On 26 September Philippe Béran conducts the Lemanic Modern Ensemble in a triple-bill of Carl Davis’ scores for Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Mutual’ comedies at Noda BCVS in Sion, Switzerland, performing The Vagabond, Behind the Screen, and The Cure.
The Vagabond (1916) sees Chaplin again adopt the mantle of the Tramp, playing his violin to try and enchant the beautiful Gypsy girl Edna; the 26-minute score, to highly expressive music, is for a small orchestra of percussion, piano, harp, and single strings. In The Cure – whose score was premiered by the Luxembourg Philharmonic and Davis in 2003 – sees the drunkard Charlie visit a spa to take the water cure, with his supply of liquor in tow – chaos ensues, of course, when the other patients get their hands on it; Davis’ score features an especially ingenious musical rendering, in flailing triplets, of the scene in which Charlie becomes stuck in a revolving door.
Behind the Screen sees Chaplin recast the story of David and Goliath in a movie studio; Chaplin plays the former, a nimble stagehand who helps a girl disguised as a boy to get a job, facing off against the latter, a towering and censorious head carpenter. David and Edna, the girl, thwart the machinations of villainous strikers, and become involved in a custard pie fight – Chaplin gently poking fun at the work of Keystone Studios, his former employer.
Davis’ 24-minute score for Behind the Screen was premiered by the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 2003, conducted by the composer, and has since received over 40 performances. It is scored for small orchestra with single flute, oboe, bassoon, trumpet, and trombone, pairs of horns and clarinets, one percussionist, piano, and single strings; watch and listen to an excerpt here.
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.
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 Vagabond a small marching confronts Chaplin’s street violinist.
Béran has been conducting Davis’ scores for two decades. He has previously presented The General at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, Grand Théâtre de Genève, and Locarno Film Festival – where he has also conducted Davis’ music for Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last!, D.W. Griffith’s Broken Blossoms, and King Vidor’s Show People and The Crowd. He presented the same triple bill at the Studio Ernest Ansermet with the ensemble in March 2026, which included the first Swiss performances of The Cure and The Vagabond.