• Shakespeare at the Movies

• The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra & The Crouch End Festival Chorus
• Conducted by Paul Bateman
• Silva Screen
• 2001

"If music be the food of love" and all that. I'm not entirely sure whether that quote really does mean what it says or whether the context has been totally lost. Unfortunately I'm no Shakespeare scholar and must admit that most of my Shakespeare exposure has been via the cinema - which for those uninitiated in the Bard's language helps a great deal by giving a better sense of location and meaning to the text rather than the more sparse surroundings of a playhouse. A heathen attitude I'm sure, but I fancy plenty of the feature film adaptations are still more than worthy interpretations of the plays. Not until glancing through the track listing did it dawn on me just how much Shakespeare has inspired some of the best scores from the early and splendid William Walton efforts to the up to the recent, brilliant scores of Patrick Doyle.

Walton and Olivier and Branagh and Doyle are two partnerships that have brought Shakespeare to the masses. I've not seen any of Olivier's adaptations, but have seen most of Branagh's and enjoyed them hugely. I am, however, becoming very familiar with Walton's marvellous music. The selections here expand a little on the usual Prelude from Henry V to provide some of the later, more moving music along with the joyous Agincourt Song finale. The Richard III Prelude is familiar, but always worth hearing. Doyle has scored all of Branagh's Shakespeare adaptations and probably make up his best work. One only need consider the euphoric Overture from Much Ado About Nothing, the gorgeous finale from Hamlet (which has made me blub somewhat embarrassingly a few times) and the stirring Henry V which every bit as great as Walton's classic. The selection is brought fully up to date with the more obscure, but no less fetching Love's Labour's Lost for which Doyle's ebullient music sits happily aside the Porter, Gershwin and so on that Branagh used to provide a augment one of Shakespeare's less successful comedies into a much tighter and exuberant experience.

Despite the above praise, Franco Zeffirelli and Nino Rota's contributions are no less important - indeed we watched Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet while studying it for GCSE English. I do recall our teacher helpfully pointing out that they wouldn't have used movie sets in Shakespeare's day. Well, thanks for that. Neither would they have had Rota's almost infamous and hugely passionate main theme now somewhat cliché after overuse by a certain UK radio presenter for his sob story spot. Annoying when music becomes a synonymous with the wrong thing sometimes. Even so, it still has the wonderfully romantic, yet doom laden impact it always did. Their less famous effort, The Taming of the Shrew is represented by the buoyant Overture. Apparently this production was a more gregarious affair and Rota's witty music is a long way from his more famous effort. A more modern re telling of Romeo + Juliet (+ being required as either & or and are evidently too uncool to use) was mainly remembered musically for the pop songs, but in fact Craig Armstrong's score is a revelation and the Balcony Scene presented here is truly spine tingling.

The Roman epics get a few brief outings with Rozsa's sombre funeral music and some slightly more stirring sections from Michael J Lewis' take on the material. Antony and Cleopatra by John Scott is some way from North's Cleopatra (which isn't based on the Shakespeare), but still has its own charms, particularly the Rozsa inspired finale to the suite. A brief selection of Shostakovich's terse Hamlet is much more typical of music for Hamlet than Doyle's warmer and introspective score. The only selection not actually based on a play is a suite from Stephen Warbeck's Oscar winning effort to Shakespeare in Love. Much though I enjoyed the film, I've never been convinced of the hype mounted on either the film or music. Indeed, I believe this is the only Oscar winning effort amongst a generally superior collection of scores - many of which are now classics, Walton's part of classical repertoire and Doyle's brilliant efforts more than worthy of a golden man. I don't wish to do Warbeck down as his jaunty main theme is effective and the suite here is enjoyable enough, but when you consider the other music in the collection, it's not much more than a pleasant diversion. Oscar going gaga again.

The album is opened and rounded out by songs from Shaun Davey's Twelfth Night which frankly aren't terribly exciting, even if they are sound a little more idiomatic to Shakespeare - ie. they sound like medieval madrigals than more romantic, symphonic music. The album also contains a sprinkling of famous speeches read by the esteemed likes of Derek Jacobi and Ben Kingsley. There are only a few and they are on separate tracks so you can skip them and listen to the music uninterrupted, but given that this is some of Shakespeare's most famous and poetic prose read by top actors, they are well worth hearing in amongst some wonderful music all splendidly performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic. All in all a great album; almost all the scores represented are some of the composers' best work and the performances all up to scratch added to that the generous time and you have a great album. Highly recommended in every respect.

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