Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977)
Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in London on 16th April, 1889 into a musical background - his father was a versatile vocalist and actor and his mother, known under the stage name of Lily Harley, was an attractive actress and singer. Charlie and his brother Sydney took to the stage and Charlie made his professional debut as a member of a juvenile group called "The Eight Lancashire Lads" and rapidly won popular favour as an outstanding tap dancer.
In 1910, he travelled to the United States as a featured player with the Fred Karno Repertoire Company and became s� popular that, when he returned in 1912 he was offered a motion picture contract and joined Mack Sennett and the Keystone Film Company. When that contract carne to an end, he signed up with the Essanay Company in 1915. The following year Chaplin was in even more demand and signed with the Mutual Film Corporation to make 12 two-reel comedies - The Floorwalker, The Fireman, The Vagabond, One A.M., The Count, The Pawnshop, Behind the Screen, The Rink, Easy Street, The Cure, The Immigrant and The Adventurer.
Chaplin gained valuable independence in 1917 when his contract with Mutual expired. He began the construction of his own studios and, under a distribution deal with First National Exhibitor's Circuit, released A Dog's Life followed by The Bond and Shoulder Arms. In 1919 Chaplin joined forces with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith in the famous launching of United Artists with each of the artists retaining entire control of his or her respective producing activities.
Completing his contract with First National, Chaplin delivered the six-reel masterpiece The Kid in 1921.
As part of the United Artists team, Chaplin made eight feature length films - A Woman of Paris (1923) which was made primarily as a star vehicle for his frequent leading lady Edna Purviance, The Gold Rush (1925), The Circus (1928), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), The Great Dictator (1940), Monsieur Verdoux (1947) and Limelight (1952).
In 1957, he released A King in New York and in 1966 he made his last film A Countess from Hong Kong for Universal Pictures which starred Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando with Chaplin taking a small c�rneo role.
Chaplin was the recipient of an Honourary Academy Award in 1972 for "the incalculable effect he h�s had in making motion pictures the art form of this century".
He died on Christmas Day 1977.
Chaplin and music
Noted US film critic Andrew Sarris once described Charlie Chaplin as "The single most important artist produced by the cinema, certainly its most extraordinary performer, and probably still its most universal icon."
Chaplin was a unique film-maker. When he was finally in a position to do s�, he was able to control every element of the film making process with the exception of the music. When the synchronisation of recorded sound with the film became possible, he embraced it wholeheartedly and added music composer to his other skills.
Chaplin's upbringing against a backdrop of music hall informed his filmmaking. As he described it; "simple little tunes gave me the image for comedies. In one called 20 Minutes of Love, full of tough stuff and nonsense in parks, with policemen and nursemaids, l weaved in and out of situations to the tune of Too Much Mustard', a popular two step in 1914". He frequently wrote theme songs which were published to coincide with the release of the films. Notably, when The Gold Rush was released, he recorded its theme songs with the Abe Lyman Orchestra. In the silent period it was usual to commission professional arrangers to devise suitable musical accompaniments for major films. These were generally compiled from published music, and then performed live by whatever instrumental combinations each individual cinema could afford. At least as early as A Woman of Paris Chaplin was involving himself closely in the musical accompaniment for his films.
The introduction of sound offered further opportunities "one happy thing about sound was that l could control the music, s� l composed my own. l tried to compose elegant and romantic music to frame my comedies in contrast to the tramp character, for elegant music gave my comedies an emotional dimension. Musical arrangers rarely understood this. They wanted the music to be funny. But l would explain that l wanted no competition, l wanted the music to be a counterpoint of grave and charm, to express sentiment, without which, as Hazlitt says, a work of art is incomplete. Sometimes a musician would get pompous with me and talk of the restricted intervals of the chromatic and the diatonic scale, and l would cut him short with a layman's remark 'whatever the melody is, the rest is just a vamp.' After putting music to one or two pictures l began to look at a conductor's score with a professional eye and to know whether a composition was over-orchestrated or not. If l saw a lot of notes in the brass and woodwind section, l would say; Thafs too black in the brass,' or 'too busy in the woodwinds.' Nothing is more adventurous and exciting than to hear the tunes one h�s composed played for the first time by a fifty piece orchestra."
In 1940, talking about the music for The Great Dictator, Chaplin said in an interview "Film music must never sound as if it were concert music. While it actually may convey more to the beholder-listener than the camera conveys at a given moment, still it must be never more than the voice of that camera."
Meredith Willson, the Tony Award winning creator of The Music Man and The Unsinkable Molly Brown, who orchestrated and arranged Chaplin's score for The Great Dictator said "l have never met a man who devoted himself s� completely to the ideal of perfection as Charlie Chaplin. l was constantly amazed at his attention to details, his feeling for the exact music phrase or tempo to express the mood he wanted. Always he is seeking to ferret out every false note however minor from film or music."
Chaplin revisited The Gold Rush in 1942 by adding a musical score and much later, when living in Switzerland, he composed and recorded music for ali his films made between 1918 and 1923.
The little-known symphonic suite The Reel Chaplin compiles music from many of his films but also includes a cue used in The Gentleman Tramp, a documentary started by Peter Bogdanovich but later finished with Chaplin's approval by Richard Patterson and released in 1975 with narration by Walter Matthau and commentary by Jack Lemmon and Laurence Olivier.
He was finally honoured by Hollywood for his musical abilities for his 1952 film Limelight. It was not officially released in the US until 1972 and the following year Chaplin received an Oscar for Best Music, Original Dramatic Score.
The Reel Chaplin fittingly concludes with his most enduring composition "Smile" from Modern Times, a song s� popular that it h�s been recorded by an astonishing diversity of artists including Nat King Cole, Liberace, Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, Peggy Lee, Johnny Mathis among many others and, latterly, Elvis Costello, Eric Clapton, Michael Jackson, Westlife and Rod Stewart.
Describing his music for City Lights, Chaplin said "It is ali simple music, you know, in keeping with my character." It may be simple but it speaks a universal language. He "tried to compose romantic and elegant music to frame my comedies". There is no doubt that he succeeded spectacularly with "Smile", a particularly apt title for the man who made the whole world laugh.
Adapted from the official Chaplin website, Charlie Chaplin : Official Website (
http://www.charliechaplin.com)
Dates when Chaplin created new scores for his earlier films:
THE GOLD RUSH (1925) Music composed in 1942
THE CHAPLIN REVUE (1958) (reissue of DOG'S LIFE, SHOULDER ARMS, (both'1918) and THE PILGRIM 1922) Music composed in 1958. Song "BOUND FOR TEXAS", music and lyrics by Charles Chaplin, sung by Matt Munro.
THE CIRCUS (1928) Music composed in 1967/8.
Song "SWING HIGH LITTLE GIRL" music and lyrics by Charles Chaplin, sung by Charles Chaplin.
THE KID (1921) Music composed in 1971.
THE IDLE CLASS (1921) Music composed in 1971.
PAY DAY (1922) Music composed in 1972/3.
A DAY'S PLEASURE (1919) Music composed in 1973.
SUNNYSIDE (1919) Music composed in 1974.
A WOMAN OF PARIS (1923) Music composed in 1975/6
Charles and I by Carl Davis
In April, 1989, at The Dominion Theatre in London, a significant performance took place. It was a charity 'do' - Princess Diana was there and many members of the Chaplin family. l conducted a virtuoso London band performing Charlie Chaplin's score for his 1931 film masterpiece City Lights. This followed a year of painful restoration of the score on my part from dusty brown-bags, held in the Chaplin archive in vaults in Geneva. As City Lights was a film started in 1928, when live performance of music to film was the practice, but completed in 1931 when live performance had virtually disappeared. Chaplin's answer was to keep the film silent (no dialogue) but create a score and record it. This score is the template for ali Chaplin musical research. The restoration of the score that l and my team completed in 1989 led to further projects: the restoration of the 1925 version of The Gold Rush and of The Kid and The Idle Class. (The score for The Circus had been already done by other hands, but l frequently conduct it).
Looking for a follow-up project, l hankered after the twelve magnificent short films that Charlie had created for The Mutual Film Company in 1916-1917. No original scores existed, s� the time was ripe for me, after being immersed in Chaplin's own music since scoring the Thames TV series 'Unknown Chaplin' in the 1980's. Clips and out-takes from the 'Mutuais' were one of the most interesting �reas covered in that series and l longed to complete them. The British Film Institute were interested in a DVD version of the complete cycle, and s�, here we are with ali twelve completed!
I approached the recording of music for The Mutuais series of films from two very different directions: one of which had to do with the needs of the British Film Institute, the other was my developing enthusiasm for putting music to these films and also performing them "live" which adds this tremendous other dimension of the large screen accompanied by a real orchestra.
The Mutuais are a fascinating group of films because they serve as a bridge between Chaplin's apprenticeship days, working for other companies and not always being in control of the material, to this series where he was still not his own boss but was afforded far greater artistic freedom. There was also the sense that Chaplin was like a short-story writer, like a Chekhov, in that not only did he work in feature length films, which he started to do around 1920, but also he could make masterpieces, which l believe these are, on a smaller scale.
For the orchestration of these scores l had something very specific in mind. To Charlie just hearing a lone piano smacked of poverty and when he made his feature films they were very opulently scored for large symphony orchestra. S�, with these "bridging" films l decided to have an orchestra but one of more modest, chamber proportions. l used a consistent line-up of 16 musicians including string quartet plus bass, and this is the "sound" that goes through ali 12 movies. What is interesting to me is that because each film h�s its own unique character and atmosphere, within this group of 16 players l was able to reflect ali the various moods and orchestral needs that these films required. Each of these films being between 23 and 25 minutes h�s obviously that amount of music. For this CD we have presented miniature suites containing the main thematic material for each film. Some of this thematic material was carried through from film to film, s� you will hear through the disc the development and variations of certain motifs.
I started work on these films in 1992, scoring one or two each year. It was done "Con Amore" (for the love of it) and was my own kind of superior hobby! S�, it is nice that this hobby can now be shared with fans of the films of the great Charlie Chaplin.
For The Chaplin Weekend at Royal Festival Hall in 2003, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and l selected three of the 'Mutuais' (London Premieres for the scores), as curtain raisers for three features which span the years 1920-1930. These were The Kid (1921) The Circus (1928) and City Lights (1931). We chose shorts to reflect some aspects of the features, i.e. in The Cure of 1917 in which Charlie plays an incurable alcoholic precedes City Lights (1931), with its alcoholic millionaire.
With roots in British music hall and gestures toward full operatic musical description, Chaplin had considerable gifts as a film composer and l hope my Mutual scores show respect for those gifts. - Carl Davis
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