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John Scott Antony amp Cleopatra 1972 London Philharmonic Orchestra
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ABOUT THE SCORE: Having only been working as a composer for five or six years professionally at the time (and still moonlighting as a session player on the London music scene concurrently), John Scott had the fortune of being commissioned by Charlton Heston to score his 1972 adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy, 'Antony and Cleopatra'. With mostly just b-rate horror films to his name at the time, the film's grand canvas allowed Scott to pen not only one of his greatest scores to date but also, perhaps, one of the most sumptuous, beautiful compositions in the pantheon of orchestral music. The resultant work, written in a mere 3 weeks to replace a previous composer's unused score, contains not only one of the most beautiful love themes ever crafted but also a wealth of colorful, archaic scoring that effortlessly transports the listener back to the days of the Roman empire. • Armed with 75 members of the London Philharmonic and a modest 16-voice choir, the composer provides the score with a number of recurring motifs for different facets of the story. At the outset of the suite (the main title cue) one is introduced to the blossoming, unfolding central love theme, explored in an ever-building and heraldic fashion with sweeping strings and high brass counterpoint taking it to a breathtaking coda. Just when you think Scott can't possibly dial up the drama any further we are introduced at 3:38 to Cleopatra's theme with choir and full orchestra - as grand an entrance for a theme as one can imagine. Variations on these two principal identities are abundant (and the love theme closes the suite with a lengthy, stunning rendition that takes the melody to its most dramatic heights), but other themes are present also: at 5:50 an incessant brass fanfare of devious intent is introduced for the character Pompey, to be heard again often in the full score (sometime in counterpoint with other themes); at 13:15 we're introduced to an exotic, luxuriant bacchanal that adds some requisite color and pageantry to the score's palette, and later we hear brassy battle music and a few encounters with ear-shattering dissonance as tragedy strikes in the film's final reel. It's the coupling of the love theme and cleopatra's melody that will stick indefinitely with the listener however, and few composers can claim such a feat as that which Scott managed here. This is music, both as dramaturgy and craft, of the highest melodic significance. Scott would later pen more technically-excellent music elsewhere in his lengthy career, but rarely has the opportunity to create music of such towering, radiant beauty been allotted to him. • Recorded at the now-defunct CTS Studios in London in 1972, the score has a reverb-heavy wetness often characterized by recordings at this venue, further enhancing the score's lush sound. • The painting is Lawrence Alma-Tadema's The Meeting of Antony and Cleopatra (1884) and felt preferable to the various (not-so-great) pieces of key art made for the film at the time of its release.
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