Neil Brand’s 2021 score for the South – the world’s first documentary feature – was performed by members of the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Hugh Brunt at Nottingham’s Royal Concert Hall on 25 March. The 80-minute film, exquisitely shot by Frank Hurley, is an account of one of the most remarkable survival stories in the history of exploration, following Ernest Shackleton and the crew of the Endurance on their 1914-16 Antarctic expedition, which saw the ship trapped by the polar ice necessitating Shackleton and a handful of crew journeying some 800 miles in a lifeboat to reach South Georgia and help for their stranded mates. The screening appeared as part of the Soundstage Festival.
Brand’s score is for flute, clarinet, horn, violin, viola, cello and pre-recorded percussion and banjo. Highlights include the sombre, spare requiem, with muffled bass drum, that accompanies the slow destruction of the ship by the pack ice, a playful waltz led by French horn that depicts the gentle bathing of a herd of elephant seals, or the music-hall-esque, banjo-accompanied ‘Penguin Chaplin’ that tracks the slapstick exploits of Antarctic fowl.
South was commissioned by the British Film Institute for the digitally remastered version of the documentary, which preserved its original tints and tones, and subsequently released on DVD. It was performed by the Covent Garden Sinfonia conducted by Ben Palmer, who orchestrated the work.
On 11 April the BD1 Brass Brand perform another documentary score by Brand – Echoes of the North: Four Chapters in Time. The first ever original brass band soundtrack written for a silent film, the 60-minute piece appears at Victoria Hall in the historic town of Saltaire, near Bradford, opening The Big Brass Blowout. Brand’s music accompanies a specially created film of rarely seen early 20th century archive footage shot around the North of England between 1898 and 1929.