1. Prologue en Egypte 2. Le général et l'Orient 3. Les anglais aux trousses 4. Le débarquement en Egypte 5. La bataille des pyramides 6. Bonaparte au Caire 7. Le désastre d'Aboukir 8. L'organisation de l'Egypte 9. L'insurrection du Caire 10. L'institut d'Egypte 11. A la découverte des pyramides 12. Les temples d'Egypte 13. Défaite et revanche 14. Le retour en France 15. La fin de l'expédition 16. L'empire d'Orient
In 1798, general Napoleon Bonaparte left the shores of France with an army and a group of scientists. His destination: Egypt. The adventurous campaign of Egypt with its famous battles and its amazing scientific and exotic discoveries, was full of unexpected showdowns… and it taught to General Bonaparte many lessons on the difficult subject of leading people. From military genius, he became a political genius – an asset that would benefit him greatly in the years to come… Napoleon again! Less than one year after the series « NAPOLEON », I was working again on a documentary about this fascinating man’s life. But this time the focus was on the campaign of Egypt only. It was yet another collaboration with director Ghislain Vidal. I had previously worked on several of his projects, including the historical series “The trials in History” (Les procès de l’Histoire) whose episode “The Duke of Enghien” featured an older Napoleon already played by Jonathan Salmon. From the beginning, it was agreed that I would make a very minimal use of authentic ethnic elements – instead, the music for « BONAPARTE EN EGYPTE » would refer to a romantic and sweeping style, which also gave me the opportunity to be very thematic. And there are lots of themes and motives in this music: A main theme, Bonaparte’s theme, the English theme, the « mysterious Egypt » theme, the French army motif, the Mamelouk army motif …. And yet others! I really had a great time composing this colorful and sometime refreshingly “over the top” music!
