Battleship Potemkin (2005) Perusal Score
Score commissioned by the Brighton Festival on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the film
Flute (doubling Picc), Clarinet, Horn, Trumpet, Percussion, Piano, Cello, Double Bass + Performance DVD with four channel pre-recorded electronics
Recorded by the New Music Players conducted by Patrick Bailey for Tartan DVD
Duration 74 minutes
Purchase the score or hire the music (UYMP)
This work is intended to be performed as a live accompaniment to Eisenstein’s film Battleship Potemkin (1925). It seeks to connect the film’s collision of montage and epic structure with fast moving, multi-layered music in equally bold paragraphs. Additionally, the score uses modern technology in order to approach the ideal of film and music synchronisation, which Eisenstein described as a ‘symphony of machines’ in his notes on this film.
“In Hughes’s music...there is a perfect fit with the films, with incidental sounds such as the factory whistle in Strike skilfully incorporated into the musical line. Potemkin was first shown with Hughes’ music at an unforgettable performance in 2005 in the machine hall of the Brighton Engineerium, which provided a uniquely suitable site for it. A similarly happy match between film and music runs through these two superb scores.”
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