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I was wondering if any FSM'ers in the United Kingdom were going to this concert on November 9th in Manchester. The last concert I attended there was tremendous, it was called "Music for the Silver Screens Greatest Heroes"
Here is a link to the Halle Orchestra who are performing this concert;
http://www.halle.co.uk/concerts-tickets.aspx?day=9&month=11&year=2013
This looks like being another fabulous affair.
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Independence Day does seem rather out of place in this program, however it's great music.
I'm really looking forwards to going to this with my wife, son and daughter in law, it should be a great night out.
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I've been to the Hallé and Bridgewater Hall about a dozen times in the past three years while vacationing in Manchester and Yorkshire, including two concerts conducted by Stephen Bell (a film music "blockbuster" concert that included Jurassic Park, Armageddon etc, and a light classical one with Rodrigo's Concerto de Aranjuez). The Hallé are a fine orchestra, and Bridgewater Hall's acoustics are superb. I wish I could be there for the November concert.
I am going to attend another concert in early October that includes a premiere of music Benjamin Britten wrote for radio plays when he was in America during WWII, as well as Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony:
https://tickets.bridgewater-hall.co.uk/single/eventDetail.aspx?p=22460
There's also a concert by Carl Davis that same week, conducting themes from westerns ("The Wild Wild West":
https://tickets.bridgewater-hall.co.uk/single/eventDetail.aspx?p=22510
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It'd be a thing to use some IMAGINATION and really go to town on such a concert with JUST 'Battle of Britain' themed material. I suppose 'Independence Day' is there to somehow remind us of 'terror from the skies' and hook in the younger set who know the Bristish composer D. Arnold!
What about a concert with Goodwin's and Walton's BoB material, along with Addison's 'Reach for the Sky' and the Spitfire Prelude & Fugue etc.? Bliss's aerial attack and firemen stuff from 'Things to Come'? 'Warsaw Concerto'? Some stuff from Boorman's 'Hope and Glory' and maybe Vaughan-Williams 'Wasps' Overture or something? Maybe some Carl Davis?
You could link it up with thespians reading excerpts of pilots' diaries, news reports, Churchill impersonations etc., you name it.
No matter how good Goodwin's stuff for '633' and 'Where Eagles Dare' may be, it's a little ... well ... tasteless, given those things are simple adventure movies. How do we want that battle remembered? If you cash in on the Battle of Britain brand name, at least acknowledge the suffering too, instead of cliched triumphalism.
The days of taking risks in concerts seems over.
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I detect a fair measure of despondency in you post there, William?
Yet, I would like to think it is still possible to survey all these pools of history with the right sense of scrutiny. But isn't Goodwin's BoB material the 'source' of choice, even for military brass bands here in the UK?
Well, yes, but this sort of music belongs I think in a more general pool. If your concert is CELEBRATING or COMMEMORATING the battle itself, then that needs something a bit more substantial the JUST that. Most of these scores included have nothing to do with that battle. Apart from the fact that T.E. Lawrence was involved for a time in planning future defences for a Blitz, his film isn't even in the same war!
As regards Goodwin's score, you'll know that the RAF bands would rather play his 'Aces High' title march than the main theme, despite the fact that he obviously meant it as a slightly ironic version of 'Deutschland Uber Alles' and it's deliberately as Nazi as you can get, and especially with the visuals! That just makes no sense. Of course, the whole idea with this sort of thing is 'Jolly spirit of adventure and kameraderie, and we all stand together, and the chirpy spirit wins through' etc.. Except it's been usurped by a sort of regressive Tory set, in a cliched way these days.
'A Bridge Too Far' is a case in point, a very fine score, written by a composer who was engaged in genuine tank combat in WWII, and whose music is geared more towards the, 'Let's not dwell on the bad stuff: we'd never survive if we did that' mentality. The score is akin to what he felt the soldiers loved themselves. He does manage a very emotional feel to the jolly music though, that has a wistfulness and elegy about it. But then again, it's got nowt to do with the Battle of Britain, has it? It's 'Market Garden'.
I think this is all cashing in on a 'post-Olympics' feelgood thing, myself.
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Here's what I'd have ...
'Battle of Britain March' - Walton
'Ballet, Arial Attack and March' from 'Things to Come' - Bliss
'Wasps Overture' - Vaughan-Williams
'Refugees' - Walton
'Spitfire Prelude & Fugue' - Walton
'Reach for the Sky' suite - Addison
'Hope and Glory' Boorman suite - Peter Martin
'Lark Ascending' - Vaughan-Williams
'Battle in the Air' - Walton
'Finale' from 'Battle of Britain' - Goodwin
I'd also have some wartime songs in there, for the sake of veterans who do matter. y'know, probably with Vera Lynn's 'White Cliffs of Dover' and some Glenn Millar, maybe Noel Coward's 'London Pride'.
And interlinking readings and performances by actors, from pilot's diaries, accounts from civilians in the Blitz, newspaper clippings and bits of Churchill etc...
That'd be decent I think. A 'narrative'.
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That's a patriotic programme, if I may say so.
Funnily enough, I don't see it as 'patriotic', just 'appropriate'.
The real problem about this particular concert is the title: it's on November 8th, so it's clearly REALLY to fall in with Remembrance season. They should've called it something else probably.
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