Special Notes:

8-page colour booklet featuring a Q&A with composer Laura Rossi.

Having not seen the archival, feature-length documentary shot by G.H. Malins and J.B. McDowell of the trench warfare during the British Offensive in WWI, it isn’t possible to describe how the score works for the film, but as a standalone album and impression of the film’s five sections – The Preparation of War, The Bombardment, The Aftermath of the Battle, The Continuation of the War, and Finale –Laura Rossi’s score for the 80 min. film is a vivid, elegant portrait of the excitement, tension, and horror of war.

Each part runs over 10 mins. and has its own very distinct mood shifts. As Rossi explains in the booklet’s lengthy printed interview, the music had to support specific mood transitions within the themed reels, as well as address the juxtaposition of imagery – some banal, some grim, some very graphic – and engage the viewer without forcing a specific emotion.

On its own, the music has a beautiful flow mostly from Rossi’s use of clean use of tones and harmonics which bridge portions of euphoria, angst, and the excitement of battle.

Echoing woodwinds in Part 1’s timid intro give rise to a circular motif which propels cresting trumpets and spiralling strings. Rossi then pulls back to an unnerving stretch of sombre tones before clarinets and galloping percussion again push forth a sense of excitement; the section becomes a bit nervous, as though reflecting the growing fear among soldiers that the romance of war is being superseded by the distant clamour from the front.

Rossi then adds a full trumpet fanfare that engulfs the listener, and imparts a sense of urgency, as though soldiers are quickly moved into place. A sudden quelling of any sounds forces a bit of reflection before hard timpani hits buffered by long pauses place us with the soldiers, as they peer over the trenches and absorb the mist, the clamour, and odors of war.

The tenor of Part 2 begins with a deceptively euphoric intro that has woodwinds and strings capturing the excitement and the camaraderie of soldiers engaging in the romanticized exploits of being heroic and stately, but the midsection switches to rumbling percussion and foreboding tones which evoke the carnage of bomb blasts, as well as the shock of naïve soldiers absorbing the physical and mounting psychological trauma. Rossi also plays with dynamics when it’s clear a series of images require an extremely restrained use of score: Part 2’s last third contains a short section with barely audible strings, tremors of low percussion, bass clarinets and bassoons conjuring misty, dim imagery.

Melody and soothing harmony make their first appearance in the quiet Part 3, where oboe and flute are supported by gentle strings, and brief quotations of the circular motif in Part 1. As Rossi describes in the printed interview, the film contained repeated shots of the battle terrain, and the music gives extra dimension to the footage by provoking a developing emotional reaction from viewers. The increase in solo and intertwined woodwinds also forms a compact elegy in the film’s midsection, which is followed by further grim statements on the continuing battle.

The melodic statements also return in Part 5, and gradually close the film with an earnest and sometimes wrenching statement on the soldiers lost and still enmeshed in the long war, and Rossi keeps the dynamics very quiet, saving a more grand yet respectful closing passage in her Finale, the last part of what’s ostensibly a symphonic tribute to the men and women who fought and died in the Battle of the Somme.

In the concluding Part 5, Rossi marshals all the elements of the orchestra for a slow-building melodic tribute, as well as giving viewers uplifting harmonics. Woodwinds and strings tend to dominate, but woven into the piece are elegiac solos on trumpet, and the Finale’s tempo seems designed to feel free-flowing around the middle, before the heroic march concludes the score, ending the piece with a short but beautiful set of bars in which Rossi recaps the cyclical motif via a melding of string and soft, chiming vibes.

The Battle of the Somme (1916) is available on DVD, but the version scored by Laura Rossi is presently available as a Region 2 DVD from Britain’s National War Museum. Rossi’s score is available at www.virtuosarecords.co.uk.

Rossi’s other available scores include Shooting Shona (2004), London to Brighton (2006), and horror comedy The Cottage (2008).

© 2009 Mark R. Hasan