Movie-theme orchestral delights

This year gives reason to celebrate the return of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra to Palmerston North, their Music from the Movies being the first of three concerts scheduled for the city this year.

Film directors have different approaches about using music to gain emotional responses from audiences, from Michael Curtis (Casablanca) and Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey), who were masters in using music with which viewers were already familiar, to John Avildsen (Rocky) and Steven Spielberg, who asked composers to compose specifically for each movie.

Bill Conti’s Rocky score is an uplifting and exciting listen, with its unforgettable brass themes, while Williams fully explored orchestral timbre to tug at the heartstrings of audiences.

This was evident from concertmaster Vessa-matti Lepplinen’s stirring rendition of the Schindler’s List theme on violin, to the full power of the evocative Star Wars score in another superb performance from the orchestra.

Conductor Hamish Mckeich sensibly followed readings with which audiences would be most familiar. It was though difficult to understand why a re-orchestration of Vangelis’ beautiful Chariots of Fire theme should be included, while the performance of The Blue Danube was slightly more animated than the performance used by Kubrick in 2001.

We can only look forward in great anticipation to the forthcoming visits of our national orchestra.