[Thor Joachim Haga]

Wading through the FSM archives for possible new topics to ressurect, I stumbled on to a report on what seems to be my first ever film music concert, in 2005. Thought I’d share it here, even though it’s 21 years old:

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“Not counting the outdoors LOTR concert earlier this year, I just attended my FIRST EVER film music concert here in Norway on Thursday. As you may gather from my 15-year long interest in film music, this is an EXTREME rarity over here.

The orchestra of our biggest Public Broadcasting Corporation, NRK, arranged a concert in one of their studios called “American Movie Greats”, conducted by Nick Davies. It’s not a particularly big orchestra, nor a particularly skilled one (nowhere near BBC’s orchestra, for example), but it was still quite thrilling to be part of.

Brief comments on the program:

First was a suite of some company logos…I recognized the Fox fanfare and Goldsmith’s Universal logo. Then followed suites of THE BIG COUNTRY and GONE WITH THE WIND. Both sweeping enough, and quite close to the originals (albeit a bit too slow). Of course, you can’t have film music concerts without SONGS (sarcasm!) to catch non-score fans as well, so we were next treated to two famous film anthems….”Zip-a-dee-doo-dah” from SONG OF THE SOUTH and the eternal “Moon River” from BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S. These were performed wonderfully by a very capable Swedish singer named Evelyn Jons. Great range and powerful voice. First half(segment?) ended with one of the highlights of the evening – a long suite from Leonard Bernstein’s ON THE WATERFRONT. I had actually never heard this piece before, and was struck by the rhythmic, quasi-jazzy drive and flair. Certainly something I would want to check out on CD.

Intermission.

The second half was centered on John Williams, and started off with a HARRY POTTER suite. A really weird version, unlike anything I’ve heard. Tempo was off, and textural instruments were oddly more prominent than the solo instruments (like harp or percussion). Then followed a PSYCHO suite, decent enough, but nowhere NEAR Elfman’s brisk-tempered version of the remake. Two more songs with Evelyn Jons were next: “Don’t Rain on My Parade” from FUNNY GIRL and “Over the Rainbow” from WIZARD OF OZ. Once again, she delivered the goods and the arrangements were nice.

The strangest performance of the night, however, was the following JAWS suite (erroneously referred to as the first Williams/Spielberg collaboration by the conductor)…all-too brief, oddly orchestrated and almost completely unrecognizable. Geez. The “Adventures of Earth” suite from E.T. fared much better, as did the SCHINDLER’S LIST theme (although the violin soloist was sadly uninvolving). “The Raiders March” from RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK got the blood pumping again, and the concert ended off with two selections from STAR WARS, “Luke and Leia” and of course, “Main Titles”. Quite a work-out for the orchestra and there were the occasional misses, especially by the brass.

Except for some of these minor quibbles, it was great to finally see what all you guys “over there” experience almost every day. Film music concerts! It was also great to have a few beers with our fellow FSM member Nils, who posts here once in a blue moon.”