John Scott: Odyssey of the Belem Symphony (2002) / Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra

Wikipedia:

Patrick John O’Hara Scott (born November 1, 1930) (also credited as John Scott, Johnny Scott and Patrick John Scott), is an English composer, conductor, and jazz musician. He began his career as a pop and jazz arranger and session musician, before becoming well-known for his film and television scores, including collaborations with directors such as Richard Donner, Mike Hodges, Hugh Hudson, Norman Jewison, Irvin Kershner, Ilaiyaraaja, and Norman J. Warren. He is also a composer of contemporary classical music.

. . .Credited as Johnny Scott, and playing flute, he led a jazz quintet, quartet and trio during the 1960s: his three part Study for Jazz Quintet was included on the 1962 compilation album Jazz Tête-à-Tête recorded by Denis Preston. He played for Henry Mancini and was principal saxophonist in John Barry’s soundtrack to the James Bond film Goldfinger (1964).

. . .Since the 1960s, Scott has composed for more than 100 film and television productions. Some of Scott’s most praised and recognised scores are Antony and Cleopatra (1972), England Made Me (1973), North Dallas Forty (1979), The Final Countdown (1980), Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984), The Shooting Party (1985) and Lionheart (1990).

His TV work includes the themes to the BBC current affairs programmes Nationwide and Midweek, incidental music for the ITV series Rosemary and Thyme, and documentaries by French explorer Jacques Cousteau.

. . .Scott is also active as a classical composer (having written a symphony, a ballet, four string quartets and a guitar concerto) and as a conductor.[2] Orchestras that he has conducted include the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Munich Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Budapest Opera Orchestra, the Lubliana Radio Orchestra and the Prague Philharmonic.

In 2006–2008, Scott served as the artistic director of the Hollywood Symphony Orchestra.

Video Title: John Scott: Odyssey of the Belem Symphony (2002) / Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. Source: bobbengan. Date Published: April 7, 2020. Description:

ABOUT THE WORK: In 2002 composer John Scott was commissioned by the Jules Verne Society to write a multi-movement symphonic tone poem meant to depict, musically, his experiences of sailing around the world aboard the three-masted French barque, the Belem. The resultant work, which has been released twice – once as a four-movement symphony on JOS Records and again later as a 2-CD film score by the Jules Verne Adventures Society, which presented individually-recorded cues in a more score-friendly fashion – is among the greatest musical achievements of the composer’s career, regardless of which format one chooses to listen to it in. Musically, the diverse and highly imaginative work has echoes of fellow Englishmen like Benjamin Britten, Frank Bridge or Arnold Bax, but the unique impressionistic language and unwavering ear for novel melody color this as distinctly John Scott’s own voice. As a mature musical work, it feels as much like a love letter to discovery and adventure as it does to the symphonic idiom it embraces, and the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra rises to the occasion with an utterly gigantic performance.