On 21 March the Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra gave the UK debut of Neil Brand’s music for Henry King’s The Winning of Barbara Worth at Victoria Hall, Sheffield, conducted by George Morton.
The 1926 Western stars Ronald Colman, Vilma Bánky and Gary Cooper. It tells the story of the titular orphan, whose parents 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 an expansive, heroic theme, spiced up with Spanish guitar, whilst the fish-out-of-water Colman is given a flashy, City Dude flavour.
The score debuted in 2024 at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, with Ben Palmer conducting the Orchestra da Camera di Pordenone at the Teatro Comunale Giuseppe Verdi. In July 2025 it opened the Locarno Film Festival, with Philippe Béran conducting the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana.
March also saw the national debut of Brand’s 74-minute score for Alfred Hitchcock’s Blackmail with Frank Strobel and the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg – one of the world’s celebrated silent film orchestras – at the Philharmonie. Brand’s music for Hitchcock’s brilliant thriller 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 a musical toolkit; read an in-depth discussion of Brand’s work on his score for the movie here on the BFI website.