Charlie Chaplin wrote most of own film scores. Although he couldn’t notate the music he did play piano and violin, and was able to work...

Charlie Chaplin wrote most of own film scores. Although he couldn’t notate the music he did play piano and violin, and was able to work with his arrangers (including in this case David Raksin of “Laura” fame). With his typical concern for detail, he achieved exactly the sound that he wanted. He must have had an exceptional ear. We know that his imagination was second to none. I don’t know if he was a “great’ composer, but he was unquestionably a “right” composer. The music, all eighty minutes of it, is simply wonderful.

Chaplin’s 1936 score fits the madcap action of the film like a hand in a glove: there’s the mechanical factory music, the scenes in jail, the romantic moments with The Gamin, worker’s protests–a huge stylist range– but it all hangs together. Your can practically see the images in your mind as the music plays. There are bits that sound like Gershwin, or perhaps Albert Ketèlbey, and a lot that could only be Chaplin.

The fact that so much music is so enjoyable, that there are no dead spots and very few moments of aimless “mood music,” must be due to conductor Timothy Brock, who painstakingly reconstructed the score as it was actually used in the film. Brock has the NDR Radio Philharmonic at the top of its form, and the engineers do themselves proud. If this becomes a series, CPO will really have something. They already do.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com