Brighton: Symphony of a City (2016) Perusal Score
Orchestra 2.2.2.2/2.2.2.2/perc.timp.pf/str
Commissioned by the Brighton Festival
Recorded by the Orchestra of Sound and Light
Released on Métier [DVD] Symphonic Visions
Duration: 44’
Programme Note
The film creates a dynamic portrait of Brighton today, and in its dawn to dusk and then night approach consciously references Walter Ruttmann’s great rhythmic and poetic film ‘Berlin: Symphony of a Great City’ (1927). The music conveys colour and contrasts, echoing those of the modern urban environment, but constantly aware of seascape.
“gently pulsating cross rhythms and subtle dislocations of the metre, combined with long-breathed dynamic ebbs and flows and vividly contrasting orchestral colours, wonderfully capture not only the broad sweep of the city itself, but also (as with Vigo’s Nice) the alluring expanse of the open sea beyond its shore.”