My first film music concert, in 1993 - Space Spectacular at Wembley Stadium

For ages I have been trying to find information about my first film music concert (in London, some time in the 1990s) by searching (in vain) for Wembley and orrery (the event took place at Wembley Stadium and the promo material in the papers of the time made a bit of fanfare about a specially built 'thing' (not technically an orrery but a nice display piece). The orrery was a suspended curved bar with lights in it which rotated up and down over the stage adding lighting effects.

I've also been wondering, particularly after recently returning from an excellent film music concert from David Arnold, if I might have heard his music performed at the concert. He wrote the score for the films Stargate (1994) and Independence Day (1996) but I couldn't remember them being on the programme (music from Superman and Star Trek was played). 

Yesterday I suddenly remembered that I can search old newspapers at work and plugged my terms in, and eventually discovered that the concert had been in 1993 (so too early for David Arnold's music).

The concert was called Space Spectacular and I went with my friends Simon and Valerie and some other friends of theirs. We were all really into Star Trek: The Next Generation (enthusiasm remains undiminished) and I remember us spending an evening trying to play one of those murder mystery games which was based around the series. Of course, no-one actually got murdered by anyone from the noble and non-murdering crew (I think I might have been Guinan and I remember helping a friend make a fairly amazing Worf costume). The game involved some sort of mysterious object that made people behave oddly. There was a lot of wine, which is another object that can make people behave oddly, and I don't remember the outcome as I think we all fell asleep before it had concluded.

Simon discovered the existence of Space Spectacular and we all thought how amazing it would be to hear the music of Star Trek performed live (yup) and went along. From reading the 1993 Sunday Times review ('Lost in space') by Cosmo Landesman it turns out that the event included music from space-themed films but the larger section was actually Gustav Holst's The Planets. A quote in the article from one of the producers, Harvey Goldsmith, highlighted the idea behind it of getting new audiences in to hear classical music and perhaps, at 23, I was one of those new audiences though I grew up with and enjoyed classical music at home, school or at concerts - but I don't remember film music featuring in them.

Amazing, to me, to think how ridiculously popular film music concerts are now on their own terms. I have also been enjoying Jon Burlingame's 2013 article on their popularity -

Score One for Movie Maestros: Audiences Grow for Film-Music Concerts
Screenings of classic films accompanied by a live orchestra also selling more

- which highlights audience enthusiasm for film music concerts, and particularly orchestra enthusiasm for them

"[Conductor John] Mauceri finds the reason some musicians love playing movie music is that it’s what they grew up with. “They’re actually playing the real notes of the first orchestral music they ever heard as kids,” he says. Older musicians have come around more slowly, he adds, because many “were trained in conservatories to hate this music.”"

How could anyone hate this music! I'm glad that people are recognising and cherishing it as a distinct art form which has inherent musical 'value' even when separated from the screened images for which it was originally created.

Details of the 1993 Space Spectacular
Or at least the details that I can uncover from that one review (Sun 10 October 1993 in the Sunday Times 'Lost in space' by Cosmo Landesman). It took place in Wembley Stadium, was produced by Harvey Goldsmith and Raymond Gubbay (orchestra: The Philharmonia, conductor: Adrian Leaper, lighting designer: Patrick Woodroffe) and billed as 'where Hollywood meets Holst' with The Planets forming the major part of the event, covering the second half. The first half included music from 2001 (Blue Danube Waltz), Star Trek, Superman (Symphonic Suite) and Thunderbirds Are Go!

Film music concerts
If you want to keep an eye on future film music concerts I recommend two websites in particular -
• Movies in Concert: http://moviesinconcert.nl/ - if you know of a concert you can add it here yourself (I've nothing to do with the website but I did set up the RSS > Twitter @moviesinconcert)
• FilmConcertsLive: http://filmconcertslive.com/ - a commercial organisation which puts on these concerts

There are several kinds of film music concert, and related entertainments, and this isn't an exhaustive list

• an orchestra plays music from several different composers - an example is Mark Kermode's 50th birthday celebration concerts which included some of his favourite scores from a variety of films
• an orchestra plays music from one composer and the composer is usually present - last year I went to hear concerts with music from Clint Mansell, David Arnold and Alexandre Desplat (who also conducted if memory serves) playing their own music and talking a little bit about the pieces and the films for which they were written
• playing live-to-projection (aka live-to-picture) in which an orchestra performs the original score live while the film plays on a massive screen - you can hear the dialogue fine though they do usually include subtitles, just in case, and the special effects soundtrack is usually preserved too (ie it's not a 'silent film' plus orchestral music, the orchestra performs live all the bits that would normally be on the 'score' soundtrack. Utterly incredible, totally immersive though sometimes it's difficult to decide which bit to look at - the orchestra or the screen! Examples include Titanic Live and Star Trek Into Darkness at the Royal Albert Hall.
• orchestra playing clips from a variety of movies live to picture - I've not come across one of these in the wild, but I would definitely enjoy this
• interviews with film music / screen composers who show clips of their films with the music (sometimes at various stages) and talk about the processes involved - the 'Art of the Score' panels at the Sundance Film Festival in London were particularly good for showcasing the development of a film score at different stages and I enjoyed hearing Harry Gregson Williams show successive stages of picture, special effects and soundtrack building up to the final result for the film Unstoppable and the following year David Arnold taking us through a similar process for his 'African Rundown' section of Casino Royale.
  
  For interviews with composers where clips are shown from the film (ie the final result) and discussed, before or after showing the clip, I recommend the Royal Albert Hall's 'Conversations with Screen Composers' series with Tommy Pearson (who also produced Mark Kermode's concerts mentioned above).

My review of David Arnold's utterly amazing concert in Lucerne

Enchanting and beautiful Lucerne

 Up Mount Pilatus, bit of a climb, fortunately they have a cogwheel railway train to take you

Lucerne, in German-speaking (technically Swiss German-speaking) Switzerland, is GORGEOUS. I walked around it in the mild-weather twilight on arrival and swooned at the buildings, the bridge, the delightful electrified buses (they have those pantograph things that trains have, but on poles in the road).

Buses have two poles on top which connect with the wires and form an electrical circuit

The next day I gawped at the lake and mountainous terrain on a 20m train journey from Lucerne to Alpnachstad in order to take the 45 degree red cogwheel 'Pilatusbahn' train (it uses a Locher rack and pinion mechanism to grip tightly onto a rather slender-looking track and haul itself up mountain steepnesses the likes of which I'd never seen or really believed before) up Mount Pilatus.

The lovely Pilatusbahn rack railway, using the Locher system which appears to be a horizontal version of the Strub system (I am not an expert!).

We climed the 2,000m in about half an hour and it was absolutely breathtaking. I'd gone along more interested in the train mechanism and experience of going up a mountain at an odd angle and hadn't really clocked that the scenery was going to be as stunning as it was. There was some general touristy chatter and a bit of oohing and aahing as we went up and up and up, and then stunned silence as we noticed just how massive and awe-inspiring the vista opening before us was. There was a particularly magical bit where we went through clouds (I'd just done this in an aircraft the day previously, that's always fun) but the clouds were an eerie magical blue (just the sky above them, the clouds were quite thin) but the effect was of a misty blue wispy smoke curling round a forest of fir trees. It was like something out of Tolkien and I tweeted that I was 100% convinced that he'd shimmied up Mt Pilatus on the cogwheel train (it was built in 1889 so timing would work). It turns out I wasn't too far off as apparently he was inspired by a different bit of Switzerland (including the Lauterbrunnen Valley) which is every bit as ridiculously beautiful.

   

  

 
The blue sky peeps through the cloudy mist as we ascend Mount Pilatus. Oooh!

Anyway I was in Lucerne specifically for 'The Music of David Arnold' which was an evening of music composed by David for film, television and the Olympics 2012 closing ceremony. Despite loving the music for Stargate for years I didn't actually know who he was, or that he'd written that, until I went along to hear a composer talk about their work at the Sundance Film Festival in London a couple of years ago and it turned out to be him. And he does film music concerts! My favourite thing ever! It was an amazing concert and I heartily recommend that if you get a chance to go to one of his concerts that you should take it. There are other wonderful film music concerts too of course (plenty at the Royal Albert Hall) and for worldwide readers the best sites to find out more are Movies in Concert (I've nothing to do with that film site but took the RSS updates and turned it into this Twitter feed - @moviesinconcert) and FilmConcertsLive.

I wrote the following review on Songkick and decided to pinch it and put it here too.

David Arnold's magical and friendly film music concert - twinkly music & amiable chatter
This was a spectacular evening with a full orchestra and choir (the 21st Century Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Ludwig Wicki) performing a range of film and television music composed by David Arnold, who performed along with them in the beautiful KKL Luzern.

Of course he wrote all of the music in the first place but he also played keyboard (sometimes playing a tune, sometimes cueing a sound effect), guitar and sang a few of his songs on the night. He has a great voice and did a fantastic rendition of Bjork's Play Dead and an absolutely astounding one of kd lang's Surrender (which are songs that he wrote for, respectively, The Young Americans and Tomorrow Never Dies) - he's a talented chap!

Hearing his music from the film Stargate performed right in front of me was pretty magical and it closed the first half of the concert (we'd also heard themes from The Stepford Wives, Godzilla and Paul, which is one of the Simon Pegg & Nick Frost films David has scored (the other one is Hot Fuzz)).

The second half showed off his work on the James Bond franchise - he's written scores for five of the films, most recently Quantum of Solace from which the orchestra played 'A Night at the Opera'. Lovely stuff. We also heard music from the BBC's Sherlock, which he co-composed with Michael Price. Given we were in Switzerland I'm not certain how many in the room would have heard of or seen Sherlock before (I suppose it will depend on their television channel package!) but I'm quite convinced everyone enjoyed hearing the music.

And then we had the finale (though David explained in entertaining detail how concerts always pretend it's the finale but it's not really, and everyone laughed) the end titles to Independence Day. Seriously awesome and quite a visceral experience to be in the presence of all that wonderful noise, brass, organ, all the other bits. Amazing.

Not surprisingly we all leapt to our feet to clap and cheer as David and Ludwig (the conductor) left the stage only to be clapped back in for another couple of finale pieces. Things finally ended with David on guitar playing that James Bond theme followed by several minutes of clapping. It was all rather wonderful.

 

The packed auditorium (behind me) - the capacity of the sold-out venue is over 1,800 seats!

There's a 30s clip of the audience clapping embedded in this tweet (assuming it works on the platform you're using to read this blog)

The Music of #DavidArnold @DGAunofficial @DavidGArnold @kklluzern #LudwigWicki StandingOvation pic.twitter.com/e7URYVVRZx

— Stefan Schuler (@schulerst) October 23, 2015

David Arnold thanking everyone for attending and supporting live music. The 21st Century Symphony Orchestra is behind him (conductor Ludwig Wicki's just left the stage) and the 21st Century Chorus are in the balcony behind the orchestra. They were all fantastic.

As I'm sure you can guess I'm a big fan of David Arnold's work but I think even if you're not particularly familiar with his music (you might not know his name but I'm sure you'd know some of the films he's scored) you'd enjoy one of his concerts as he's also very entertaining. One of my favourite tweeted comments about one of his earlier concerts said, of the first half:

"Really enjoying the music of @DavidGArnold this evening - and we've not even heard any pieces I know yet! #amazing"

Which is spot on, really :)

'The music of David Arnold' w 21st Century Symphony Orchestra & Chorus in Lucerne - 23 Oct

Tonight (Sun 11 Oct) you can hear one of David Arnold's film music scores accompanying the James Bond film Casino Royale. He also co-wrote and produced the film's ace opening song - You Know My Name. Here's the beautiful 'City of Lovers' music from the film



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Ludwig Wicki is the conductor of the 21st Century Symphony Orchestra and the 21st Century Chorus (together, the 21st Century Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, based in Switzerland) and they perform my absolute favourite thing in the world - film music.

I've been lucky enough to see them play - live to picture! (when the orchestra performs the film's score right there in front of you) - the music from Star Trek Into Darkness while the film unfolded on a massive screen above us. And just beforehand they also played the 20th Century Fox studio logo ident intro thingy which was a delightful and unexpected bonus. I am a bit emotional just thinking about it :) Amazing.




Later this month (on Friday 23 October 2015) they will be joining forces with one of my favourite composers, David Arnold, in their home country Switzerland to perform his music from his film scores, in the massive concerthall in Lucern's KKL venue. He's scored five James Bond films, Stargate, Independence Day, Paul (Nick Frost has a new book out by the way) and he might be even more famous for being half of the composering duo for BBC's Sherlock. Not to mention being the Musical Director for the closing ceremonies at the London 2012 Olympics. And he also wrote the feem toon for Little Britain. Plus he's good fun on Twitter too.

The next few concerts peformed by the 21st Century Symphony Orchestra
(and in some cases with the 21st Century Chorus too)

I've not been to Lucerne and I have to say I'm rather tempted. Apart from a lovely evening of music (I've been to a couple of David Arnold's other concerts and everyone agreed they're fantastic) it's got a nice mountain and a vertiginous cogwheel railway (steepest in the world apparently). It's also got a transport museum that for some reason has a chocolate-themed dark ride in it. Dark rides are also one of my favourite things.

It would be fantastic if David, Ludwig and the orchestra / chorus did a live-score version of Stargate or Independence Day at the Royal Albert Hall. Fingers crossed for that! 

Deets
The Music of David Arnold
Ludwig Wicki and the 21st Century Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
half-price tickets | regular-priced tickets, see also ArtProductions website for tickets [concert flyer]
7.30pm, Friday 23 October 2015, KKL Luzern

Lucerne's less than one hour from Zurich by train, more info at Seat61.

Orchestras tuning up - what a magical sound

Being a fan of music used in film (ie music that has a narrative purpose as which often happens to be lovely to listen to beyond that) I've been getting out to quite a few film music concerts of late with Alexandre Desplat in the Barbican a few weeks ago and David Arnold in Dublin just last week (he's also doing the Barbican in June as part of a series of concerts).

Many of these concerts involve many tens of musicians (an orchestra) playing the music live and it's all ridiculously enjoyable - I am at peak squee soon after taking up my seat, hoovering up my micro-pack of ice-cream and having a look at the concert programme in anticipation.

Whatever the lovely music I'm going to hear (I died and went to heaven when the orchestras played Desplat's Birth and Arnold's Stargate and Wing Commander not to mention Sherlock) I always really really enjoy the bit just before the concert starts when the orchestra tunes up.



It's a magical thing, perhaps a little like a flashmob - in that an otherwise disparate group of people suddenly come together to create something harmonious, and move from just being on stage with their instruments to being part of a performance. Well.. it's halfway between being part of the performance, and not being part of it, and I find this 'between worlds' ritual rather thrilling.  

I half-joked on Twitter that if someone released a CD of orchestras tuning up I'd probably buy it. I don't think that exists and perhaps it's a limited market (though a couple of people favourited my tweet) but the 'Baby Einstein' CDs do have an orchestra tuning up track (found via YouTube). It's a much more saccharine version than the real thing.

To be honest I had suspected it was more for show than being absolutely necessary as I'd have to assume professional orchestra folk tune their instruments before heading out on stage, however some comments here explain why it has a useful function, beyond quietening the metaphoric crisp-packet-rustling of pre-concert chatter. I'm just surprised that - given the hugely positive comments on YouTube - that there aren't more videos or sound clips of it, there seems to be a consensus that it's a lovely sound.

Concert pitch
Orchestras tune their instruments to Concert pitch, which is usually A (set at 440Hz) above Middle C though the A pitch can vary a bit. Here's Wikipedia on concert pitch:

"Despite such confusion, A = 440 Hz is the only official standard and is widely used around the world. Many orchestras in the United Kingdom adhere to this standard as concert pitch. In the United States some orchestras use A = 440 Hz, while others, such as New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, use A = 442 Hz. The latter is also often used as tuning frequency in Europe, especially in Denmark, France, Hungary, Italy, Norway and Switzerland. Nearly all modern symphony orchestras in Germany and Austria and many in other countries in continental Europe (such as Russia, Sweden and Spain) tune to A = 443 Hz."

Further tone fun
Online tuning fork  329.6Hz (E), 440Hz (A), 523.3Hz (C)
Online tone generator - you can have quite a bit of fun with this one if you open up multiple tabs. Two frequencies a few Hz apart will give you beats and the comments on the binaural page are fun too with suggested frequencies to try out, eg to recreate the sound of a touch-tone telephone dialling sound.

Film music concerts
The site Movies in Concert has a massive list of film music concerts from around the world.

Further reading

• Ritual by Peter Sachon (2012) on the rituals and traditions associated with classical music performances, hat tip Dr Emily Garside
• LSO's Kathryn McDowell: 'We need support to create wonderful work' by Daniel Ross (2015) on orchestras need for support from audiences

Bit that didn't fit anywhere else
I found out about 'Concert A' by accident. A couple of years ago I wrote a post about tuning fork therapy in response to a misleading advert that claimed special tuning forks could be used to diagnose and correct health imbalances. Utter nonsense of course but the act of writing it (and responding to the tedious comments) made me find out a lot more about tuning forks than I otherwise might have done. Played with them at home, played with them at school but still plenty of gaps in my tuning fork knowledge.

BBC Frozen Planet: Philharmonia Orchestra doing a live-score at Royal Festival Hall with George Fenton

Wow this sounds lovely - an evening of watching HD footage from the BBC's Frozen Planet series with an orchestral accompaniment, conducted by George Fenton who composed the score. Not bad at all.

I went to hear George Fenton being interviewed at the Royal Albert Hall last year, by Tommy Pearson (who will be interviewing another composer, Michael Price, this coming Monday - Michael co-composed the music for the BBC's Sherlock). 

BBC Frozen Planet in Concert

Philharmonia at the Movies, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank

Sunday 4 May 2014, 7.30pm (£15-£55, 50% concessions)

There's a nice Vimeo trailer ad to accompany it.


BBC Frozen Planet in Concert from Philharmonia Orchestra on Vimeo.