A new score by Neil Brand for Henry King’s The Winning of Barbara Worth will debut on 12 October at the Pordedone Silent Film Festival, with Ben Palmer conducting the Orchestra da Camera di Pordenone at the Teatro Comunale Giuseppe Verdi.
The 1926 Western stars Ronald Colman, Vilma Bánky and Gary Cooper. It tells the story of the titular orphan, whose perish trying to cross the California desert; she is rescued by a man who dreams of irrigating it. Williard Holmes (Colman) tries to do just that, and on meeting Worth falls head-over-heels for her. His rival for her affections is Cooper’s cowboy Abe Lee, though she never feels the same way. The film concludes, famously, with a catastrophic flood sequence, caused by Holmes’ greedy employer; Worth is enamoured of Willard’s heroism and they pledge to be married after he has conquered the river and turned the desert into a paradise.
The 89-minute score is Brand’s first for a Western, created with the assistance of George Morton. Brand’s language pays homage to the great Copland-inspired scores for classic Westerns directed by John Ford, Howard Hawks and Anthony Mann, drawing on wistful, songlike melodies and expansive open harmonies that speak to the vast panoramas of that cinematographic landscape. Brand gives Barbara a love theme that pervades the score, developing alongside her feelings for Holmes; Cooper is granted a Copland-esque theme, spiced up with Spanish guitar, whilst the fish-out-of-water Colman is given a flashy, City Dude theme.
On 25 October Timothy Brock, a regular collaborator with Brand as both orchestrator and conductor, leads the Spanish premiere of Brand’s score for Hitchcock’s silent masterpiece Blackmail with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León in Valladolid. Brand’s 76-minute score takes in the influences of the key composers Hitchcock would work with across his career, with Bernard Herrmann Franz Waxman, and Miklos Rozsa providing Brand with his musical toolbox. On 16 September the ensemble version of the score received its Macedonian premiere courtesy of students from the Fame’s Institute, conducted by Mirian Khukhunaishvili and in collaboration with the National Cinematheque of North Macedonia, as part of the Silent and Classical Film Festival in Skopje.