Music from 1984 documentary: 'Island at the edge of the World' (South Georgia)

Started by wrdiffin, December 07, 2020, 06:11:19 AM

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wrdiffin

You won't be able to identify this, but once you hear it you will want to know what it is as much as I do. It is exquisite.

Piano and orchestra, a slow movement, used as haunting background to some beautiful footage of icy South Georgia island. Sounds to me very much like a British composer, Holst or Tippett or Walton, but I don't think it's by any of them.

First it is heard here:
https://youtu.be/Gg2ccWIVQZ8?t=313 (from 5:12 - 6:26)

Then again until the end from here:
https://youtu.be/Gg2ccWIVQZ8?t=2969 (from 49:29 - 51:06)

Also in the same documentary, this rollicking orchestral piece accompanying footage of exultant fur seals, sounds like Shostakovich but still with that British flavour:
https://youtu.be/Gg2ccWIVQZ8?t=2271 (from 37:51-38:42)

There are other sections of piano and orchestral music elsewhere in the documentary, possibly all from the same piece, and the famous 'lever du jour' section from Ravel's ballet Daphnis et Chloé is impeccably used with a spectacular shot of the Sun rising over the Allardyce Range. The documentary is well worth watching.

Please if anyone can identify the composer(s) and the work(s), I would certainly like to transcribe it (them) for piano solo.

William

wrdiffin

So I'm going to answer my own question. The first piece is the final section of the first movement of Lennox Berkeley's Concerto for Two Pianos Op. 30 (1948), the second is the beginning of the fourth movement Dance from The Age of Gold Suite Op. 22a by Shostakovich, from his ballet of the same name. So I was in the ball park, so to speak.

There is already a piano transcription of the Dance, by György Sándor: https://youtu.be/to8ny6puxBI

relm1

Quote from: wrdiffin on December 13, 2020, 09:12:31 PM
So I'm going to answer my own question. The first piece is the final section of the first movement of Lennox Berkeley's Concerto for Two Pianos Op. 30 (1948), the second is the beginning of the fourth movement Dance from The Age of Gold Suite Op. 22a by Shostakovich, from his ballet of the same name. So I was in the ball park, so to speak.

There is already a piano transcription of the Dance, by György Sándor: https://youtu.be/to8ny6puxBI

How did you find out?  Google showed no info about this documentary other than the link on youtube and other links to that same link.  It's like it didn't really exist.