Cry God For Harry

There is film music of a very different type to that considered yesterday on tthis disk, which was a BBC Music mag cover disk in 2002. It is Walton's score for the Laurence Olivier adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry V, as arranged by Christopher Palmer for concert performances with a narrator. Here, the performers are the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Slatkin with the BBC Singers, Trinity Boys Choir and Samuel West narrating. While not the greatest Shakespeare play it contains many rousing set pieces and speeches that have seeped into the English consciousness and the movie remains one of the most successful adaptations for the screen. Walton's music contains quasi olde englishe melodies, elements of what are almost 1940s light music styles and some influences from the Hollywood Austrian emigre school. For the scene in the French court, he also used the tune that Canteloube made into Bailero in his Songs Of The Auvergne, which necessitated an out of court settlement. Samuel West's narration holds the thing together and it works as a theatrical event in its' own right.