Escape to Brussels

 I’m in Belgium this week, overseeing two performances of my Live Film concert, The Great Escape - the whole film with the classic Elmer Bernstein score played live by the Belgian National Orchestra. My old friend Dirk Brossé is conducting and he is the reason I’m here; Dirk really wanted to do this incredible score here. 

I’ve worked in Belgium a lot over the last 20 years or so, mainly with Dirk and usually up the road in Ghent, home of the World Soundtrack Awards which I am honoured to host. Some great times have been had in Ghent, with some of the biggest names in film and film music, usually at 3am in some beer-soaked bar serving inappropriately strong ale. But that’s for another post…

As I drove here on Tuesday night (thanks to UK rail strikes and weather-affected flights), I was remembering the first time I ever visited Belgium, in 1985, as a member of the (as it was then) Kent Schools Symphonic Wind Band for the - deep breath - World Association of Symphonic Wind Bands and Ensembles. Bands from all over the place collected in Kortrijk to perform and we played a concert full of very new music (which was common in wind bands). I was nearly 14 and it was an incredible experience, my first proper trip away with a County music group (and all that that entails - sweaty bus trips, mass changing rooms, heartbreaking teenage loves and losses) and a chance for us to shine as part of an international forum. And the music was terrific, all quite new: the jazzy, jaunty Bacchus on Blue Ridge by Joseph Horowitz; the brand new Lamia by Melvyn Cooke (himself a former Kent Music pupil); Duke of Cambridge Suite by Adrian Cruft and more. 

We were a pretty good group. Kent music was definitely at a peak in the mid to late 1980s with a huge number of people learning instruments in the county so the competition was extremely high. I think we were invited to WASBE because we had won our section of Music For Youth, resulting in us opening one of their celebrated concerts at the Royal Albert Hall (I played timps in the piece we performed, which meant I also played the roll at the beginning of God Save The Queen, kicking the whole thing off. I was 13, that was a BIG deal and totally unforgettable). 

I honestly can’t remember anything else about our visit to Kortrijk, it was nearly 40 years ago after all, but the performances all stay in the mind. 

Rolling forward all those years, I find myself in Brussels the day after our performance of The Great Escape at the Bozar Concert Hall. The Belgian National Orchestra sounded terrific; a wonderfully energetic and vibrant sound that this score needs. It is a film music masterclass by Elmer Bernstein. Everyone knows the famous theme but the main body of the score is beautifully constructed; 90 minutes of music derived from a very small number of ideas but developed, explored and orchestrated masterfully. There is so much to explore, particularly in how Bernstein uses the smallest of ideas and runs with them. It’s an art that seems to be rapidly dying out in film music; those old-fashioned techniques of harmony, counterpoint, development that those of us of a certain age would study are now seen as, well, old-fashioned. And it’s worth remembering that Bernstein wrote his score - where every mark is hit and the music ebbs and flows with the action so naturally - without computers or samples. It’s all so ‘organic’ and all the better for it. And THAT theme. Backstage after the rehearsal was full of the musicians whistling the famous tune. One told me: “I won’t be able to get that out of my head until we play Mozart next week”. Elmer would’ve loved that. 

These projects are always a challenge to put together and it can - as was the case with The Great Escape - take years to prepare. But when presenting them live, most of the challenges are technical. Every venue is different. And every technical manager is different; in Europe, often from the morning to the afternoon. One quirk I’ve discovered over the years of working in European venues is their shift system. Often, staff cannot work in a venue for the whole day, regardless of how much time off they have in the middle (a common experience with these shows is to set up in the morning and the show itself is in the evening). This means that having worked closely with one technical manager all morning and afternoon, they then leave at 4pm and someone else takes over, often just for the concert (this exact situation happened yesterday - I worked with three completely different tech managers for one concert). This never happens in the UK. True, it can be long hours. But there is no way there would be a different crew arrive just for the concert. For someone like me, who is nervous of all technology from long experience of things not going right, this is stressful. Especially when the language is unfamiliar too. 

My view (Bozar, Brussels)

Happily, everything went smoothly and brilliantly last night.  But today we arrive in a new hall - in Namur, about an hour’s drive from Brussels - so there will be an entirely new crew for me to work with. These things have a habit of turning out fine though. And the concert starts at 8.30pm! It’s a 3 hour movie!

The audience last night was great and very appreciative. And they laughed at all the jokes. As it’s Brussels, I had to prepare French AND Dutch subtitles onscreen. It’s a political disaster if it’s just one or the other. Tonight, in Namur, it’s French subtitles only. And if we’d gone just a few miles up the road, it would be Dutch. Strange place, Belgium, sometimes! 

When I first decided to produce The Great Escape with live score, I wasn’t at all sure how it would play in other countries. The film is a classic in the UK, of course, seen on TV on endless Bank Holidays. But in Europe? The US? It never really took off for us in the States, mostly because of the film’s long running time, which causes musician’s union headaches for the organisations. Steve McQueen’s role in the film was created specifically to attract American audiences when it was first released and it did so. But nearly 60 years later it hasn’t held the same interest there as it has in the UK. And you can’t argue with the unions. 

But in Europe, this is their story too. After all, some of the real-life escapees, who were then murdered by the Gestapo, were Europeans. It’s easy, as a Brit, to think that ‘honourable failure’ is part of being British - as it happens, it’s at the heart of the other Live Film concert I’ve been doing this year, Scott of the Antarctic.  But the story of the camps and the soldiers held within them is one common to all europeans; plus, of course, The Great Escape is a bloody good movie. And we all need one of those right now!