Premiere of Alex North's Cleopatra Symphony
On January 19, conductor John Mauceri premiered Alex North's Cleopatra
Symphony in Leipzig, Germany. The Gewandhaus Orchestra performed the piece
along with the European premiere of Bernard Herrmann's original Psycho
suite Psycho: A Narrative For Orchestra. Attending the premiere of the
Cleopatra Symphony was North's wife Anna North. Mauceri sent us this brief
but enthusiastic report and photos from the event (via John Waxman) which
indicates, as we at FSM have long suspected, that European audiences seem
a lot more open to challenging film music than Americans do. The photo
below shows the concert hall and audience; the second photo is of Mauceri
and Anna North.
"I just wanted to report of the extraordinary success of the Gewandhaus
program. It was already sufficient to hear this great orchestra, which
traces its history back to Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms, play the music
of Bernard Herrmann and Alex North. But I was not prepared for the first
of two (hopefully) full houses for these non-subscription concerts which
contained people of every age, from young teenagers to rather old folks.
Their intensity and concentration were palpable. The two concerts, which
were non-subscription, sold some 3500 seats out of a maximum of just under
4000. The public, which was not a normal Gewandhaus audience, ranged in
age from young teenagers to quite old people. About half of this music
was atonal and, with the exception perhaps, of Lawrence of Arabia
and the one encore, Star Tek V, the films for which these scores
were written are generally unknown to this former-East German populace.
At the end of each piece there was a prolonged ovation and by the end,
especially on Saturday night, cheers, stomping and standing. That they
vociferously applauded the European Premiere of Psycho: Narrative for Orchestra,
cheered Lenny's West Side Story Dances, gave Mrs. North a prolonged ovation
and then heard the World Premiere of the newly created Cleopatra Symphony;
that they then continued on this journey, the orchestra giving everything
to this music, and enjoying themselves mightily as Maurice Jarre, John
Barry, Ennio Morricone and Nino Rota's names were introduced by me: applause
before and ovation after each work: All of this should give us heart as
to the possibility of restoring a better balance in our orchestral repertory.
The encore, Jerry Goldsmith's Star Trek V, was greeted with gasps
and cheers. And it was amazing to hear! And I know it does send an important
signal to other orchestras, not only in Germany, but throughout the world
about the repertory we all care about -- not to the exclusion of any other
repertory, mind you -- but a repertory which deserves to be played as seriously
as any other orchestral repertory and which clearly engages the minds and
spirits of a great orchestra as well as an otherwise marginalized and interested
audience." --John Mauceri
MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com
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