Talk:Arthur Benjamin

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Music to The Man Who Knew Too Much

According to the subtitles the music at the Albert Hall is "A Child is Born by Arthur Benjamin"... Rich Farmbrough, 20:34 11 June 2007 (GMT).

I suspect that's an error. My notes say the following:

1934 original film: Benjamin composed a dramatic "Storm Clouds" cantata, to words by Wyndham Lewis, for a tension-filled scene in the Royal Albert Hall during which the heroine of the film must stop an assassin from shooting a visiting prime minister. The assassin has memorized the music by listening to a recording and waits patiently for the thunderous climax of cymbals which will muffle the sound of his gun. But the heroine, in desperation, screams just at the moment when the cymbals crash. The prime minister is distracted by her scream and the assassin’s bullet only wounds him. The London Symphony Orchestra with a chorus, conducted by H. Wynn Reeves, performed the cantata before a live audience of extras gathered at the Albert Hall. The performance was recorded during the filming and so it could be played back for editors to match the scenes to the music.

1956 remake: The score was by Bernard Herrmann. Herrmann however included Benjamin's cantata (with some changes) in the concluding Albert Hall concert sequence. In fact the 1956 film features far more of the cantata than in the 1934 original. The orchestra was again the LSO with the Covent Garden Chorus and Barbara Howitt as the soprano soloist. The film shows Herrmann himself as the conductor, and Benjamin’s name appears briefly on a poster outside the Albert Hall announcing the performance. -- JackofOz (talk) 04:15, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

IMdB backs me up on the title, and I've scanned my list of works and Arthur Benjamin wrote no piece called "A Child is Born". But Benjamin Britten, one of Arthur Benjamin's students, wrote a choral piece called "A Boy was Born" - maybe they were getting confused between the 2 Benjamins. (Mind you, IMdB isn't always accurate. It shows him dying on 9 April 1960, where most sources give 10 April. But the Storm Clouds info is confirmed in many other places.) -- JackofOz (talk) 04:41, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Quotes that need citing

I moved this statement from the article to here for discussion because this quote needs a reliable citation :

It was in Vancouver in 1945 that Benjamin wrote his first and only Symphony, a large scale four-movement work embodying his stated aim to "mirror the feelings–the despairs and hopes–of the time in which I live".

If this quote finds a reliable source, I would be pleased. Minima c94 (talk) 17:13, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Commemorate his death" not "celebrate"

Enough said.RayJohnstone119.11.7.30 (talk) 14:38, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

UK premiere of Rhapsody in Blue: who was the soloist?

Please contribute at Talk:Rhapsody in Blue#UK premiere: Billy Mayerl or Arthur Benjamin? if you can help clarify whether it was Billy Mayerl or Arthur Benjamin who was the soloist.

Thanks. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:18, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Arthur Benjamin/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Comment(s)

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Caution must be used in linking Arthur Benjamin to a "cantata" with the title "Storm Clouds," and also in linking the scores for the 1934 and 1956 versions of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Man Who Knew Too Much."

There is every indication that the scene in the Royal Albert Hall in the 1934 film used a set piece by Benjamin--the film's composer--not an excerpt from an independent work.

In a typically Hitchcockian inside joke, in the 1956 film there is a brief glimpse of a billboard advertising the concert, listing a performance of a Benjamin cantata by that name. This has led some people to believe that such a work actually exists.

Additionally, the score for the 1956 version of the film was by Bernard Herrmann, not Arthur Benjamin. What Herrmann did in the Albert Hall scene in 1956 was take Benjamin's original music, expand it to over twice its original length, change some of the scoring, and slow the tempo dramatically.

In other words, the music in the 1956 film is by Benjamin/Herrmann. In another Hitchcockian gesture, Herrmann is actually seen conducting the music from the podium.

172.192.22.193 10:03, 9 May 2007 (UTC)David Lawrence[reply]

Last edited at 10:03, 9 May 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 08:20, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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