" by John Williams

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APPLAUSE

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MUSIC: "Princess Leia's Theme" by John Williams

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APPLAUSE

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MUSIC: "Mos Eisley Cantina Theme" by John Williams

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APPLAUSE

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MUSIC: "Star Wars Main Theme" by John Williams

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APPLAUSE

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Well, how to top that?

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Keith Lockhart and the BBC Concert Orchestra

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with John Williams' barnstorming Star Wars suite.

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What a massive crowd-pleaser.

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The audience absolutely delighted here tonight,

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with such a fine concert and such a superb orchestra.

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Keith Lockhart's passion showing in every move, every tip of the baton.

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APPLAUSE CONTINUES

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CHEERING AND WHISTLING

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Shall we do an encore? Why not?

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CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

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The perfect finale for tonight's special Film Music Prom.

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John Williams' march from the 1978 movie Superman.

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"You'll believe a man can fly!" was the movie tag line -

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well, you certainly can when you hear that score.

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Action, romance - a joyful, rousing explosion of orchestral power

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to go out on.

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Keith Lockhart and the BBC Concert Orchestra, led by Cynthia Fleming,

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have taken us to the stars and back tonight

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with a journey through space and time.

1:51:501:51:53

Fantastic response to this concert tonight.

1:52:061:52:09

And he looks delighted.

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And so he should.

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So, that wraps it up for tonight.

1:52:241:52:27

From me, Neil Brand,

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and this special Film Music Prom from the Royal Albert Hall,

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good night.

1:52:321:52:34

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1:52:341:52:37

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