In September 2024 the Orquestra Simfònica Julià Carbonell de les Terres de Lleida tour of Chaplin silents The Adventurer and The Immigrant with music by Carl Davis, giving three performances across Catalonia, conducted by Alfons Reverté Casas.
The two films are among the outstanding comic masterpieces created by the Mutual Film Corporation with Chaplin as actor and director. In The Immigrant (1917) the penniless but ingenious titular hero falls fall for a girl on a boat headed to America; they are separated on arrival but reunite in a café and manage to outwit a malicious waiter. In The Adventurer (1917, and Chaplin’s last film for Mutual) an escaped convict saves the drowning mother of Edna and is welcomed into their home. They host a luxurious party, but the convict causes a riot, is discovered, and once more goes on the run.
Davis’ 25-minute score for The Immigrant (1991) was commissioned by Thames Television and scored for a small orchestra with percussion, piano, harp, and single strings; The Adventurer, lasting 23 ½ minutes, employs the same forces, minus harp, and premiered in 2000 at the Ville de Luxembourg Cinematheque Municipale with musicians from the conservatoire at Davis conducting.
Davis’ inspiration in scoring Chaplin’s Mutuals was drawn from his meticulous study of Chaplin’s upbringing and early career. Chaplin’s parents were both performing vocalists working out of London’s many theatres and music halls; when working in the theatre as a Variety act himself Chaplin would have been himself surrounded by musicians, singers, dancers and every kind of novelty act every day. Accordingly, Davis draws on Chaplin’s musical tastes, which included his parent’s repertoire of Victorian parlour ballads and somewhat broader music hall marches, polkas and waltzes for comedy and other dance routines, as well as popular operatic arias and excerpts from ballet which would’ve also been heard in the Variety houses.
The scores also make playful use of diegetic musical events within the narrative too – in The Immigrant a violin and piano duo provide a musical backdrop to the restaurant scene; in The Adventurer a small ensemble accompanies a dance at the climactic party in the film. His music for both movies was recorded by The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra in 2006, conducted by the composer.
The Orquestra Simfònica Julià Carbonell de les Terres de Lleida and Reverté Casas have been performing Davis’ music since 2006, when they presented the Spanish debuts of The Immigrant and The Adventurer in a double bill. In 2008 and 2009 they gave the national premiere of Davis’ score for Harold Lloyd’s The Kid Brother, followed in 2009 by the local premieres of Lloyd classic Safety Last! and Buster Keaton’s Our Hospitality. The first Spanish performance of Clarence Brown’s A Woman of Affairs followed in 2013.
On 20 and 21 August Kammerphilharmonie Graubünden and Laurent Zufferey performed Davis’ score to Chaplin’s 1916 Mutual The Rink (2003 rev. 2008); they previously toured the 24-minute score for seventeen players in February 2024 across Switzerland.