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Carl Davis on composing for Cranford (December 2007) |
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The American composer wrote the musical score for acclaimed period drama Cranford. Here he tells Tom Cole about working on the project.
How did you come to be composing for Cranford?
I wanted very passionately to do it. I had worked with Sue Birtwistle on two very successful productions. One was the Anita Brookner adaptation Hotel du Lac and then in '95 I did the score for her production of Pride and Prejudice, and I knew she was doing Cranford.
I also loved the book. In fact, I had once written a musical based on it. So I knew it very well, and when I knew it was in the air I immediately contacted Sue and said "Look, I've got a tremendous Cranfordian background, I know all about it, so wouldn't it be fun?"
Having already written music based on the book, you must have had pre-conceived ideas of what you were aiming for on the series?
Ah, but there is a difference. The original Cranford book itself is very short. What Sue did, which I thought was masterful, [was to include material from Mrs Gaskell's other books and from her life]. I said "You've got something enormous here. Because by adding the additional material you've told the history of the beginning of contemporary England. By bringing in topics such as the effects of railways on the society and the economy of the day, and adding stories which really "do" the beginning of modern medicine and universal education, you're really striking at the heart of things which deeply concern us today."
So I thought it was a bigger project than a show about funny ladies. It opened out into wider issues which I thought made it very interesting.
Cranford's an interesting mixture of absurdity and tragedy…
Isn't that our life? (laughs)
Indeed! But did that present any unique challenges?
Well, there were two things I wanted to do. Firstly I didn't want it to sound small. I think, probably, it could have been a kind of Fawlty Towers string quartet if it had just been Cranford [the book], but because it was going to deal with these wider issues I wanted to give the audience the feeling that it was orchestral - it isn't quite orchestral but I think the feel is large - and second, I wanted to take one image and see if I could reproduce it musically.
Because Cranford's a small town, it's really based around one street so the image I chose was of that road. The very first thing you see is Mary Smith coming into Cranford by coach and people coming in and out, so I wanted something that travelled - music with some movement in it.
Were there any specific episodes or scenes in the series that you had to pay special attention to, or compose something specific for?
We didn't discriminate. Everyone got their story. It's full of stories, of couplings and uncouplings, so everybody got their tune. The young lovers got their theme and the romance between the carpenter and the maid got its melody, and the most central love theme was the potential love between Miss Matty and Holbrook - which is a kind of postponed romance which had to wait 30 years to come to fruition and then is foiled at the last - so everybody got their theme.
As you mentioned, you've worked with Cranford producer Sue Birtwistle before, most notably on Pride and Prejudice. What's your working relationship like?
Lots of jokes! (laughs) Y'know, "What can we do to make each other laugh?" And lots of challenges - we're quite feisty with each other sometimes. But I don't worry about that. It's a very compatible relationship, and she will choose fabulous projects. That's the heart of it. If you're dealing with an Anita Brookner, a Jane Austen, a Mrs Gaskell - this is good stuff, this is great material to work on, so you can't help but be stimulated by it.
Your TV scoring career is remarkably varied, running the gamut from the incredibly serious, like World at War, to comedies like Up Pompeii. Do you have a favourite type of show to compose for?
I just like things that give me scope. I have very broad interests. I like to do period things and I like to do contemporary things. I think the main thing is that it is about something, that it's valid, that it has some human emotion in it and some content in it, whether it's comic or tragic. As long as it's about the human condition, and emotion and feeling and the effects of events on people.
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Now take a look at our full guide to Cranford
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