Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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British composer Rachel Portman refers to the piano as her best friend, and tells us,
“I spend all day with it, most days. I think probably I’m pianistic in my soul.”
Her superb 2020 album Ask the River, the music publication of which I reviewed here, certainly seems to confirm this. At the time I wrote,
“These consummately composed pieces offer a beautiful and evocative sound world, at once accessible, but with plenty of personality… One of 2020’s best “new classical” releases, this is not simply a soundtrack in search of a movie. In a year which has seen many of us compelled to live less frenetic, more localised lives, I suspect that many will find Portman’s latest music gives serene expression to both our outer and inner worlds.”
Certainly it was a recording I listened to on repeat for months, and a music book which several students have loved, so I was excited to see a new piano album appear from Portman a couple of months ago, the music book of which is now available.
Beyond the Screen
Portman has, over the last 40 years, composed over 100 scores for film, television and theatre, becoming the first woman to win an Academy Award in the category of Best Musical or Comedy Score in 1996 for Emma.
Given this pedigree, and the title of the book, the book’s subtitle Film Works on Piano is hardly a shock; if you fell off your chair, you probably won’t be entitled to compensation. And how wonderful to find, within, superb arrangements of 19 of Portman’s most popular successes.
- Chocolat
- Emma
- Never Let Me Go
- One Day
- Goodnight You Kings of New England (The Cider House Rules)
- The Duchess
- Letterbox (Snow Flower and the Secret Fan)
- Girl Rising
- Still Life
- Vianne Sets Up Shop (Chocolat)
- The Cider House Rules
- I’d Miss You
- Snow Story (Smoke)
- Passage of Time (Chocolat)
- Frozen Lake (The Human Stain)
- Life Is Sweet
- Book of Photographs (Still Life)
- The Last Dinner (Despite the Falling Snow)
- The Pier (Never Let Me Go)
Introducing this new collection, Portman writes,
“With Beyond the Screen I have curated some of my most cherished film music written over many years into an album for solo piano. I was very selective in choosing pieces that would translate naturally to the piano…
It was important to me that I did all the arrangements in great detail to reflect the original music.”
That these arrangements were crafted by the composer herself, and for her own recording, is clearly a boon. In any case, they easily rank as among the very best solo piano arrangements of film music that I have yet encountered.
You can listen to Portman’s recordings of the whole album on any of the leading streaming services.
Playing through the collection, I found those whose screen originals were familiar proved evocative of their source, while those pieces I had not come across before stood up well as piano compositions regardless of not knowing the film versions. I don’t think anyone can ask for more than that!
The Publication
Beyond the Screen is published as a handsome 96-page staple-bound folio by Hal Leonard, with a gloss card cover, white paper, and classy appeal.
Within, there is a personable introduction written by the composer, and as with the music book for Ask the River, the publishers have interspersed the scores with images of Portman’s very neatly hand-written originals. This is such a lovely touch, and one of the many reasons that publications such as this as so preferable to digital downloads.
The music is well presented with crisp print and clean notation engraving:
As with the arrangement shown above, all are approachable for later intermediate players at around UK Grade 5, with a few that are easier and harder than this. Fingering suggestions are not included; they would have been helpful but are not essential and for the most part this publication will appeal to players with a maturing technique.
Closing Thoughts
There have been some wonderful piano collections of film music in recent months, of which I have reviewed the Star Wars Piano Anthology, the Harry Potter Piano Anthology and the Ennio Moricone Collection, each a fine example of iconic movie scores transcribed and brought to life as piano solos.
Rachel Portman: Beyond the Screen is, for me, another superb publication, this time made even more special by the fact that these pieces work as piano solos regardless of whether you have seen the movie or show for which the music was originally conceived.
Portman has a natural ability to compose music that translates well to the instrument, and in her introduction she explains why this is:
“The piano is my first love and I write at it, so all these pieces originated there, even though they ended up in many different orchestral forms on the films they accompanied.”
Deconstructing these pieces, pruning them to their basics and perfecting them as piano solos, Portman has certainly delivered a very special treasure, and one which I and no doubt many others are likely to cherish as wonderful piano music for a long time to come. Not to be missed!
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