Arthur Benjamin: Storm Clouds

[Mark Thomas]

Has anybody else come across this gloriously romantic short cantata by Benjamin, which he wrote for the 1934 Hitchcock film "The Man who knew too much"? It's only just over eight minutes long, even in the expanded revision by Bernard Herrmann for the 1946 remake of the film. There's an Elgarian breadth to the writing and the whole work has a sort of glow about it. Highly recommended for the curious. Here's the reworked, expanded Herrmann version on YouTube.

[TerraEpon]

AFAIK, Benjamin's original has never been recorded. I do love the Herrmann arrangement however...

[jerfilm]

Yes, I waited years for a recording of this piece.  The only thing missing from the CD is the gunshot.....    Well, too, Doris Day singing Que sera, sera......

J

[mbhaub]

Can you imagine any movie director alive today who would allow a piece of classical music be given such prominence in a film? One shudders to think how a remake of TMWKTM would be ruined. Maybe have a Justin Bieber concert instead. Or Beyonce. You can hear the original Benjamin, well a few scraps of it, in the original B/W film Hitch made. Greatest director of them all.

[Amphissa]

I don't understand your comment, mbhaub. Classical music has been prominent in *many* movies since then. And in television programs as well. I am puzzled by your comment. Maybe I do not understand exactly what you meant.

[sdtom]

Hitchcock knew his music very well although other works could have worked as well.  I don't think Herrmann worked on the first Man Who Knew Too Much.
Tom

[mbhaub]

The scene in the Hitchcock movie is long - 10 - 12 minutes? - without dialog. It's a concert performance and not treated as background music. There have been movies where popular music is featured - a lot of rock or country/western for example. But classical? Not that I'm aware of.

And while we're on it: it also seems that on American television that if there is a character who listens to classical music, he's a psychopathic murderer, an evil gay child molester, or a socially inept nerd. The assassins in TMWKTM listen to classical. 

Herrmann did not work on the first one, his first movie with Hitch was The Trouble with Harry some 20 years after.

[Alan Howe]

it also seems that on American television that if there is a character who listens to classical music, he's a psychopathic murderer, an evil gay child molester, or a socially inept nerd.

I know what you mean. However, on British TV we've at least had the detective Morse who loved his Wagner, etc.

[Amphissa]

Well, I'm going to disagree about there being no movies since Hitchcock in which classical music plays a prominent role.

In just the past couple of years, I would pick out:
A Late Quartet
Quartet
Moonrise Kingdom
Amour

And just a few of the many before:
Hilary and Jackie
Amadeus
Immortal Beloved
The Music Lovers
Eyes Wide Shut
The Competition
Tous les Matins du monde
A Midsummer Nights Dream
The Red Violin
Manhattan
2001: A Space Odyssey
A Clockwork Orange
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
Death In Venice
The Piano
Shine
The Shawshank Redemption
Impromptu
Minority Report

[jerfilm]

Add Night Song to the list.  Leith Stevens composed a piano concerto for that film and it was performed by Artur Rubinstein with Ormandy conducting the NYP.  Of course, that was in 1947.....

J

[mbhaub]

Not un-related, and well worth reading...

http://www.artsjournal.com/sandow/2014/03/13236.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Sandow+%28Sandow%29