A STRESSFUL COLLABORATION
GERARD
SCHURMANN describes his involvement with the music score for
‘Lawrence of Arabia”
Based on an article first published in The Cue Sheet Vol.7, No.3,
July 1990
Previous requests for an account of my involvement
with the music score for Lawrence of Arabia have never
tempted me in the slightest. It all happened a long time ago,
my professional life has developed in a direction largely
away from films, and I generally believe subjective reminiscences
of this kind to be defensively slanted towards self-aggrandisement.
Lawrence, now splendidly restored to its original version,
has acquired a life of its own, while the orchestral full
scores are preserved in Columbia’s music library, available
for inspection to anyone who might be interested. Isn’t this
enough?
Apparently not, judging by published accounts
of interviews with the composer Maurice Jarre in the French
press and elsewhere. So extraordinary and far reaching are
the inaccuracies, compromising not only me, but also other
musicians who were my friends, that I seem to have no alternative
but to try and set the record straight on at least a few points,
according to verifiable documentation and the best of my recollection.
In mitigation, it may be true that Jarre’s extremely poor
command of English at the time prevented him from knowing
precisely what was going on. However, the idea that Benjamin
Britten for example, as claimed by Jarre, would have agreed
under any circumstances to collaborate with him is absurd.
Ben told me later that he had indeed been tentatively approached
by someone via Boosey and Hawkes, his publishers at the time,
to compose the score. The subject interested him, and he suggested
that he might, in principle, be prepared to take on the assignment
if he was given a year’s notice!
The original joint plan of David Lean and Sam
Spiegel had been to ask William Walton and Malcolm Arnold
to write the score together, a fact well remembered by Susana,
Lady Walton, in her biography Behind the Façade: ”…after
seeing the rushes and drinking a fair amount over lunch, they
(William and Malcolm) decided that it (Lawrence) was
a travelogue needing hours of music, and declined. This deeply
offended David Lean, an old friend of William’s, and provoked
an irate phone call from Paris from Sam Spiegel, the producer,
who berated William for his failure to understand commercial
cinema.”…
When Jarre and I first met, he told me a disarmingly
personal story of how he had come to Sam Spiegel’s attention,
involving the French actress Juliette Greco and American film
producer Darryl Zanuck. I for my part was both surprised and
delighted to receive a call from my agent David Conyers at
MCA with the message that Sam Spiegel wanted to see me at
his office about the music for Lawrence of Arabia and
would offer me a contract as co-composer with a Frenchman.
All went smoothly at the meeting. Sam, at his most charming
and encouraging, assured me that I would get on well with
Jarre, who was then in Paris. He invited me to meet David
Lean the following day and see a few edited reels. The sheer
beauty of what I saw bowled me over, and David, noticing my
response, asked me to dinner at the Berkeley Hotel where he
was staying. During the meal I brought up the question of
how, after Walton and Arnold, Sam had finally come to choose
Jarre and me, both still in our thirties, for the music. David
explained that, to him, Sam was like an international fur
dealer who travelled the world feeling out samples and reputations.
After Jarre’s return to London, we had about
a week to get acquainted. Our time was spent in daily visits
to the viewing theatre in North Audley Street, often followed
by dinner and stimulating conversation with David in the evening.
On a personal level I found Jarre to be all Sam had promised,
charming and easy to get on with. It was important that we
got to know each other’s musical style, and he played me some
recordings of his music for films and theatre productions.
I could not help noticing an elaborate and resourceful use
of percussion – he told me that he had at one time been a
drummer in the famous Régiment du Chambre et Meuse – but I
began to suspect that he had never previously had experience
of composing or orchestrating anything appropriate for the
kind of large symphony orchestra of close to 100 players that
we were going to employ. Indeed, after I had orchestrated
a few of his sketches, my suspicions were abundantly confirmed,
and there was obviously no way in which the division of labour
was going to be shared equally if the score was to get done
in time. It should here perhaps be said that there were no
professional orchestrators as such in England in those years.
Composers did their own orchestration, and any help needed
had to be supplied by another composer. When I explained my
view of the situation to Sam, he was shocked at first. He
then asked me if I would be prepared to take full charge of
the orchestrations, and reduce my input of original music.
Reluctantly, I agreed, and he proceeded to question me further
about my own abilities in that direction. After I told him
that, apart from my composition credits which he knew about,
I had supplemented my income by doing the orchestrations for
The Cruel Sea, The Vikings and, most recently
the Oscar winning score for Exodus, he heaved a sigh
of relief and seemed reassured.
The next hurdle was a financial one. Jarre’s
various explanations on this matter make no sense at all.
The trouble arose because MCA advised me not to sign the revised
contract which reduced my role from that of co-composer to
“the Arranger who shall also compose music as may be reasonably
required by the Company.” The new deal meant that I would
be giving up a considerable potential source of income from
royalties for which MCA felt I should be compensated. This
claim was being resisted by Horizon Pictures when I mentioned
it, in Jarre’s presence, to David Lean over dinner. David
was very supportive, advised me to see Sam personally at his
office the next day, and make sure that I use the words “I
resent….” with appropriate conviction. It did the trick immediately,
and Sam soothed me down with his expressed belief that I would
in any case still be required to contribute a fair amount
of original music.
In the event, I did not compose any themes
for the film. Jarre is proud to have done all of this himself.
On the other hand, he seems blissfully unaware that inordinate
repetition, however expedient, almost broke the camel’s back
– no pun intended! – not to mention the arranger’s neck which
suffered a slipped disc and a harnessed existence for many
months to come.
I am afraid that Jarre’s faulty memory has
led him deep into the realm of pure fantasy where Sir Adrian
Boult is concerned. The facts are that, unusually, the recording
schedule with the London Philharmonic Orchestra was spread
over an extended period, while part of the score was still
being written. Sessions were booked at irregular intervals
depending on the orchestra’s availability. Sam confided to
me that he needed another British citizen on the list of credits
to be sure of qualifying the film as a British product. This
brought certain tax advantages and would allow Lawrence
to fall within the 50% of the British films quota system that
cinema chains in the UK had to abide by. To that end he had
asked the conductor John Pritchard to record the unsynchronized
music, i.e. a planned Overture which was also largely going
to double as interval music before Part 2, but Pritchard’s
agent Basil Horsfield had apparently demanded a huge fee which
Sam was not prepared to pay. It was I who suggested asking
Sir Adrian Boult, whom I knew well, and Sam readily agreed
when I proposed that we should offer him a fee of 250 guineas
to conduct the Overture in the course of one session sometime
in the middle of the recording schedule.
I was able to send Sir Adrian a copy of the
score a few days in advance, but on the morning of his session
at Shepperton Studios I had been working more than 48 hours
at a stretch without sleep, one of many such stints during
Lawrence. Having remembered to arrange for his customary
pint of milk to be handed to him at the studio, I myself arrived
late and, to Sam Spiegel’s dismay, missed a publicity photo
session which Sam thought important. Sir Adrian recorded the
piece as planned and returned the score accompanied by a charming
little note complimenting me on the orchestration.
I have left the recollection of my struggles
with Jarre’s musical material until last, because it was heartbreaking
to discover that his audio-dramatic gifts were coupled to
an astonishingly inarticulate musical technique. This combination
has tended over the years to make Jarre’s film scores stand
out as recognizably his, at least for me.
I questioned him very closely in the beginning
as to what he had in mind, since there was never even the
slightest indication of either dynamics or instrumentation,
beyond a detailed lay-out for percussion. However, I do remember,
and he never fails to mention it in his interviews, that
he did once specifically ask for three piccolos instead
of two in a military march!"
At the end of a week, I decided there was really
nothing further to be gained from our regular meetings, and
his sketches were thereafter delivered to my home by hired
car. Jarre’s indications continued to be lamentably vague,
or lacking altogether, but I had learned to use my initiative
to an extent unprecedented in my experience in the role of
arranger and orchestrator. The percussion parts were always
written out in full, sometimes taking up five or six staves,
while the rest of the music had to content itself with merely
one or two. During the last few weeks the sheer pressure of
getting the notes down in full score became so great that
Phil Jones, the chief copyist in charge, arranged for one
or two copyists to stay and work at my house in relays.
In an attempt to lift my spirits I used occasionally
to speculate idly whether the word “orchestration” had some
unfathomable connotation in French which was responsible for
my agony. It was not until many years later that friends at
the O.R.T.F. in Paris told me about the case of a well-known
French conductor from Lyon who had undertaken to “orchestrate”
a ballet composed by Maurice Jarre, and was subsequently found
wandering the streets in a suicidal condition.
I don’t know what it is that Jarre is supposed
to have played to Sam and David on the piano before I joined
the team, but I remember very clearly, after the first couple
of orchestral sessions had taken place, that there were still
doubts to be resolved. We changed harmonies and broadened
some of the main themes to make them more suitable for big
orchestral treatment. It was not until after Jarre and I had
played these somewhat rearranged versions of the material
together on the piano, four hands, to an audience of David
Lean, Sam Spiegel and Robert Bolt at the offices of Horizon
Pictures in Berkeley Street, that the musical ship was well
and truly launched.
I know that at the end of it all Jarre was
nervous and uncertain about my orchestral arrangements. He
had never produced such a big sounding score before and seemed
genuinely worried that he would be heavily criticized for
it in France where, he told me, such rich orchestration would
be frowned upon as being a typical product of Hollywood.
At the end of the last music session Jarre
called me over and asked if, for the sake of the film, I would
agree to present a united front at all times, and not betray
any past difficulties between us. I readily concurred, but
found within a few days that he had complained about me at
a press conference in London, and when he arrived in Hollywood
and met Ernest Gold, composer of the Oscar winning music for
the film Exodus with whom I had enjoyed a happy working
relationship as his orchestrator, Jarre began the conversation
to Ernest’s consternation with, “Only you and I know how bad
Gerard Schurmann is!” In more recent times, however, he appears
to have radically changed his opinion. He now seems proud
to claim all of the credit for himself.
Ah well, I could not help being mildly curious
when I read an advertisement for a subsequent Silva Screen
CD release of Lawrence of Arabia announcing “New and
revised orchestrations made under the direction of the composer.”
When I saw the film again, in its restored version many years
later, I felt rather proud of my work, and I cannot think
of a better way to demonstrate the full extent of my personal
input than to invite a comparison between the music as heard
in the film and these “revised” scores, supposedly made under
Jarre’s personal direction, by someone else.
Finally, after Lawrence had won an Oscar
for its music, and a short time before the production of Dr.
Zhivago got underway, David Lean, who liked to work with
the same people around him, wrote to me from Venice to say
that we would soon all be together again on the new film.
Unfortunately, nothing on earth could ever have persuaded
me to repeat the experience of my stressful musical collaboration
on Lawrence.
© Gerard Schurmann
